Fasces, Fasci: Trolling Rome for the Politics of the Past--and Present

Yes, that's the United States House of Representatives, and, on each side of the central podium, fasces, complete with the wreath that symbolizes victory.  Fasces (that's the English word, "usually construed as singular," according to my dictionary) also appear on the reverse side of the Mercury dime, on the doorways of the Oval Office, on the US Capitol Building, on the Supreme Court Building, on Lincoln's chair at the Lincoln memorial (surprise!) and (a more personal reference here), on the entrance to Buffalo, New York's Art Deco City Hall.  Fasces grace the cover of French passports and have served as national symbols for Ecuador, Cameroon, and Cuba.  Police forces in Norway, Sweden, and Romania use fasces to represent their orders.  I had no idea.

Nasone, Grottaferrata, in the Colli Albani
outside Rome.  Fasces beneath
the gold nozzle

The origins of the symbol are Italian, using that designation broadly.  The bundle of wooden sticks, bound together, and sometimes including the axe blade, has Etruscan beginnings but became prominent with its adoption by the Kingdom of Rome, then the Republic, then Imperial Rome.

The fasces were carried by Lictors (attendants), and their presence signified the power of the magistrate being attended.  Added in Republican Rome, the axe meant that the power of that particular magistrate included capital punishment.  When the fasces were brought into Rome's center the axe was removed, a sign that power resided with the people, rather than with an arbitrary and capricious magistrate.

Flagpole base, inside Cinecitta', Rome.  Naval
motifs, including fish

Millenia later, Mussolini's Fascism took its name from fasces. And that's the problem.  For a long time fasces connoted collective power, strength through unity, one out of many, e pluribus unum. Just the right symbol for an American nation constructed from a wide variety of religions and immigrants groups and states with different interests.  Then the Italian Fascists appropriated the symbol, signed a deal with the Nazis, and went to war.  They did badly, and the damage was done. The fasces symbol had been corrupted.

Fasces with modern flair, abandoned 1930s
water fountain, Colle Oppio, Rome

Doorway, somewhere in Rome

Fasces pattern in small stones.  A sidewalk in Piazza
Damiano Sauli, Garbatella (on one of Modern Rome's walks),

Intact inverted fasces, school, Centocelle, Rome

Trashing fasces in Milan, probably 1945

Plaque on wall, Garbatella.  Here, fasces are linked to the Case Popolari (public housing) built after the Great War.
The plaque (and its fasces) have been intentionally preserved.  Dated 1920, 2 years before the March on Rome.  

Underside of a marble table, Naval Ministry, Rome

High up on an industrial water tower, on the Tevere near the Industrial Bridge, Rome...

....fasces, carefully preserved

The Italian experience with a Fascist government ended in 1943, when Mussolini was deposed and, some time later, executed.  It would be comfortable to believe that Italians were united in celebrating an end to Fascism, but that's not the case.  Many Italians had deep personal (or political) investments in the regime--they had participated in it in some way, and were proud of its accomplishments--and for them Fascism's demise was unfortunate, sad, or threatening. Others, of course, were overjoyed that Mussolini's authoritarian government was gone and looked forward to living in a democracy. Still others no doubt had mixed emotions.

At upper right, this building on viale XXI Aprile, Rome, is marked with an E and F (Era Fascista)
and the date (XI, or 1933).  On the rounded pillars, fasces have been removed.
The building was the setting for Ettore Scola's 1977 film with Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroanni,
 "Una Giornata Particolare" (A Special Day).

Chipped off fasces, Rome school, San Giovanni area

Three chipped away fasces, dating to 1934.  Near Castel S. Angelo, Rome
Also note upper left "A-XII" (year 12, 1934) and what looks like a chiseled off  "EF"
 (Era Fascista)  on the upper right.

That mix of perspectives can be revisited by noting how 20th-century Romans have dealt with the fasces in their midst.  Some have been chiseled off public and private buildings.  Others remain, reminders of Italy's 20th-century fascination with its Roman origins, and of the country's 20-year flirtation with Fascism.

For Americans who grew up with the fasces on the back of the Mercury dime, these Rome

remnants of Italy's disagreeable past might offer a lesson, or lessons, on our own past: was American use of fasces different from the Italian Fascist use--that is, more innocent, more positive, essentially benign?  Or was there more to the Mercury dime (1916-1945, roughly corresponding to the Fascist era, and featuring the axe), and to the fasces in the US House of Representatives? Something unsettling?

Bill

In Piazza Augusto Imperatore (in RST's Top 40).  Perhaps Rome's best known fasces.

Giulio Magni's Palazzo Marina: a Tour of Italy's Naval Ministry

Big anchor that has something to do with
World War I.  The facade also
pays homage to Italy's great naval cities:
Genova, Venice, and Rome.  Rome?

It occupies most of a large city block.  It's on the Tevere.  And it's only a ten minute walk, north, from Piazza del Popolo.  Yet except for two enormous anchors in front of its beaux-arts facade, most passers-by wouldn't give it a second thought.

It's the Ministero della Marina Militare, the Naval Ministry (or, in Americanese, the Department of the Navy.  The building is also referred to as the Palazzo Marina).  Although the ministry's website claims there are regular guided tours (see below), we doubt it.  Our access was through Open House Roma--yes, that's what the Romans call it--that wonderful program that opens dozens of sites, including some state buildings, for tours. In Italian.  We toured the Air Force building last year.  And this year, the Navy.

Door handle--nice touch

Built between 1912, when Italy was still a democracy, and 1928, when Mussolini had made sure it wasn't, the building is a luscious mix of styles: Rome Liberty (Victorian), barochetto (little baroque), what the website calls "Michelangeloesque eclecticism" and, here and there, accents of Fascist modernism.   Excess is everywhere.  

Magni's Santa Maria Regina Pacis, Ostia

The Ministero della Marina Militare was designed by Giulio Magni (1859-1930), grandson of the more famous Giuseppe Valadier, who created Piazza del Popolo for Napoleon.  Magni came to Rome as a young man, working on a variety of projects, including the ICP (public) housing plan for Testaccio and the Vittoriano.





After 10 active years in Romania (1895-1904), Magni designed the church of Santa Maria Regina Pacis in Ostia (1928), public housing in Testaccio, and several villas for the Roman elite. Among the latter was Villa Marignoli (1907), now a classy hotel--the Residenza Villa Marignoli--on via Po not far from Villa Borghese.










Just inside the Naval Ministry is a splendid long hall with high ceilings and, off the left/north side, a lovely courtyard.

A spectacular marble staircase, dressed with naval motifs, centers the building.  The rounded elements on the side resemble waves.




















The Sala dei Marmi--the Marble Room--offers as its centerpiece a massive table, made of 13 different marbles from Italy and Africa. Underneath, fasces.

The library's book retrieval box is above the fire extinguisher.  Anchor-motif
detailing for the railings.  

Parents, where are you?

The library, in neo-Renaissance style, houses a variety of treasures and details, including a valuable globe dating to the 17th century (when we were there a small child was clinging to it; I imagined it going over), a spiral staircase leading to a narrow second-floor balcony, and an inventive book retrieval mechanism fashioned of iron.

A VI, the 6th year of Fascism, 1928

Standing out among the Fascist touches was a gorgeous ceiling, complete with fasces.

A long hallway presents memorabilia of Italian naval history. (A song from my youth, "I'm in the Swiss Navy," kept going through my head).

Stairway cheesecake

One of the high- (or low-) lights of the tour was the performance of a 30ish-couple, who seemed to think the building was designed for their photo-shoot.








At left, a good example of the mixing of styles and epochs: a wall lamp in the Liberty style, very 19th century, but a fasces--very 20th--in the center. Additional photos of the building and a video tour of sorts, in Italian, on the ministry website:
http://www.marina.difesa.it.storiacultura/storia/palazzomarina/Pagine/PalazzoMarina.aspx


Bill

Assuming the ministry runs the tours it claims it does, reservations are required: 0636805251 or 0636803268.  Reservations and tours in Italian, of course.

Neo-classicism and Security