Augustan Propaganda in Late Fascist Italian Architecture

Abstract

The Esposizione Universale Roma (EUR), was the biggest complex built during Mussolini’s regime. EUR employed political strategies of propaganda that consciously set out to copy those of ancient Rome. Mussolini’s government made a constant effort to associate fascism with the emperor Augustus. Publications regarding Italian fascist architecture focus on the antagonism between Rationalism and classicism or the vast stylistic variety of Italian fascist architecture. To get a deeper insight into the notion of how fascists reused Augustan propaganda, I refer to the work of experts in Augustan architecture, which can be usefully compared to fascist documentation. The findings of this article highlight a further connection between the EUR area and its link with the Roman fora. Although this connection is not found in the extant documentation, an analysis of the architectural remains denotes the intention of expressing the aforementioned strategies.