The network of islands and villages that constituted the Fascist archipelago represented a microcosm of the regime's deceptively violent strategies of rule. Fascist propaganda regularly characterized island confinement as a “villeggiatura” (seaside holiday), drawing particular attention to the colonies on Lipari and Ponza, where ex-parliamentary deputies lived comfortably in private accommodations. The reality of the archipelago was starkly different. On other islands, and even within the colonies on Lipari and Ponza, many detainees lived in squalid, vermin-infested barracks, without running water or electricity. The “common” colonies in particular were overcrowded, disease-ridden, awful places.