“Gli scheletri della dittatura”: Fascist Art, Architecture, and Monuments in Modern Italy

When Italy reconstituted itself as a republic in 1948, it inherited the art, architecture, and monuments that were constructed under Fascism. Many of these artifacts contained inherent Fascist imagery and were made to exalt the regime, but Italy’s postwar government – known as the First Republic – neglected to systematically confront them. This mirrored the First Republic’s approach to shaping Italy’s memory of Fascism, as the government established an anti-fascist narrative without addressing the country’s support for the regime. During the 1980s, notions of anti-fascism began to fall alongside the political power structure upholding them. This coincided with the rise of revisionism on Fascism and artistic reappraisals of Fascist art, leading to an increased willingness to discuss the Fascist era and its artifacts when Italy established the Second Republic in 1994. Although the Second Republic has reshaped the Italian memory of Fascism, it has still yet to critically confront the crimes of the era and enact a national policy towards Fascist artifacts. Thus, Italian municipalities have been left to deal with their own memories of Fascism and its material legacy. Previous studies on this situation have often focused on one city, usually Rome. However, this thesis will compare policies towards artifacts in Rome, Predappio, and Bolzano to examine how the issue has been dealt with throughout the country. This analysis is conducted primarily through the study of Italian newspaper articles on the municipalities’ interactions with their most prominent Fascist artifact(s). The examination of these articles and other sources demonstrates that Italian municipalities have interacted with their artifacts differently based on the dialogue between local context (including memory, identity, and financial situation) and national trends regarding Fascism.