Mussolini's Rome : Rebuilding the Eternal City

PRODUCT DESCRIPTION:
As observant visitors to Rome will note, not only are most of the buildings and avenues sponsored by Mussolini's regime still there but so are monuments exalting the name and image of the dictator. These vestiges prompted historian Painter to chronicle Mussolini's construction projects and their expression of fascistic ideas. As a stage for mass rallies and military parades, 1920s Rome would not do, so the clearance of marching routes and plazas began, their final form often leading the eye to a famous Roman ruin, which was the point. The ancient Roman Empire was to be visually connected with the new one of Mussolini's megalomaniacal fantasy; centuries of buildings around the Theater of Marcellus were razed, and the open space was refilled with a ministry. Painter then describes the athletic facilities built to promote fascism's cult of militant physical fitness and the collective housing put up on Rome's periphery. With dozens of photographs, Painter's able study displays what hides in plain sight in the Eternal City.

Rome was Mussolini's obsession. After coming to power as a result of his famed march on the city in 1922, he promised Italians that his fascist revolution would unite them as never before and make Italy a major power on the world stage. In the next two decades, he set about rebuilding Rome as the foremost site and symbol of the new fascist order. Through an ambitious program of demolition and construction, he sought to make Rome a capital that both embraced modernity while preserving and glorifing the city's ancient past. Building the new Rome put people to work, "liberated" ancient monuments from cluttered surroundings, cleared slums; produced giant complexes for education, sports, and cinema; produced wide new boulevards and piazzas; and provided the regime with a showcase for the supposed grandeur, dynamism, and power of fascism. This intriguing book reveals Mussolini's tremendous and lasting impact on the city to which millions flock each year.

**