Remembering Giacomo Matteotti, and the Early Days of Italian Fascism

 

One of Rome's least prominent--and probably least visited--memorials is located on the Lungotevere Arnaldo da Brescia, just steps from the Tevere, near Ponte Pietro Nenni--a 5-minute walk from bustling Piazza del Popolo.

There, on June 1924 (two years after the March on Rome), while walking along the Lungotevere Arnaldo, the Italian politician Giacomo Matteotti was waylaid, thrown into a Lancia Lambda, and stabbed to death. Of the 5 men involved, one was a prominent member of the Fascist secret police. The extent of Benito Mussolini's involvement is not clear. [See the RST post on David Kertzer's book The Pope and Mussolini for more information.]

Matteotti was an anti-Fascist socialist--a member of the Unitary Socialist Party--and a deputy in the parliament. Ten days prior to his murder, he had spoken in the parliament, concerned about violence that had occurred during recent elections and critical of the anti-democratic Acerbo law, which had assigned 2/3 of the seats in parliament to the party of Mussolini--the largest in the body--which had won 35% of the vote. 

The monument to Matteotti occupies a semi-circular green space on an elevated terrace above the river. The space can be accessed by the Lungotevere or from the river bank, via a substantial staircase that appears to be a part of the memorial. 

Inaugurated in 1974 (50 years after Matteotti's death) and paid for by the Socialist Party, the bronze memorial consists of two very different sculptures, both by Jorio Vivarelli (1922-2008), who as a soldier was captured and imprisoned in 1943 by the German forces. The monument includes the words, "Although you kill me, the idea within me can never be killed."

The original plaque was smashed in January 2017, 6 months before we visited the site and these photos were taken.  

Bill 

A statue of Carabinieri leads to the question: What was the role of this national armed force under Fascism?

 

La pattuglia nella tempesta.

One of the rabbit holes we went down this year started on the day we flew into Rome and wandered into the park across from Palazzo del Quirinale while waiting for the time on our timed tickets for the Scuderie exhibition (more on that exhibition in a future post). The park's center has a statue of Carlo Alberto, father of Vittorio Emanuele II, the first King of a united Italy in the 1860s. But that's a traditional equestrian statue. We gravitated instead to a statue of two figures, on the back side of the park, and seemingly "lost" on the park grounds. Italians no doubt recognize the flowing capes and (what I now know are called) bicorn hats, but we didn't. After much Google sleuthing, we discovered these figures represent Carabinieri from 1814, when they were formed as the King's police. The statue - from 2014 - celebrates the national police force's bicentennial. 

By Florentine sculptor Antonio Berti (1904-1990), the statue is, in our minds, a gem. It's titled "La pattuglia nella tempesta" - "The patrol in the storm," and is designed to show the Carabinieri - off their horses (or these days, out of their cars), in any weather, helping their countrymen and women. I love those flowing capes. There's something about the work that reminds me of Rodin's Balzac, though I'm probably getting carried away here.

   Outside the museum. The tourists
don't even look at it.

And now the rabbit hole. In trying to find the subject and name of the statue, I ran across an article titled "Italian policemen and fascist ideology," by Dr. Jonathan Dunnage of Swansea University in the UK. Many Italians look at the Carabinieri and Fascists this way: they were the King's police force. The King was a Fascist; the Carabinieri supported the King. When the King separated himself from Mussolini, so did they. Kind of "just doing their job." 

Dunnage is more critical. In a summary of his article, he states, "There is little doubt that, without undergoing dramatic transformations, the Italian Interior Ministry police and Carabinieri played key roles in the enforcement of the fascist dictatorship."  This summary focuses on the police, rather than on the Carabinieri, and, arguably, the Carabinieri were more independent. I contacted Dunnage, who was kind enough to exchange emails with me. In a response to me, he contends, "On the other hand, both police organizations would have been grateful for a government which claimed to restore respect for the law (and for the institutions of law and order) following the 'humiliations' of the 'Red Two Years' (1919-1920)." [Elaboration by Dunnage on this theme is at the end of this post.]

The statue, Dunnage's comments, and a lunch with two Roman friends convinced us to return to the Carabinieri Museum (Museo storico dell'Arma dei Carabinieri) in Piazza del Risorgimento (where most folks are heading in droves to the Vatican). We had been there previously, for a press conference announcing the recovery of stolen art works (the Carabinieri have an art recovery section). Our lunch companions told us the museum had been reorganized and modernized (it needed it; all material was only in Italian, for starters), and that a relative of one of them, a retired Carabiniere, had designed the new exhibition. We couldn't wait to go back.

We found the first floor, in particular, much better organized, and with all placards in both Italian and English. Paintings, more than photographs, illustrated the Carabinieris' bravery. 

The Carabiniere at left was serving in the Barmash (Albania) Carabinieri Station when it was attacked "On December 28, 1942...by overwhelming enemy forces, which he resisted heartily. Once the ammunition ran out, he did not give up, but with hand grenades faced the enemy together with [another Carabiniere], who fell with him." Note, no mention of who the enemy is.

Looking at the historical panorama that covers the Fascist ventennio (20+ years), one can see a sort of amnesia:

The dates are, left to right, 1922, 1936, 1941, 1942. The painting above 1942 is the painting above in this post of the Carabiniere in Albania.

There are pictures and stories of the Italian African campaign, in which the Carabinieri figured prominently, and of battles raged against "brigands" in Sicily and elsewhere. Nothing about Fascists, Mussolini, or fighting for the State against partisans in Italy. The second floor is laid out similarly, although the English translators haven't yet made it to that floor. There, under 1928, is an illustration of the Carabinieri fighting Sicilian brigands; under 1936, a battle in Somalia. 

Above, one of the more interesting paintings, of the Battle of Culqualber, which lasted from August to November 1941 in Ethiopia ("Italian East Africa"), and is considered the end of the the war in East Africa for the Italians. Carabinieri and colonial forces fought the British Commonwealth forces there.

The only place we saw any reference to Mussolini or Fascism was in the collection of annual calendars, and even then the one with Mussolini on the cover was high up on the wall and difficult to photograph; one has to recognize his profile - which any Italian would:

All of the calendars in the Fascist era use the Fascist
numbering system. Mussolini is on the cover second from
left, middle row, year 1939, XVII E.F. (17, Fascist Era,
i.e., 17 years after the 1922 March on Rome).

 

The online site for the museum is filled with information. And if one searches for Mussolini or Fascism, there are many citations. Among them is the intriguingly titled "I Carabinieri nel novecento italiano - la fine delle illusioni" ("The Carabinieri in 1900s Italy: the end of illusions"). The post has a good summary of Italy at the end of the Fascist era, but nothing about the Carabinieri in that period. And so it goes with the other entries in which Fascism is mentioned.

With the year 1943, the panels change dramatically to the Carabinieri fighting against the Nazis as part of the Resistance. 

Right, a Carabiniere in Greece, 

trampling the Nazi flag and 

raising the Italian one.

There's no doubt many Carabinieri were significant in the Resistance to the Nazis, after the King abandoned Mussolini.

Some were shot by the Germans, and 12 were murdered in the massacre at the Fosse Ardeatine outside Rome (on an itinerary in our first book on Rome, Rome the Second Time). A monument to the 12 is in the museum:

The exhibitions bring the Carabinieri into the 1970s and 1980s, with their efforts to combat the Red Brigades (Brigate Rosse), who assassinated politician and statesman Aldo Moro. In the panels below, his portrait is labeled "'78" - the year he was killed. "'83" is a painting depicting the Carabinieri, led by Mario D'Aleo, who were ambushed and killed in Sicily by the Mafia that year.

There are also some "fun facts" in the museum, including posters of movies featuring Carabinieri.

Right, the beloved "Pane, Amore e Fantasia" 

(In English, "Bread, Love and Dreams"), 

starring Vittorio De Sica and Gina Lollobrigida.

And our museum tour ended where it began, with our rabbit hole. An entire corner and display is devoted to the statue of La pattuglia nella tempesta, which is popular enough that one can buy small replicas of it, as in, Exit through the Gift Shop.

Dianne [see more from Jonathan Dunnage below the photo]

Here is Jonathan Dunnage's more complete response (in an email to me) to the argument that the Carabinieri weren't at heart Fascists:

It has been argued that the Carabinieri were less complicit with the fascist regime because of their loyalty to the monarchy, as a result of which Mussolini decided to entrust policing and surveillance first and foremost to the Interior Ministry police. However, if you consider that the Carabinieri were answerable to the Interior Ministry for matters of policing, and if you look at daily policing activities on the ground, it is obvious that the Carabinieri were complicit, even if their position was secondary to that of the Interior Ministry police. Despite formal adhesion to the regime, as evident in public ceremonies, it has been suggested that the Carabinieri managed to maintain a degree of aloofness. On the other hand, both police organizations would have been grateful for a government which claimed to restore respect for the law (and for the institutions of law and order) following the 'humiliations' of the 'Red Two Years' (1919-1920). Members of the police and the Carabinieri, whether or not they were staunch fascists, had historically been accustomed to seeing the forces of the Left as dangerous for public order, and one can imagine that many saw the fascist regime as enabling them to do their job of 'protecting' Italian society from anarchists, socialists and communists, when the preceding Liberal governments had appeared hesitant (i.e. for fear of infringing citizens' democratic rights).

Quarticciolo: A Visit to Rome's Working-Class Periphery

We knew almost nothing about the quartiere of Quarticciolo when we spent a couple of hours there this Spring, except that it was a working-class enclave with a leftist reputation. It's located on Rome's periphery, a third or fourth-tier suburb east of the city center, not far from the GRA that encircles the city, and bounded on the west by a quasi-highway, viale Palmiro Togliatti. Coming from the center on via Prenestina, we turned right on the first street after viale Togliatti and parked the scooter, just a few feet from what appeared to be an abandoned "ape" (a small, three-wheeled truck) and amid the first of many low-rise apartment buildings. 

Across the street was a church (completed in 1954) and down the way, built into one of the apartment buildings, a substantial altar to the Virgin Mary, constructed in 1950. 

Quarticciolo has been described as the last of the "borgate" (towns or "working-class suburbs") constructed by the Fascist regime. The first buildings--all of Quarticciolo was, and probably still is, "public" housing--were erected between 1941 and 1943, during the war. The units were intended for very large families. The first 300 apartments were designed for families with at least 7 children, and the next 100 were for those with 4 or 5 kids--depending on need, part of the Fascist encouragement of large families.

The north end of the community, where we began our trek, is now the site of a large chain grocery store (and other stores); the basic apartment buildings were not designed for "mixed use." It also has a recently built community sports center ("From the Borgata, for the Borgata," reads the lettering at the top of the building below, an interesting pride in the term "borgata").

Moving along via Alessandrina into the center of Quarticciolo, we came upon what appeared to be a multi-story city hall (although not marked as such)/community center, covered with graffiti and other materials that revealed much about the quartiere. Along one wall, large graffiti letters "Essere un comitato e' prendersi cura della borgata" (to be a committee--the common council, one presumes--means taking care of the town).  

A plaque (far left in the above photo), placed on the building in 2010, honors the anti-Fascist partisans of Quarticciolo who resisted the German occupation of 1943-1944. Quarticciolo was one of several communities, moving east from the center, that were prominent in the resistance to Nazi occupation; they included Quadraro, Torpignattara, and Centocelle (all of which we've written about many times; one post is linked here to each community). 

In the rear of the building, a line drawing appears to show a rapacious capitalist with little regard for needs of the ordinary people. 

The rear façade is decorated with two multi-story figures. Not sure what they are supposed to represent.

And a sign proclaims "Insieme Tutto E' Possibile" (together, everything is possible), more evidence of a desire for community solidarity (it's signed "Quarticciolo Ribelle" [Quarticciolo Rebel]. 

Both sides of the building feature a rich variety of graffiti, old and new. 

Across the street from the community center (maybe the municipal hall) we were surprised to see a theater and library. Although the building has some 1960-era features, it was constructed quite recently, apparently in 2007, on the site of a public market (probably the victim of the supermarket).

The town is long and thin, and in a few minutes we had reached the other, southern, end. Time for a 2nd coffee of the day--served in glass cups, quite unusual for most of Rome--in a nice bar with many patrons, inside and outside.

On our return to the scooter we found lots of evidence of Quarticciolo's liberal (and radical) politics. On the liberal side, we came across a center for volunteers and, next to it, a free book exchange (there aren't many in Rome) housed in an old cooler. 

Housing is a major issue, as it was 80 years ago. A larger banner proclaimed "Stop Sgomberi" (stop evictions), and a sign made a point of the comitato's recent efforts to move the community in an ecological direction: "How can one make an ecological transition when it's raining on your head inside your house?" 

"Stop Evictions. We all have a right to a house!"

"The ecological transition doesn't make much sense when it's 
raining of your head--inside your house!"

Low-income communities such as Quarticciolo are likely to be anti-prison (anti-carcere), and signs confirmed that perspective. We also found standard Communist stuff--Viva Stalin (really?) and a hammer and sickle with the date, 1917, of the Russian Revolution.

And an enormous and striking portrait of (to us) a person unknown.   

One last photo, this one not so political--and yet it is. The wall sign reads, "Quarantine in 20 square meters: You can't do it." 

Thanks, Quarticciolo, for having us!

Bill 

Following Fermi: The Great Physicist in Rome

Traces of Enrico Fermi, one of the world's greatest theoretical physicists, are visible in Rome, the city of his birth and where he was driven out by Fascism.

Fermi, an acknowledged prodigy in math and science, started his work on a street now more known for its night-life, via Panisperna in the Monti quarter. He and his associates were dubbed "I ragazzi di via Panisperna," - "the boys of via Panisperna," and are captured in the photo below:

Enrico Fermi at far right. The

other "ragazzi" 

from left to right, Oscar D'Agostino,

Emilio Segrè, Edoardo Amaldi,

and Franco Rasetti. The photo

 was taken by a sixth, Bruno Pontecorvo.

The background looks very much

like the buildings on via Panisperna

today, though #90, where the institute

supposedly was, is an older church.

As a result, we are not sure exactly where on 

via Panisperna the institute was located.

Fermi's location beginning in 1935 is well-known, and now bears his name, as well as sporting a plaque commemorating his extraordinary research there. And that's in the main campus of Rome's storied university, La Sapienza, or La Città Universitaria, designed by Mario Piacentini and opened in 1935 (the subject of prior posts, including one on Gio Ponti's math building and another on Mario Sironi's "Aula Magna" mural - Great Hall - painted in 1935).

In May 2018 we joined a guided tour of the University's physics department, located in one of Piacentini's original set of buildings. 

Left, the Department of Physics is named for Fermi.

The Physics Institute itself is named for another Nobel-winning Italian physicist (and member of the Fascist Party, as was Fermi at one point), Guglielmo Marconi, as seen here:

The plaque below - inside the building - reads:

"In this institute from 1927 to 1938 Enrico Fermi taught and studied. Here he investigated the structure of materials and discovered the radioactivity caused by neutrons [actually neutrinos], opening new avenues in the world. To the knowledge and power of man." [As noted, the institute was located on via Panisperna until about 1935.]

What the plaque does not say is that in 1938, when Fermi, age 37, went to Stockholm to accept his Nobel prize in physics, he kept going - to the United States, fleeing with his family from the racial laws of Italy that had already affected the lives of many of his colleagues and potentially would affect his wife, who was of Jewish heritage.

The tour included parts of Fermi's lab (left), and a cabinet of Fermi tools and books (below, right).

Besides the photo of i ragazzi di via Panisperna, other photos on display on the tour included the one below of Fermi with two other giants of theoretical physics, Werner Heisenberg and another Italian, Wolfgang Pauli (below, the German Heisenberg in the center, Pauli on the right), at Lake Como (date unclear).

The Nobel Prize website has a good biography of Fermi and lay-person descriptions of his scientific breakthroughs (at least one of which was developed based on Pauli's research).

Dianne

Gaetano Vinaccia's Glorious Tower

 

This corner tower, a few blocks north of the Vatican at the angle formed by via Trionfale and via Tommaso Campanella, is surely among Rome's most elegant and harmonious structures, a stunning mix of classicism and modernism.  

Designed by architect and engineer Gaetano Vinaccia (1889-1971), whose buildings also grace via Nizza, via Gaetano Donizetti, via Claudio Monteverdi, and via Gaspare Spontini, it was completed--as the facade still reveals--in the 7th year of Fascism, 1930. It is the most distinguished element of a larger complex--all designed by Vinaccia--that occupies an entire block within 4 streets: via Trionfale, via Tommaso Campanella, via Giordano Bruno, and via Bernardino Telesio.  For many years--and perhaps still--the complex served mainly as an underutilized parking garage for the public security section of the Ministry of the Interior.  

The third floor (4th, if one includes the ground floor) presents three statues: In the center, a reproduction of the Farnese Hercules; on his left, Apollo del Belvedere; and on Hercules' right, a young man with a palm tree in hand.  Architectural historian Paolo Grassi suggests that the statues together represent victory over adverse forces, and the peace that follows.  The floor above the statues was once occupied by a Sabaudian (House of Savoy) shield, apparently removed after the proclamation of the Italian Republic in 1948.  The iron rods that once held it in place remain.  

The ground floor is special: a grand door of wood panels, flanked by fluted columns, covered by an elegant curved roof.  The top floor is special, too: a grand circular terrace that in its early days sported a steel flag pole of sufficient size to support and display a 15-meter flag.  In October 1930 the terrace was a favored vantage point from which to celebrate the building's inauguration--an event attended by Benito Mussolini.  

Although labeled a "minor architect," there has been some effort to elevate Vinaccia's standing because of his architectural approaches and theories, including the use of solar and the exploration of microclimates in urban settings. He bears the name of a luthier who is considered the creator of the acoustic guitar - a century earlier. While having exactly the same name, we haven't been able to confirm he's from the same family as those luthiers who produced the still famous, and still selling, Vinaccia guitars and mandolins.

Bill 

The German World War II Cemetery, Pomezia

The German World War II cemetery in Pomezia, 25 kilometers outside of Rome, is a calm, well-maintained green space.  We first ventured there on the advice of our friend Virginia Jewiss, a Dante scholar and author of an essay on the Pomezia cemetery [linked and quoted below]. She knew we toured towns founded - from scratch - by the Fascists in the Agro Pontino, the flat plains that run from the Castelli Romani to the sea (malarial plains for most of their existence, and hence, little occupied before then). [This post follows an earlier one about the town of Pomezia, its Fascist architecture and its vaccine industry.]

We had a second goal - to find the grave of the father of a German woman, who had posted online that she wished to have a photo of her father's grave. We had seen her post in our efforts to find information about the cemetery location and hours.

What struck us first about the cemetery was the immensity of it - the numbers of crosses - only some of which are in the photo above. On closer inspection, we were even more struck by the fact that every cross represents 6 soldiers - so one must multiply this vision by 6 to have a sense of the 27,000+ soldiers who are buried here. Here is a one of the crosses; 3 names are on the other side as well.  

There's a "Herbert Gräbner" on this cross.

Jewiss's article, written after we went to the cemetery, points out the bisecting path through the graves leading to a large memorial in Roman travertine (see photo at top). She notes the two soldiers, facing the cemetery (see photo at bottom), and, at the back of the monument, female figures - an old woman, as she says, "clearly a mother figure" and "a wife and small child."  (Photo below, left)

There - at the back - she says one also can read the inscription (in German flowing into Italian without pause) on the monument:

"UNSER FRIEDE LIEGT IN SEINEM WILLEN E 'N LA SUA VOLONTADE E' NOSTRA PACE DANTE" 

Here the Dante scholar takes flight, pointing out these words are from the third canto of Paradiso by the nun, Piccarda, who was forced to break her vows. And, that this inscription is "startling": "Rarely--if ever--do the inscriptions [in a war cemetery] derive from another national tradition, let alone from a belligerent nation in the conflict."

The inscription is translated as "In His will is our peace."

Jewiss notes the "extraordinary moral complexity" of honoring a sacrifice "made for a dishonorable cause" (something Americans still struggle with relative to the Civil War, of course). And goes on, "what is the Italian poet doing in a German cemetery, why this verse, and why is it carved on the back of the memorial?"

She suggests the quotation means--at the simplest level, "a utopian expression of hope that God grant peace to the dead, that his will remain unfathomable." There's much more in Jewiss's piece, including statements such as this one: "The soldiers here are both in exile from their patria and recognized as citizens of the wider world of the dead." You will profit from exploring her analysis in more detail. It's here.

Jewiss also notes that most of the soldiers in this cemetery were killed after the Italy-Allied Forces armistice of Sept. 8, 1943. That was the case with both of the Graebners we found, and the father of the German woman who wanted a photo of her father's final resting place; they died in 1944.

My recollection is that the German woman's father was Felix Klose (one of the photos we sent her is at right).  We were able to look up the location of his burial ground in the book kept at the entrance to the cemetery.

Above the book (photo below) is the sign reading: "Nambücher...Friedhof Pomezia...Gefallene A-Z" - "Book of names of the fallen, Pomezia Cemetery."

After we sent her the photos, the daughter of the fallen soldier wrote us back: "My father died of his wounds in Rome and was buried in Rome, then he was moved  to Ponetzia [sic] in 1966. It was a small stone like flat cross on the ground. I have a picture of it and I always wanted to know he ever was moved again and when. Again I thank you so very much, you don't know how pleased I am to know and see the place at last.  I would like to know when he was moved for the second time.  He still is in my heart, never forgotten, Best wishes and thank you again from the bottom of my heart.., Mrs E.S."

As in many war cemeteries, this one was founded well after the end of the conflict (it was inaugurated in 1960) and gathered the remains of soldiers from all parts of areas in and around Rome, as was the case with Mrs. E.S.'s father's remains. 

Front of monument, with soldiers in greatcoats "looking at their fallen comrades."

The first lines on the cross at right read "Ein Deutscher Soldat" - "A German Soldier," with no dates. An unknown soldier, of which there were many in this cemetery.

We left the cemetery on this lovely road (photo below), observing the diligence of some of the young Germans who were maintaining it.

Dianne