lingua lictoria: the latin literature of italian fascism

Lingua Lictoria: The Latin Literature ofItalian Fascism

Han Lamers and Bettina Reitz-Joosse*

During the ventennio fascista (1922–43), Italy saw a large and diverse production of

original Latin literature with explicitly Fascist themes. The number of texts published

in this period and the regime’s direct and indirect support for their production make it

clear that we are dealing with an important aspect of Fascist cultural politics, which

has never yet been studied in detail. In this article, we explore what it meant to write

in Latin in Fascist Italy. After introducing the authors and readers of Fascist Latintexts as well as their cultural and institutional contexts, we map the ideological

functions that were attributed to Latin during the ventennio. We analyse a selection

of largely forgotten Fascist Latin texts, including Luigi Illuminati’s ‘Dux’, Giovanni

Mazza’s ‘Italia renata’, Benito Mussolini’s ‘Romae laudes’, and Vittorio Genovesi’s

‘Mare nostrum’. On the basis of these texts, we discuss Latin as the language of

romanita, as a modern and a specifically Fascist language, as a national and an

international language, and as the language of Italian imperialism

Introduction

Italia tandem imperium habet suum. Imperium scilicet ex Fascibus! cui Romani Lictorii

voluntas ac potentia notas indelebiles impresserit.

Italy finally has its empire. A Fascist empire, to be sure, upon which the desire and the power

of Roman Fascism have impressed their indelible marks.

Benito Mussolini spoke these words on the 9th of May 1936, after the Italian troops

had inflicted a final blow to the Abyssinian armies, and Italy established its long

desired ‘Impero’, its empire. Of course, Mussolini addressed the huge crowd on the

Piazza Venezia in Rome not in Latin, but in Italian.1 Who translated his speech into

Latin? For whom? And why?

In this particular case, it was the professor of Greek at the University of Rome ‘La

Sapienza’, Nicola Festa (1866–1940), who had translated three of Mussolini’s most

famous speeches into Latin and published them for a general public, with the facing

*Correspondence: Han Lamers, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin

and Universiteit Gent. Email: [email protected]; Bettina Reitz-Joosse, Niels

Stensen Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Classical Studies at the University of

Pennsylvania. Email: [email protected]

1 In the original Italian, Mussolini said: ‘L’Italia ha finalmente il suo Impero. Impero

Fascista perche porta i segni indistruttibili della volonta e della potenza del Littorio

romano . . .’. (Mussolini 1956: 268–69).

Classical Receptions Journal Vol 0. Iss. 0 (2015) pp. 1–37

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Italian original and photographic illustrations of the events.2 But Festa’s translation

was by no means an exceptional or isolated case. We know of two other Latin trans-

lations of this speech alone.3 Even the famous Italian author Gabriele D’Annunzio

(1863–1938) once announced his intention of translating one of Mussolini’s speeches

into Latin.4 And these translations are only the tip of a large Latin iceberg.

During the ventennio fascista (1922–43), Italy saw a large and diverse production

of original Latin literature with explicitly Fascist themes, ranging from lyric odes in

praise of Mussolini to prose orations extolling the new regime, from epics on Italy’s

martial exploits in Africa to Latin inscriptions on monuments old and new. The

number of texts produced and the institutional support for their production (which

involved the highest political echelons including Mussolini himself) make it abun-

dantly clear that we are dealing with an important aspect of Fascist self-represen-

tation and the Fascist negotiation of Italy’s ancient Roman heritage.

The phenomenon of Fascist romanita has seen intensive research, and modern

scholarship has noted the emphasis on Latin in Fascist education. However, the

production of Latin texts during the ventennio has hardly been studied to date. In

fact, the very existence of most of these texts is not widely known even among

specialists of Fascist culture.5 This article offers a first introduction to the Latin

2 Festa first published his translation of the speech of 9 May 1936 in the Rassegna dei combat-

tenti of 24 May 1936. Together with the translations of two further speeches (those of 2

October 1935 and 5 May 1936), it was then republished in a booklet entitled La Fondazione

dell’Impero nei discorsi del Duce alle grandi adunate del popolo italiano con una traduzione latinadi Nicola Festa (Mussolini 1936a). The reactions of the Italian press were summarized in the

first issue of Per lo studio e l’uso del latino (1939: 99–100). On Festa, see Traglia (1984).

3 We discovered three identical printed copies of an anonymous translation in the archive

of the Istituto Nazionale di Studi Romani at Rome (uncatalogued), with manual correc-

tions of typographic and grammatical mistakes. In this translation, the lines are rendered

as: Italia tandem suum habet imperium. Lictorium quia cum Lictoriae fidei tum voluntatis

maiestatisque indelebilia vestigia gerit (see Mussolini, ‘Discorso’). Giovanni Battista Pighi

published a third translation in the academic journal Aevum (Mussolini 1936b: 451), in

which he translates Imperium iam tandem Italiae restitutum est. Lictorium imperium quod

immortali Romanorum fascium auctoritate nitatur.

4 A letter from D’Annunzio to Mussolini in which he announces these plans is cited by

Pighi in Mussolini (1936b: 449).

5 References to the role of the Latin language in Fascist culture are notably absent from the

most authoritative accounts of Neo-Latin literature in Italy (IJsewijn 1990: 54–82, Feo

1986, Giustiniani 1979, IJsewijn-Jacobs 1961) or relevant anthologies (Kytzler 1972:

541–61). The political and ideological role of Latin in Fascist education during the

period 1939–43 is treated in Fedeli (1977) with particular emphasis on pan-Latinism.

On Latin in Fascist education, see further note 17. The significance of Latin in Fascist

culture more generally is briefly mentioned in Bordoni and Contessa (2009: 102), Waquet

(2002: 262, 265–66), Golino (1994: 61–62), and Canfora (1980: 96; 101–13), yet it is

generally absent from discussions of how classicists helped to shape the Fascist notion of

romanita (e.g. Arthurs 2012, Nelis 2011, Naf 2001, Cagnetta & Schiano 1999, Giordano

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literature of Italian Fascism in its cultural and political contexts, exploring what it

meant to write in Latin in Fascist Italy. Rather than focusing on the facts and figures

of the use of Latin, we aim to investigate its cultural meanings and the ways in which

these evolved and were constructed during the ventennio fascista.6 After introducing

first the authors and then the readers of Fascist Latin texts as well as their cultural

and institutional contexts, we analyse a number of these texts which illustrate dif-

ferent ideological functions that Latin assumed during the ventennio: Latin as the

language of romanita, as a modern and a specifically Fascist language, as a national

and an international language, and finally as the language of Italian imperialism. We

conclude with a number of suggestions for possible avenues of future research. As an

Appendix, we provide a list of Latin texts with Italian Fascist themes, which we

hope will serve as a bibliographical aid for such research and offer an impression of

the range and scope of this literature.

The authors of Fascist Latin literature

Who was behind the Latin literature of Italian Fascism? Although many of the

authors are only known to us from their work, it is possible to get a general sense

of the backgrounds of those who composed in Latin on Fascist themes. Most of the

authors were, in some capacity, involved in classical education at Italian universities,

schools, or colleges. Professors of classics at Italian universities, like Nicola Festa

(mentioned above) and Giorgio Pasquali (1885–1952), put their knowledge of Latin

to the service of Fascism.7 The largest group, however, were teachers at Italian high

1993, and Cagnetta 1979). Individual Fascist Latin compositions have hardly been stu-

died at all. Bragantini (1998) is exceptional for editing the inscriptions composed in

honour of Benito Mussolini by the Italian Latinist Ettore Stampini. On Fascist Latin

epigraphy, see note 27. Fera (2006: 311–16) mentions Fascist compositions by Alfredo

Bartoli, Giuseppe Morabito, and Francesco Sofia Alessio in his discussion of their mutual

relationship. Scriba (2003) presents Luigi Taberini’s poem Fascis lictorius for the German

classroom, while Aicher (2000: 130–32) cites sections of the Codex fori Mussolini by

Aurelio Giuseppe Amatucci in his discussion of the Foro Italico and the myth of

Augustan Rome (see note 22). We have recently provided a brief factual overview of

Fascist Latin literature in Lamers, Reitz-Joosse, and Sacre (2014) and discussed the city

of Rome in Fascist Latin literature in Lamers and Reitz-Joosse (2014). We also taught a

graduate seminar on Fascist Latin in Leiden (2013), and one of the participants published

her work on Anacleto Trazzi’s Augustalia (1937) as De Vries and Tacoma (2014).

6 Our approach is indebted to Francoise Waquet (2002: 173–270) in that we ask ‘what

Latin meant’.

7 Other professors of classics involved in Latin composition on Fascist topics were

Giuseppe Aurelio Amatucci (1935–44: professor of Latin literature at the Universita

Cattolica di S. Cuore, Milan), Francesco Lo Parco, Giovanni Battista Pighi (1936–68:

professor of Latin literature at the University of Bologna), and Ettore Stampini (1897–

1930: professor of Latin literature at the University of Turin).

L I N G U A L I C T O R I A

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schools, who composed both texts designed for use in schools and more ambitious

prose and poetry,8 as well as several clerics (some of them also school teachers).9

It is important not to generalize about the motivations of these authors. In most

cases, we know little about the background of the compositions. Certainly not all

who wrote in Latin on Fascist themes were themselves ardent Fascists. Motivations

ranged from genuine enthusiasm for the movement and missionary zeal in its cause

to encouragement or even definite pressure from the regime in various forms.

Giuseppe Morabito (1900–97), teacher and author of many (non-Fascist) Latin

poems, recounts an enlightening episode in his autobiography.10 According to his

own version of events, a school inspector, Aurelio Giuseppe Amatucci (1867–1960),

visited his school and questioned him on charges of political disloyalty. In his de-

fence, Morabito referred to his participation in the ‘Concorso Dux’, a contest for the

best Latin poem in praise of Mussolini, organized by the Associazione Nazionale

Insegnanti Fascisti (ANIF) in 1929. Morabito claimed to have submitted a poem of

400 hexameters in praise of Mussolini and Fascist Italy, a kind of Fascist laudes

Italiae.11 Amatucci was interested, asked Morabito to show him the unpublished

poem, and even took an excerpt with him on his departure. This episode illustrates

that the sole fact of writing a Latin poem in praise of Fascism does not in itself reveal

anything decisive about an author’s political allegiances or motivations. Morabito,

like most classicists at the time, had to negotiate considerable external pressures and

‘encouragements’. His stance towards the regime may have been even more complex

than he was later prepared to admit. Although in his autobiography he insisted that

he knew very little about politics,12 he did in fact suggest to the director of the

Istituto di Studi Romani (on which see p. 5) that he should write to Mussolini

personally and ask his support for the establishment of an annual Latin poetry

8 For example, Fernando Maria Brignoli, Nazareno Capo (Reale Liceo Nazareno),

Tommaso Frosini (Reale Liceo-Ginnasio di Capodistria), Luigi Illuminati (later profes-

sor of Latin literature at the University of Messina, 1940–56), Nello Martinelli, Giovanni

Mazza (Scuola di Avviamento in Torre del Greco int. al.), Paolino Menna (Reale Liceo

Jacopo Sannazaro, Naples), Virgilio Paladini, Francesco Sofia Alessio (since 1928 librar-

ian in Reggio di Calabrio), and Francesco Stanco.

9 For example, the Jesuit Vittorio Genovesi, Can. Salvatore Gianelli, Mons. Domenico

Migliazza, Can. Francesco Quattrone, and Mons. Anacleto Trazzi.

10 Morabito (1972: 109–15).

11 Morabito (1972: 112). More than fifty Latinists participated in the ‘Concorso Dux’, on

which see further Fera (2006: 311–12).

12 Morabito (1972: 112): ‘Guardi, ispettore: io di politica m’intendo poco. La mia vita e

scuola e casa. Ha visto quanti compiti faccio fare? Non posso aver tempo per prender

parte a riunioni e ad altri doveri. Cio non vuol dire affatto che io sia un antifascista; io

sono un cittadino’ (‘Now look, inspector: I know little about politics. My life consists of

school and home. Have you seen how much homework I set? I cannot make time for

participating in reunions and other duties. This is however not at all to say that I am an

anti-Fascist; I am a citizen’).


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contest in Rome. ‘And it would certainly be a beautiful spectacle’, Morabito wrote,

‘within the current revival of classical studies, to be able to attend this celebration of

romanita every year, for example at the Capitol Hill’.13 Despite keeping his distance

from party politics, Morabito was well aware that a contest of Latin poetry would be

perfectly consistent with the cult of romanita promoted by the regime, and he was

prepared to take advantage of this fact.

The encounter between Amatucci and Morabito also illustrates how authors

could be actively stimulated or even pressured to produce Latin compositions on

Fascist themes. The competition organized by the ANIF is just one example of such

institutional support. Most important for the revival of Latin under Fascism was the

Istituto di Studi Romani (ISR). Founded in 1925 by Carlo Galassi Paluzzi (1893–

1972), the ISR was designed to encourage the academic study and general public

knowledge of Rome in all its aspects from antiquity to the present day.14 Being

neither a government organization nor an entirely private enterprise, the institute

provided a crucial point of intersection between the realms of politics and aca-

demia.15 With the explicit support (and under the honorary presidency) of

Mussolini himself, the ISR developed a concerted programme for the revival of

Latin both inside and outside Italy. Apart from competitions in Latin composition,

this included the preparation of a dictionary for use in schools, the compilation of

specialized lexica designed to turn Latin into an up-to-date international academic

language, and the establishment of the ‘Ufficio nazionale di traduzione per la lingua

latina’, which produced Latin summaries of academic publications.16 Not only the

ANIF and the ISR, but even the Fascist Ministry of Education supported a series of

national certamina of Latin prose composition and conversation. This was part of the

Ministry’s project of strengthening the position of Latin in schools more generally,

most notably under Giovanni Gentile (1922–24) and Giuseppe Bottai (1929–32 and

1936–43). The latter’s educational reform, known as the ‘Carta della scuola’ (1939),

promoted Latin for as many students as possible, resulting in what has been called a

wave of ‘pan-Latinism’.17 Institutionalized support for the Latin language made

13 This was in 1939–40. See Gionta (2006: 217–23) who cites from Morabito’s letter: ‘E

sarebbe certo un bello spettacolo, in questo rifiorire di studi classici, poter assistere per es.

in Campidoglio annualmente a questa celebrazione della romanita’ (Gionta 2006: 219).

14 For a concise overview of the history and agenda of the ISR, see Visser (2000). A balanced

account of the role of the ISR in Fascist cultural politics is Arthurs (2012: 29–49). On the

role of the ISR journal Roma in Fascist constructions of romanita, see La Penna (2001).

15 Nelis (2010: 397).

16 Carlo Galassi Paluzzi’s endeavours to promote Latin are briefly discussed in Gionta

(2006: 211–14). On the role of the ISR in reviving Latin in the period 1939–43 as part

of the nation-wide educational reforms of the regime, see Fedeli (1977).

17 Waquet (2002: 29) observes that this pan-Latinism outlived Fascism. The impact of the

‘Carta della scuola’ on the position of Latin and its relation to pan-Latinism is discussed

in Fedeli (1977). For a concise overview of the role of Latin in Fascist education see

Bordoni and Contessa (2009) and, more extensively, Bruni (2005: 77–100). On the


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itself felt in direct and indirect ways, and the texts we are about to consider should be

understood in the context of this political climate.

Multiple audiences in present and future

In his introduction to Festa’s translation of Mussolini’s speeches, the editor

Giuseppe Rispoli reflects on the intended public of this and similar texts.

According to Rispoli, the translation gives the speeches a ‘monumental form’ ap-

propriate to a ‘historical document destined to defy the centuries’, suggesting an

envisaged readership in the distant future.18 At the same time, the editor insists that

the translations should be read by as many Italian contemporaries as possible as well

as by school children in Italy, the colonies, and beyond.19 Finally, he also sees these

translations as rendering Mussolini’s speeches accessible to foreigners whose Italian

might not be sufficient for understanding the nuances of the Duce’s words.20 These

different reader groups referred to by Rispoli are precisely the intended addressees

of Fascist Latin literature as we meet them again and again: all Italians who read

Latin, the young,21 an international public, and a readership in the remote future —

although few texts are meant to address all of these groups simultaneously.22

language politics regarding Latin in schools under Fascism, see Klein (1986: 61–62). On

the great educational reform of 1923, the ‘riforma Gentile’, see Charnitzky (1994: 73–

154), with pages 91–93 on the strengthening of the ancient languages, especially Latin (in

the first year of the liceo classico, a third of a student’s weekly lessons were Latin lessons).

18 Rispoli in Mussolini (1936a: 5): ‘la forma monumentale di un documento storico desti-

nato a sfidare i secoli’.

19 Rispoli in Mussolini (1936a: 6): ‘dare ad esso una piu larga diffusione e soprattutto di

farlo conoscere agli alunni delle nostre scuole, in Italia, nelle colonie e all’estero’.

20 Rispoli in Mussolini (1936a: 5–6): ‘[E]sso permette agli stranieri di conoscere i pensieri

del Duce con la loro perfetta rispondenza alle intime convinzione del popolo italiano,

senza possibilita di equivoci o malintesi derivanti da scarsa conoscenza della nostra lingua

o da manchevoli traduzioni . . .’.21 Some texts were specifically written for an educational setting, such as Stanco (1935;

1938), Margani Nicosia (1938), Terralbi [= Bartoli] (1940), and perhaps also Amatucci

(1933a).

22 Another text written with nearly all of these different groups in mind is the Codex fori

Mussolini by Aurelio Giuseppe Amatucci, dating to 1932. The Codex is a prose text of

some 1400 words, which was calligraphed onto parchment and buried in the foundations

of the marble obelisk at the Foro Mussolini (today’s Foro Italico), a sports complex in the

north of Rome. The text deals with the history of Fascism and its leader (whom it

describes in messianic terms), the Opera Nazionale Balilla (the Fascist youth organiza-

tion), and the Foro and obelisk themselves. The text was published four times in editions

accessible to contemporaries (Amatucci 1932, 1933a, 1933b, and 1937), but the main

intended audience appears to have been a readership in the remote future. In an edition of

this text with introduction, translation, and commentary which we are currently com-

pleting, we argue that the text was intended to provide an authorized version of Fascist


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In practice, however, the more demanding compositions would have circulated

almost exclusively among specialists: those who were themselves engaged with Latin

on a daily basis as teachers, scholars, or educated dilettants.23 Those publishing their

Latin texts in separate editions circulated them among their networks of enthusiasts

and connoisseurs, or sent them to the ISR, possibly for mention or review in one of

its journals.24 Poems and short prose texts were also published in journals for spe-

cific audiences.25 Sometimes, the Latin text was accompanied by an Italian trans-

lation, suggesting that such publications could also be aimed at less competent

Latinists.26

Finally, Latin texts also meant something to the many who could not translate or

understand them. This is especially relevant in the case of the numerous Fascist

Latin inscriptions, which appeared in Rome, Italy, and the colonies, and which were

visible both to those who could understand them and to those who knew no Latin.27

Even for the latter, however, the use of Latin could convey a sense of monumentality

history, in case of future rediscovery of Fascist remains. As far as we know, the original of

the Codex remains in position under the obelisk to this day.

23 Traces of such reading networks can sometimes be found in the publications themselves.

For example, Lo Parco (1938: 9–10) cites Festa’s translation of Mussolini’s speeches, and

Trazzi and Sofia Alessio read and commented upon the poems of Salvatore Giannelli

before publication (Giannelli 1940: 3). Morabito even wrote a book-length commentary

on Sofia Alessio’s poetry (unpublished, 1922), to which Sofia Alessio responded with a

treatise entitled ‘Osservazioni sullo studio critico delle mie poesie latine ed italiane fatto

dal Signor Giuseppe Morabito’ (Fera 2006: 323).

24 In the library of the Istituto Nazionale di Studi Romani we found, for example, Giannelli

(1940) with a dated post stamp on the cover, and Giammaria (1934) with a handwritten

dedication to the presidency of the Istituto di Studi Romani.

25 Latin compositions were published in classics journals such as Aevum and Il mondo

classico as well as in the Ministry’s journal of secondary education Scuola e cultura.

The richly illustrated journal Roma universa published articles in Latin and opened its

first issue with a Latin address to its readers translated by Vincenzo Ussani and typeset in

‘Roman’ small capitals (see ‘Nuntius’ and p. 21 on Roma universa). The Catholic journal

Alma Roma was published entirely in Latin and included Fascist Latin compositions

such as Genovesi (1937).

26 For example, Vittorio Genovesi’s ‘Mare nostrum’ contained an avvertenza informing the

reader that ‘the Italian translation was not produced for literary purposes, but only to

help those who are less trained in the Latin language to understand the text’ (see

Genovesi 1942: 2: ‘la traduzione italiana non e stata fatta a scopo letterario, ma solo

per facilitare l’intelligenza del testo ai meno esercitati nella lingua latina’).

27 Waquet (2002: 262) briefly points out that the cult of romanita led to a revival of the Latin

epigraphic tradition, which was expected to become ‘an essential element in the regime’s

works’. On individual Fascist inscriptions, see Munzi (2004: 86, 88) on Fascist inscrip-

tions in Libya and Strobl (2012; 2013) on Fascist inscriptions in Bozen. Some Fascist

inscriptions in Rome are recorded in Lansford (2009), Bartels (2000), and Ferraironi

(1937). A general overview of Latin epigraphy under Fascism is still lacking.


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and solemnity. Furthermore, the name of Mussolini, sometimes even rendered in

capitals, would have been easily distinguishable, suggesting even to the casual ob-

server an association between the ancient language and the leader of the Fascist

movement.

Latin and Fascist romanita: Luigi Illuminati’s Dux

There was, then, a sizeable group of authors of Fascist Latin, who were ambitiously

(and not always realistically) aiming at a very wide readership. There was also sig-

nificant institutional backing for this revival of Latin. All this suggests that the Latin

language must have been of special importance for the Italian Fascist movement.

Original texts in Latin as well as contemporary reflections about the language can

help us to understand how and why Latin acquired this special role during the

ventennio.

The most obvious and yet most complex function of Latin was its role in the

evocation of Roman antiquity. The Fascist concept of ‘Romanness’, romanita, was

extremely flexible, based on a selective and creative appropriation of ancient Rome

for specific purposes.28 To illustrate this, we now turn to a triptych of poems which

exemplifies some of the ways in which ancient Rome and Fascist Italy could be

connected, as well as the role which the Latin language could play in forging such

connections.

The Latin poetry competition ‘Concorso Dux’ in which Morabito had partici-

pated (see p. 4), was eventually won by Luigi Illuminati (1881–1962).29 His suc-

cessful contribution consisted of a triptych of lyric poems (the first in Asclepiads, the

second in Alcaics, the third in Sapphic stanzas), entitled ‘Dux Populi’, ‘Dux

Militum’, and ‘Dux Italiae’ respectively.30 The first, ‘Dux Populi’, celebrated

Mussolini’s role in World War I, glorified Italy’s heroic war victory, and lamented

the subsequent political failure to capitalize on these successes (a typical Fascist

theme). The second poem (‘Dux Militum’) dealt with the March on Rome in 1922and the Fascist seizure of power, while the final one (‘Dux Italiae’) extolled recent

peacetime projects of the Fascist regime in the domains of agriculture, land reclam-

ation, construction, education, excavation of ancient ruins, and the reconciliation

with the Catholic Church. In all three poems, Roman antiquity is adduced as an

28 Scholarship on romanita is extensive and cannot be summarized here in detail. For good

introductions to the subject in English, see Visser (1992), Stone (1999), and Nelis

(2007a). For recent and well-researched bibliographies on the subject, see Arthurs

(2012) and Nelis (2007b).

29 The winner (who received 50,000 lire) was announced in Scuola media fascista on 29

December 1931 (Fera 2006: 311).

30 The Dux-triptych was published several times, most notably in Illuminati (1932) and

Illuminati (1933: 166–82). On the poem, see Traina (2001), reprinted in Traina (2003:

287–88), with useful references. Illuminati also translated a number of Fascist mottos and

quotations of Mussolini into Latin: Illuminati (1933: 230–35).


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inspiration for the Italians of the poet’s own time as well as an explanation of the

‘innate’ greatness of the heirs of Rome, now called upon by history to renew the

ancient glory of their forebears under the auspices of Fascism.

As a revolutionary ideology, Fascism never encouraged a simple return to the

Roman past. Recent work on Fascist ideology such as that of Joshua Arthurs has

shown how the concept of romanita binds together past and future and serves as a

source of dynamic values derived from ancient Rome to shape an essentially modern

and revolutionary future.31 The ultimate realization of romanita was not envisaged as

the restoration of the Roman Empire, not as a historical reconstruction of its original

existence, but as its renewal in modern times and in modern ways.32 This rhetoric of

renewal (renovatio) informs Illuminati’s Dux as much as most other Latin texts of this

period: ‘Dux Italiae’ alone contains six instances of the word novus and its cognates.33

Throughout all three poems runs the idea that the Roman past, glorious as it was, can

now serve as inspiration for bringing about an even more glorious future.34

In Illuminati’s Dux-triptych, ancient Rome, whether it manifests itself in visions,

physical ruins, or words, inspires the Italian people and guides it towards the ‘Roman’

glory promised by the new regime. As the ‘blackshirts’ (subuculae nigrae) march towards

Rome along ‘ancient roads’ (vetustas . . . vias) in Illuminati’s ‘Dux Militum’, these

Roman thoroughfares inspire in the young men a vivid vision of their Roman forebears:

Sensere fortes historiam loqui

vestigiorum, Caesareos equos

hinnire per noctem, fugaces

ut radios aquilas micare.35

The courageous men feel the historical traces speak to them, the horses of Caesar neigh

through the night, and the Roman eagles glitter like quick flashes of lightning.

31 Arthurs (2012). More generally, Griffin (2007) argues that Fascism cannot be regarded as

anti-modern movement but on the contrary presented its own peculiar version of mod-

ernism. On the complex and evolving relation between romanita, modernism, and Fascist

architecture, see Gentile (2007).

32 See Griffin (2007: 222).

33 Illuminati (1932: 10): iura dant normas nova (‘new laws provide rules’); Dum novis rident

segetes in arvis j per maris currit nova classis aequor, j acta sublimis nova classis alis j aethera

findit (‘While the new crops laugh in the fields, a new fleet flies across the surface of the

sea, and a new fleet, propelled on high by its wings, cleaves the skies’) and Illuminati

(1932: 12): et student . . . reperire vires j rebus inclusas, sociare, ferre j ad novos usus . . . (‘And

they strive to discover powers hidden in the material world, to combine them, and to put

them to new uses . . . ’); opes nostrae renovantur omnes (‘All our powers are renewed’).

34 Illuminati (1932: 6): nunc fata vobiscum feretis j Italiae melioris. Eia! (‘Now you will carry

with you the fate of a better Italy. Eia!’) and Illuminati (1932: 10): nunc bonis addens

meliora, fulget j Itala Tellus (‘Now Mother Earth of Italy is resplendent, adding better

things to good ones’).

35 Illuminati (1932: 6).


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This imagined, almost mystical presence of ancient Rome is complemented by the

inspiring presence of visible physical remains: the ‘shades of Rome’ (umbraeRomanae) salute the blackshirts on their arrival in the capital ‘from the silent col-

umns’ (ex tacitis columnis), and the newly excavated ‘monuments of the fore-

fathers . . . return shining to the sunlight and move the hearts of the descendants’

(monumenta partum . . . clara sub solem redeunt moventque j corda nepotum).36

There is, finally, another Roman presence which Illuminati depicts as endowed

with this special inspirational power: the words and the language of ancient Rome. At

the opening of ‘Dux Militum’, Mussolini calls his blackshirts to action and to the

March on Rome by citing a well-known Livian phrase:

Dux: ‘Eia – clamat – Fortia, milites,

Romana virtus est facere et pati:

vos jussit haec vicisse bellum,37

praemia parta jubet tueri . . .’38

The Dux calls: ‘Eia! Soldiers! To act and to suffer bravely is the Roman virtue: this virtue

ordered you to win the war, and it orders you now to protect the rewards which grew from it . . .’

These are the words which Livy puts into the mouth of the republican hero Mucius

Scaevola, who gives proof of Roman bravery to the Etruscan king Lars Porsena by

burning away his own right hand in a sacrificial fire without any sign of pain.39

Illuminati imagines the ‘Dux’ as citing these very words as inspiration and

36 Illuminati (1932: 8, 12). Here and elsewhere, we see Illuminati depicting the relation

between ancient Romans and Italian Fascists as one between patres and nepotes, fore-

fathers and descendants. See also animos avitae res alunt gestae: ‘the deeds of the fore-

fathers inspire the minds’ (Illuminati 1932: 10).

37 In classical Latin, the perfect infinitive (vicisse) should denote that the infinitive’s action

predates that of the main verb, impossible in this context (see Kuhner and Stegmann

1971: §126.2, Anm. 1). We translate vicisse as if it were the present infinitive that we

would expect after iubeo (Kuhner and Stegmann 1971: §127.12).

38 Illuminati (1932: 6).

39 Liv. 2.12.9: et facere et pati fortia Romanum est. Illuminati himself may not have been

aware of (or interested in) the exact origin of this phrase: in his own notes which accom-

pany the poem and translation in both the 1932 and 1933 editions, he speaks of the

‘ricordo romano e virgiliano del facere et pati fortia’ (Illuminati 1932: 14, emphasis added).

Illuminati himself translates facere et pati as ‘fare e resistere’ (‘to do and to withstand’) —

an idiosyncratic translation of pati which removes the passive and accepting connotations

of the word, adapting it to the Fascist ideal of vigorous action and activity (Illuminati

1932: 7). The phrase et facere et pati fortia Romanum est was also used as one of the twelve

inscriptions in the ‘Sala dell’Impero’ at the ‘Mostra Augustea della Romanita’ (Giglioli

1938: 24) and adorns the interior of a Fascist monument, the Mausoleo Ossario

Garibaldino on the Gianicolo. This mausoleum was inaugurated in 1941 and dedicated

to those who had died in the battles for Rome between the siege of Garibaldi in 1849 and

the final capture of Rome in 1870.


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encouragement for the perceived successors to Scaevola’s Roman virtus. The use of a

Latin phrase is an important element of the poet’s evocation of romanita. At the time

of composition of Illuminati’s poem, Latin was increasingly theorized as the lan-

guage uniquely suited to expressing the ‘Roman spirit’ (‘spirito romano’) which was

to inspire the Italians. For example, in 1933, the Third National Congress of Roman

Studies passed a joint statement to the effect that

the cult of classical antiquity and of the Roman tradition in which the national feeling of the

Italians is rooted cannot be disconnected from an adequate knowledge of the Latin language,

which makes it possible to access the spirit of Rome (‘lo spirito di Roma’).40

Within the fiction of Illuminati’s poem, Mussolini’s Latin citation of Livy inspires

the blackshirts to their ‘brave’ seizure of power. But on another level, Illuminati’s

own poetry, too, is written in this uniquely inspiring language, which gives it the

power to kindle this ‘spirito di Roma’ in the Italian people. Dux not only depicts

Rome’s renewal under Fascism, it also presents Latin as a language particularly

suited to celebrating this renovatio:

Hoc opus felix Ducis est: ab imis

hoc opes nostrae renovantur omnes:

hoc suis gaudet celebrare chordis

Musa latina.

This is the prosperous work of the Duce: because of this, all our strength is renewed from the

roots. This the Latin Muse, plucking at her strings, is happy to celebrate.

The Musa latina also undergoes her own renovatio. In the introduction to

Illuminati’s poems, the classical philologist and linguist Alfredo Schiaffini (1895–

1971) praises them because, despite their ancient form, they express ‘the completely

modern passion which beats in our hearts’. The lyric metres which Illuminati uses,

though ‘handed down from the distant past, become invested with the flame of a new

life’.41 The Latin language, too, is not restored but renewed. Schiaffini picks up on

40 See the minutes of the meeting in Solmi, Stella, and Ussani (1934: 86): ‘Il culto dell’an-

tichita classica e della tradizione romana nel quale ha radice il sentimento nazionale

italiano, non [puo] andare disgiunto da una conoscenza adeguata della lingua latina che

permetta di penetrare lo spirito di Roma’. The National Congress of Roman Studies

(‘Congresso Nazionale di Studi Romani’) was a huge annual event organized by the ISR

to bring together scholars working on all aspects of Roman culture, from ancient times to

modernity, and from urban planning to classical philology. It also included papers in

Latin.

41 Schiaffini in Illuminati (1932: 3): ‘la passione affatto moderna che pulsa negli animi’;

‘tramandati dal lontano passato, vengono investiti dalla fiamma di una nuova vita . . . ’.

(emphases added).


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Illuminati’s portrayal of the Italians as the nepotes of the ancient Romans by calling

Illuminati himself the ‘last legitimate descendant of Horace’.42 Inspired by his poetic

forefather, Illuminati has created something new and entirely modern. Through his

use of the ancient language and metres, they have been reinvigorated, renewed, and

ultimately improved.

Schiaffini’s introduction exemplifies a specific kind of Fascist renovatio-rhetoric.

The editor suggests that there is a direct, almost spiritual relationship between the

ancient poet and Illuminati, similarly to the inspirational communication between

antiquity and Fascism which formed a central theme in Illuminati’s own triptych. For

Schiaffini, the period between antiquity and the present is merely one of preserving

and of handing down (‘tramandare’), while Fascism, and only Fascism, is able to

rekindle the flame of romanita. Schiaffini, and many others like him, chose not to

emphasize the long and lively tradition of Latin language and literature through the

ages, its earlier renovatio during Italian humanism, or its continuing development as

the language of the Catholic Church. By this omission, they could suggest an entirely

unique connection between antiquity and Fascist Italy. However, others did choose

specifically to emphasize the diverse ancestry of Fascist Latinity (see for example

pp. 24–25 on Alfredo Bartoli’s reflections on humanism and neo-classicism and the

Jesuit Vittorio Genovesi’s emphasis on Latin’s Christian heritage).

Latin as a modern Fascist language

The revolutionary and modernist roots of Fascism had initially led to scepticism

about the value of an ancient language such as Latin for the new order which the

movement aspired to achieve.43 However, this viewpoint was rapidly superseded by

the notion that Latin was perfectly suitable for expressing modern thoughts in a

modern world. As the Fascists became increasingly infatuated with ancient Rome,

many classicists and Latin enthusiasts worked hard to emphasize the relevance of

Latin in modern life. Addressing the Congresso di Studi Romani in 1935, the clas-

sicist and dialectologist Carlo Vignoli (1878–1938) self-confidently claimed that the

times of anti-intellectualist and anti-classicist iconoclasm had now passed for good.

He then argued that modernity and classicism were not mutually exclusive, pointing

to the widespread use of Latin in the field of aviation. According to Vignoli, the

Latin language was perfectly capable of capturing and expressing this most modern

of innovations in which the Italian nation, of course, excelled. Adducing countless

examples of Latin used in the context of aviation, Vignoli discussed Latin mottoes

on airplanes and in airports and Latin inscriptions on monuments and medals. He

also cited two recent poems in elegiac couplets, dedicated to Benito Mussolini’s sons

42 Schiaffini in Illuminati (1932: 3): ‘ultima prole legittima di Orazio’.

43 On the initial hostility towards the academic study of the past and plans to remove Latin

and Greek from the school curriculum, as well as later developments, see Arthurs (2012:

33–41). For a brief analysis of the cultural roots of this radical stance towards antiquity,

see Arthurs (2012: 15–23).


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Vittorio and Bruno Mussolini respectively on the occasion of the attainment of their

pilot’s licences.44 The first of these, dedicated to Vittorio by an unnamed enthusiast,

ran:

Immensum coeli spatium, carissime Victor,

Vix puer, impavido vincere pectore scis.

Gratulor atque tibi: maiora et vincere disce.

Aemulus esto patris: vincere disce homines.

Barely a young man, dearest Vittorio, you know how to conquer the immense expanse of the

sky with your fearless heart. And I congratulate you: learn also to conquer greater tasks.

Emulate your father: learn how to conquer men.

Newspapers for a general public, too, promoted the idea that Latin did ‘not belong to

the remote past but to today and tomorrow, for [the Italians], sons and heirs of

Rome’.45

But Vignoli goes further than only illustrating the ‘modernity’ of the Latin lan-

guage. He suggests that Latin was suited to modernity also in the sense that it was

suited to Fascism as a superior form of modern life.46 Aurelio Giuseppe Amatucci

(see pp. 3–7) likewise theorized Latin as a distinctively Fascist language. In his essay

‘Il latino e la nostra rinascita nazionale’, published as early as 1929, he claimed that

Latin composition in Italian schools ought to be a constitutive part of the ‘reevoca-

tion of the Roman world’ (‘rievocazione del mondo romano’) which was, according

to him, one of the great achievements of Fascism.47 For Amatucci, it was

an elevated sign of our regained national spirit to express with classical majesty on solemn

occasions our new sentiments, new thoughts, and new plans – all springing from antiquity –

44 Vignoli (1938: 117). Not mentioned by Vignoli, but relevant to his point is Vittorio

Genovesi’s poem ‘Ad aerios nautas Italos’ (‘To the Italian pilots’), dating to 1928

(Genovesi 1942: 12–19).

45 From Il mattino of 9 July 1942, cited in Per lo studio (1942, 4.1: 51–52): ‘Nello spirito

fascista, il latino e vivo perche modo di concepire, di architettare periodi, di esprimersi,

non d’un tempo lontano ma di oggi e di domani, per noi, figli e continuatori di Roma. . . .Dobbiamo sforzarci non soltanto di tradurre, d’interpretare quei volumi [dei classici

latini] ma, fin dai primi anni, di pensare e di parlare in latino, aggiungendo, quando e

necessario, qualche neologismo. Solo cosı perpetueremo, anche in cio ch’essa ha di piu

spirituale e di piu profondo, la nostra civilta, che e quella di Roma’ (‘In the Fascist spirit,

Latin is alive because it is a way of conceiving, of constructing periods, of expressing

oneself, that belongs not to a distant past but to today and tomorrow, for us, sons and

heirs of Rome. . . . We have to strive not only to translate and to interpret these volumes

[of Latin classics], but also, from the first years onwards, to think and speak in Latin,

adding, when it is necessary, some neologisms. It is only in this way that we will preserve

our civilization, which is that of Rome, also in its most spiritual and deepest aspects’).

46 Vignoli (1938: 114).

47 Amatucci (1929: 16).


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in this language that was specifically shaped to address the World and by means of which

Italian thought, enlightened by Rome, created a world civilization . . .48

Amatucci’s politicization of the use of Latin went so far that in another article, published a

year later, he declared laxity in Latin studies an act of ‘true civil desertion’ (‘una vera

desercione civile’), now that Fascism had rekindled the cult of romanita.49

Importantly, these ideas were not only discussed among academics and intellectuals. They

were actually put into practice in secondary schools, where students might, for example, be

taught Latin — as well as a Fascist version of recent Italian history — with Francesco

Stanco’s Epitome di cultura fascista, a compendium of all aspects of modern Fascist Italy,

written entirely in Latin (Fig. 1). Stanco’s work took the young readers from the Fascist

revolution to the establishment of the Italian Empire, through chapters such as ‘Inanis

Victoria’ (Italy’s victory in WWI), discussions of the Italian army, navy, and air force, the

different Fascist youth organizations, the Italian military triumphs, to culminate in a chapter

entitled ‘Imperium restitutum’ and a final acclamation of Mussolini (‘Salve, DVX’), which

ended the work on a note of high pathos: ‘Hail, oh Duce, beneficent restorer of the whole of

Italy!’ (Ausoniae omnis, o Dux, alme refector, salve!). The modern subject matter also required

the creation of numerous neologisms to adapt the Latin language more fully to modern life,

such as bellica tormenta (canons), motoria scapha (motorboat), or motoria bicyclula (motor-

cycle).50 Many of the reactions to the first edition of the work in 1935 stressed the beneficial

symbiosis of Latin and Fascism that Stanco had apparently achieved. Senator Emilio

Bodrero (1874–1949), for example, wrote that in Stanco’s Epitome, ‘narrated in Latin,

Fascism seem[ed] to elevate itself with true Roman greatness’.51

Even Mussolini himself stressed the important role that Latin had to play in Fascist

Italy. When awarding prizes to the winners of the national Latin prose competition in

1940 (Fig. 2), he stated that Latin was ‘the language of our times, of our very difficult but

also very beautiful Fascist times’ (emphasis added) and continued:

[Latin] places us under a serious obligation, because it is the language of a people of soldiers,

of conquerors, of builders, of legislators, of victors.52

48 Amatucci (1929: 25): ‘. . . un alto segno del nostro riacquistato spirito nazionale

l’esprimere con maesta classica in solenni circonstanze, i nostri sentimenti nuovi, i

nuovi pensieri e i nuovi propositi, che tutti dall’Antico procedono, in quella lingua,

che fu plasmata per parlare all’Orbe e per mezzo della quale il pensiero italiano, illumi-

nato da Roma, creo nel mondo una civilta . . .’.49 Amatucci (1930: 49).

50 Stanco (1938: 69 with note 22, 92 with note 14, and 93 with note 5). Such neologisms are

always translated into Italian in the accompanying notes. The ISR also actively supported

the ‘modernization’ of Latin via specialized lexica designed to ‘update’ Latin (see above

p. 5).

51 Cited in Stanco (1938: 149): ‘L’ho letto con vivo piacere; narrato in latino, il fascismo

sembra crescersi di vera grandezza romana’.

52 Cited in Per lo studio (1941, 3.1: 35): ‘E la lingua del nostro tempo, di questo durissimo ma

bellissimo tempo fascista. Essa ci impegna severamente perche e la lingua di un popolo di

soldati, di conquistatori, di costruttori, di legislatori, di vincitori’. See also Per lo studio

(1939, 2.1: 70–71). Mussolini’s statements about Latin were also reported in the journal


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Fig. 1. Stanco (1938: 13) from chapter ‘Lictoria fides et Italia’.


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Fig. 2. Mussolini congratulating the winners of the 4th Concorso Nazionale di Prosa Latina. From Roma:

Rivista di studi e di vita romana 12 (1939), fig. lxxxiii (between p. 518 and p. 519).


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By the early 1940s, the language of ancient Rome had come to be seen as an appro-

priate vehicle to express specifically Fascist sentiments, thoughts, and ideas. It was

no longer regarded as an obsolete remnant from the past, but as the perfect expres-

sion of the new spirit of Italian Fascism.

Latin as a national and supranational language

Closely related to the alleged Fascist characteristics of the Latin language was its

function as a national language. The Italians’ special claim to Latin was a matter of

immense national pride. Vignoli described it as ‘the patent of nobility of our people

before all the peoples of the world’.53 As racism gained ground in the early 1940s,

claims to Latin grew more aggressive and exclusive: Latin was now called ‘the vivid,

eternal, expressive force’ and ‘the true face’ of the Italian race.54

Conversely, the ventennio fascista also witnessed a considerable effort to stimulate

the use of the language on an international scale. The ISR zealously promoted Latin

as a supranational means of scientific communication.55 The project’s mouthpiece,

the journal Per lo studio e l’uso del latino (For the Study and Use of Latin) gathered

contributions (often in Latin) about the state of Latin studies from all over the

world.56 It also contained reflections on the important role of Latin in the world.

For instance, Vincenzo Ussani (1870–1952), professor of Latin and himself author

of a Latin translation of a work by Mussolini (on which see p. 21), contributed a

of the ISR: see Roma (1939, 17.12: 521 and 1941, 18.10-11: 327). Nelis (2007a: 397)

observes that Mussolini had ‘a certain, albeit limited knowledge of Latin’.

53 See Vignoli (1938: 114): ‘il diploma di nobilta di nostra gente di fronte a tutte le genti del

mondo’.

54 From Il mattino of 9 July 1942, cited in Per lo studio (1942, 4.1: 51–52): ‘Se noi italiani

vogliamo una lingua aulica, curiale, comune, per esprimere i grandi pensieri non affa-

tichiamo troppo, in inani sforzi, le menti alle ricerca del nuovo e dell’artificiale: abbiamo il

latino, viva, eterna espressiva forza della stirpe’. See also the Corriere padano of 13 June

1941, quoted in Per lo studio (1941, 3.1: 88): ‘Conoscendo il latino e la latinita noi

conosciamo il vero volto della nostra stirpe, e il Fascismo, pur dando grande impulso

alla tecnica, vuole mantenere vivo e vitale il patrimonio linguistico di Roma antica’.

Canfora (1980: 96, 101-03) highlights the role of racial thought in Fascist visions of

Latin, but this phenomenon seems to be restricted to the later ‘30s and early ‘40s. On

the interrelation of imperialism, racism, and romanita during this later period, see

Arthurs (2012: 125–50).

55 Waquet (2002: 265–66) also points to the support of the Third National Congress of

Roman Studies and the ‘Circolo di Cultura fra i Ragioneri dell’Urbe’ for ‘spreading the

Fascist spirit’ abroad via Latin.

56 Per lo studio e l’uso del latino. Bollettino internazionale di studi-ricerche-informazioni, issued

in the period between 1939 and 1942, was meant as an international platform for the

promotion of the use and study of the Latin language in the world. Contributions were

submitted from all over the world, from Scandinavia to Spain and from Romania to the

USA. On the role of Per lo studio e l’uso del latino in the ISR’s campaign to promote Latin

as an international language, see Fedeli (1977: 217–22).


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short article about the ‘unifying mission’ (‘missione unificatrice’) of the Latin lan-

guage in the history of civilization, in which he outlined the role that Latin had

previously played in uniting different peoples all over the world and projected this

function onto the modern world. Latin was to bring about a ‘humane consensus’

(‘consenso umano’) bridging national cultural traditions.57

Tensions between the different functions of the Latin language within Fascist

cultural politics were inevitable. How could Latin function as an egalitarian means of

international communication and yet also be so closely tied to the Fascist movement

of Italy?58 Far from being seen as problematic, however, this double function of

Latin was deftly exploited in ISR circles. Despite its purported supranational mis-

sion, the ISR’s journal, Per lo studio e l’uso del latino, tactfully promoted the ISR and

Rome as the centre of Latin studies worldwide. It not only stressed the role of the

institute in long and tedious lists of its achievements, but also printed Fascist claims

to the Latin language — such as those quoted on p. 13 (note 45) and p. 17

(note 54) — despite Galassi Paluzzi’s insistence that the initiative to revive Latin

was a strictly pragmatic and not a nationalist project.59 The objective behind these

tactics was made explicit in a speech by classicist Enrica Malcovati (1894–1990),

published in 1929. Discussing the renewed international interest in the use of Latin,

she points out that the ‘dignity of our race’ (‘dignita della nostra stirpe’) compels the

Italians to take a leading role in this movement: they must not allow other nations to

supersede them in reviving the Latin language.60 When finally Latin is spoken at

conferences, books are composed in Latin, and international travellers converse in

Latin, then, Malcovati argues, ‘we will have achieved a splendid spiritual victory’.61

The promotion of Latin as an internationally used language was therefore not

57 Ussani (1939: 203). The Latin language, according to him, was still able to unify the

nations of the world since it had emerged long before modern nations fractured the

world’s linguistic landscape. This is not to say that Ussani downplayed national lan-

guages: according to him, these reflected the specific traditions of each individual nation

and therefore had to be cultivated in schools.

58 Waquet (2002: 265) observes that the Fascist revival of Latin on the international stage

occurred in a nationalist context, but does not comment on the apparent conflict between

nationalist claims to Latin and its international usage.

59 Galassi Paluzzi (1939: 2). We agree with Fedeli’s analysis (1977: 217–21) that the supra-

national and pragmatic rhetoric of the ISR can hardly disguise its political agenda.

Especially Per lo studio e l’uso del latino aired distinctively nationalist and Fascist enthu-

siasm for the revival of Latin.

60 Malcovati (1929: 16).

61 Malcovati (1929: 16): ‘E quando nei congressi scientifici e nei convegni diplomatici la

lingua ufficiale sara quella degli avi nostri; quando riviste e libri che recano contributi al

patrimonio universale del sapere, saranno scritti in quella lingua che fu gia universale;

quando, viaggiando all’estero, coll’uso del latino ci potremo far intendere, e in latino ci

interrogheranno gli stranieri curiosi di vedere le meraviglie del nostro paese, noi avremo

riportato una splendida vittoria spirituale’.


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incongruous with the idea that the language essentially belonged to the Italians.

Rather, international interest in Latin itself and the leading role of Italy in its

promulgation promised a cultural victory for the Italians and for Fascism.

Successful participation in international competitions of Latin prose or poetry

composition provided another venue for establishing such Italian superiority. These

venues also allowed Italian participants to bring the achievements of Mussolini and

Fascism to the attention of a small but international and educated audience. Eminent

among these competitions was the Certamen poeticum Hoeufftianum, which was held

annually from 1844 to 1978 under the auspices of the Koninklijke Nederlandse

Akademie van Wetenschappen (Royal Dutch Academy of Arts and Sciences) and

offered a forum for various kinds of Neo-Latin poetry.62 Poems were submitted

anonymously, and winning pieces were published in a special series. Italians com-

pletely dominated the winners’ list. During the ventennio fascista alone, they were

awarded prizes thirty-nine times. Vittorio Genovesi (1935–39), Carlo Vignoli

(1924), and Giuseppe Morabito (1940) were all among those who won magna laus,

while Genovesi was also awarded the gold medal in 1936 with a poem entitled Hyle.

During this period, numerous poems with explicitly Fascist themes were submitted

to the Amsterdam jury.63 Francesco Sofia Alessio (1873–1943), for instance, sent his

‘De fascibus’ (1936) to Amsterdam: an Alcaic ode that he had composed to ‘thank

and glorify Fascism for the received benefits’.64 Disappointed by its rejection, he

suspected the jury of being prejudiced towards the Italian participants because it

could not appreciate that ‘Mussolini is a Man of Providence who is saving Christian

civilization, the civilization of Europe, and that of the world’.65 In reality, however,

the jury members seem to have evaluated submissions on what they perceived to be

62 Gionta (2006: esp. 209–23) provides an excellent overview of competitions during the

ventennio fascista.

63 In addition to various compositions with the title ‘Dux’, we find titles such as ‘Ode in

Benitum Mussolini supremum fascium ducem’ (‘Ode for Benito Mussolini, the Highest

Leader of Fascism’) and ‘De Italorum conciliatione cum Summo Pontifice facta: Carmen

Mussolini Benito dicatum’ (‘On the Reconciliation of the Italians with the Pope: Poem

Dedicated to Benito Mussolini’). See the archive of the Certamen Hoeufftianum in the

Noord-Hollands Archief at Haarlem (inv. nr. 64/2.9/832–35, covering the years 1928–

32).

64 Sofia Alessio as cited in Fera (2006: 315): ‘Un’ode alcaica ‘‘De fascibus’’ che io composi

per ringraziare e glorificare il fascismo per i benefizı ricevuti’.

65 Sofia Alessio as cited in Fera (2006: 315): ‘Ma i giudici olandesi non hanno creduto di

premiarla; non e meraviglia, le ragioni sanzioniste sono contro di noi, sono accecate,

aberrate, folli e non comprendono che Mussolini e un uomo provvidenza che salva la

civilta cristiana, la civilta dell’Europa e del mondo’ (‘But the Dutch jury members

decided not to award a prize [to my poem ‘‘De fascibus’’]; this is not surprising since

their general way of judging or rather sanctioning works against us; it is blind, erroneous,

and foolish, and [the judges] do not understand that Mussolini is a Man of Providence

who is saving Christian civilization, the civilization of Europe, and that of the world’).


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their literary and stylistic merits, not their political or ideological import.66 Even if

Sofia Alessio’s poem was not awarded a prize, in 1928 Giovanni Napoleone did win

magna laus for his ‘Carmen lustrale’, and in 1930 Giovanni Mazza (1877–1943)

obtained magna laus for his ‘Italia renata’, both poems of explicitly Fascist content.

Mazza’s ‘Italia renata’ sketched an image of Italian Fascism designed to appeal to the

international audience of classicists that the poem was to reach eventually in the

Royal Academy’s publication. In Mazza’s poem, Fascist Italy is presented, even

more explicitly than in Illuminati’s triptych Dux, as a bigger and better version of

Roman antiquity: the republican hero Camillus appears and demands a superior

leader for Rome, a wish immediately granted in the form of Mussolini. The ensuing

parades of blackshirts apparently constitute a renewal of the Roman triumph, and

Mussolini himself is portrayed as a benign and sympathetic figure. Watching the

triumphal parade,

Ridet paternus Dux et euntibus,

ridet renatis viribus italis.

Conclamat urbs aeterna.67

The fatherly Duce smiles upon them as they pass by and he smiles upon Italian strength

reborn. The eternal city calls out as one.

In the early 1930s, the role of Latin in communicating and promoting the ideas of

Italian Fascism beyond the borders of Italy also manifested itself in a more institu-

tionalized form. Initially, Mussolini had conceived of Fascism as a specifically na-

tional movement which was ‘not a product for export’ but tied to the specific

conditions in Italy.68 In 1930, however, in the face of growing Fascist movements

elsewhere in Europe and especially in Germany, Mussolini changed his tune, as-

serting that the Italian brand of Fascism was in fact ‘universal’ and exportable.69 The

‘Fascist international’ which was imagined in Italy in the early 1930s was to be

formed under Italian leadership and adopt the Italian version of Fascism, which

66 In his hand-written comments on the ‘Ode in Benitum Mussolini’ (see note 63), one jury

member (perhaps Carl Wilhelm Vollgraff) noted: ‘Niet onaardig Mussolini-gedicht.

Komt niet in aanmerking, omdat deze zeer Grieksche versmaat ook lyrische taal en

verheffing vereischt, iets waarin de schrijver geheel te kort schiet’ (‘Decent Mussolini-

poem. Ineligible, because this utterly Greek metre requires the lyric language and

sublimity that the author completely fails to achieve’). Similar remarks can be found

frequently in the hand-written jury reports.

67 Mazza (1988: 54, ll. 98–101).

68 Addressing the ‘Camera dei Deputati’ on 3 March 1928, Mussolini coined the phrase ‘il

fascismo non e un articolo di esportazione’ (cited in Scholz 2001: 208). For further

expressions of this exclusivity and the subsequent change of direction, see Scholz

(2001: 207–09).

69 Scholz (2001: 209–24).


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remained inextricably bound up with the ideal of romanita. Rome herself was to

furnish common ideals and aspirations and unite the international Fascists.

One of the organizations which aimed to promote universal Fascism of the

‘Roman’ kind abroad was the short-lived ‘Comitati d’Azione per la Universalita

di Roma’ (CAUR).70 The presence of Galassi Paluzzi and other prominent classi-

cists in the CAUR’s advisory committee lent at least the semblance of

historical foundation to the unificatory role that Rome was made to play in the

CAUR’s mission. Latin, too, was to fulfil an important function, serving as a

common language for a Fascist international union. In choosing Latin for this pur-

pose, the CAUR emphasized the language’s unificatory potential, also

highlighted by Ussani in Per lo studio e l’uso del latino. At the same time, however,

its use cemented the Italians’ primary claims to the leadership of the Fascist

international.

The bi-monthly magazine edited by the CAUR, Roma universa, contained nu-

merous articles in Latin.71 The editorial of the very first edition was printed in Latin

in Roman capitals, having been translated into that language by Vincenzo Ussani.72

Ussani was also the translator of the Beniti Mussolini Romae laudes, a collection of

pronouncements by Mussolini himself concerning the spirit of Rome and its renewal

in the present, such as the following:

Non sine aliquo fati arcano consilio pectora nostra renovato Romae amore pulsantur.73

Not without some secret plan of fate are our hearts stirred by a renewed love for Rome.

The Romae laudes were published by the CAUR in Roma universa, but also as a

separate booklet, which was likewise distributed internationally.74 In this way, the

‘export’ of the Latin language was an integral part of the reinvigoration of the Italian

nation under Fascism. Through it, Italians asserted their role as the real successors

and heirs of the Romans, who, before them, had brought the light of civilization

70 The CAUR were set up in 1933 and lasted until 1937, when their activities ceased and

they were subsumed into the Ministry of Propaganda. Their activities were especially

focused on the states of south-eastern Europe which Mussolini saw as belonging to Italy’s

natural sphere of influence. For the history and activities of this organization, see Scholz

(2001: 287–346). On the role of Carlo Galassi Paluzzi and the ISR in the promotion of

romanita among foreign students, see Visser (2001).

71 On Roma universa, see Scholz (2001: 317).

72 In the editorial, the sodales Romani addressed themselves to ‘all lovers of Rome anywhere’

(omnibus qui ubique sunt Romae amatoribus) and advertized Fascist society (lictoria civitas),

this ‘form of humane and civilized culture’, as exciting ‘in all countries incredible love’

(. . . ut haec humani civilisque cultus forma in omnibus terris amores sui incredibiles excitet)

(see ‘Nuntius’).

73 Mussolini (1934a).

74 Mussolini (1934b).


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(and the Latin language) to the world. The establishment of the Italian Empire in

May 1936 only intensified this idea.

The sign of empire: Latin and imperialism

The particular significance of using Latin to celebrate the Italian Empire comes to

the fore in a hexametric poem by the Jesuit Vittorio Genovesi (1887–1967), entitled

‘Mare nostrum’.75 Genovesi had written the poem in June 1940 in Benevento

shortly after his visit to the ‘Mostra Triennale delle Terre Italiane d’Oltremare’

in Naples. Inaugurated on 9 May 1940 by King Vittorio Emanuele III, this presti-

gious exhibition was designed as a celebration of the glory of the Italian Empire in

Africa and the Mediterranean.76 Following the order of the rooms and displays of

the exposition, Genovesi’s poem recounts the glories of the ancient Latini in mari-

time exploration and colonial expansion.

Already in the very first lines, Genovesi presents the Italians (the gens Itala) as the

divinely ordained bearers of civilization in the world, and this blatantly imperialist

vision dominates the entire poem.77 His world view as expounded in ‘Mare nostrum’

depends on a division between the superior gens Itala and the inferior rest of the

world. Genovesi argues that the imperium of Rome had proved its enlightening influ-

ence throughout the centuries and should now bring it to bear again under Fascism.

The imperium was to extend its influence with military force, as it had done in

centuries past, and once the barbarians (barbari, externae gentes) were securely

under the control of the empire, they were to be civilized and ‘enlightened’.78

Genovesi portrays the Italian Empire as a blessing for ‘barbarian’ regions such as

Africa, which had called on the Italians to civilize and liberate them.79 In Genovesi’s

75 From the later 1930s onwards, imperialistic themes became increasingly popular. At least

two more Latin compositions entitled ‘Mare nostrum’ were published: a short poem by

Carolo Bottalico (1936) and a prose text by Alberto Dolfari (= Alfredo Bartoli) (1941).

Both voice the same imperialistic ideals as Genovesi’s poem. Another Latin poem in

praise of Italian colonialism and imperialism in Africa is Martinelli (1941), sharing the

openly racist and anti-Semitic tone of Genovesi’s poem.

76 Prima mostra triennale (1940).

77 Genovesi (1942: 4 ll. 1–3): Instrue navigium, pete litora et ultima mundi, j quo te fata vocant,

cultrix gens Itala iuris, jmoribus unde nitent populi civilibus omnes (‘Equip a boat and sail for

the outmost shores of the earth, whither the fates call you, Italian stock, founder of the

law, whence all peoples shine with civil customs’). See Genovesi (1942: 6 ll. 40–53; 8 ll.

74-81; 12 ll. 122–27; 16 ll. 202–05; 26 ll. 380–89; 28 ll. 407–15) on the long history of

Rome’s imperial mission.

78 This idea is developed at length in Genovesi (1942: ll. 259–375) for different regions.

Similar themes feature in Genovesi’s ‘In instauratum imperium’ (‘On the Restoration of

the Empire’, published in Alma Roma in 1937). ‘Mare nostrum’ repeats several phrases

from this earlier poem.

79 Genovesi (1942: 22 ll. 306–13): Africa nos longo saeclorum mersa sopore j vomere compellat

resides versare novales. j Barbarus Aethiopum moderatur sceptra tyrannus, j se veteris iactans


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version of history, even Greece, the mythical cradle of civilization, enthusiastically

welcomes the Italian armies and their civilizing mission after the Italian invasion in the

autumn of 1940 (in reality, a catastrophic campaign from which Italy had to be rescued

by a German intervention).80

This military and cultural imperialism is coupled in Genovesi’s poem with what

one might call ‘religious’ imperialism. For Genovesi, Rome was as much the capital

of the Roman Empire as the centre of the Roman Catholic Church.81 Other faiths

needed to be subdued (especially Islam and Judaism), and Genovesi employs crude

crusade-rhetoric to advocate the extension of the dominance of Catholicism from

Rome throughout the world.82 Light metaphors abound in the poem, offering the

poet a way of connecting the ‘enlightening’ cultural imperialism of Italy with the

religious mission of the Roman church as the lumen gentium.83 At the end of his

Salomonis sanguine cretum, j servitiique iugo, proh crimen! mancipat Afros, j evirat, infan-dum! captivos atque trucidat, j nec refugit, demens! nos, instigante Britanno, j acriter invidia

tabente, lacessere bello (‘Africa, overwhelmed by the lethargy of centuries, urged us to turn

with the plough their idle fallow land. A barbarian tyrant wields the sceptre of the

Ethiopians, boasting of having sprung from the blood of ancient Salomo, subjects

Africans to the yoke of slavery (what an accusation!), and emasculates (unspeakable!)

captives and slaughters them, and he does not refrain, insane as he is, from provoking us

with war, with Britain urging him fiercely on because of her consuming jealousy’).

80 Genovesi (1942: 24 l. 358): plaudit Chaonia proles (‘the Chaonian race applauds’) and

Genovesi (1942: 26 ll.361–62, 365–67): nostris exculta colonis j mox viret Ambraciae tell-

us . . . (‘soon, cultivated by our colonists, the earth of Ambracia flourishes’); opus undique

fervet, j hactenus ut tellus diris afflicta tenebris j barbariae, tandem civili more nitescat

(‘everywhere work proceeds busily so that the land, which had up to this point been

afflicted by the terrible darkness of barbarity, finally begins to shine with civil custom’).

81 Genovesi (1942: 12 ll. 122–27).

82 Genovesi (1942: 30 ll. 448–51): Tempora praeverto tantum adductura triumphum, j moenia

cum Solymae, Christi madefacta cruore, j Romulei imperii victricia signa videbunt j et Crucesignatum scutum splendere Sabaudum (‘I foretell times which will bring about such a great

triumph, when the walls of Solyma, moistened with the blood of Christ, will see the

victorious standards of the empire of Romulus and the shield of Savoy shine, marked

with the Cross’).

83 For example Genovesi (1942: 6 l. 42; 20 ll. 266–69). The murderous war and expected

final victory of Fascism in the world are announced in terms of the lux fatalis, the Day of

Judgement (Genovesi 1942: 30, 435–36): Lux fatalis adest! Vetus omnis corruit ordo, j alter

et exsurgit populis felicior . . . (‘The Day of Judgement is here! The old order collapses

completely, and another rises up, more beneficial to the peoples . . .’). The rhetoric of

‘Roman light in the African darkness’ is omnipresent in Fascist propaganda of the late

1930s and early 1940s. On the cover of La difesa della razza (4.3, 1939), for example, the

Apollo of Belvedere is depicted in a beam of light, while he looks towards ‘indigenous’

people who dwell in what is suggested to be a cloud of darkness (the cover is reproduced

in Arthurs 2012: 138).


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poem, Genovesi epitomizes this imperialistic vision and his hopes for the future as

follows:

Sceptra maris rursus potiatur Roma Latini,

ut Deus instituit primum fastique reclamant:

dux iterum praeeat rursumque resumat habenas,

quo simul excutiat diras gens Afra tenebras

Asis et antiquo tellus splendescat honore,

Coenaculum redeat pariter Sanctumque Sepulcrum

Christiadis, Turcis quae contendere cruore,

paceque sic demum iucunda Europa fruatur.84

May Rome resume its rule over the Latin Sea, as God originally ordained and as the eminent

law of history imposes: may Rome, as a guide, again lead the way and take up the reins again,

so that the African people will shake off its awful darkness and Asia will likewise shine with

its ancient dignity, so that the site of the Last Supper and the Holy Sepulchre will return to

the Christians (who battled the Turks with their blood), and so Europe will be able to enjoy

delightful peace at last.85

Given Genovesi’s vision of the civilizing role and function of Italy in the world, his use

of Latin is a significant choice, which sustains his wider argument that the Italians (or

Latini as Genovesi often calls them) had resumed the civilizing role of their Roman

proavi.86 But unlike, for example, Illuminati’s Dux (see pp. 9–12), neither the content

of Genovesi’s poem nor his use of Latin simply link the Fascist present directly to

ancient Rome. The poem instead presents a more ‘layered’ version of romanita.

Genovesi follows Roman and Italian history through the ages, drawing on a whole

range of different historical events, such as the First Crusade (1096–99) or the Battle

of Lepanto (1571), to justify his country’s imperialist mission. The poet’s use of Latin,

too, reflects this layering of different ‘Romes’. In the very last lines, Genovesi pro-

phesies that ‘with Vergil’s song we will celebrate the sublime achievements and with

Horace’s lyre we will praise the empire’s glory’, suggesting that the language of these

two ancient Roman poets is appropriate to an account of Italy’s reborn empire.87

84 Genovesi (1942: 28 ll. 408–15).

85 Our English translation takes into account Genovesi’s own facing Italian translation. We

therefore render ut . . . fasti reclamant as ‘as . . . the eminent law of history imposes’

(Genovesi himself translates ‘come . . . della storia l’alta legge impone’).

86 Genovesi (1942: 6, l. 52). Genovesi (1942: 28-29) even translates Latinus (l. 424) with

‘Italo’ (l. 601).

87 Genovesi (1942: 30 ll. 452-53): Carmine Vergilii sublimia gesta canemus j et decus imperiiplectro dicemus Horati (‘We shall sing the noble deeds with the song of Vergil and we shall

tell of the glory of the empire with Horatian lyre’). Cf. Genovesi (1937: 115): Iure

praeclarum facinus nepotum j Virgilii grandi celebramus ore, j remque Romanam modo resti-

tutam j carmine Flacci (‘Rightly we celebrate the magnificent achievement of the des-

cendants of Vergil with lofty speech, and the Roman state, just restored, with the song of

Horace’).


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On the other hand, the word Christiada in the passage quoted above is an example of

Genovesi’s use of ecclesiastical Latin.88 Ecclesiastical words allowed the Jesuit poet to

show how the Church, too, had put her stamp on the linguistic heritage of Rome.

Genovesi’s Latin thus reflects the long history of Rome’s imperialistic mission

and cultural dominance from antiquity to the present day. In combining classical

and ecclesiastical characteristics, his language also strives to resolve something of an

implicit ‘competition’ about the ownership of the Latin language.89 Although some

Latinists stressed the recent national or Fascist ‘rebirth’ of Latin alongside that of

romanita, the Church had always kept Latin alive as a written and even spoken

language. For millions of Italians, Latin therefore was and always had been primarily

the language of the Catholic Church and of the mass they attended. Moreover,

Genovesi’s order, the Jesuits, had a long-standing tradition of creative Latin com-

position.90 His use of Latin, then, not only ties up with his claims about Italy’s

unbroken history of cultural dominance, but also attempts to forge a notion of

Latinity that includes both its ancient and Catholic heritage and was more compre-

hensive than that of Illuminati or Schiaffini.91

Latin was also used throughout the empire in inscriptions on the many monu-

ments erected by the Fascists to mark their renewed ‘Roman’ presence. In Libya, for

instance, the Fascist government of Italo Balbo (1896–1940) erected the so-called

‘Arco dei Fileni’, inaugurated one year after Mussolini’s declaration of empire

(Fig. 3). The 31-metre arch, designed by Florestano di Fausto, marked the

border between Tripolitania and Cyrenaica and was located on the Libyan

Coastal Highway near Ra’s Lanuf. The remarkable structure was capped by a

large inscription that read: Alme Sol, possis nihil urbe Roma uisere maius (‘O kindly

88 See Stelten (1995), s.v. ‘Christiadum’.

89 The role of ecclesiastical Latin during the ventennio would benefit from further investi-

gation in light of the wider development of the relations between the Vatican and the

Fascist regime. In any case, one of the major venues for the publication of original Latin

compositions, sometimes of Fascist content, was the Catholic journal Alma Roma.

90 On Jesuit Latinity in general, see now Haskell (2014).

91 Other Latinists, too, took a more comprehensive view of this heritage. Alfredo Bartoli

(1872–1954), for instance, saw the revival of Latin under Fascism as part of a wider

‘neoclassical movement’, originating the later nineteenth century, and reviving the cre-

ative Latinity of the Italian humanists that had, according to him, largely died out be-

tween the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Bartoli (1934: 232): ‘Ch’esso – l’albero

miracoloso rinnovellatosi nel cinquantennio – dia frondi, fiori, e frutti, a perpetuare la

gloriosa italica tradizione del latino, che fu di Roma; del latino, che fu degli Umanisti; del

latino che e ancora dell’oggi, e che spiriti nuovi in vecchie forme – voce e eco ad un

tempo – ritiene . . . ’ (‘May this miraculous tree that has renewed itself in fifty years, grow

leaves, flowers, and fruits, to perpetuate the glorious Italic tradition of the Latin lan-

guage, once belonging to Rome; Latin, once belonging to the Humanists; Latin, which

still belongs to the present and holds new spirits in ancient forms, being a voice and an

echo at the same time . . .’).


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Fig. 3. The Arco dei Fileni. Anonymous photograph (1937), available at http://goo.gl/JGm0I2 (last accessed 26

August 2014).


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http://goo.gl/JGm0I2


Sun, may you never see anything mightier than Rome!’), an adaptation of Horace’s

Carmen Saeculare 9-12.92 While two Italian quotations by Mussolini were carved

into the vault of the arch, its short facades displayed two inscriptions of Nello

Quilici, translated into Latin by the famous classicist Giorgio Pasquali.93

One of these inscriptions presented the arch as a monument to the ‘renewed’

Roman Empire under Fascism.94 It stated that Mussolini had brought the majesty of

the empire (imperii maiestas) from the Seven Hills all the way to Libya ‘so that he

might show to the entire world the new cult and civilization, which is the highest gift

to those peoples that have been restored to the happiness and glory of Rome’.95 The

other inscription was more complex and honoured patriotic sacrifice by recalling the

memory of the Philaeni, who gave the arch its name: two Carthaginian brothers who,

according to the Roman historian Sallust, had submitted to being buried alive out of

love for their fatherland. In the Bellum Jugurthinum, Sallust recounts how the

brothers chose to be buried in the place which they claimed as the boundary of

their country to settle a border conflict between Carthage and Cyrene. Two huge

bronze statues of the brothers were installed, just above the 6.5-metre wide openings

on either side of the arch. Relying on Quilici’s Italian text and Sallust’s account in

Latin, Pasquali composed the following inscription about the Philaeni:

VBI CORPORA NON MEMORIAM

PHILAENI FRATRES VESTRAM

QVI VOSQVE VITAMQVE REI PVBLICAE CONDONASTIS

HARENAE NVDAE GIGNENTIVM

OBRVERANT

ROMA PER FASCES RESTITVTA

FATA VLCISCI

92 Alme Sol, curru nitido diem qui j promis et celas aliusque et idem j nasceris, possis nihil urbe

Roma j uisere maius.

93 See Munzi (2004: 88). Pasquali is an interesting example of how classicists were success-

fully recruited for the regime’s cultural politics: even though he had signed Croce’s

Manifesto of the Anti-Fascist Intellectuals in 1922, by the 1930s he was putting his

Latin skills to the service of the Balbo government in Libya. On Pasquali’s contributions

to classical scholarship, see esp. Giordano (2013) and Bornmann (1988), where his in-

scriptions for the Arco are not mentioned.

94 This was how the arch was interpreted in other contexts, too. At the ‘Mostra Augustea

della Romanita’, for instance, a model of the Arco dei Fileni symbolized the ‘regener-

ation’ (‘rigenerazione’) of the Libyan colony under Mussolini (Caputo 1938: 23). For the

context of the arch in this exhibition, see Giglioli (1938: 434–43, esp. 436–37).

95 La strada, 145–48: ‘IPSA MEDIA IN VIA SYRTICA j A MARI DE CAELO j A LITORIBVS AFRICAE

NOSTRAE j CONVENIENTIBVS j HIC ARCVS IMPERII MAIESTATEM TESTATVR j QUAM j REGE

VICTORE EMANVELE III j BENITVS MVSSOLINI j SVMMVS REI PVBLICAE MODERATOR IDEMQVE

FASCISTARVM DVX j A SEPTEM COLLIBVS HIC ATTVLIT j VT NOVVM CVLTVM HVMANITATEMQVE

j TOTI TERRARVM ORBI DEMONSTRARET j SVMMVM GENTIBVS DONVM j ROMAE FORTVNAE

ATQVE GLORIAE REDDITIS’.


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PRISTINA DOCTIOR

BRACHIIS SYRTICAE REGIONIS INTER SE IVNCTIS

QVAE VITAE RENATAE AESTVM EXCIPERENT

SVA SIGNA STATVIT96

Where sandy deserts bare of vegetation had covered your bodies, but not your memory,

brothers Philaeni – who gave your lives for the state –, Rome, renewed by the fasces, and

more apt to right old wrongs than before, placed its signa, after it had joined together

Syrtica’s limbs, so that they would receive the glow of life reborn.97

The inscription reiterates two tenets of Fascist imperialism which we also found in

Genovesi’s text: the notion that Italian imperialism stood firmly in a Roman trad-

ition and that it benefitted the colonized region and rendered it more prosperous.

Importantly, the inscription celebrates two local heroes who were not Romans but

Carthaginians. This tribute to the Philaeni brothers seems to sustain the pretence,

also expressed by Vittorio Genovesi, that Fascist Rome came to Africa not to tram-

ple the local population and its past, but rather to support or ‘awaken’ it. Sallust

recounts how the Carthaginians erected altars on the spot where the Philaeni were

buried alive.98 By re-erecting a monument in their honour and by recreating their

tomb close to the arch, the Fascist government cast itself as the champion of the local

population. The Philaeni brothers embodied the civilization that ‘African tyranny’

had previously corrupted but that the Italians had come to restore. As Genovesi

emphatically phrased it at the end of his ‘Mare nostrum’:

ROMA DOMAT, PRUDENS ET FORMIDABILIS ARMIS,

EDOMITAS SED ENIM GENTES FORTUNAT AMICE99

Rome dominates, prudent and intimidating in arms; for she conquers peoples, yet she kindly

makes them prosperous.

Fascist Latin inscriptions like these served as powerful markers of Roman-Italian

imperialism and Fascist claims to cultural dominance. We find them not only in

Libya but in all territories over which the Fascist regime sought to establish and

maintain control, from the North-African coast to Tyrolean Bozen.100

While a surprising number of Latin Fascist inscriptions still remain in their

original position, others were, with time, removed. The ‘Arco dei Fileni’ was

razed to the ground in the early 1970s as an unwelcome reminder of Italian

96 Both the phrases vosque vitamque rei publicae condonastis and harenae nudae gignentium

allude to Sallust’s account of events at Sal. Jug. 79. Cf. Sal. Jug. 79.9: seque vitamquesuam rei publicae condonavere and Jug. 79.6: loca aequalia et nuda gignentium.

97 Grammatically, quae may also refer to signa instead of brachiis, in which case the line

would mean that the Roman signa experienced the glow of life reborn.

98 Sal. Jug. 79.10.

99 Genovesi (1942: 30 ll. 446–47).

100 On the inscriptions in Bozen see Strobl (2012; 2013).


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colonialism. Today, only the imprint of the foundation and few scattered architec-

tural fragments remain (Fig. 4).101 A similar destruction was, of course, impossible

for published texts. After the collapse of the Fascist regime, the authors of these

texts, therefore, found different ways of dealing with their now-unwelcome com-

positions. Most authors excluded them from their publication lists and simply never

referred to them again. In his autobiography, Morabito recounts how he destroyed

his own copy of the poem he had written for the ‘Concorso Dux’ and fervently

expresses the hope that Amatucci’s copy would never re-emerge. Genovesi chose a

different route for his compositions: when he republished his collected poems in

1959, he excluded only his most obviously Fascist works — such as ‘In instauratum

imperium’ and ‘Fasces renovati’ — but included ‘Mare nostrum’ and several other

compositions with originally Fascist themes, for instance his ‘Imperii Via ad Clivum

Fig. 4. Fragments of the relief sculpture of the Arco dei Fileni near Sultan (Libya). Photograph by Kuno Gross (2005).

101 Kuno Gross informs us that parts of the reliefs (including one showing Mussolini),

several slabs with Italian inscriptions, and the two colossal bronze statues of the Philaeni

brothers were moved to Sultan (a small coastal town in north-eastern Libya) and were

still on view there when he visited it in 2005. It seems that Pasquali’s Latin inscriptions

did not survive the destruction of the arch.


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Capitolinum’. Genovesi superficially refashioned these poems, purging them of the

most glaringly Fascist passages and references to Benitus Dux.102

Avenues for further research

We have argued that during the ventennio fascista Latin became the lingua lictoria, a

language officially supported by the Fascist regime and deftly exploited for political

purposes in various contexts. Latin was not only part of the regime’s larger attempt

to evoke ancient Rome in different ways and for different purposes. It was also

construed as a modern and a Fascist language, uniquely suited to cementing

Italy’s pre-eminence in the world. Our conclusions, however, only form a starting

point for further research. We would like to end by indicating a number of avenues

along which this research might be pursued further.

Research into Fascist Latin is first of all complicated by the scant availability of

the material: Latin compositions from this period were often issued in limited print

runs and distributed via small personal networks.103 Although we provide, as an

Appendix, a first overview of texts that we have found, we expect that there is more

material waiting to be discovered. Besides the careful scrutiny of library holdings,

especially in Italy, there are a number of archives that may contain a good deal of

Fascist Latin: for example, the archives of the Istituto Nazionale di Studi Romani

and archives related to contemporary Latin competitions, especially that of the

Certamen Hoeufftianum in Haarlem (the Netherlands).

Tied up with the question of discovery is that of accessibility. Once these texts

have been tracked down, how can they be made available to interested readers?

Editions with translations offer one way of achieving this, such as Paola

Bragantini’s edition of Ettore Stampini’s (1855–1930) epigraphs in honour of

Mussolini, or the edition and study of Amatucci’s Codex Fori Mussolini which we

ourselves are currently preparing. However, not all Latin Fascist texts are of great

historical interest, and it would be both impossible and unnecessary to publish all of

them in such editions. We hope that, eventually, texts can be made available to a

wider audience through digital publication. For example, we are thinking of setting

up a collaborative environment, where historians and Latinists would be able to add

material as well as to translate texts and comment upon them.

We suggested above that the motivations behind Fascist compositions in Latin

were complex, and the circumstances of their production diverse. Only further

research into individual cases can do justice to this complexity. Were local teachers

and students actively stimulated, or even forced, to participate in Latin competi-

tions? Why did eminent scholars like Giorgio Pasquali (who had signed Croce’s

anti-Fascist manifesto in 1922) concede to supplying inscriptions for a Fascist

102 For ‘Mare nostrum’, compare Genovesi (1942: 22–30) with Genovesi (1959: 261–62),

where he omits lines 292–375 and lines 390–453 of the original 1942 text. More gen-

erally on Genovesi’s purges see Lamers and Reitz-Joosse (2014: 68–69).

103 See Lamers, Reitz-Joosse, and Sacre (2014: 1091–92).


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prestige project in Libya? Finding answers to questions such as these involves ex-

tensive (often archival) research about the situation of individual authors and the

immediate contexts of their compositions.

It has become clear that ‘what Latin meant’ changed significantly during the

ventennio fascista. But what happened after the demise of Fascism in Italy? Many

of the authors of Fascist Latin texts continued to write in and about Latin after 1943.

Did they attempt to de-politicize, or rather re-politicize, the cultural meaning of

Latin? And if so, how?

Finally, we hope that Latin literature of Italian Fascism will, with time, be

integrated into general research on Fascist culture. In particular, future research

by modern historians, Latinists, and scholars of the Classical Tradition should shed

more light on how the use of Latin related to the Fascists’ flexible notion of romanita.

Acknowledgements

This research was made possible by generous support from the Spinoza Prize

awarded to Ineke Sluiter (Leiden) by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific

Research (NWO) as well as several research stays at the Netherlands Institute in

Rome (KNIR). We thank Dirk Sacre (KU Leuven) for sharing his profound know-

ledge of modern Latin literature with us. At the student symposium ‘Mussolini

Dux’ (Leiden University, December 2013), Prof. Sacre delivered the keynote lec-

ture on Fascist Neo-Latin literature, in which, among many other things, he dir-

ected our attention to the archive of the Certamen Hoeufftianum in Haarlem. Many

thanks also to Kuno Gross (Otelfingen) for supplying images of the ‘Arco dei Fileni’

and to Alan Durston (York) for corresponding with us on Ippolito Galante.

Marjolein van Zuylen (Den Haag) inspected the Noord-Hollands Archief

(Haarlem) on our behalf. Much of the literature cited in this article was difficult

to obtain, and we received generous support from Maarten De Pourcq (Nijmegen),

Stefan Derouck (KU Leuven University Library), the Biblioteca Nazionale

Centrale di Firenze, the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma, the Archivio

Storico Capitolino, and Laura Bertolaccini of the Biblioteca dell’Istituto

Nazionale di Studi Romani. Laura Migliori (Leiden) advised us on matters of

Italian idiom. An earlier version of this paper was presented at Rostock

University, and we thank the audience for their helpful remarks and suggestions.

We also gratefully adopted many suggestions of CRJ ’s anonymous referees. Finally,

many ideas in this article arose from stimulating discussions with the participants of

the MA tutorial ‘Mussolini Dux’ which we taught in Leiden in the autumn of 2013,

and we thank all our students for their willingness to venture into this uncharted

territory with us.

References

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La strada litoranea della Libia (Verona: Mondadori, 1937).H. Lamers and B. Reitz-Joosse, ‘Fascisme in de taal van Augustus. De Latijnse literatuur van het

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E. Malcovati, Il latino come lingua universale (Vighera: Gabetta, 1929).N. Martinelli, Amba Alagia (Pisa / Rome: Vallerini, 1941).G. Morabito, Ricordi di scuola (Milazzo: Pellegrino, 1972).M. Munzi, ‘Italian Archaeology in Libya from Colonial romanita to Decolonization of the Past’, in M.

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——, Beniti Mussolini Romae Laudes, trans. by V. Ussani. Edizioni dei Comitati d’Azione per laUniversalita di Roma (Rome: Europa, 1934b).

——, ‘Discorso del Duce del 9 maggio 1936 – XV’, s.l.a.n. Three manually corrected copies are in thearchive of the Istituto Nazionale di Studi Romani (uncatalogued).


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Appendix: Latin Texts of Italian Fascism

This list serves to give a first impression of the range and scope of the Latin literature

of the ventennio fascista and is not exhaustive. It includes only those editions that we

have personally been able to locate and inspect in the course of our research. It does

not include unpublished texts in typo- or manuscript, or inscriptions that have not

also been published in independent editions.

Amatucci, Aurelio Giuseppe, ‘Il Codice del Foro Mussolini’, Bollettino dell’Opera Nazionale Balilla, 7,no. 2 (November 15, 1932), pp. 3–5; Codex fori Mussolini (Florence: Apud Felicem le Monnier,1933); Scuola e cultura. Annali della istruzione media, 9, no. 2 (1933), pp. 153–58; Il Foro Mussolini, ed.by Opera Nazionale Balilla (Milan: Bompiani, 1937), pp. 103–4.

Bartoli, Alfredo, See under Florio Del Traba, Alberto Dolfari, and Adolfo Terralbi (Bartoli’spseudonyms).

Bottalico, Carolo, Mare nostrum (Castelvetrano: Tip. Scaraglino, 1936).Brignoli, Fernando Maria, Lictorium carmen (Rome: In aedibus P. Maglione succ. H. Loescher, 1938).Calero, Giuseppe, Dux almae telluris renovator ac indomitus defensor (Genoa: Editrice ‘L’Italica’,

1941).Capo, Nazareno, Carmina selecta, solutae orationis exempla et frustula varia (Grottaferrata: Scuola tip.

italo-orient. ‘S. Nilo’, 1929).Curzio, Giovanni, De re publica lictoria seu de iuribus gentis sententia (Pisa: Ex Iardiniana officina

typographica, 1938).De Titta, Cesare, ‘Novum studiorum curriculum in tertia Anxanensis gymnasii classe’ in Carmina

(Florence: Sansoni, 1952), pp. 211–17.Del Traba, Florio [= Alfredo Bartoli], Ver sacrum. Epitaphium (Florence: Apud Felicem le Monnier,

1942).Dolfari, Alberto [= Alfredo Bartoli], Mare nostrum (Florence: Ex typographia ‘Stella’, 1941).Ferrari, Giovanni, Benito Mussolini duci (Guardiagrele: A.G. Palmario, 1932).Festa, Nicola, ‘[Inscription at the Foro Italico]’ in Il Foro Mussolini, ed. by Opera Nazionale Balilla

(Milan: Bompiani, 1937), pp. 104–5.Ficari, Quirino, Decennalia a fascibus renovatis (Pesaro: Typis ‘G. Federici’, 1933).——. De fascibus imperioque resititutis (Pesaro: Typis ‘G. Federici’, 1937).——. Carmina (Pesaro: Typis ‘G. Federici’, 1938).——. Orationes in certamina primum alterum tertium ab instituto collegioque Romanis rebus procurandis

indicta missae (Pesaro: Typis ‘G. Federici’, 1938).Frosini, Tommaso, Ad Bruni Mussolini memoriam (Iustinopoli: Ex officina V. Foccardi, 1942).Gabrielli, Alberto, In Benitum Mussolini septimo redeunte anno ab ordine lictorio constituto carmen

(Verona: Apud typ. ‘Scaligeram’, 1928).


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Galante, Ippolito, Benito Mussolinio Romanorum duci sal[utem] (Santiago de Chile: La Illustracion,1928).

Genovesi, Vittorio, ‘In instauratum imperium’, Alma Roma 24, no. 7 (July 1937), pp. 115–16.——. Carmina (testo latino e traduzione italiana) (Rome: Messagero del Sacro Cuore, 1942).——. Carmina, ed. by Istituto di Studi Romani (Rome / Paris / Tournai / New York: Desclee & Cie,

1959).Giammaria, Francesco, Tria carmina (Rome: Ex typis ‘Novissima’, 1934).Giannelli, Salvatore, Divagazioni. Odi latine con versione metrica dello stesso autore (Santa Maria Capua

Vetere: Tip. ‘Progresso’, 1940).Illuminati, Luigi, Dux. Carme latino premiato nella gara bandita dell’Associazione Nazionale Insegnanti

Fascisti (Turin / Milan / Genoa / Parma / Rome / Catania: Societa Editrice Internazionale, 1932).——. Inter viburna. Carminum volumen prius (Genoa: Ex typis Aemiliani degli Orfini, 1933).Lo Parco, Francesco, I canti dell’impero con prefazione e note bilingui e quattro traduzioni metriche latine

dell’on. dott. Domenico Tinozzi e del prof. Luigi Illuminati (Milan: La Prora, 1938).——. A novo Romani imperii ortu ad postremum italici populi triumphum (gratulatio et laetum omen)

(Naples: Apud Pusiones operarios vulgo ‘Artigianelli’ appellatos, 1939).Martinelli, Nello, Amba Alagia (Pisa / Rome: Vallerini, 1941).Mazza, Giovanni, Poesie latine e italiane (Naples: Dick Peerson, 1988).Menna, Paolino, Quaedam latinitatis specimina pro periculis certaminum experiendis, V, Tersichore [sic]

(Nola: Ex off. Dominici Basilicata filiorumque, 1935).——. Quaedam latinitatis specimina pro periculis certaminum experiendis, VII, Polymnia (Nola: Ex off.

Dominici Basilicata filiorumque, 1936).——. In latini sermonis certamine apud Romanorum Studiorum Institutum (Nola: Ex off. Dominici

Basilicata filiorumque, 1937).——. In quinto latini sermonis certamine apud Romanorum Studiorum Institutum (Nola: Ex off. Unione,

1939).Migliazza, Domenico, Dux (Guastalla: Tipografia G. Torelli, 1937).Monti, Alessandro, ‘Pomptinae paludes exsiccatae’, Alma Roma, 23, no. 4 (April 1936), pp. 57–59.Mussolini, Benito, ‘Beniti Mussolini Romae Laudes’, transl. by Vincenzo Ussani, Roma universa.

Rivista mensile dei Comitati d’Azione per la Universalita di Roma, 2, no. 4 (1934), p. 101.——. Beniti Mussolini Romae Laudes, trans. by Vincenzo Ussani. Edizioni dei Comitati d’Azione per la

Universalita di Roma (Rome: Europa, 1934).——. ‘Discorso del Duce del 9 maggio 1936 – XV’, s.l.a.n. Three manually corrected copies are in the

archive of the Istituto Nazionale di Studi Romani (uncatalogued).——. La fondazione dell’Impero nei discorsi del Duce alle grandi adunate del popolo italiano con una

traduzione latina di Nicola Festa (Naples: Rispoli, 1936).——. ‘Beniti Mussolini de instaurando Italorum imperio oratio’, trans. by Giovanni Battista Pighi,

Aevum: Rassegna di scienze storiche linguistiche e filologiche 10 (1936), pp. 449–52 = Beniti Mussolini deinstaurando Italorum imperio oratio, trans. by Giovanni Battista Pighi (Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 1936).

Napoleone, Giovanni, Carmen lustrale Ioannis Napoleone Liburnensis sive Triturritani in Certaminepoetico Hoeufftiano magna laude ornatum (Amsterdam: Academia Regia DisciplinarumNederlandica, 1928).

Nicosia Margani, Margarita, Dux (Comiso: ‘La Montanina’, 1938).‘Nuntius’, trans. by Vincenzo Ussani, Roma universa. Rivista mensile dei Comitati d’Azione per la

Universalita di Roma, 1, no. 1 (1933), p. 1.Paladini, Virgilio, ‘Quibus de causis Horatianum Carmen Saeculare ad aetatem quoque nostram

pertinere videatur’, Roma universa. Rivista mensile dei Comitati d’Azione per la Universalita diRoma, 2, no. 5–6 (1934), p. 144 = L"l"t–mata, 2 vols. (Jesi: Stab. tip. edit. Flori, 1936), II, pp.18–20 = Per il IV concorso nazionale di prosa latina bandito dall’Istituto di Studi Romani. Quibus decausis Horatianum Carmen Saeculare ad aetatem quoque nostram pertinere videatur (Jesi: Stab. tip. edit.Flori, 1938).

——. ‘Polybius Graecorum primus intellexit totius orbis imperium in Romanos esse cessurum’, Romauniversa. Rivista mensile dei Comitati d’Azione per la Universalita di Roma, 2, no. 9–10 (1934), pp. 211–12 = L"l"t–mata, 2 vols. (Jesi: Stab. tip. edit. Flori, 1936), II, pp. 8–10.

Parisotti, Orestes, Mussolini. Dux. Patriae. SWSGQ (In Insula Liris: Typis Macioce et Pisani, 1933).


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Quattrone, Francesco, De Vergilio et fascium regimine oratio habita pro Virgilio commemorando in SacroEphebeo Regino a.d. XII Kal. Junias an. MDCCCXXX (Reggio di Calabria: Ex officina typogr.‘Opera Antoniana’, 1930) = Opera omnia, 261–70 (Reggio di Calabria: Francisci Morelli, 1936).

Sofia Alessio, Francesco, ‘In Benitum Mussolini’, Il mondo classico, 2 (1932), pp. 73–75.Stampini, Ettore, Pentaptychon mussolinianum: cinque iscrizioni latine in onore di Benito Mussolini, con la

versione italiana dell’autore (Turin: Stab. tip. F. Villarboito, [1929]) = Paola Bragantini, ‘Il ‘‘LatinistaFascista’’. Contributo alla biografia di Ettore Stampini’, Quaderni di storia dell’Universita di Torino, 2,no. 2 (1998), pp. 73–80.

——. Triptychon mussolinianum: inscriptiones in honorem Beniti Mussolini (Turin: Ex officina librariaVincentii Bona, 1924).

Stanco, Francesco, Epitome di cultura fascista ad uso degli alunni del II e III anno di latino (Turin: SocietaEditrice Internazionale, 1935).

——. Epitome di cultura fascista ad uso degli alunni del II, III e IV anno di latino. Seconda edizioneaccresciuta e migliorata (Turin: Societa Editrice Internazionale, 1938).

Taberini, Luigi, Dux. ‘Fascis Lictorius’, ed. by Friedemann Scriba, Altsprachlicher Unterricht, 46(1923), pp. 40–41.

——. Alcaica latina con traduzione italiana dell’autore (Ancona: Officine poligrafiche della FederazioneFascista, 1929).

Terralbi, Adolfo [= Alfredo Bartoli], De agro pontino. Acroasis (premiato al concorso di prosa latinabandito dall’Istituto di Studi Romani) (Florence: Ex typographia ‘Stella’, 1940).

Trazzi, Anacleto, Augustalia (poemation a R. Academia italica praemio ornatum) con versione metrica delSac. Giuseppe Ferrari ([Padua]: Typis Seminarii Patavini Gregoriana, 1937).


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lingua lictoria: the latin literature of italian fascism

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