XX Settembre 1870: Rome’s Capture as a Contested Public Memory

The Kingdom of Italy’s capture of Rome, on 20 September 1870, signaled the end of the Catholic Church’s temporal power and the completion of the Risorgimento , but the day is no longer officially celebrated and has been largely forgotten by the public except for its prominent use in street names. The political and cultural amnesia surrounding the significance of September 20th to national unity reflects the unresolved challenges that Prime Minister Camillo Cavour had articulated when advocating for a free Church in a free State in 1861. Declared a national holiday by Francesco Crispi’s government in 1895, Mussolini stripped the date of its status to enhance his own in 1930. Postwar efforts to elevate its official standing have all failed, and the date’s significance has been marginalized across the political spectrum albeit with dissenting voices. Paradoxically, since Vatican II, the Catholic Church has reinterpreted its loss of temporal power as a providential act and, thus, Pope Francis emerged as the leading public celebrant of the sesquicentennial anniversary of September 20th in 2020. This article examines the historical events surrounding Rome’s capture and the subsequent treatment of those events in various understudied materials including those of journalists (e.g., Ugo Pesci, Roberto Stuart), patriotic painters (e.g., Carlo Ademollo’s La breccia di Porta Pia , Michele Cammarano’s Carica dei bersaglieri alle mura di Roma ), contemporary photographers (Gioacchino Altobelli, Lodovico Tuminello), encomiastic writers (e.g., Raffaele Cadorna, Edmondo De Amicis), and television/films (e.g., La presa di Roma , Superfantozzi ). This cultural documentation also exposes inconsistencies (e.g., the circumstances surrounding the death of the decorated Bersagliere , Major Giacomo Pagliari) that challenge the hegemonic narrative. The article’s analysis of material representations of September 20th is complemented by a reconstruction of both the political and religious responses to the date’s significance from 1870 to 2023. September 20th speaks to the unresolved issues identified by Cavour, and, hence, its contested interpretation remains relevant to current discussions of Church-State relations in Italy today.