Abstract
The role of a maternal figure in the construction of the nation as an 'imagined community' has been largely constrained to studies on the anthropomorphic myth that the nation is born or reborn in the Italian case. This article examines the crucial importance of maternal imagery in the construction of Italian patriotism, a discourse founded upon the myth of the nation's Risorgimento or rebirth from an ancient past. These ideas are examined through close analysis of two monumental spaces — Lake Fucino in Southern Italy and the Torre Monumentale di San Martino della Battaglia in Northern Italy — in which the development of patriotic experience is explored through sacred and secular representations of the notion of Conception.
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