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Back to the future. The visual propaganda of Alleanza Nazionale (1994–2009)

2010; Routledge; Volume: 15; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13545711003606644

1469-9583

Luciano Cheles,

Italian Fascism and Post-war Society

Abstract Observers who have investigated Alleanza Nazionale's relationship to historical fascism have mostly relied on programmatic documents as well as Gianfranco Fini's speeches and interviews. This article tackles the same question by considering the visual propaganda produced by the party from its launch in 1994 to its merger with Silvio Berlusconi's Popolo della Libertà in March 2009. An examination of the logos, the portraits of Fini and other imagery that feature on posters, brochures, websites and the party daily Secolo d'Italia shows that they frequently refer, albeit mostly covertly, to the iconographies of fascism. The contemporary visual sources used by Alleanza Nazionale and the strategies adopted to present a modern and respectable image are also explored. The article argues that much of the propaganda of Alleanza Nazionale incorporates two levels of meaning: an overt and moderate one, which addressed the general public, and a concealed one celebrating ideas and values of the Ventennio, which aimed to reassure a hard-core of activists that the party had not betrayed its original identity. Keywords: Alleanza NazionaleneofascismPopolo della LibertàpropagandapostersFiniAlemannoBerlusconi Acknowledgements I should like to thank Flavia Perina, Luciano Lanna and Federico Mollicone for agreeing to be interviewed, at AN's headquarters in Rome, and providing some documentation on the Party's propaganda output. Massimo Di Mario, picture editor of the Secolo d'Italia, kindly made available to me a number of photographs from its archives. I am also grateful to them for permission to reproduce articles, posters and other material in this article. Thanks are due to the Archivio Storico dell'Università di Bologna for the photograph of the 1929 medal of the Gruppi Universitari Fascisti, to the Archivio Fotografico del Museo della Civiltà Romana (Comune di Roma Sovraintendenza ai Beni Culturali) for that of the Mostra Augustea della Romanità of 1937, and to Enrico Sturani for the illustrations of fascist postcards. I am greatly indebted to Verina Jones, Pierre Sorlin, Lucio Sponza and Angelo Ventrone for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this article. Finally, I wish to thank John Davies, editor of the present journal, for his unstinting support throughout the various phases of preparation of this article. Notes For the full transcription of the dialogue, see Simonetta Fiori (2003) ‘Chiusi i conti con il fascismo, non siamo eredi del Ventennio’, La Repubblica, 4 November, p.2. Transcription from video last seen on Youtube in July 2008. Mauro Favale (2008) ‘“Anche la destra sia antifascista”: Fini piega Alemanno e La Russa’, La Repubblica, 14 September, p. 6. R.R. [sic] (2007), ‘Fini fascista, giallo sui manifesti’, La Stampa, 12 October, p. 13. See below for details of a recent episode. Outre-Terre. Revue française de géopolitique, 2(3), 2003: 3. Corriere della Sera Magazine, section ‘La posta di Beppe Severgnini’, 3 April 2008, p. 13. The most thorough investigation of AN's official literature is Marco Tarchi (2003) ‘The political culture of the Alleanza Nazionale: an analysis of the party's programmatic documents (1995–2002)’, Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 8(2): 135–81. Tarchi's view that this literature should be treated as a fairly reliable indicator of a party's political identity is inspired, as he acknowledges (p. 137), by the study of Cass Mudde (2000) The Ideology of the Extreme Right, Manchester: Manchester University Press. His analysis leads him to conclude that ‘the political culture expressed in its programmatic documents does not permit classification of the Alleanza Nazionale as either a neo-fascist or even an extreme right party’ (p. 174). For a concise account of this approach, which was developed by Aby Warburg and his school, and focuses on the meaning of a visual artifact, interpreting it as the symbolic expression of the culture from which it originated, see Laurie Schneider Adams (1996) The Methodologies of Art, Boulder, CO: Westview, pp. 36–57. The iconographic investigation attributes great importance to details. See Daniel Arasse (2008 [1996]), Le détail. Pour une histoire rapprochée de la peinture, Paris: Flammarion. On the question of the importance of small details, cf. also Carlo Ginzburg (1992 [1986]) ‘Clues: roots of an evidential paradigm’, in Carlo Ginzburg, Clues, Myths and the Historical Method, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 96–125. I have found both studies quite inspiring. Philip V. Cannistraro (1975) La fabbrica del consenso. Fascismo e mass media, Bari-Rome: Laterza, pp. 326–50. Almirante, co-founder of the MSI, also led the party from 1946 to 1950. On the visual propaganda of the MSI (from 1969–1987), cf. Luciano Cheles (1995) ‘“Nostalgia dell'Avvenire”. The propaganda of the Italian Far Right between tradition and innovation’, in Luciano Cheles, Ronnie Ferguson and Michalina Vaughan (eds) The Far Right in Western and Eastern Europe, London: Longman, pp. 41–90. On Almirante, see Aldo di Lello (2008) Giorgio Almirante. Una storia per immagini, Rome: Servizi Editoriali Pantheon. For its genealogy, see Carlo Branzaglia and Gianni Sinni (eds) (1994) Partiti! Guida alla grafica politica della Seconda Repubblica, Florence: Tosca, pp. 42–43; Gianluca Nicoletti (2005) ‘AN, tutti i simboli del dopo-fiamma’, La Stampa, 28 January, p. 8. For a fuller account of the origins and meanings of the flame and trapeze motif, see Luciano Lanna and Filippo Rossi (2003) Fascisti immaginari. Tutto quello che c'è da sapere sulla destra, Florence: Vallecchi, under the heading ‘Fiamma’, pp. 188–91. Lanna is co-editor, with Flavia Perina, of the Secolo d' Italia. For the origins of the MSI acronym see Alessandro Caprettini (1995) La nuova destra. E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle …, Palermo: Arbor, p. 19. For the genesis of the symbol of the PDS, see Luca Telese (2009) Qualcuno era comunista. Dalla caduta del Muro alla fine del PCI: come i comunisti sono diventati ex e post, Milan: Sperling & Kupfer, pp. 497–514. While the hammer and sickle motif was replaced by a rose when this party simplified its name to Democratici di Sinistra (DS) in 1998, AN's symbol never relinquished its trapeze and tricoloured flame. Asked by a journalist, in 2002, whether his party was prepared to get rid of it, Ignazio La Russa promptly replied to him: ‘And would you be prepared to cut off your privates?’ Cf. Lanna and Rossi, Fascisti immaginari, p. 191. Blue became the national colour because it was that of the royal household of Savoy. See Daniele Marchesini (1999) ‘Nazionalismo, patriottismo e simboli nazionali nello sport: tricolore e maglia azzurra’, in Fiorenza Tarozzi and Giorgio Vecchio (eds) Gli italiani e il tricolore. Patriottismo, identità nazionale e fratture sociali lungo due secoli di storia, Bologna: Il Mulino, pp. 317–19. Michel Pastoureau (2001 [2000]), Blue: the History of a Colour, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 180–1. This borrowing is not surprising, given that Mussolini had been a socialist. On the motifs of the sun, the sea, the horizon, the converging lines and the saluting militant, used separately or in various combinations, in socialist graphics, see Bettino Craxi (n.d. [1983]) (Preface), Le immagini del Socialismo. Comunicazione politica e propaganda del PSI dalle origini agli anni Ottanta, Rome: Partito Socialista Italiano. See also ‘L'Avénir dans l'affiche’, special issue of Matériaux pour l'histoire de notre temps, no. 21–22, October–December 1990 / January–March 1991. On the phenomenon of the migration of images from left to right (and, less frequently, from right to left), see Luciano Cheles (2004) ‘L'immagine riciclata. Camuffamenti, citazioni e plagi nella propaganda figurativa italiana del secondo dopoguerra’, in Maurizio Ridolfi (ed.) Propaganda e comunicazione politica. Storia e trasformazioni nell'età contemporanea, Milan: Bruno Mondadori, pp. 262–86; Luciano Cheles (2008) ‘Prestiti e adeguamenti cromatici. La propaganda politica italiana del secondo dopoguerra’, in Stefano Pivato and Maurizio Ridolfi (eds) I colori della politica. Passioni, emozioni e rappresentazioni nell'età contemporanea, San Marino: Università di San Marino, pp. 183–206, 227–37; Luciano Cheles (2009) ‘Il '68 nella propaganda figurativa del Movimento Sociale Italiano’, in Silvia Casilio and Loredana Guerrieri (eds) Il '68 diffuso. Contestazione e linguaggi in movimento, Bologna: CLEUB, pp. 153–68. The ship metaphor was used by Almirante in a document he addressed to RSI veteran Mirko Tremaglia in November 1987. Cf. Umberto Scaroni (1998) Quarant'anni con Almirante, Milan: CdL Edizioni, pp. 236–38. It has been repeatedly quoted or paraphrased in both MSI/AN literature and academic publications. Cf. Stefano Di Michele (1995) Mal di destra, Milan: Sperling & Kupfer, p. xi; Cristoforo Filetti (1996) Ottantuno anni di giovinezza, Acireale (Catania): Bonanno, pp. 215–16 (interview with AN senator Filetti conducted by Antonio Pagano); Roger Griffin (1990) ‘The post-fascism of the Alleanza Nazionale: a case study in ideological morphology’, Storia contemporanea, 21(4–6): 708. I am most grateful to Anna Castriota for identifying the source of Almirante's metaphor, and drawing my attention to subsequent references to it. Umberto Croppi (2009) ‘AN non volta pagina, ne scrive una nuova’, Secolo d'Italia, 21 March, p. 5. Secolo d'Italia, 22 March 2009, p. 2. On Tato, see Enrico Cripolti's entry in Enrico Crispolti and Nadine Bortolotti (eds) (1982) Annitrenta. Arte e cultura in Italia, Milan: Mazzotta, p. 534; and Anna Villari (ed.) (2008) L'arte della pubblicità. Il manifesto italiano e le avanguardie, 1920–1940, Milan: Silvana, pp. 206–7, which reproduces the magazine's cover on p. 34. The texts ‘Presente per Enrico’ and ‘Presente per Sergio’ contribute to the poster's celebration of fascist culture. They allude to the rite of the roll call, which was the highlight of the funeral of a murdered fascist. The crowd attending the ceremony replied in unison ‘Presente!’ when one of the leaders of the fascist organizations which made up the cortege shouted the name of the victim. The aim was to establish a sacred bond between the dead and the living. See Emilio Gentile (1996 [1993]) The Sacralization of Politics in Fascist Italy, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, p. 27. The poster also features a quotation from Dante's Purgatory (XXII, 67–69), rendered in modern Italian, that deals with the theme of fire: ‘Facesti come colui che di notte cammina, portando il lume dietro di sé, che non giova a lui, ma a coloro che lo seguono’ (You did as he who walks at night carrying the lantern on his back, not for his own benefit, but for that of the people who follow him). These words, with which the first century poet Statius addresses Virgil, pay tribute to him for predicting the advent of Christ while being excluded from the benefits of Redemption. They are used in the poster to assert that the sacrifice of the two youths will bear fruit, i.e. that their example will inspire (enlighten) future generations. The document, last accessed April 2009, supported this explanation by quoting from a speech Almirante addressed the party's youth just before retiring from the leadership in 1987: ‘For a while now we have gathered our fading strength for you, the young, so as to salute you standing at the time of my departing, so as to pass the baton before it falls from my hand, as it fell from the hand of another as he was preparing to pass it on. So take this adieu, young people, as a passing of the mantle to you.’ The Arditi, who wore the flame emblem on their uniforms, were also known as Fiamme nere (Black Flames). On this ritual, cf. Emilio Gentile (2003) ‘The theatre of politics in fascist Italy’, in Emilio Gentile, The Struggle for Modernity. Nationalism, Futurism and Fascism, Westport, CT: Praeger, p. 117. Gentile, The Sacralization of Politics, p. 24. Giovanni Gentile (2003) Origins and Doctrine of Fascism, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, p. 55 (orig. title: Origine e dottrina del fascismo, Rome: Libreria del Littorio, 1929). The torch can, of course, also signify enlightenment and the fight against oppression (‘the powers of darkness’). Hence its adoption by Giustizia e Libertà, the anti-fascist organization founded by Carlo Rosselli and other political émigrés in Paris in 1929. Quite occasionally, it is interpreted along these lines by AN too: see note 22. George L. Mosse (1987 [1980]) ‘The poet and the exercise of political power: Gabriele D'Annunzio’, in George L. Mosse, Masses and Man. Nationalist and Fascist Perceptions of Reality, Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, p. 92. Mussolini, notably, modelled many of his themes, symbols, catch phrases and rituals on D'Annunzio's. Cf. Michael A. Ledeen (2002 [1977]), D'Annunzio: the First Duce, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, as well as Mosse's chapter. Mosse, ‘The Poet’, p. 91. D'Annunzio's The Flame of Life (orig. title: Il fuoco, Milan: Treves, 1900) is a fictionalized account of his love affair with the actress Eleonora Duse, in which he represents himself as a Niezschean hero. It should be noted that until the early 1980s, Italian parties avoided emphasizing the figure of their leaders in their propaganda, out of fear of recalling the Duce cult – a reaction that is known as the ‘dictator's complex’. Before parties began to personalize their campaigns, the MSI was the only party that did not have any qualms about representing their leaders as charismatic figures. In the run-off of the election, Fini, who stood against Francesco Rutelli, scored 46.9 per cent of the vote. On the factors that brought about the constitution of AN, see Piero Ignazi (1998) Il polo escluso. Profilo storico del Movimento Sociale Italiano, Bologna: Il Mulino, pp. 411–52. On fascist (and Nazi) black, see John Harvey (1997) Men in Black, London: Reaktion, pp. 232–43; Stefano Cavazza (2008) ‘“Neri” senz'altro: dal movimento al regime fascista’, in Pivato and Ridolfi (eds) I colori della politica, pp. 145–56; Michel Pastoureau (2008) Black. The History of a Color, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 190–2. This book was not commercialized; it was made available to party members only. Its advertisement in the Secolo d'Italia, 1 January 1994, p. 12, reproduces the volume's cover. The letters DN in the party acronym stand for Destra Nazionale (National right); they were added to the acronym of the Movimento Sociale Italiano in 1972, when this merged with one of the monarchist parties. However, the new party continued to be referred to by most people as MSI. White clothing has been used by politicians elsewhere to symbolize a new departure. Tony Blair featured in white shirtsleeves on the printed publicity of his first ‘New Labour’ campaign of 1997. Ségolène Royal donned white dresses on several occasions in 2007 when she campaigned to secure her party's nomination, and later for the presidential election, in order to affirm her ‘political virginity’, i.e. present herself as the embodiment of the new, thus distancing herself from the Socialist Party's ‘elephants’. Barack Obama frequently eschewed his jacket and wore a white shirt during his election tour, as if to hint that, if elected, he would make a clean sweep of George W. Bush's policies; both he and Joe Biden were so attired when the latter was officially presented as nominee for the Vice-Presidency on 23 August 2008. Cf. Nicoletti, ‘AN, tutti i simboli’, p. 8. Orazio La Rocca (1992) ‘Camicie nere in piazza. Il MSI torna a sfilare’, La Repubblica, 18 October 1992, p. 6; Paolo Bonacci (1993), ‘Buontempo il federale fascista schiacciasassi’, La Repubblica, 25 November, p. 15. On the symbolism of white, see Michel Pastoureau (2007) Dictionnaire des couleurs de notre temps. Symbolique et société, Paris: Bonneton, pp. 31–32; Richard Dyer (1997) White, London: Routledge. Other prominent party figures appeared in AN literature saluting in a similarly ambiguous way. Cf. Cheles, ‘Nostalgia dell'Avvenire’, pp. 80, 82, figures 4.43, 4.44. The gesture of saluting with an open hand is characteristic of Berlusconi, and probably inspired by that of American politicians. In the example under consideration, it also seems to have the function of camouflaging and normalising Fini's gesture. It could even be argued that the Cavaliere's gesture is a symbolic political concession to his partner – an interpretation that is endorsed by another photograph, featured on the previous page of the brochure, showing him greeting his sympathizers with his right arm fully raised, his hand held flat at an angle. In 1988, Fini had declared: ‘I have often saluted fascist-style because that was a way of asserting one's identity). (L'Europeo, 30 December 1988; cited from Corrado De Cesare (ed.) (2008) L'ex fascista del Duemila. Le radici nere di Gianfranco Fini, Milan: Kaos, p. 58). The Roman salute, whose use spread after the March on Rome and was officially introduced in 1925 (a year before the adoption of the fasces motif) symbolized the renewal of Italy on the model of antique Rome. It featured in numerous propaganda images of fascism (see below). On this form of greeting there is no study comparable to Allert Tilman (2009 [2005]), The Hitler Salute, London: Saint Martin's Press. However, see Victoria de Grazia and Sergio Luzzatto (eds) (2003) Dizionario del Fascismo, Turin: Einaudi, vol. II, under the heading ‘Saluto romano’ (by Stefano Cavazza), pp. 578–9; and Filippo Ceccarelli (2005) ‘Saluto Romano. “Eia, eia, alalà”, il rito collettivo nell'Italia delle braccia tese’, La Repubblica, 20 November, pp. 42–43. Nancy M. Henley (1986 [1977]) Body Politics, Power, Sex and Nonverbal Communication, New York: Simon & Schuster , p. 127. Other than the examples illustrated in this article, see GEC [Enrico Gianeri] (1945) Il Cesare di cartapesta. Mussolini nella caricatura, Turin: Veca, figures 115–16, 135, 150, 242, 271, 285, 288; Enrico Sturani (2003) Le cartoline per il Duce, Turin: Capricorno, pp. 112–14, 154. In Totaro's current website www.achilletotaro.it (last accessed February 2010), this portrait features in a cropped version: here, the crossed arms are suggested by the glimpse of the fingers of his right hand. On Mussolini's photographic portraits, see especially the recollections of Italo Calvino (1990) ‘The dictator's hats’, Stanford Italian Review 8(1–2): 195–209; Giorgio Di Genova (ed.) (1997) ‘L'Uomo della Provvidenza’. Iconografia del Duce, 1923–1945, Bologna: Bora; Sturani, Le cartoline per il Duce. This military portrait was deemed sufficiently characteristic to have been used for the cover of a recent re-edition of the biography of the Duce: Pierre Milza (2006 [1999]) Mussolini, Rome: La Repubblica. On the significance and use of the tricolour in MSI and AN propaganda, see Cheles, ‘Prestiti e adeguamenti cromatrici’, pp. 195–201. In a brochure published by Azione Giovani in 2005, entitled VS. VER|SUS: elogio del contrasto. Il coraggio di schierarsi (about which more will be said later), pacifists are described thus: ‘Those who wish to run away from a war that is also a war of values, which we might even not fight, but which we would lose anyway. … The demonstrators who demand peace and use violence, who jump on the usual band-waggon prostrate with the horrors of war, but are quick to jump off when it's apéritif time. … Those blackguards who plead for better times but do nothing to bring them about, who sing the praises of our murderers while sitting on the organizations representing our people with a smile on their faces.’ Gerald Silk (2005) ‘“Il Primo Pilota”. Mussolini, fascist aeronautical symbolism, and imperial Rome’, in Claudia Lazzaro and Roger J. Crum (eds) Donatello among the Blackshirts. History and Modernity in the Visual Culture of Fascist Italy, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, pp. 67–8, 254–7. The fascist cult of flight had a considerable impact on the arts. See Stefano De Rosa (ed.) (1996) Aeropittura, 1930–1944, Florence-Siena: Maschietto & Musolino; Massimo Cirulli and Maurizio Scudieri (eds) (2004) Il volo, l'arte e il mito: aerei, piloti e costruttori nell'arte del primo Novecento, Mori (Trento): Stream Art. The theme of flight was dwelled upon in the video commemorating the 10th anniversary of AN; this included a still of the fascist leader and aeronautical hero Italo Balbo with Mussolini in an airplane. The same theme has been used for a number of years in the publicity of deputato Fabio Rampelli, currently president of the culture commission of the Chamber of Deputies, who was a councillor in the Lazio Region from 1995 to 2006. His website www.rampelli.it (last accessed February 2010), features a vintage plane and the slogan ‘Io ci credo!’ (I believe in it!), as well as pictures of such highlights of classical and fascist Rome as the Via Appia, the Colosseum, the giant marble scultures of the Stadio dei Marmi (formerly Foro Mussolini), and the Palazzo della Civiltà italiana (popularly known as Colosseo quadrato) in the EUR district. A poster produced in 2008 by Azione Giovani (Rome area) to advertise a series of open meetings intended to explain AN's planned merger with the Pdl, bears the slogan ‘Per volare pi[ugrave] in alto. Il PdL per l'Italia’ (Fly higher. The PdL for Italy). The accompanying photograph represents a five or six-year-old child in a full airforce outfit saluting military style (http://agprovinciadiroma.blogspot.com/2008/10/per-volare-alto.html, last accessed September 2009) – an image that is, incidentally, strongly reminiscent of fascist propaganda images of uniformed Figli della lupa (Children of the she-wolf) and Balilla youth saluting with a straight arm. Bartolo Sammartino (AN), former deputy mayor of Palermo, who, at Fini's request, donated him the badge which he was wearing, explained that ‘[The pin] serves the precise purpose of communicating values. … We have lost all metaphysical perspectives, the sense of the sacred. The Templars were warrior monks, they combined civic and religious virtues’; while Giuseppe Fragapani, an AN official in the provincia of Agrigento, declared that ‘The [Templars] Cross challenges materialism and nihilism, and alludes to Christian and Catholic values’. See Alessandro Trocino (2007) ‘E Fini sfoggia la croce dei Templari’, Corriere della Sera, 16 December, p. 12. The article notes that Fini had recently declared himself a non-believer. Fini is also repeatedly depicted in this manner in a recent promotional publication: Enrico Para and Fabio Torriero (2008) Gianfranco Fini. Il mio scatto come mission, Rome: Pantheon, pp. 12 (four illustrations), 24, 25. On the ritual of the speech from the balcony, and, more generally, the rapport which Mussolini cultivated with the crowd, see George L. Mosse (1975) ‘Public festivals: the theatre and mass movements’, in George L. Mosse, Nationalization of the Masses, New York: Howard Fertig, pp. 109–110; Didier Musiedlak (1991) ‘Le Duce, le balcon et la foule’, in Françoise Liffran (ed.) Rome, 1920–1945. Le modèle fasciste, son Duce, sa mythologie, Paris: Autrement, pp. 133–8; Jeffrey T. Schnapp (2006) ‘Mob porn’, in Jeffrey T. Schnapp and Matthew Tiews (eds) Crowds, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, pp. 1–45; For the portrayal of Almirante before the crowd, see Cheles, ‘Nostalgia dell'Avvenire’, pp. 58–9, figure 4.20. This photograph was supplied to me by the picture editor of the Secolo d'Italia when I asked for the pictorial source of the 2005 portrait of Fini. Secolo d'Italia, 25 April 2001, p. 5; 26 April 2001, p. 4; 29 April 2001, p. 2; 6 May 2001, p. 1; 1 May 2001, p. 2. That the photograph used on the poster is a re-enactment of one of the snapshots taken, presumably, in 2001, rather than a touched-up version of it, is revealed by the different tie worn by Fini. It is interesting to note that the technique of selecting the image of the leader from a snapshot (in the case of the last example, in re-enacted form) was favoured by Mussolini's propagandists: it offered the advantage of depicting the protagonist in a spontaneous pose, yet also, through the elimination of the context, as transcending ordinary reality. See Sturani, Cartoline per il Duce, pp. 134–45; and Alain Jaubert (1989 [1986]) Making People Disappear. An Amazing Chronicle of Photographic Deception, Washington, DC: Pergamon-Brassey's International Defence Publishers, pp. 51–60. In the posters of other parties, the leaders either explicitly pose (usually without a setting) or appear (complete with background) in a spontaneous attitude that purports that the photograph is an authentic snapshot. For instance, Forza Italia so termed its own tenth anniversary, which it celebrated in 2004. See Footnote 78 for a bibliography on this and other fascist exhibitions. This is explained in a leaflet that was distributed at the time. Iter Italiae's aim coincides, possibly accidentally, with that of the 1932 exhibition. As the introduction to the latter's catalogue explained: ‘This exhibition … is but an objective, faithful and chronological reconstruction of the origins of the Fascist Revolution and its development, an illustration of its aims, a picture of its achievements’. Dino Alfieri and Luigi Freddi (eds) (1933) Mostra della Rivoluzione Fascista, Rome: Partito Nazionale Fascista, p. 7. This is implied by Donato Lamorte, head of the Segreteria politica of AN, in an interview given to his party's daily. Cfr. C. C. [sic] (2005) ‘E sabato 17 a Roma si torna in piazza con Fini’, Secolo d'Italia, 1 December, p. 10. Menia led the party's university organization from 1988 to 1996. He is an Environment under-secretary in the present Berlusconi government and a strong upholder of AN's identity. See below. Massimiliano Mazzanti (2005) ‘In viaggio con Iter Italiae. AN vince la prima sfida: mobilitare il partito’, Secolo d'Italia, 1 December, pp. 10–11. The phrase Iter Italiae (literally: ‘Journey of Italy’) is actually macaronic Latin: the geographical noun ‘Italiae’ should have been replaced by the adjective ‘Italicum’. See A. C. P. [sic] (2006) L'Espresso, 12 January, p. 17, who also wryly remarks that the more idiomatic expression ‘Iter Italicum’ would have sounded malapropos, because it is also the title of a monumental catalogue of Renaissance manuscripts preserved in Italian libraries, which was compiled by Paul Oskar Kristeller – a German Jewish scholar who fled Italy for America in 1939. On the mythologization of Rome during fascism, see: Andrea Giardina and André Vauchez (2008 [2000]) ‘Ritorno al futuro: la romanità fascista’, in Andrea Giardina and André Vauchez, Il mito di Roma. Da Carlo Magno a Mussolini, Rome-Bari: Laterza, pp. 212–96; Borden W. Painter (2005) Mussolini's Rome. The Fascist Transformation of the Eternal City, Basingstoke, Hants: Palgrave Macmillan; Emilio Gentile (2007) Il fascismo di pietra, Bari-Rome: Laterza. For AN's cult of Rome, see, for instance, Adriano Scianca (2008) ‘Perchéè nostra (e solo nostra) l'idea di Roma’, Secolo d'Italia, 22 April, pp. 8–9. Alfieri and Freddi, Mostra della Rivoluzione Fascista, p. 16. Two other stamps celebrating the Decennale include the Roman way motif. One depicts a Roman paved road together with a road in the process of being built by a worker. Its motto stresses fascism's link with its classical origins: ‘Ritornando dove già fummo’. (Returning where we once were). In the other stamp, Roman roads feature as inscriptions (‘Via Aurelia’, ‘Via Appia’, ‘Via Flaminia’) cut into a pillar rising out of an intricate network of new roads – a juxtaposition that is made clear by the accompanying slogan ‘Nuove strade per le nuove legioni’ (New roads for the new legions). The Appian Way which appears on AN's poster seems visually dependent on the stamp naming the Mostra, rather than on the other two. For a reproduction of the full set of stamps commemorating the March on Rome, see Federico Zeri (2006 [2003]), Francobolli italiani, Milan: Skira, figures 65–84. AN propaganda frequently features visual quotations. This ‘intertextual’ procedure is also pursued on a linguistic level: slogans and other texts are frequently drawn from well-known authors and other personalities. The quotations or near-quotations are at times manifest, at times introduced discretely or surrepticiously (see below). ‘From Fiuggi to Farnesina: Gianfranco Fini's remarkable journey’ is the title of an article by Stefano Fella (2006) in The Journal of Contemporary European Studies 14(1): 11–40. The Farnesina is the seat of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. In an internal publication issued in 2006 illustrating the poster output of the previous year, which naturally includes the portrait of Fini with shadow, both the front and back covers depict, full page, an open hand shown frontally. See Roberto Menia (2006) Comunicare passioni. Immagini per il futuro, Rome: Dipartimento Iniziative Esterne e Propaganda, Alleanza Nazionale. For the foto-mosaico, see Alfieri and Freddi, Mostra della Rivoluzione Fascista, pp. 188–91. The shadow on the original photograph may have been darkened and touched up so as to emphasize the shape of the hand. Michel Cazenave (ed.) (1996) Encyclopédie des symboles, Paris: Livre de Poche, under the heading ‘lumière’, pp. 376–79; Helene E. Roberts (ed.) (1998) Encyclopaedia of Comparative Iconography. Themes Depicted in Works of Art, vol. I, Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, pp. 504–12. Mussolini's photographic, painted and engraved portraits often depicted him with a shine on his forehead or helmet; his many marble and bronze effigies naturally reflected light. For several examples, see Sturani, Cartoline per il Duce; Giorgio Di Genova (ed.) (1997) ‘L'Uomo della Provvidenza’. Iconografia del Duce, 1923–1945, Bologna: Bora, 1997; A