The Mass Panorama

Abstract

The Rivista Illustrata del Popolo d'Italia was the lavish mass distribution monthly to which subscribers of Italian Fascism's official daily could turn for commentary on current events, literature, science, culture and fashion, much like Americans could turn to Life magazine, Russians could turn to Soviet Life, and the Chinese to China Reconstructs. Starting sometime in the mid-1920s, the Rivista underwent a graphic makeover. Among the innovations introduced was the regular inclusion of large scale foldouts: panoramic photographs, typically two to six times wider than the standard page size. Foldouts in and of themselves were not uncommon in period magazines and, as with contemporary foldouts of Playboy bunnies or Penthouse pets, they were understood as special features, graphic highlights detachable for purposes of exhibition in the home and in the workplace. What first drew my attention to the Rivista's foldouts, however, was the object of desire draped across the picture plane: teeming, seemingly infinite crowds rallying around a visible or invisible leader, sometimes abstracted into an indistinct ocean of dots, sometimes swarming with particulars; crowds wedged [End Page 243] into architectural settings representative of the great historical cities of the Italian peninsula, crammed together to the point of driving out all voids. The political rally as source of vicarious photo- and/or pornographic thrill. Such was the graphic principle that would inform the next fifteen years of the Rivista Illustrata's practice; years during which wave after wave of innovative artists and graphic designers laid out its pages: Bruno Munari, Mario Sironi, Fortunato Depero, Giò Ponti, Xanti Schawinsky. The graphic environment shifted with each successive wave. But not the foldouts. Mass rally after mass rally after mass rally unfolded in every number, right up to the collapse of the Fascist regime and the review's demise.