The management and memory of fascist monumental art in postwar and contemporary Italy: the case of Luigi Montanarini’sApotheosis of Fascism

Abstract

In postwar Germany, the Allies and the German authorities moved quickly and systematically to destroy or physically remove all traces of Nazi art. No such process occurred in postwar Italy. This meant that hundreds of ideologically inspired statues, mosaics, murals and other artefacts survived into the republican period. This article uses Luigi Montanarini's mural, the Apotheosis of Fascism, as a case study to examine the management, meaning and memory of Fascist monumental art (and, more broadly, Fascist monumental architecture) in postwar and contemporary Italy. To date, memory studies of Fascism have largely overlooked the artistic and architectural legacies of the dictatorship. This article helps to address this historiographical lacuna and speaks to current debates and controversies in Italy surrounding the meaning and significance of historic Fascism.

“What Shall We Do With It Now?”: The Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana and the Difficult Heritage of Fascism

“…My work on the Foro Italico sports complex on the northern periphery of Rome, the largest and most politically significant of all of Fascism's many interventions in the Roman urban landscape prior to E42, reveals similar considerations at play there. 66 Significantly, Sharon Macdonald's study of the difficult heritage of the former Nazi rally parade grounds at Nuremberg shows almost identical decision-making processes at work in post-war (West) Germany. Here, other than the removal of Nazi symbols, the buildings and marching grounds were left intact, with local discussions firmly focussed on practicalities (the need to use the buildings and the site's facilities), cost (the need to "make good" on the previous investment) and the future (the need to move on).…”

Legacies of Fascism: architecture, heritage and memory in contemporary Italy

“…There was no specific policy of ‘defascistisation’ to eliminate traces of the dictatorship from Italian cities. The Ministry of Education proposed to create a commission to remove Fascist monuments in July 1944, but nothing came of it (Arthurs 2014, 289; Carter and Martin 2017, 346–347). Without national guidelines, local authorities intervened in a haphazard fashion on a case-by-case basis.…”

“…There were three main waves of destruction: the first in the few hours between Mussolini’s overthrow on 25 July 1943 and Badoglio’s crackdown; the second after the armistice of 8 September; and the third at end of the war in 1945, which was cut short when the Allies occupied major Fascist sites. Destruction was reserved for the most obvious Fascist symbols, such as fasces and representations of the Duce (Carter and Martin 2017, 345). For example, at the Littoriale (now Renato Dall’Ara) stadium in Bologna, a bronze statue of Mussolini on horseback was ‘decapitated’ on 26 July 1943 in a kind of ritual murder (Foot 2009, 70; Storchi 2013, 201–206).…”

“…There is also a middle ground between consistency and subversion, where a building is repurposed, but references to its original function are kept, as in Rome’s Trastevere district where a social club of the Fascist state was reused as a cinema (Figure 4). Even when Fascist symbols remain, there may be an implicit defascistisation in the appropriation of architecture created by the dictatorship (Maulsby 2014, 31; Samuels 2015, 119; Carter and Martin 2017, 347). In any case, reuse may have more to do with satisfying practical needs, than mastering the past (Samuels 2015, 121).

Figure 4 Social club of Dopolavoro dei Monopoli di Stato, now a cinema, in Rome’s Trastevere district.

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“…The project identified a wide range of channels through which legacies of the regime could be passed to future generations – some of which have received more attention than others. For instance, historians have looked at the impact of Fascism on the state, but they have largely neglected the mark left on Italian cities (Pavone 1995; Carter and Martin 2017, 338–340). Much can be gained by studying the Fascist legacy through architecture, as the dictatorship sought to change the Italian mindset by means of urban space.…”