The issue of consensus during the Fascist era has been a fraught one in Italy since 1974 when Renzo De Felice argued that Mussolini’s regime enjoyed widespread public support in the period 1929–36. Much of the resistance to that assertion may have come from post-war reluctance to acknowledge a past preferably forgotten. More recent scholarship (Colarizi, Berezin, Corner) has documented skeptical and even hostile attitudes toward the regime throughout its 21-year run. The sources these historians cite provide a counter-narrative to any neo-Fascist triumphalism, but the present analysis emphasizes the Duce’s thinking about how to influence public opinion and his turn to architecture and urbanism for actualizing that goal of general acceptance, even enthusiasm.
To that end he used the mobilization of the masses in urban space, particularly at Piazza Venezia, as an instrument of rulership, with its pre-existing built environment as a paramount factor in that effort. The imagery generated at that site intended at least to give the impression of consensus. This study seeks to show how that effort was implemented. For most of two decades Mussolini succeeded in deflecting the blame for shortcomings and failures onto the Fascist Party and his associates. He remained admired (and feared) even into the late 1930s, by which time public opinion of the party had thoroughly soured. I argue that the charismatic factor, sustained by the Duce’s direct rapport with the people and as centered at Piazza Venezia, accounts for that perdurability. The years of De Felice’s consensus exactly frame the installation in 1929 of the Duce’s office overlooking the square and the declaration-of-empire Public Rally in 1936, the most grandiose spectacle ever mounted there and the regime’s peak of popularity.
A note on primary sources: where appropriate, I cite non- and even anti-Fascist sources as correctives to the official view of events. Others close to the regime, often based in mass media (both print and photographic), provide access to the intentions behind the transformation of the center of Rome during the era of Fascist occupation. The main challenge to understanding Piazza Venezia and its architectural and spatial components as a functional ensemble is the cessation of the rituals that animated the site in the 1930s during the regime’s apogee. Those lavish displays overlaid the buildings and spaces around the piazza with new meaning now often absent from the historiography. The concentrated multitudes packed into the square for the Public Rallies created a gravitational attraction that pulled into the center all the surrounding buildings and arterial streets, transforming them into adjuncts of the action. Reconstructing these ceremonies therefore must be a focus of this book and descriptions located in official and semi-official media invaluable for that purpose.
I have made extensive use of issues of Popolo d’Italia, the daily newspaper with national circulation founded and owned by Mussolini and edited by his brother Arnaldo until his death in 1931. It continued to function as the Duce’s official mouthpiece until the end of the regime in 1943. The reports published there of the rallies give us an ideal view of those tableaux, the image the regime wanted readers throughout Italy to receive. What transpired at pavement level among the frenzied crowd, however, was often a messier affair than reported, as can be appreciated from other, unmediated sources. The following text considers the rallies from that perspective as well.
When available, photographs from the Fascist decades have been used, since these illustrate events as they were intended to be seen and in most cases were in fact experienced through reproduction in mass media. Period imagery reproduced from printed sources therefore supports much of the argument presented here. Although independent of the regime, the lavishly produced large-format weekly, Illustrazione Italiana, published in Milan and targeted to the professional bourgeoisie, soon amply covered Mussolini’s photogenic activities. It documents the regime’s ceremonial events and major anniversaries but also covers noteworthy occasions related to the monarchy and to the papacy, thus providing an instructive pictorial confrontation of the three main Roman institutions of the 1920s and 1930s. A major source for understanding the imagery consumed by Italy’s educated elite, it also demonstrates Mussolini’s ability to dominate the news cycle. Its imitators, Illustrazione Vaticana and Rivista Illustrata del Popolo d’Italia, provide similar material from more parochial perspectives. These photographs, and those produced by the regime’s official LUCE organization, are authoritative documents to be interpreted critically in tandem with written sources, yielding access to the photo-journalism generated for a mass market.
These images tend to be aesthetically rough—black-and-white and sometimes grainy or unfocused. It will be important, however, to keep in mind that this is how Italians of the period would have apprehended the scenes produced at Piazza Venezia and as disseminated in newspapers, periodicals, and newsreels. Much of the book’s illustration program therefore intentionally retains this period view, as generated by official and semi-official organs.
The text depends on a deep exploration of LUCE’s historical collection of photographs and newsreels. None of these could be released publicly without Mussolini’s review and approval. They provide an official account of the scene inside and outside Palazzo Venezia. Most negatives in the archive were, however, never published and probably never seen by the Duce. Through these we sometimes gain a more candid understanding of actual conditions. Accurately dated images of the period, especially official ones, no matter how bland and artless, merit examination, but their utility depends on the precise identification of that being represented. In the text all images of rallies are followed by the exact date in parentheses, essential data for appreciating that these events correspond to particular regime initiatives. Period photographs have often been used, even in scholarly publications, as generic scenes, but this can vitiate their value as historical records. Appendix A comprises a documented chronology of the political rallies held in Piazza Venezia at which Mussolini appeared on the balcony of Palazzo Venezia.
Crowd estimates, grossly approximate at best, reflect those reported in the contemporary press as cited. Unless otherwise indicated, translations are by the author. As used in this book, uppercase “Fascism” refers to the Italian political party, regime, and its ideology. Lowercase “fascism” indicates the generic ultra-nationalistic authoritarian mass political movements that initially followed the Italian model in other countries.
In researching and writing this study I have been mindful of an acute observation by George Mosse: “The chief problem facing any historian is to capture the irrational by an exercise of the rational mind” (Masses and Man, 1980).