Abstract
Although the site of the ancient Circus Maximus was one of the most loaded spaces of the Fascist ‘Third Rome’, it has received limited attention as a privileged site where a dizzying array of myths and illusions were entertained, simulated, and deposited as new Fascist layers on Rome’s urban and mnemonic palimpsest. Previously a decayed, ‘unsightly’, and overcrowded hodgepodge of layers of life, history, and memory, it was substantially restored, ruthlessly emptied of its previous life, and then used for a multitude of Fascist rituals and projections (parades, celebrations, exhibitions, mass spectacles). In this article, I explore the diverse facets of the circus’s transformation in the 1930s and argue that the site was used as a prime space of enacting and simulating the full thrust of the Fascist regime’s regenerative repertoire, involving erasure and disruption of layers of the past, new additive elements and spatial practices, as well as a multitude of projections of a decidedly modern Fascist new order and temporality.
Highlights
The Fascist erasure of space and timeThe Fascist regime inherited a rich mental image of the ancient city that lay partly ruined amidst Rome’s contemporary visible layer and partly submerged and forgotten underneath it
The site of the Circus Maximus, the most impressive in scale ancient circus in Rome, has hosted a kaleidoscope of discordant memories across the two millennia of its history
When the producers of the Hollywood blockbuster Ben Hur visited Rome in the late-1950s to shoot the film in the city, the Circus Maximus topped the list of their preferred locations
Summary
The Fascist regime inherited a rich mental image of the ancient city that lay partly ruined amidst Rome’s contemporary visible layer and partly submerged and forgotten underneath it. In 1927 Mussolini included the Circus Maximus in the priority list for the ‘works of grandeur’ in the capital, alongside the ‘liberation’ of the Capitoline hill, of the Theatre of Marcellus, and of the Mausoleum of Augustus, as well as the ongoing excavations in the area of the Forum.[20] Later in the same year, the published plan for the Aventino quarter (immediately to the south of the site) envisaged the ‘liberation’ and excavation of the circus, with particular emphasis on its eastern edge, where the medieval Torre dei Frangipane stood amidst scattered ruins unearthed during the (incomplete) 1911 excavations.[21] Until the early 1930s, all other projects in Rome’s historic centre were eclipsed by the opening of the two new monumental avenues starting from Piazza Venezia (Via dell’Impero to the east, Via del Mare to the west).
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