HEGEMONY AND CONSENSUS: THERELkTIONSHIP BETWEEN POLITICS ANDCULTURE IN FASCIST ITALY

Brian Grfflth

I N July 1943, Benito Mussolini was deposed as fascist dictator of Italyand incarcerated by the Grand Council of fascism.’ Shortly after his

liberation by the Germans in September1943, Mussolini fled to northernItaly where he co-founded and administered the Italian Social Republic(Repubblica Sociale ftaliana or RSI), a puppet state of Nazi Germany.Upon the untimely disintegration of the RSI in April 1945, Mussolini,along with a small group ofhis closest associates, attempted to escape toFrancisco Franco’s Spain via Switzerland. The group, however, wasidentified and captured by members of the Italian Resistance, executednear Lake Como, and strung up in Milan’s Piazza Loreto for a postmortem public display (fig. 1). The spectacle of Mussolini’s dramatic fallfrom power in Italy was eerily reminiscent of the spectacle of the fascistregime he had so carefully constructed and orchestrated throughout theprevious twenty years, often referred to as the ventennio nero (blackdecades).2

Shortly after the conclusion of the Second World War, a generationofanti-fascist scholars began to characterize the years of fascism in Italyas an aberration in history, or a brief pause in time. Benedetto Croce, forexample, famously characterized the twenty years of fascist rule as a“parenthesis in history”.3 Norberto Bobbio, a prominent intellectual both

Fascism — as defined by Benito Mussolini and Giovanni Gentile in ‘Foundations andDoctrine of Fascism” (1932) — is a social and political ideology which imagines the State asthe locus around which the individual is defined and, ultimately, socially constituted.“Against individualism,” Mussolini and Gentile write, “the Fascist conception is for theState; and it is for the individual in so far as he coincides with the State, which is theconscience and universal will of man in his historical existence.”

D. Medina Lasansky, The Renaissance Perfected (Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania StateUniversity Press, 2004), z68.

Barbara Spackman, Fascist Virilities (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1996),

ix-x.

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during and after WWII, wrote: “Where there was culture it was notfascist and where there was fascism it was not culture. There never was afascist culture.”4 To recognize or acknowledge an ideology, philosophy,or culture behind fascism, as Barbara Spackman has pointed out, wouldbe to “dignify it with an intellectual stature that it does not merit.”5 Thus,the historiography of the post-war years is characterized by various anti-fascist themes, such as partisan resistance to fascist oppression and ageneral reticence to discuss the topic of culture during the “blackdecades.”

The so-called “linguistic turn” that took place within the humanitiesand social sciences during the 196os influenced many scholars to rethinkthe relationship between language and power, leading to the development of the fields of social and cultural history in subsequent decades.By the 198os and 19905, the historiography of Fascist Italy included ageneration of scholars who were much more open to the notion of a“fascist culture” and, thus, more interested in examining it. Mussolini’scultural policies, and the efforts led by his regime to shape and mobilizeItalians through those policies, became a prime area of historicalresearch.

Victoria de Grazia’s Culture of Consent, for example, analyzes theleisure-time Dopolavoro (After Work) organization in Fascist Italy. DeGrazia explains the process through which Mussolini attempted to createa culture of consensus through the creation of “depoliticized” recreational programs for the masses. Mabel Berezin has studied the relationship between the fascist regime and public theater, arguing that theregime considered the world of live performance to be an “ideal culturalvehicle for diffusing fascist ideology.”6 Ruth Ben-Ghiat’s Fascist Modern ities examines the relationship between Italy’s “culture makers” — such asauthors, playwrights, directors, etc. — and the fascist regime, establishinga clear connection between the two. Ben-Ghiat argues: “because theregime never adopted an official aesthetic stance, intellectuals couldconvince themselves they were not producing political art when theysponsored the idea that popular contact with aesthetics would createnew modern Italians.”7 The scholarship of De Grazia, Berezin, and BenGhiat has served as a source of inspiration for many scholars working in

‘ Borden W. Painter, Mussolini’s Rome (New York: Paigrave Macmillan, 2005), xvii.Spackman, ix.-x.

6 Mabel Berezin, “The Organization of Political Ideology: Culture, State, and Theater inFascist Italy,” American Sociological Review, 6, (1991), 639.

Simonetta Falasca Zamponi, reviewed work(s): Fascist Modernities by Ruth Ben Ghiat,The American Historical Review, 107, (2002), 653.

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the field of modern European cultural history, including the followingauthors whose works I discuss in this essay.

In Mussolini’s Rome, Borden W. Painter examines the physicalchanges made to the city of Rome during the fascist period as a means ofexamining the regime’s identity and character. The fascist regime,Painter argues, carefully staged a project of “renovation” in the EternalCity, which sought to eliminate various structures and symbols perceivedto be incongruent with fascism’s goals, while highlighting the city’simperial past in order to choreograph a specific political and culturalspectacle to both Italian and foreign audiences alike. Similarly, D.Medina Lasansky’s The Renaissance Perfected analyzes the ways in whichthe regime used Italy’s medieval and Renaissance “heritage” to bothhighlight the social and cultural goals of fascism and promote thedevelopment ofa unified national identity in Italy. The regime sponsored“restoration” projects in the towns and cities of the north-central regionof Tuscany in order to “liberate” various medieval and Renaissancequalities from the undesirable layers of subsequent periods, highlightingin the process a legacy of cultural and civilizational achievement sharedby all Italians. In Fashion under Fascism, Eugenia Paulicelli locates theorigins of the modern Italian fashion industry during the embryonicyears of fascism in Italy. Paulicelli argues that the regime used thedomestic fashion industry as a means for promoting an “Italian style”that Italians could identify with and consume, as well as a positive imageof fascism abroad. Steven Ricci’s Cinema & Fascism examines the ways inwhich the fascist regime both did and did not manipulate the cinemaindustry in Italy. Ricci argues that many domestic titles served as a stageupon which the regime could indoctrinate Italian audiences with fascistideology while the presence of numerous foreign titles, whose contentsthe regime had absolutely no control over, functioned as evidence of theregime’s good will and benevolence towards the populace.

By exposing and highlighting the still visible fascist imprint on contemporary Italy, these authors illuminate the legacy of an ideologypreviously denied any cultural activity, legitimacy, and/or staying power.The regime’s careful control and manipulation of the realm of culturewas directly associated with its success in controlling Italians andmaintaining its power within the peninsula. Thus, by focusing on thestrategies and processes by which Mussolini’s regime achieved hegemony8 in Italy, the significance of the realm of culture and its inherent

Hegemony, as defined by Oxford English Dictionary, is ‘[ijeadership, predominance,preponderance; esp. the leadership or predominant authority of one state ofa confederacyor union over the others: originally used in reference to the states of ancient Greece,whence transferred to the German states, and in other modern applications.” However, in

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political qualities will fully emerge, informing us in the process of thepotent, and often dangerous, relationship between politics and culture.

In Mussolini’s Rome, Borden W. Painter examines the dramaticchanges made to the city of Rome during the twenty years of fascism inItaly. Mussolini — the Duce, or leader, of Fascist Italy — sought to rebuildthe city “in his own image” by destroying those elements that conflictedwith the general characteristics of his regime and ‘liberating’ those thathighlighted its social and political agendas. The changes made to theEternal City during the ventennio nero, Painter argues, embody “thevalues of the regime and its goal to change Italy through producing anew generation of Italians.”9

Painter quotes the following speech by Mussolini in order to illustrate the way in which the Duce imagined fascism’s relationship to Italy’shistory:

Rome is our point ofdeparture and reference. It is our symbol or, ifyouwish, our myth. We dream of a Roman Italy, that is to say wise, strong,disciplined, and imperial. Much of that which was the immortal spiritof Rome rises again in Fascism: the Fasces are Roman; our organizationof combat is Roman, our pride and our courage is Roman: Civis roman us sum. It is necessary, now, that the history of tomorrow, the history we fervently wish to create, not be a contrast or a parody of thehistory ofyesterday. ... Italy has been Roman for the first time in fifteencenturies, in war and in victory. Now it must be Roman in peacetime:and this renewed and revived romonitã bears these names: disciplineand work.’°

Thus, Mussolini’s regime favored the Rome of the emperors — as opposed to previous or subsequent periods — because it was perceived toembody particular characteristics consistent with fascist ideals and goals,such as power and action. Once the seat of the expansive Roman Empire,Rome’s imperial ruins became a focal point of the regime’s urban“renovation” efforts.

One of the first projects undertaken by the regime was the elimination of any elements preventing the “revealing” of the city’s gloriousimperial heritage. The period of least importance to the regime was thatof unified Italy, spanning from 1870 to 1922. As Painter points out, thefascists regarded this period as a complete failure; one that was characterized by a spiritually bankrupt cultural decadence and the conflicting

the case of Fascist Italy, hegemony should be understood to refer to the quality of powerwith which the regime governed Italy.

Painter, xv.10 Ibid.,

.

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interests of opposing political parties. “Rome’s buildings and churcheswould have to fall to the piccone, or pickax, of progress,” Painter writes,“as the regime destroyed the old to create the new and uncover theglories of the imperial past.” Thus, architectural elements dating fromthe late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries would need to be liftedfrom the city’s visual landscape if the regime were to properly choreograph the spectacle of a juxtaposed ancient and modern Rome.

The Via dell’Impero (Road of the Empire, or Imperial Way)—a newroad linking Vespasian’s Coliseum with Palazzo Venezia, Mussolini’sheadquarters—was carved through the forum of ancient Rome, requiringthe destruction of numerous run-down apartment buildings and, in theprocess, displacing hundreds of lower-income families.’2 This newpromenade, Painter argues, served as a symbolic link between the Romeof the emperors and the Rome of the fascists as the pedestrian would berequired to pass through the ruins of Italy’s most glorious age on bothsides of the street when travelling towards the building from which theDuce—leader of the new Rome—managed the fascist Italian Empire.’3“The Via dell’Impero,” Painter writes, “embodied the concept ofromanità(Romanness) and Mussolini’s claim that the new Rome expressed thepolitical revolution that was transforming Italians into a new, energetic,and thoroughly fascist people.”4 In addition to highlighting the imperialruins of ancient Rome along the Imperial Way, Mussolini ordered theconstruction of imperial monuments dedicated to himself and the newRoman Empire his regime was building.

foro Mussolini—today’s foro Italico—was used by the regime as a“sports city” to demonstrate its commitment to promoting both bodilyhealth and physical fitness; two key aspects of fascist ideology. “At theforum,” Painter writes, “images of ancient models of physical prowessmixed with modern sports and modern notions of physical vigor andhealth.”5 further, an indoor pool was constructed on the site, completewith mosaics and frescoes depicting various athletic scenes in the ancientRoman style, serving as a modern interpretation of the public baths ofancient Rome. foro Mussolini, as one contributor to the Aim anaccofascista del popoio d’italia (fascist Almanac of the Italian People) hasphrased it, was a “monument that is linked to the Roman imperialtradition, that wants to perpetuate for the centuries the memory of thenew fascist civilization, tied to the name of its Condottiere [military

Ibid.Lasansky, 3.Painter, 23-24.

‘ Ibid., 22-23.

Ibid., 40.

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leader].”6 The forum, Painter contends, suggested Mussolini’s imperialambitions, for only emperors had forums “built and named in theirhonor.”7

Other episodes within the regime’s massive “renovation” projectsincluded “improving the flow of traffic, preserving and “liberating”ancient monuments, tearing down buildings of little or no historicalvalue,” and demonstrating fascism’s ability to follow rhetoric withaction.’8 Thus, Painter argues, by commissioning these public works,Mussolini sought to combine both the practical needs of the city with thepolitical and cultural objectives of his regime. “Remaking Rome inMussolini’s image” Painter writes:

Had far greater political and historical significance than making thetrains run on time, the constant demolition and construction, the appearance of new buildings, streets, and neighborhoods persuaded bothItalians and foreigners that fascism meant dynamism and durability.’9

further, by issuing discounted train fares and offering various otherfinancial incentives, the regime hoped to attract both Italians andforeigners alike to the new Rome that was constantly under constructionin order to demonstrate the dynamic and positive changes that fascismwas capable ofrealizing. Indeed, domestic tourism played a decisive rolein the regime’s ability to achieve both hegemony and consensus in Italy.By carefully orchestrating a controlled political spectacle through aselective manipulation ofvarious aspects of culture, the regime was ableto seduce the majority of the populace into submission and, ultimately,achieve passive approval at the popular level. While the regime wasdeveloping and promoting a sense of romanità in Rome, a similar policyemphasizing a different period of Italy’s history was unfolding in thenorth-central region of Tuscany.

As D. Medina Lasansky illuminates in The Renaissance Perfected, theregime adopted a policy towards various cities and towns in Tuscany thatemphasized the region’s medieval and Renaissance visual qualities inorder to promote a sense of both toscanitä (Tuscanness, or Tuscanism)and italianitâ (Italianness, or Italianism) in Italy and to superimpose thevalues and qualities associated with those periods onto the modern faceof fascism.2° “Through a process of selective destruction, reconstruction,and restoration coupled with education and publicity,” Lasansky writes,

,6 Ibid., 46.‘ Ibid.,8 Ibid., 8.‘ Ibid.

Lasansky, xxxvi-xxxvii.

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the regime “created an image of the Middle Ages and Renaissance thatnever really existed.”2’ This form of cultural and historical “deception,”[asansky argues, was used by the regime as a tool to engineer politicalstability in Italy.

Lasansky contends that the relationship between urban space andpolitics in Fascist Italy was a symbiotic one. New streets were designedand constructed with political events in mind while events were conceived and executed with specific locations and spaces in mind.22 Insupporting this claim, Lasanslcy cites the regime’s efforts to redesign thefestivals of the Siense patio and the Florentine catcio. Both festivals haddeep historical roots stretching back into each city’s past, but neitherwere medieval nor Renaissance in any authentic sense. The regime,Lasansky argues, selectively reconstructed these festivals in order to trimthem of various undesirable elements and bring into further contrastthose aspects which positively suited the ideals and goals of fascism.

In the case of the Florentine catico, for example, a parade — consisting of several hundred men — immediately preceded the game. Clothedin “medieval” costumes, the parade’s participants (some of them onhorseback) led the procession to Piazza della Signoria where the day’sevents were to take place. The path of the procession, Lasansky argues,was carefully chosen in order to showcase the city’s most well preservedmedieval and Renaissance visual qualities. “As constructions thatexploited aspects of different historical periods,” Lasansky writes:

These festivals conveniently highlighted the communal identity, civicinstitutions, and crusading chivalric leaders commonly associated withthe Middle Ages, as well as the ideas of humanism, statesmanship, artistic achievement, and elaborate state ceremony thought essential tothe Renaissance.23

further, as Lasansky points out, Mussolini often thought of himselfas a modern-day Lorenzo the Great. He was, in his own eyes, a patron ofthe arts and a great Italian leader; one who was ushering in a modernRinascimento (Renaissance), or cultural rebirth. The parallels the regimecontinually established between Italy’s past and present were powerfulpolitical symbols which served as everyday didactic reminders of thecharacter and identity of fascism. In addition to the changes being madeto the Sienese and Florentine civic festivals, the regime also focused its

‘ Ibid., xlii.‘ Ibid., 2.

Ibid., 23.

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“restoration” efforts on the architecture ofvarious cities and towns, suchas the historic urban center of Arezzo.

Arezzo, which lies to the southeast of Florence, was considered bythe regime to be an ideal location to “restore” and stage elaboratepolitical spectacles, such as the mock battle of the Joust of the Saracen.The officials in charge of the “restoration” project exploited the town’sdistant medieval heritage in order to create the impression of a well-preserved historic urban center and a corresponding civic image emphasizing the ideals of the communal city-state of the middle ages. Buildingslining the town’s Piazza Grande were “restored” to a “hypotheticalmedievalism” and were assigned new public functions in accordancewith the goals of the regime. faux medieval façades and decorationswere applied to various buildings while non-medieval styles wereeliminated in order to create the illusion of a timeless city center and — inconjunction with the various events that were held in the piazza —

unchanged local traditions. The Joust of the Saracen, which was held inArezzo’s “liberated” urban center, was a mock battle between crusadingknights and the “infidel,” symbolizing the purification and strengtheningof the fascist community from outside, or foreign influences. Further, theJoust, Lasansky contends, stood for the regime’s “rhetoric of imperialism,virile strength, and racial superiority.”25 Thus, the urban “restoration”efforts and the various political spectacles held in those “restored”locations were mutually complimentary, each contributing to the largerpolitical and cultural message the regime wished to send to the masses.The message being communicated by these changes, Lasansicy argues,was clear: “The civilization that had produced The Divine Comedy andthe poetry of Petrarch was still active.26 By participating in the regime’sfestivities held in the town’s newly restored piazza, the residents ofArezzo and the surrounding region simultaneously celebrated a semi-fictional heritage, creating a shared civic space in which a strong communal solidarity could be developed, and declared their approval of andcommitment to the fascist regime’s policies.27

The changes made to Arezzo’s urban center were widely praised inItaly’s national press. Both the national Popolo d’Italia and the RomanTribune proclaimed that the “restorations” deserved national acclaim.2Bfurther, as Lasansky points out, these architectural changes — and theenormous amounts ofpress they received — fed into the regime’s goal of

Ibid., 107.

‘ Ibid., 146.6 Ibid., 164.‘ Ibid., 107.

‘ I bid., 122.

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promoting domestic tourism to these sites in order to foster a strongersense of national identity in Italy. As Painter’s analysis of Mussolini’sarchitectural reengineering of Rome has already shown, the fascistauthorities were extremely concerned with developing national unityamongst the various disparate regions of the peninsula, and utilized thechanges being made to the face of Italy’s most famous historic sites inorder to attract Italians from all over the country to come and witness forthemselves the dynamism and action of fascism.

The efforts led by the regime to manipulate Italy’s visual landscapestand as eloquent testimony to the power of visual culture over thehuman mind. The various public “spaces” that emerged during thetwenty years of fascism were discursively held together by a constellationof signs and symbols whose exclusive meanings the regime sought tocontrol and manage. And by controlling the horizon of possible meanings and/or interpretations — with respect to the physical changes beingmade to various “sites” of culture — the regime hoped to engineer aculture ofpassive consensus amongst its populace. The regime, however,did not limit its manipulation of culture to projects of urban “restoration” alone. In addition to the dramatic changes being made to the urbanfaces of Italy’s various towns and cities, the regime directed its energiestowards a much different, and yet still as profoundly powerful, aspect ofpopular culture: fashion.

For many within the fashion industry today, the “Made in Italy” labelstands for quality, elegance, and, most importantly, high culture.29 Inmany ways, the Italian fashion industry continues to place contemporaryItaly on the high culture map along with the other major centers of hautecouture (“high” sewing, or fashion), such as Paris, London, and NewYork. The industry’s origins, however, have served as a subject of greatdebate amongst many post-war scholars. Some argue for the industry’sorigins in the years immediately following the end of’vVWII, comfortablylocating the birth of the source of so much of Italy’s contemporarynational identity and pride well after the ventennio nero. However, othersrecommend the dates be pushed back twenty years or so, arguing theindustry’s origins lie within the various cultural policies of Mussolini’sregime.

In fashion under fascism, Eugenia Paulicelli examines the relationship between the cultural policies of the fascist regime and the emergence of the modern Italian fashion industry, arguing that the lattergreatly benefited from the interventions of the former during its embryonic years. Fashion, Paulicelli contends, is an important cultural lan

‘ Eugenia Paulicelli, fashion under Fascism (Oxford: Berg, 2004), 1.

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guage with which individuals or groups communicate to others aroundthem regarding their individual and/or collective identities, politicalaffinities, religious beliefs, etc.3° As an example of the importance ofclothing as a visual sign system through which important political, social,and cultural messages are communicated, Paulicelli enumerates thedifferent uses of colored shirts as a political symbol throughout Italy’srecent history. The red shirts of the Garibaldians, for example, epitomized the struggle for national unification, while the black shirts of thesquadristi (squads) — the proto-fascist paramilitary groups which formedin Italy shortly after the conclusion of the first World War — symbolizedthe fascist ideals of dynamism, action, and violence. “Both were vestimentary signs,” Paulicelli writes, “that narrated the political and symbolic charge of clothing.”3’

The Renaissance, Paulicelli contends, has in many ways served as a“point of reference” in the construction of identity in contemporary Italy,especially during periods of great social, political and economic flux.32Similar to the role of Italy’s ancient, medieval, and Renaissance heritagewithin the “renovations” of Rome and various cities and towns inTuscany, fashion in fascist Italy, Paulicelli writes, “aimed at creating anational identity and image.”33 The regime’s emphasis on the building ofa national identity in Italy was but one part of the larger project ofachieving national economic self-sufficiency. The 1935 invasion ofEthiopia led to various sanctions being imposed upon Italy by the Leagueof Nations, which pushed the regime into a position ofvirtual economicisolation. It was at this point, Paulicelli argues, that the fashion industryfirst attracted the regime’s attention.

Mussolini noticed how France had been able to pay off a considerable amount of its crippling war debts through the domestic sales andexports of its fashion-related products and sought to reproduce itsimpressive economic success in Italy. Further, Paris was, at the time,firmly established as the haute couture capital of the world, virtuallydictating the definitions ofgood taste and chic style with which so muchof the West discussed topics of high fashion and culture. In order tofirmly place Italy at the center of the haute couture map, the regimewould need to control both the language being used to discuss highfashion and the physical materials and processes by which high fashionproducts were created. One of the efforts made by the regime towards

30 Ibid., 4.‘ Ibid., 7.

Ibid., 6.Ibid., 14.

Ibid.

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both the development ofeconomic self-sufficiency and a place in the sunfor Italy within the international fashion industry was the sponsorship ofan official fascist dictionary of Italian fashion.

Cesare Meano’s Commentarlo dizionario italiano della moda (ItalianDictionary and Commentary of fashion) sought to establish a nationaltradition of modern Italian fashion by purging the Italian language of allforeign words and expressions used to discuss topics related to highfashion and replacing them with a lexicon that would draw upon Italy’sdistinctive language, literature, and national heritage from varioushistorical epochs.35 Paulicelli argues that Meano’s text was “in line withthe general fascist project of achieving the ‘emancipation of Italy’,” bywhich she means the establishment of a strong national identity,economic autonomy, and a “distinctive style recognizable as Italian andadmired abroad as such.”6 In addition to the symbiotic language offashion, the production of the physical materials used to create hautecouture products in Italy and the means ofpromoting of those productsto both foreign and domestic audiences also garnered the regime’sattention.

The development of the domestic textile industry proved to be extremely important within the regime’s efforts to achieve economic selfsufficiency. Paulicelli highlights two directions the Italian textile industrytook under the years of fascism in Italy: one traditional, promotingregional handicraft work by local artisans, such as lace and embroidery;the other modern, such as the development of so-called “intelligentfibers” like rayon. Each of these directions, Paulicelli argues, werestrategic within the regime’s plan to simultaneously reference Italy’s pastand forge ahead into the future, demonstrating to both domestic andinternational audiences the dynamism and action of the regime.37

Paulicelli uses Istituto Luce newsreels of the National fashion Exhibition to analyze the way in which the regime pitched the domesticfashion industry to Italians. In one of the newsreels Paulicelli reports alarge sign hanging over the convention hall reading: “The Italian womanmust follow Italian fashion.”8 The regime actively promoted domesticfashion products as something not only desirable and modern, but also,and more importantly, as vestimentary signs of approval of and participation within fascist society.39 By publically consuming these products,Italians were signifying their approval of the regime and its policies, if

Ibid., 57.36 Ibid., 75.

Ibid., 9.38 Ibid., 100.

Ibid.

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only by passive consensus. The attention paid by Istituto Luce—theregime’s official institution for the creation and dissemination of film-based propaganda—to cultural events such as the National fashionExhibition serves as a testimony to the growing importance of themoving image within fascist Italy. And with the rise of a mass cinemaculture in Italy during the inter-war years, the regime began focusingmore of its attention on the new medium.

In Cinema & Fascism, Steven Ricci analyzes the relationship betweenthe rise of fascism and the experience of cinema in Italy. In his study,Ricci emphasizes the dual, and seemingly contradictory, policies regarding the presence offoreign titles and the promotion of a domestic fascistcinema.40 Ricci points out that the regime possessed “immense authorityto regulate cultural production” but appears to have applied thatauthority in “less than totalitarian ways.”4’ The limited representation ofstate officials, uniforms, and monuments in the period’s fiction films,Ricci contends, is demonstrative of the regime’s goal to garner supportfor itself by creating what IDe Grazia has adeptly phrased a “culture ofconsent.” Those who wish to characterize life under fascism as a “repressive, Panoptic prison house,” Ricci writes, must confront the commercialcinema’s appearance as a “pleasure palace” during the inter-war years inItaly.’

Ricci argues that the regime did not prevent Italians from watchingforeign titles because the readership or reception of those films in thecountry of their origin would not have been the same in Italy. SinceItalian audiences were not familiar with the “iconography” and culturalmeanings of the “Western,” for example, they were limited to “taking uppositions of curiosity or fascination regarding an imagined other.”43Readership is a “collective activity,” and interpretations are determinedby an agreed upon range of common meanings laid out within a givensociety. Thus, Ricci concludes, the regime was glad to provide such aharmless luxury to domestic audiences, as the gesture could only be readas evidence of the regime’s benevolence and fascism’s progressivism.However, the same cannot be said of the domestic film industry, as thefollowing examples make abundantly clear.

As Painter’s study ofMussolini’s Rome has demonstrated, the regimesought to emphasize the importance of sports and strong healthy bodieswithin fascist society. The achievements of the Italian National football

° Steven Ricci, Cinema & Fascism (Ber]celey: University of California Press, 2008), xii.“ Ibid., 5.‘ Ibid., 6.‘° Ibid., 8.“ Ibid., 8-9.

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team at the 1928 Olympic Games and the World Cups of 1934 and 1938,

Ricci points out, were given extended coverage in Istituto Luce news-reels, which were required by law to be played immediately before theshowing of every film in cinemas throughout the peninsula.45 further,the grafting of fascist ideals and values Onto Italy’s national sportsachievements was made complete by recurring images of Mussolini as asportsman in both newsreels and the national press. “Almost as often ashe performs in the political role of the Duce,” Ricci writes, Mussolini“was presented to the public as an accomplished fencer, equestrian, pilot,swimmer, skier, marksman, race driver, and so on.”6

Other examples of the ways in which the regime used the domesticfilm industry to disseminate the fascist agenda abound, such as therecurring motif of the “strongman”.47 Ricci cites the film Condottieri(military leaders) as an example, arguing that the film is a “historicalallegory for Mussolini’s building of the fascist movement”.8 The maincharacter, a fictional military leader named Giovanni dei Medici, organizes a “loose aggregate of fighters” into an “ethically motivated” privatemilitia, which he names bande nere, or black gangs. After defeating thefilm’s villain, Malatesta, Dei Medici leads his army to a march on Rome.Paralleling the early years of the fascist movement in Italy, Condottieriindirectly reinforced the ethical qualities of the fascist program andhighlighted the strength and heroism of the Duce. The film also drewheavily upon images of the Renaissance, which, as we have already seenwith Lasansky’s study of fascist-era Tuscany, served as a major source ofinspiration for the regime’s efforts to build a unified national identity.Cinema in Fascist Italy, then, was an integral thread within the politicalnet Mussolini used to unsuspectingly trap the popoio d’itatia within thepolitically charged culture of fascism.

The fascist regime achieved unmatched supremacy over the Italianpeople via a consensual relationship which sought to both normalize andvalorize the profound changes that were taking place within Italiansociety. By controlling specific aspects of culture — such as architecture,civic ceremonies, fashion, cinema, etc. — the regime controlled thecultural and political context within which these dramatic changes weretaking place. These efforts produced a constellation of symbols andmeanings which universally referenced itself and, in the process, createdthe illusion of logic within the culture of Fascist Italy.

Jbid., 78; 6o.46 Ibid., 79.47Ibid.,8i.48 Ibid., 91.

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In Mussolini’s Rome, Borden W. Painter demonstrated how the selective “restoration” of the Eternal City was used by the regime tohighlight specific aspects of the city’s history while minimizing thoseaspects that hindered the reception of the regime’s “ethical” messages.Similarly, D. Medina Lasansky examined the ways in which the fascistsaltered the physical and cultural faces of various cities and towns in thenorth-central region of Tuscany in order to stage elaborate politicalspectacles in them. In Fashion under Fascism, Eugenia Paulicelli demonstrated the importance of fashion in Fascist Italy, both as a means fordeveloping economic self-sufficiency and national unity in a period ofsevere social and political flux and as a vestimentary sign of one’sapproval of and participation within fascism. Lastly, Steven Ricciexamined the role of cinema within the fascist regime’s cultural policies,arguing that the dual and seemingly contradictory policies regardingforeign titles and domestically produced films — much like the equallyparadoxical dichotomy between tradition and modernity emphasized bythe regime — actually served to develop an image of fascism as a progressive and dynamic form of government while at the same time disseminating subliminal messages to the populace regarding the regime’s idealsand goals.

The monographs discussed above highlight the importance of thoroughly examining the still visible fascist imprint on contemporary Italy’svisual and cultural landscapes. Many of the picturesque urban vistas,historic piazzas, civic ceremonies, and “high culture” of Italy — familiar totourists the world over today — trace their origins not to ancient Rome,the Middle Ages, or the Renaissance, but rather to the ventennio nero.This form ofcultural illusion, fully achieved by the fascist regime duringits twenty-year reign in Italy, continues to influence the way in which wesee Italy’s pasts and present. for example, one travel-related online blog,titled “Discover Florence,” mistakenly describes the Florentine calico as“an early form of football that originated in i6th century in [sic] Florence, Italy,” and goes on to explain that “the matches used to take placein Piazza Santa Croce, and still do, every third week ofJune.”49 Originallyintended to help engineer social and political passivity amongst thepopulace of early-twentieth-century Italy, these cultural manipulationson the part of the fascist regime continue to color our understanding ofcontemporary Italy and its relationship to its many, often intertwinedpasts. Illuminating these details of Italy’s pasts and present is importantnot only for our comprehension of Italian history in general — and the p

extent to which the fascist regime was involved in molding and shaping

“Calcio Storico fiorentino - Historical Florentine football,” accessed January 24, 2011,http://discoverulorence.blogspot.com/2009/o6/calcio-storico-fiorentino-historical.html

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the realm of culture — but also for our awareness of how something asunsuspecting and, seemingly, banal as culture can serve as a means forcreating consensus for tyranny within a society.

50 ‘Fondo Magazine Berlusconi a testa in gii? Non vi azzardate,” accessed January 24,

2011, http://www.mirorenzagliaorg/wp-content/uploads/2olo/I1/poazzale-loreto_fondo-magazine.jpg

fig. a: The bodies of Benito Mussolini, his mistress Clara Petacci, and othermembers of his entourage, strung upside-down from a gas station in PiazzaLoreto (briefly renamed Piazza Quindici Martin — or “Square of the fifteenMartyrs” — in honor of the fifteen anti-fascist partisans recently executed there) .5°

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Brian Griffith is a graduate student ofmodern European history at SanFrancisco State University. His interests include cultural and intellectualhistory, the politics ofhistorical memory, modern Europe, Fascist Italy, finde-siëcle Italian Modernism, and the Roma Diaspora. He will be applying tovarious doctoral programs while completing his M.A. in the fall of2011.

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