Abridged History of Rome - Part IV - II (original) (raw)

- Part IV (left to right: Emperor Marcus Aurelius, Pope Innocent III and Pope Sixtus IV)

#### II - Chronology of the Events between 1912 and 1956

| Year | Political Developments | Events in Rome | | ---- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | 1912 | (May) Italian troops occupy Rhodes.(Oct.) Peace with Turkey: Italy obtains Tripolitania, Cyrenaica and Fezzan (the three colonies were renamed "Libya" in 1934). | General warehouses are built in the area between Porta S. Paolo and S. Paolo fuori le Mura. | | 1914 | (Jun.) Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria is assassinated at Sarajevo.(Jul.) Austria declares war on Serbia, thus triggering World War I.(Aug.) Italy declares her neutrality, arguing that her alliance with Austria and Germany was of a defensive nature. | Rallies and strikes (settimana rossa - red week) against the war. | | 1915 | Nationalists and other groups call for joining the war on the side of France and Great Britain to complete the unification of the country by conquering the Italian speaking provinces of Trentino, Istria and Dalmatia.On May 24 Italy declares war on Austria. | In May poet Gabriele D'Annunzio leads a series of rallies in Rome calling for a declaration of war on Austria. | | 1917 | The Russian Revolution allows Germany and Austria to withdraw troops from the eastern front and to launch a major offensive on the southern one. Their armies break the Italian lines at Caporetto (today's Kobarid in Slovenia), but their advance towards Venice is checked at the River Piave. From that time linea del Piave has become an Italian way of indicating a not negotiable position and Caporetto means a terrible defeat. | Passeggiata Archeologica, a large avenue around Terme Di Caracalla is inaugurated. | | 1918 | Italian troops cross the River Piave and manage to split the enemy's army. Austria calls for an armistice which comes into effect on November 4. | On November 15 General Armando Diaz, Commander in Chief of the Italian Army, is given a triumphal welcome in Rome. | | 1920 | A long period of social unrest reaches its peak with the occupation of many factories by workers on strike. The fear of a soviet-type revolution helps the growth of right wing movements including the Fascist Party founded by Benito Mussolini, a former member of the Socialist Party. | The first department store of Rome gets a new name: la Rinascente. The first stone is laid of la Garbatella, a new quarter for the working class. |

## New front of [Spedale di S. Spirito in Sassia](Vasi171.htm#The Hospital) along the Lungotevere (1920-33) designed by Gaspare and Luigi Lenzi

The war effort strained the Treasury and public works associated with the redesign of the river banks were postponed. A project to provide Spedale di S. Spirito with a front along the Lungotevere was not approved until 1920: the simple design of the new building windows departed from the traditional pre-war stile umbertino. Not everybody however was badly affected by the war: this tragedy (Italy had 650,000 casualties) brought great gains to those in northern Italy who were involved in providing supplies to the army and to those in Rome who were in charge of the related procurement process. Quartiere Copped� with its extravagant decoration was designed having in mind this class of nouveau riche; the same applies to Parioli, a new neighbourhood north of Villa Borghese.

| Year | Political Developments | Events in Rome | | ---- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | 1921 | (Jan.) A split among the Socialists leads to the foundation of the Italian Communist Party.(May) General Elections: Blocco Nazionale, a right wing alliance which includes the Fascist Party falls short of gaining an outright majority. | A Milite Ignoto (Unknown Soldier) is buried at Monument to Victor Emmanuel II (which from that time is also known as Monumento al Milite Ignoto or Altare della Patria). | | 1922 | Violent clashes between members of opposite parties. In October Fascist supporters gather in Naples and on October 28 they start marching towards Rome (Marcia su Roma). Prime Minister Luigi Facta is let down by the King when he asks to use the army to stop the march. A coalition government is formed by Mussolini. Pope Pius XI forces the leaders of Partito Popolare Italiano, a Catholic party, to support the new cabinet. | (Oct. 31) Great rally of 100,000 fascists through the streets of Rome (for that time it was a large number: today many more come to Rome to voice their views). In the next year a decree stating that April 21 (Foundation of Rome) is a public holiday starts the glorification process of Ancient Rome which will characterize the Fascist period. | | 1924 | (Apr.) General elections held in a climate of intimidation give 60% of the votes to a coalition led by the Fascists.(Jun.) Giacomo Matteotti, a member of the Socialist Party is assassinated. Opposition parties claim the moral responsibility of Mussolini and abandon the Parliament. | An electric railway links Rome with the beach of Lido di Ostia. | | 1925 | Several laws increase the power of the police, replace the elected mayors with officers appointed by the government, curtail free press and strengthen the authority of the Prime Minister. Mussolini is called Duce (leader) from the Latin word Dux (after which also duke and doge). | The monument to the fallen at Dogali which stood opposite Stazione Termini is moved to a less prominent location. This because it was a reminder of an Italian military defeat. |

## Palazzo dell'Accademia di Educazione Fisica (today Palazzo del C.O.N.I.) by Enrico Del Debbio (1928-32)

Mussolini had a talent for understanding what his countrymen liked (or at least a majority of them). Although he was supported by many conservatives he often managed to appear as an innovator. Italian (and European) pre-war society was very conventional, socially blocked and almost dull: one of the causes of WWI was the dissatisfaction among the younger generations with the peaceful world in which they had been raised. Mussolini responded to the request for a "heroic" side of life by promoting campaigns which involved the masses. One of them was about fitness: a true Fascist man was not expected to have a prominent belly. Over the years gymnastics became a social obligation rather than a personal choice. This effort was supported by the construction of facilities and in Rome was summarized by the buildings of [Foro Italico](Vasi185.htm#Foro Italico) and by its gigantic statues of athletes (one of which is shown in the image used as background for this page). New designs were selected to emphasize the novelty aspect of these facilities and young architects were given the opportunity to carry out their new ideas.

## Via dei Fori Imperiali: walls designed by Antonio Munoz (1931-33)

Sventramenti (literally disembowlements) is the harsh term used today to refer to the demolition of parts of historical Rome which occurred during the Fascist period. A large road was opened to facilitate traffic between the city centre and the southern quarters; a medieval quarter between Palazzo Venezia and Colosseo was pulled down to open a large avenue. It was named Via dei Monti (the rione it crossed) and later on Via dell'Impero. According to the original plan a gigantic Palazzo del Littorio* should have been built opposite [Basilica di Massenzio](Vasi102.htm#Tempio della Pace), but eventually Mussolini changed his mind. The man in charge of these demolitions was Antonio Munoz, who was also the Superintendent in charge of the protection of the monuments of Rome. After the fall of Mussolini he was widely criticized for having allowed the destruction of a historical part of Rome. To his credit one must recognize that the terrace he designed on the site where Palazzo del Littorio should have been built is not obtrusive: this because he used small bricks similar to those of Basilica di Massenzio and the design was copied from the surviving [structures supporting Tempio di Claudio](Vasi53.htm#Tempio di Claudio), located on the nearby Celian Hill. Public opinion in the rest of the world was very silent about these demolitions and Mussolini was not regarded as a pariah by the international community for having replaced a democracy with a dictatorship. Foreign travellers wrote enthusiastic reports about Mussolini's Rome. * Lictores were the officers which preceded Roman consuls/magistrates in processions. They held the fascio (a bundle of rods with a projecting axe blade) as a symbol of authority.

## Terrace of Via dei Fori Imperiali (former Via dei Monti): shooting of a TV fiction set in the 1930s

## Ostiense Railway Station (off Porta S. Paolo): floor mosaics celebrating the might of Rome: Arco di Tito, Augustus of Prima Porta and the Roman eagle flying over a map of the Empire

On the evening of May 3, 1938 Adolf Hitler arrived at the newly inaugurated Railway Station of Roma Ostiense. He was met by Mussolini and King Victor Emmanuel III. To the dismay of the former he travelled to his apartments in Palazzo del Quirinale in the King's limousine. He was entertained with events showing the Italian military might, but he was more interested in its works of art and he visited Galleria Borghese, Musei Capitolini and Terme di Diocleziano accompanied by a rather annoyed Mussolini. Professor Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli, an archaeologist and art historian who acted as cicerone, noted in his diary: Seen Marius (Mussolini) and Sulla (Hitler). First and surprising impression of Mario: grotesque and very ugly. He walks like a puppet, with curves and oblique movements of the head, which would like to mitigate his massiveness, but are only awkward and sinister. He closes his eyes, smiles, continually makes a childish comedy. (..) He has the unpleasant presence of some country folks full of arrogance because they know they are the most skilled in the livestock market and have big wallets. Sulla is, in the first aspect, less repulsive. Composed, tidy, almost modest. Almost servile, too. A personality of subordinate appearance: something like a tram driver.

## Bronze monument to Giorgio Castriota Scanderbeg by Romano Romanelli (1940)

Mussolini used to define with military words many of his initiatives: the reaching of self-sufficiency in wheat production was called Battaglia del Grano (Wheat Battle); the holding of a certain rate of exchange of the Italian lira was named Quota 90, as if this level were a peak of a mountain which the enemy was trying to occupy. Eventually Mussolini was a victim of his own propaganda: because he had abolished opposition parties and free press he ended by losing a realistic perception of the state of the nation. The aggressive mentality which developed in Italy during the Fascist period is summarized by the monument to Scanderbeg. The statue of Marcus Aurelius was for centuries the model for all equestrian statues: the Emperor, who spent most of his life in the battlefields, chose to be portrayed in a peaceful attitude; Emperor Augustus whose legions did not refrain from the cruellest massacres, was often portrayed as Pontifex Maximus. Emperor Trajan was celebrated in his honorary column in the act of delivering speeches or accepting the surrender of the enemy and never in personally taking part in a fight. But Ancient Romans did not go to the movies while Romanelli and Mussolini did; Mussolini in particular promoted the Italian film-making industry and he himself indulged in poses (such as riding a white horse holding a scimitar) which showed the influence of American "Westerns". The inauguration of the statue was part of a propaganda campaign which led to the (totally unjustified) declaration of war on Greece. This occurred on October 28, the anniversary of Marcia su Roma: a choice of time which was good for selling the war as a "cakewalk", but proved to be wrong from a military viewpoint: heavy rains blocked the Italian army on the mountains of Epirus and the Greeks managed to counterattack and invade southern Albania: while in Italy October 28 is no longer celebrated, in Greece it is a public holiday and cities and towns have named 28 Oktobriou one of their main streets.

| Year | Political Developments | Events in Rome | | ---- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | 1941 | (Apr.) Germany invades Greece and rapidly defeats its army: Italy is in charge of the military administration of most of the country.(May) British troops with the support of Ethiopian rebels occupy Addis Ababa and soon after all the Italian possessions in Eastern Africa are lost.(July) Italy sends an army to support the German invasion of Russia. | Notwithstanding the war some buildings of E.U.R. are completed. | | 1942 | (Oct.) At El-Alamein the Allies win a battle which will eventually give them the control of Libya. | The celebrations for the XXth anniversary of Marcia su Roma are very minor and take place in a city where supplies are more and more limited. | | 1943 | (July 9) Allied forces start the invasion of Sicily.(July 25) Gran Consiglio del Fascismo (the highest body of the Fascist Party) calls for the resignation of Mussolini. He reports the events to the King who orders his arrest and appoints General Pietro Badoglio as new Prime Minister.(Sep.) The new government surrenders to the Allies; King Victor Emmanuel III abandons Rome and seeks refuge in Brindisi, which was already in the hands of the Allies. The army is left without clear instructions and its structure collapses in a matter of days. German troops occupy Italy and Rome: they free Mussolini who becomes the leader of a puppet state (Repubblica Sociale Italiana). | (Jul.) Heavy bombing of the railway facilities and of nearby quartiere S. Lorenzo causes many casualties and damages the basilica.(Sep.) While the generals flee to Brindisi, the lower ranks of the army vainly try to prevent the occupation of Rome at Porta S. Paolo.(Oct.) Deportation of more than a thousand Roman Jews. | | 1944 | (Jan.) Allied troops establish a bridgehead at Anzio, but are unable to move forward.(Jun.) Allied troops enter Rome. King Victor Emmanuel III assigns all his powers to his son Umberto. The pre-fascist political parties agree to temporarily cooperate with the Monarchy. (Aug.) Florence is freed. | (Jan.- Mar.) Heavy bombing of Velletri, Frascati and other small towns south of Rome.(Mar.) The Germans execute by shooting 335 civilians at a tufa cave (Fosse Ardeatine).(Aug.) End of the Allied military administration of Rome. | | 1945 | (Apr.) Insurrection of the Italian partigiani who free most of northern Italy before the arrival of the Allied troops. The partigiani find Mussolini in a retreating German convoy: he is disguised as a German soldier and after being identified he is shot on the spot.(Dec.) Alcide De Gasperi, a Christian Democrat leader, forms the first of a series of coalition cabinets. | Many streets and buildings associated with the Fascist period are renamed.Roberto Rossellini shoots Roma citt� aperta, a dramatic movie on the life in the city during the war and the chief example of Italian neorealism, a national film movement characterized by stories set amongst the poor and the working class, filmed on location. |

## (left) Ponte XXVIII Ottobre (today Ponte Flaminio also known as Corso Francia) designed by Armando Brasini (1938-43); (right) Ponte Duca d'Aosta designed by Vincenzo Fasolo (1936-39)

In just a few years Mussolini was able to create a cult of the leader which was unprecedented since kings and emperors lost their aura as God's envoys and became constitutional sovereigns. In the period 1861-1922 the Prime Ministers of the Italian Kingdom kept a very low personal profile and some of them stressed their role as civil servants by behaving in public as very ordinary and respectable people. The protocol of the ceremonies emphasized the role of the king. King Victor Emmanuel III was popular in the country when Mussolini achieved power, but he had a shy personality and let his Prime Minister occupy the stage while he devoted his time to a numismatic collection. The process was so rapid that already in 1932 a large complex of buildings and sport facilities was named after Mussolini using a wording (Foro) which was reminiscent of Caesar and Augustus. Its development led to the construction of two new bridges which show the architectural tendencies of this period. Armando Brasini, whose personal residence is not very far from the Foro was the architect whose works emphasized the monumental and rhetoric aspects of Fascism: his bridge was decorated with plenty of eagles and she-wolves, which further enriched the Roman Bestiary. Vincenzo Fasolo was the Dean of the Faculty of Architecture and his works show a bizarre assembling of architectural elements (see one of them, a chalet at Villa Torlonia). The bridge he designed at Foro Italico however shows his conversion to rationalist tendencies characterized by a lean design and the use of concrete. You may wish to see a page on the modern bridges of Rome.

## Palazzo della F.A.O. designed by Vittorio Cafiero (1938-52), near the San Saba neighbourhhod

The Cold-War between the Free World and the Communist Block helped Italy's readmission in political society. America and her allies supported the Christian Democrats and were prepared to forget the role Italy had in WWII. The Soviet Union, especially after the 1948 disagreements with Marshal Tito's Yugoslavia, did not want to cause embarrassment to the Italian Communist Party by adopting a vindictive policy towards Italy. A sign of this benevolent attitude was the decision by the United Nations to move F.A.O. (Food and Agriculture Organization), one of its main agencies to Rome. At the time Italy was not a member of the United Nations and so the event had a special relevance in showing the country was "coming of age" after the tutelage period which followed the war. The decision was prompted by the offer by the Italian government of a large building which was initially meant to house the Ministry of Colonies.

## "La Farnesina" (Ministero degli Affari Esteri) designed by Enrico Del Debbio, Arnaldo Foschini and Vittorio Ballio Morpurgo (1938-56). Fountain by Arnaldo Pomodoro (1968)

In 1951 the Government decided to complete the many buildings which because of the war were unfinished. E.U.R. was converted into a business district where ministries and state-owned companies relocated their offices. The assignment of the 1960 Olympic Games helped in giving a new purpose to the facilities of Foro Italico. In 1956 the Ministry for Foreign Affairs was relocated to what should have been Palazzo del Littorio, the largest building of Foro Italico: the palace is usually called La Farnesina, because the area once belonged to the Farnese, the family of Pope Paul III. This name is also another way of making reference to the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs; for this reason TV news often say: La Farnesina ha detto ... to mean a statement issued by the Ministry.

Next page: Part IV:III - Events between 1957 and 2007