The Cult of the Duce: Mussolini and the Italians PDF
Preview The Cult of the Duce: Mussolini and the Italians
The Cult of the Duce PPC_Layout 1 09/04/2013 11:20 Page 1 THE CULT OF T THE DUCE H E THE CULT OF C THE DUCE U L MUSSOLINI AND THE ITALIANS T O The cult of the Duceis the first book to explore systematically the personality cult of F the Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. It examines the factors which informed the T MUSSOLINI AND THE ITALIANS cult and looks in detail at its many manifestations in the visual arts, architecture, H political spectacle and the media. The conviction that Mussolini was an exceptional individual first became dogma among Fascists and then was communicated to the E people at large. Intellectuals and artists helped fashion the idea of him as a new Caesar while the modern media of press, photography, cinema and radio D aggrandised his every public act. The book considers the way in which Italians experienced the personality cult and analyses its controversial resonances in the U postwar period. C Academics and students with interests in Italian and European history and politics will find the volume indispensable to an understanding of Fascism, Italian society E and culture, and modern political leadership. Among the contributions is an Afterword by Mussolini’s leading biographer, R. J. B. Bosworth. G u Stephen Gundleis Professor of Film and Television Studies at the University n d of Warwick l e , D Christopher Duggan is Professor of Modern Italian History at the University u of Reading g g a Giuliana Pieriis Reader in Italian and the Visual Arts at Royal Holloway, University n of London a n d P Cover image: Ernesto Thayaht, Il grande nocchiere (1939), Wolfsoniana – Fondazione regionale per la i e Cultura e lo Spettacolo, Genova r i ( e d s ) ISBN 978-0-7190-8896-4 Edited by Stephen Gundle, Christopher Duggan and Giuliana Pieri www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk The cult of the Duce The cult of the Duce Mussolini and the Italians Edited by Stephen Gundle, Christopher Duggan and Giuliana Pieri Manchester University Press Manchester and New York distributed in the United States exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan Copyright © Manchester University Press 2013 While copyright in the volume as a whole is vested in Manchester University Press, copyright in individual chapters belongs to their respective authors, and no chapter may be reproduced wholly or in part without the express permission in writing of both author and publisher. Published by Manchester University Press Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9NR, UK and Room 400, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk Distributed in the United States exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA Distributed in Canada exclusively by UBC Press, University of British Columbia, 2029 West Mall, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z2 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for ISBN 978 07190 8896 4 hardback First published 2013 The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Typeset in Minion Pro by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire Contents List of illustrations vii Notes on contributors ix Introduction 1 Stephen Gundle, Christopher Duggan and Giuliana Pieri Part I THE ORIGINS OF A PERSONALITY CULT 1 Political cults in liberal Italy, 1861–1922 11 Christopher Duggan 2 The propagation of the cult of the Duce, 1925–26 27 Christopher Duggan 3 Margherita Sarfatti and the invention of the Duce 41 Simona Storchi 4 Sanity from a lunatic asylum: Ida Dalser’s threat to Mussolini’s image 57 Daniela Baratieri 5 Mass culture and the cult of personality 72 Stephen Gundle Part II THE DUCE AND THE FASCIST REGIME 6 A town for the cult of the Duce: Predappio as a site of pilgrimage 93 Sofia Serenelli 7 Mussolini’s appearances in the regions 110 Stephen Gundle 8 The internalisation of the cult of the Duce: the evidence of diaries and letters 129 Christopher Duggan 9 Mussolini and the Italian Empire, 1935–41 144 Giuseppe Finaldi vi Contents Part III THE ICONOGRAPHY OF THE DUCE 10 Portraits of the Duce 161 Giuliana Pieri 11 Photographing Mussolini 178 Alessandra Antola 12 Mussolini as monument: the equestrian statue of the Duce at the Littoriale Stadium in Bologna 193 Simona Storchi 13 Mussolini and the city of Rome 209 Eugene Pooley Part IV AFTER THE FALL OF FASCISM 14 The destiny of the art and artefacts 227 Giuliana Pieri 15 The aftermath of the Mussolini cult: history, nostalgia and popular culture 241 Stephen Gundle 16 Mussolini and post-war Italian television 257 Vanessa Roghi Afterword 270 R.J.B. Bosworth Index 278 List of illustrations 1 Ettore di Giorgio, Dux page 163 2 Primo Conti, La prima ondata, 1929–30 168 3 Golia, San Giorgio Benito uccide il mostro delle sanzioni, 1935 (The Wolfsonian–Florida International University, Miami Beach, Florida, The Mitchell Wolfson, Jr. Collection) 169 4 Thayaht, Condottiero (Dux con pietra miliare), 1929 (Wolfsoniana – Fondazione regionale per la Cultura e lo Spettacolo, Genoa) 171 5 Thayaht, Il grande nocchiere, 1939 (©Archivio fotografico MART) 172 6 Tono Zancanaro, Gibbo I il Grande e la spada dell’Islam, 1944 (Archivio Storico Tono Zancanaro, Padua) 174 7 Adolfo Porry Pastorel (attrib.), unpublished photograph of Mussolini being escorted by plain-clothes policemen, 1915 (Civico Archivio Fotografico, Milan) 181 8 Gianni Caminada, photograph of Mussolini later reproduced as a postcard, 1921 (ETH-Bibliothek Zurich, Image Archive) 183 9 Adolfo Porry Pastorel, photograph of Mussolini sowing seed in the nursery of the Forestry Militia, 1934 (Collezione Cesare Colombo, Milan) 186 10 Unknown, Mussolini threshing the wheat at Aprilia, later reproduced as a postcard in 1938 (Archivio Sturani, Rome) 188 11 Giuseppe Graziosi, equestrian statue of Mussolini at the Littoriale Stadium, Bologna, 1929 (Modena, Museo Civico d’Arte, Archivio Fotografico Giuseppe Graziosi, F.G.F. n. 1590) 195 12 Giuseppe Graziosi, model of Mussolini’s equestrian statue in the sculptor’s studio (Modena, Museo Civico d’Arte, Archivio Fotografico Giuseppe Graziosi, F.G.F. n. 24) 199 13 Luciano Minguzzi, statues of a male and female partisan, 1947 (author’s own photograph) 204 14 The head of Graziosi’s equestrian statue today (author’s own photograph) 205 viii List of illustrations 15 Renato Bertelli, Profilo continuo del DUCE, 1933 (Massimo & Sonia Cirulli Archive, New York) 232 Notes on contributors Alessandra Antola recently completed a Ph.D. on Mussolini in photography at Royal Holloway, University of London. Daniela Baratieri is a Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia. She has recently published Memory and Silences Haunted by Fascism: Italian Colonialism 1930s–1960s (2010). R.J.B. Bosworth is Senior Research Fellow in History at Jesus College, University of Oxford. He is the author of numerous books, including Mussolini (2002), Mussolini’s Italy (2005) and Whispering City: Rome and Its Histories (2011). Christopher Duggan is Professor of Modern Italian History at the University of Reading. He is the author of many works, including Fascism and the Mafia (1989), Francesco Crispi: from Nation to Nationalism (2002) and The Force of Destiny: A History of Italy since 1796 (2007). Giuseppe Finaldi teaches History at the University of Western Australia. His most recent publication is ‘The Peasants did not Think of Africa: Empire and the Italian State’s Pursuit of Legitimacy, 1871–1945’, in John MacKenzie (ed.), European Empire and the People (2011). Stephen Gundle is Professor of Film and Television Studies at the University of Warwick. His most recent books include Bellissima: Feminine Beauty and the Idea of Italy (2007), Mass Culture and Italian Society from Fascism to the Cold War (2008, with David Forgacs), Glamour: A History (2008) and Death and the Dolce Vita: The Dark Side of Rome in the 1950s (2011). Giuliana Pieri is Reader in Italian and the Visual Arts at Royal Holloway, University of London. Her main research interests are in the fields of post-war Italian popular fiction, Anglo-Italian cultural relations
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