In 1999 a collection of documents were found in the archives of the Italian Institute of Human Palaeontology belonging to Luigi Cardini, one of the founders of the Institute. These documents included site notebooks, photographs, drawings and maps relating to work carried out in Albania from 1930-39 where he was sent on a governmental mission to `reinforce Italian supremacy in Albania through archaeological research'. This monograph publishes extracts from these notebooks within a historical, political and archaeological context. The work he carried out is synthesised and a report is included on survey work carried out in 2000 and 2001 to attempt to relocate many of Cardini's cave sites described in his notebooks.