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Journeys to the other spaces of Fascist Italy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 January 2016

Charles Burdett
Charles Burdett*
Affiliation:
Department of Italian, 19 Woodland Road, Bristol, BS8 1TE. Telephone: (0117) 928 7590; Fax: (0117) 928 8143. E-mail: [email protected]
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Summary

In the essay, ‘Of Other Spaces’, Michel Foucault contends that every society constructs sites which can be defined as effectively enacted utopias (heterotopias), sites where social policies are articulated and where ideals of social ordering are physically performed. The article examines how a number of places in Fascist Italy, which conformed entirely to the principles of the heterotopia that Foucault sets out, were perceived by a selection of prominent writers and journalists. It examines the recorded journeys to the cemeteries of the First World War, to various renovated prisons within Italy and finally to the new towns south of Rome. It explores the kind of mental and physical sensations which the different writers evoked as well as examining the ways in which their written accounts of their imaginative experiences interacted with the myths of identity and social control which were central to Fascist ideology.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Italy , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , May 2000 , pp. 7 - 23
Copyright
Copyright © Association for the study of Modern Italy 

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References

Notes

1. In particular, Genocchio, B. in ‘Discourse, Discontinuity, Difference: The Question of “Other” Spaces’, in Watson, S. and Gibson, K. (eds), Postmodern Cities and Spaces, Blackwell, Oxford, 1995, pp. 35–46, pp. 37–12.Google Scholar

2. The essay was entitled ‘Des Espaces Autres’ and initially published in Architecture-Mouvement-Continuit é in October 1984. It was published in English, trans Miskowiec, J., in Diacritics, Spring 1986, pp. 22–7. The English translation contains the details of the essay's history. Madness and Civilisation was originally published as Histoire de la Folie (Librairie Plon, Paris, 1961), English translation by Howarth, R. (Routledge, London, 1995); the book was first translated in 1967. The Birth of the Clinic was originally published as Naissance de la Clinique (Presses universitaires de France, Paris, 1963), English translation by Sheridan, A.M. (Routledge, London, 1997); the book was first translated in 1973.Google Scholar

3. Surveiller et punir: Naissance de la prison (Editions Gallimard, Paris, 1975). For a examination of Foucault's theory of normalization, see McNay, L., Foucault. A Critical Introduction, Polity, Cambridge, 1994, pp. 91–100.Google Scholar

4. Discipline and Punish. The Birth of the Prison, Penguin, London, 1991, trans Sheridan, A., p. 228.Google Scholar

5. A comparison can be made between such spaces and Erving Goffman's notion of the total institution, that is ‘places or residence or work where a large number of like situated individuals, cut off from the wider society for an appreciable period of time, together lead an enclosed, formally administered round of life’, Goffman, , Asylums, Anchor Books, New York, 1961, p. xiii.Google Scholar

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8. For an account of daily life under Fascism, see Morgan, P., Italian Fascism, Macmillan, London, 1995 and Veneruso, D., L'Italia fascista, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1986.Google Scholar

9. During the 1930s the Fascist state was keen to point to its success in lowering levels of crime. In 1926, for example, 1,620 murders were committed, while in 1931 that number stood at 1,095. In the same years, the figures for attempted murder were 1,575 and 1,032, respectively. As Romano Canosa has argued, the reduction in the crime rate owed much to the repressive policies of the regime which, in return for the sacrifice of numerous personal freedoms, could ensure the collectivity with a greater level of security, Canosa, , ‘Gli anni trenta’, in Storia della criminalità in Italia 1845–1945, Einaudi, Turin, 1991, pp. 296–309. The figures for decreasing crime are given on p. 305.Google Scholar

10. Gentile, E., Il culto del littorio, Laterza, Rome–Bari, 1993. The study is translated as The Sacralization of Politics in Fascist Italy , trans Botsford, K., Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1996.Google Scholar

11. See ‘The “Nature” of Generic Fascism' and ‘Italian Fascism’, in Griffin, R., The Nature of Fascism, Routledge, London and New York, 1993, pp. 1–26, 56–85.Google Scholar

12. On Starace's running of the party machine, see Innocenti, M., I gerarchi del fascismo, Mursia, Milan, 1997, pp. 93–119.Google Scholar

13. My interpretation of ritual is based on Geertz's, C. essay, ‘Religion as Cultural System’, The Interpretation of Cultures, Fontana, London, 1993, pp. 87–126, pp. 87–101. Specifically on Fascism and spectacle, see Falasca-Zamponi, S., Fascist Spectacle: The Aesthetics of Power in Mussolini's Italy, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1997.Google Scholar

14. For Fascism's debt to Mazzini, see Gentile, , Il culto del littorio, pp. 7–10.Google Scholar

15. Both Cecchi and Ojetti were highly respected voices in debates on the cultural life of Italy in the 1930s and they were both fully behind the building projects promoted by the Duce. In the one-page article, ‘Psicologia delle demolizioni’, Capitoleum, 1937, p. 31, Cecchi offered his full approval of the destruction of large parts of Rome. Through his writing and through the official posts which he occupied, Ojetti was an even more influential figure. Antonio Cederna has described him as the ‘inspiration, the instigator and the arbiter of the prevailing bad taste of the 1930s’, Mussolini urbanista: Lo sventramento di Roma negli anni del consenso, Laterza, Rome–Bari, 1979, p. xx.Google Scholar

16. On the importance of Margherita Sarfatti in the development of Fascism as civic religion, see Gentile, , Il culto del littorio, p. 86. On the influence which she exerted over Mussolini before falling victim to the anti-Semitic legislation of the late 1930s, see Cannistraro, P. V. and Sullivan, B. R., The Duce's Other Woman, Morrow, New York, 1993.Google Scholar

17. In his work, Intellettuali militanti e intellettuali funzionari, Einaudi, Turin, 1979, pp. 135–45, Mario Isnenghi refers to the group as the ‘regime's cultivated prose writers’ (elzeviristi). For a discussion of the literary currents of the ventennio nero which, to varying degrees, affect the works of all these writers, see Dombroski, R., ‘The Rise and Fall of Fascism (1910–45)’, in Brand, P. and Pertile, L. (eds), The Cambridge History of Italian Literature, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2nd edn, 1999, pp. 493–533.Google Scholar

18. Their written work shows an eagerness to participate in the collective myth-making project of the regime, to become in the words of Gentile, the ‘propagandist s of the cult of the Lictor’, Il culto del littorio, p. 200.Google Scholar

19. An analysis of the changing role of the cemetery not only in France but also more generally in European culture is provided by Etlin, R. A., in The Architecture of Death: The Transformation of the Cemetery in Eighteenth-Century Paris, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1984.Google Scholar

20. See the chapter ‘Invisible Crowds’, in Crowds and Power, Penguin Books, London, 1992, 1st edn 1960, pp. 47–54, pp. 47–50.Google Scholar

21. See Kostof, S., ‘The Emperor and the Duce: The Planning of Piazzale Augusto Imperatore in Rome’, in Millon, H. and Nochlin, L. (eds), Art and Architecture in the Service of Politics, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1978, pp. 270–325, pp. 284–9.Google Scholar

22. See Fogu, C., ‘Fascism and Historic Representation: The 1932 Garibaldian Celebrations’, Journal of Contemporary History, 31 (1996), pp. 317–45, pp. 327–39.Google Scholar

23. War cemeteries housed the mortal remains of over 370,000 soldiers. The building of the most important First World War cemetery, Redipuglia, and the propagandistic value it assumed are examinined by Patrizia Dogliani, in Isnenghi, M. (ed.), I luoghi della memoria: simboli e miti dell'Italia unita, Laterza, Rome–Bari, 1996, pp. 376–89.Google Scholar

24. See, for example, Cecchi's prose piece on a small Florentine cemetery, ‘Colle fiorentino’, Carriere della Sera, 11 May 1934.Google Scholar

25. Papini, G., ‘Lineamenti spirituali dell'Italia’, in Italia mia, Vallecchi, Florence, 1942, pp. 105–41, pp. 105–16.Google Scholar

26. The article, ‘Sul sepolcro d'Augusto’, is part of Ojetti's collection of writings on subjects of aesthetic importance, In Italia, l'arte ha da essere italiana?, Mondadori, Milan, 1942, pp. 27–33. It was originally published in the Carriere della Sera, 26 November 1936.Google Scholar

27. Under the supervision of the archeologist Guido Calza, the excavation of the necropolis in Ostia had started in 1925. The narration of Ojetti's journey to Ostia is contained in volume II of Cose viste , Sansoni, Florence, 1951, pp. 795–803. The two volumes are made up of prose pieces published in a variety of newspapers and journals between 1921 and 1943.Google Scholar

28. Ojetti, , Cose viste, II, p. 799.Google Scholar

29. The programme entailed the destruction of an entire residential district. The 4,000 people that this enterprise displaced were housed in the rapidly constructed borgate (working-class suburbs) on the outskirts of the city. For a more detailed analysis on the impact of Mussolini's schemes on the urban environment of Rome, see Cederna, A., Mussolini urbanista and Ciucci, G., Gli architetti e il fascismo, Einaudi, Turin, 1989, pp. 77–92.Google Scholar

30. The words of Mussolini form part of the speech which he made at the inauguration of the Circolo Corridoni on 6 April 1921. They are quoted in Cederna's Mussolini urbanista, p. 34.Google Scholar

31. Ojetti, , ‘Aquileia’, Cose viste, I, pp. 262–8, pp. 266–7.Google Scholar

32. The participation of the crowd of the dead is a common topos in the officially sponsored literature of the time. A good example of the liturgical presence of the dead is to be found in Mario Appelius' account of the Italian conquest of Ethiopia, Il crollo dell'impero dei Negus, Mondadori, Milan, 1937, p. 100.Google Scholar

33. Longanesi, , In piedi e seduti, Vallecchi, Florence, 1948. Carlo Cresti has suggested that Giorgio De Chirico's paintings of the 1920s and 1930s (especially the celebrated composition ‘Il saluto degli Argonauti partenti’) reflect the cemetery encroaching on the public space. See Architettura e fascismo, Vallecchi, Florence, 1986, p. 48.Google Scholar

34. Le meraviglie d'Italia was first printed in 1939, the quotation is taken from the edition by Garzanti, Milan, 1993, p. 94.Google Scholar

35. ‘L'Ossario del Grappa’, Le Vie d'Italia, November 1935, pp. 836–9.Google Scholar

36. Michelesi, R., ‘Dove riposano gli eroi della grande guerra’, Le Vie d'Italia, November 1939, pp. 1436–43.Google Scholar

37. Melossi, and Pavarini, focus in particular on the period of prison reform which occurred in Tuscany (from 1786 onwards) during the rule of Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo. See ‘Genesis of the Prison in Italy’, in The Prison and the Factory, trans. Cousin, G., Macmillan, London, 1981, pp. 63–97, pp. 75–6.Google Scholar

38. Melossi, and Pavarini, , The Prison and the Factory, p. 6.Google Scholar

39. Internal exile (confina) was first introduced by the Pica law against brigandage, passed in 1863.Google Scholar

40. Grandi, Dino, Bonifica umana. Decennale delle leggi penali e della riforma penitenziaria, Ministero di Grazia e Giustizia, Rome, 1941, 2 vols, I, p. 158.Google Scholar

41. Grandi reports on the low level of recidivism among reformed juvenile offenders and of their integration into the Dux, Campo, Bonifica umana, II, p. 150.Google Scholar

42. Details of the planned carceral city in Rome are given in Bonifica umana, II, p. 225–7 and p. 250.Google Scholar

43. Ojetti, , Cose viste, II, p. 738. The narration relies here on a fairly familiar device in this kind of literature. Grandi reports the visit of a group of boys from the reform school of Nisida to the opening ceremony of the reformatory in Eboli in June 1939. In their address to the dignitaries and to the inmates of the new institution, the boys describe themselves as having been, ‘restored to the duties of honesty and love for one's country through hard, intelligent and human work’, Bonifica umana, II, p. 28.Google Scholar

44. Cecchi, , ‘Manicomio giudiziario’, Carriere della Sera, 22 February 1934. The essay is reprinted in Cecchi's collected works, Ghilardi, M. (ed.), Saggi e viaggi, Mondadori, Milan, 1997, pp. 912–17, pp. 916–17.Google Scholar

45. Cecchi, E., ‘Riformatorio femminile’, Corriere della Sera, 11 March 1934. The essay is reprinted in Saggi e viaggi, pp. 918–22, pp. 921–2.Google Scholar

46. In his journey to the cities of the Po valley (first published in 1933) Alvaro speaks of the need for rapid colonization as not only a means of avoiding overcrowding, but as a way of channelling the naturally aggressive tendencies of the population. See Itinerario italiano, Bompiani, Milan, 1995, p. 145.Google Scholar

47. For a detailed analysis of the construction of Mussolini's new towns and their symbolic function, see Ghirardo, D., ‘City and Theater: The Rhetoric of Fascist Architecture’, Stanford Italian Review, 8 (1–2), 1990, pp. 165–93; ‘Città Fascista: Surveillance and Spectacle’, Journal of Contemporary History, 31 (1996), pp. 347–72; Millon, H., ‘Some New Towns in Italy in the 1930s’, Art and Architecture in the Service of Politics, pp. 326–10.Google Scholar

48. Gadda, E., ‘La colonizzazione del latifondo siciliano’, Le Vie d'Italia, March 1941, pp. 335–13; ‘I nuovi borghi della Sicilia rurale’, Nuova Antologia, 1 February 1941, fasc. 1653, pp. 281–6; ‘La grande bonificazione ferrarese’, Le Vie d'Italia, December 1939, pp. 515–25. See Alvaro, , Itinerario italiano, pp. 144–5; Puccini, M., ‘La bonifica dell'Agro-Pontino: Pomezia’, Le Vie d'Italia, November 1939, pp. 1444–9.Google Scholar

49. Cecchi, E., ‘Mercato a Littoria’, Corriere della Sera, 28 July 1937, reprinted in Saggi e viaggi , pp. 897–901, p. 901.Google Scholar

50. See ‘I nuovi borghi della Sicilia rurale’, p. 283 and ‘La colonizzazione del latifondo siciliano’, p. 336.Google Scholar

51. He writes, for example, in ‘I nuovi borghi della Sicilia rurale’ (p. 286): ‘I have seen the white clusters of cubes amid the immensity of the land, like flocks placed there by Geometry [sic], ordered by a clear sense of discipline … and set in motion by a simple grace, by an opportunity bestowed from on high, by a feeling of hope.’ Google Scholar

52. ‘Fascism has made us used to seeing miracles on a daily basis in our homeland and not to be surprised by them, to see new towns spring up as if by magic, to see other big or small towns, districts and villages, renovate and embellish themselves and their infrastructure, extend their boundaries’, Volta, Giuseppe, ‘Asmara, Emporio dell'A.O.I.’, Le Vie d'Italia, March 1937, pp. 198–204.Google Scholar

53. See Melossi, and Pavarini, , The Prison and the Factory, pp. 90–1. The very title of Grandi's report, Bo nifica umana, carries this association.Google Scholar

54. In his article (‘Littoria’, Cose viste, II, pp. 406–16) Ojetti notes that the towers of the new towns of Pontinia and Sabaudia will be higher even than the tower of Littoria. For the significance of the towers of Fascist towns see Ghirardo, , ‘City and Theater’, p. 189.Google Scholar

55. Ojetti, , Cose viste, II, p. 413.Google Scholar

56. Gromo, Mario, ‘La città del lavoro’, Le Vie d'Italia, June 1939, pp. 754–9Google Scholar

57. Sarfatti, , ‘La città universitaria di Roma’, Nuova Antologia, 16 November 1935, fasc. 1528, pp. 187–93. In her celebratory prose, the God-like Mussolini summons the architect Piacentini, he expresses his will and he sees that the work is done (p. 187): ‘And the last day of the month of October of the fourteenth year of the Lictor, as the Duce had said, the Duce arrived and found that everything was ready and in place.’ Google Scholar

58. For an analysis of the exhibition culture of fascism, see Schnapp, J., ‘Epic Demonstrations: Fascist Modernity and the 1932 Exhibition of the Fascist Revolution’, in Golsan, R. (ed.), Fascism, Aesthetics and Culture, New England University Press, Hanover and London, 1992; Stone, M., ‘Staging Fascism: The Exhibition of the Fascist Revolution’, Journal of Contemporary History, 28 (1993) pp. 215–13; Antonella Russo, Il fascismo in mostra, Riuniti, Rome, 1999.Google Scholar

59. Cecchi, described the centrepiece of EUR as ‘a religious object that can only be celebrated with religious reverence’, ‘Il palazzo della Civiltà italiana’, Civiltà, 3, October 1940, quoted in Gentile, Il culto del littorio, p. 260. For more detailed information on the building of EUR, see Fuller, M., ‘Wherever You Go, There You Are: Fascist Plans for the Colonial City of Addis Ababa and the Colonizing Suburb of EUR ‘42’, Journal of Contemporary History, 31 (1996), pp. 397–118.Google Scholar

60. Griffin, Roger, “‘I am no Longer Human. I am a Titan. A God!” The Fascist Quest to Regenerate Time’, Electronic Seminars in History, History of Political Thought at http://www.ihrinfo.ac.uk/esh/quest.html (May 1998).Google Scholar

61. Griffin, , “‘I am no Longer Human’, p. 12.Google Scholar

62. See the one-page editorial, ‘Il Fondatore dell'Impero in Piemonte’, Le Vie d'Italia, June 1939, p. 754.Google Scholar

63. It is worth quoting Foucault's injunction to struggle against Fascism of the historical variety and ‘also the fascism in us all, in our heads and in our everyday behaviour, the fascism that causes us to love power, and to desire the very thing that dominates and exploits us’, from the preface to Deleuze, and Guattari, , Anti-Oedipus, Capitalism and Schizophrenia (1983), quoted in Gutting, G. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Foucault, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1994, pp. 154–5.Google Scholar