Table Of ContentThe Cult of the Duce PPC_Layout 1 09/04/2013 11:20 Page 1
THE CULT OF
T
THE DUCE H
E THE CULT OF
C
THE DUCE
U
L
MUSSOLINI AND THE ITALIANS T
O
The cult of the Duceis the first book to explore systematically the personality cult of F
the Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. It examines the factors which informed the
T MUSSOLINI AND THE ITALIANS
cult and looks in detail at its many manifestations in the visual arts, architecture,
H
political spectacle and the media. The conviction that Mussolini was an exceptional
individual first became dogma among Fascists and then was communicated to the
E
people at large. Intellectuals and artists helped fashion the idea of him as a new
Caesar while the modern media of press, photography, cinema and radio
D
aggrandised his every public act. The book considers the way in which Italians
experienced the personality cult and analyses its controversial resonances in the U
postwar period.
C
Academics and students with interests in Italian and European history and politics
will find the volume indispensable to an understanding of Fascism, Italian society E
and culture, and modern political leadership.
Among the contributions is an Afterword by Mussolini’s leading biographer,
R. J. B. Bosworth.
G
u
Stephen Gundleis Professor of Film and Television Studies at the University n
d
of Warwick l
e
, D
Christopher Duggan is Professor of Modern Italian History at the University
u
of Reading g
g
a
Giuliana Pieriis Reader in Italian and the Visual Arts at Royal Holloway, University n
of London a
n
d
P
Cover image: Ernesto Thayaht, Il grande nocchiere (1939), Wolfsoniana – Fondazione regionale per la i
e
Cultura e lo Spettacolo, Genova r
i
(
e
d
s
)
ISBN 978-0-7190-8896-4
Edited by Stephen Gundle, Christopher
Duggan and Giuliana Pieri
www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk
The cult of the Duce
The cult of the Duce
Mussolini and the Italians
Edited by
Stephen Gundle, Christopher Duggan
and Giuliana Pieri
Manchester University Press
Manchester and New York
distributed in the United States exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan
Copyright © Manchester University Press 2013
While copyright in the volume as a whole is vested in Manchester University Press,
copyright in individual chapters belongs to their respective authors, and no chapter may
be reproduced wholly or in part without the express permission in writing of both author
and publisher.
Published by Manchester University Press
Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9NR, UK
and Room 400, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA
www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk
Distributed in the United States exclusively by
Palgrave Macmillan, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York,
NY 10010, USA
Distributed in Canada exclusively by
UBC Press, University of British Columbia, 2029 West Mall,
Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z2
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for
ISBN 978 07190 8896 4 hardback
First published 2013
The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any
external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee
that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
Typeset in Minion Pro
by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire
Contents
List of illustrations vii
Notes on contributors ix
Introduction 1
Stephen Gundle, Christopher Duggan and Giuliana Pieri
Part I THE ORIGINS OF A PERSONALITY CULT
1 Political cults in liberal Italy, 1861–1922 11
Christopher Duggan
2 The propagation of the cult of the Duce, 1925–26 27
Christopher Duggan
3 Margherita Sarfatti and the invention of the Duce 41
Simona Storchi
4 Sanity from a lunatic asylum: Ida Dalser’s threat to Mussolini’s
image 57
Daniela Baratieri
5 Mass culture and the cult of personality 72
Stephen Gundle
Part II THE DUCE AND THE FASCIST REGIME
6 A town for the cult of the Duce: Predappio as a site of pilgrimage 93
Sofia Serenelli
7 Mussolini’s appearances in the regions 110
Stephen Gundle
8 The internalisation of the cult of the Duce: the evidence of diaries
and letters 129
Christopher Duggan
9 Mussolini and the Italian Empire, 1935–41 144
Giuseppe Finaldi
vi Contents
Part III THE ICONOGRAPHY OF THE DUCE
10 Portraits of the Duce 161
Giuliana Pieri
11 Photographing Mussolini 178
Alessandra Antola
12 Mussolini as monument: the equestrian statue of the Duce at the
Littoriale Stadium in Bologna 193
Simona Storchi
13 Mussolini and the city of Rome 209
Eugene Pooley
Part IV AFTER THE FALL OF FASCISM
14 The destiny of the art and artefacts 227
Giuliana Pieri
15 The aftermath of the Mussolini cult: history, nostalgia and popular
culture 241
Stephen Gundle
16 Mussolini and post-war Italian television 257
Vanessa Roghi
Afterword 270
R.J.B. Bosworth
Index 278
List of illustrations
1 Ettore di Giorgio, Dux page 163
2 Primo Conti, La prima ondata, 1929–30 168
3 Golia, San Giorgio Benito uccide il mostro delle sanzioni, 1935
(The Wolfsonian–Florida International University, Miami Beach,
Florida, The Mitchell Wolfson, Jr. Collection) 169
4 Thayaht, Condottiero (Dux con pietra miliare), 1929 (Wolfsoniana
– Fondazione regionale per la Cultura e lo Spettacolo, Genoa) 171
5 Thayaht, Il grande nocchiere, 1939 (©Archivio fotografico MART) 172
6 Tono Zancanaro, Gibbo I il Grande e la spada dell’Islam, 1944
(Archivio Storico Tono Zancanaro, Padua) 174
7 Adolfo Porry Pastorel (attrib.), unpublished photograph of
Mussolini being escorted by plain-clothes policemen, 1915 (Civico
Archivio Fotografico, Milan) 181
8 Gianni Caminada, photograph of Mussolini later reproduced as a
postcard, 1921 (ETH-Bibliothek Zurich, Image Archive) 183
9 Adolfo Porry Pastorel, photograph of Mussolini sowing seed in the
nursery of the Forestry Militia, 1934 (Collezione Cesare Colombo,
Milan) 186
10 Unknown, Mussolini threshing the wheat at Aprilia, later
reproduced as a postcard in 1938 (Archivio Sturani, Rome) 188
11 Giuseppe Graziosi, equestrian statue of Mussolini at the Littoriale
Stadium, Bologna, 1929 (Modena, Museo Civico d’Arte, Archivio
Fotografico Giuseppe Graziosi, F.G.F. n. 1590) 195
12 Giuseppe Graziosi, model of Mussolini’s equestrian statue in
the sculptor’s studio (Modena, Museo Civico d’Arte, Archivio
Fotografico Giuseppe Graziosi, F.G.F. n. 24) 199
13 Luciano Minguzzi, statues of a male and female partisan, 1947
(author’s own photograph) 204
14 The head of Graziosi’s equestrian statue today (author’s own
photograph) 205
viii List of illustrations
15 Renato Bertelli, Profilo continuo del DUCE, 1933 (Massimo & Sonia
Cirulli Archive, New York) 232
Notes on contributors
Alessandra Antola recently completed a Ph.D. on Mussolini in photography
at Royal Holloway, University of London.
Daniela Baratieri is a Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia.
She has recently published Memory and Silences Haunted by Fascism: Italian
Colonialism 1930s–1960s (2010).
R.J.B. Bosworth is Senior Research Fellow in History at Jesus College,
University of Oxford. He is the author of numerous books, including
Mussolini (2002), Mussolini’s Italy (2005) and Whispering City: Rome and Its
Histories (2011).
Christopher Duggan is Professor of Modern Italian History at the University
of Reading. He is the author of many works, including Fascism and the Mafia
(1989), Francesco Crispi: from Nation to Nationalism (2002) and The Force of
Destiny: A History of Italy since 1796 (2007).
Giuseppe Finaldi teaches History at the University of Western Australia. His
most recent publication is ‘The Peasants did not Think of Africa: Empire and
the Italian State’s Pursuit of Legitimacy, 1871–1945’, in John MacKenzie (ed.),
European Empire and the People (2011).
Stephen Gundle is Professor of Film and Television Studies at the University
of Warwick. His most recent books include Bellissima: Feminine Beauty and
the Idea of Italy (2007), Mass Culture and Italian Society from Fascism to the
Cold War (2008, with David Forgacs), Glamour: A History (2008) and Death
and the Dolce Vita: The Dark Side of Rome in the 1950s (2011).
Giuliana Pieri is Reader in Italian and the Visual Arts at Royal
Holloway, University of London. Her main research interests are in the
fields of post-war Italian popular fiction, Anglo-Italian cultural relations
