Francesco Saverio (Father), Marcello Cesare Augusto (Son): Finding Useful Histories in Fascist Rome?

Abstract

The choice by different regimes as to what matters in the past and what does not is always a telling factor in their character. Mussolini's dictatorship in Italy made major play with romanita through its representation of the dictator as a new Caesar and its claim to be ‘restoring’ the Roman empire. The centro storico of Rome is still full of such Fascist messaging. The regime was also the first to call itself totalitarian and, since the 1980s, a standard interpretation has developed accepting that Mussolini did indeed push his people far along the road to having their minds and actions fascistized. This interpretation, however, with its focus on culture above other issues, underestimates the extensive sectors of Italian life where rival ideas and behaviour survived and flourished. So, too, romanita could signal Catholic, Vatican, class, family and national allegiances as well as ones favoured by the regime. The real message of inter-war Rome was therefore as much about an Italian dictatorship as a Fascist one.