Italian immigration to Peru between the mid nineteenth and the early twentieth century 'albeit numerically limited, as in the case of the other countries of the Pacific coast' revealed peculiar characteristics of its own. The great bulk of the newcomers arrived from Liguria. They were primarily seamen who made their way to their adoptive land less under the stimuli of contingent push and pull factors than because of a geographical and social 'culture of mobility' that was strictly related to their original activities as sailors and merchants. Indeed, commerce 'practiced in small- and micro-scale enterprises, too' was their first occupation in Peru and offered a springboard from which they progressively extended and/or diversified their activities, coming in certain cases (regarding personalities with a solid initial basis) to play a paramount role in the economy, finance, and politics. As stated earlier, the Italians established a quantitatively small community that was nonetheless the largest foreign colony in Peru, at least in the years between the beginning of the 'guano age' and the turn of the new century. In the same period they also made up the wealthiest immigrant group, as the data in the consular records show.