Mussolini Obelisk

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The Mussolini Obelisk, 2012

The Mussolini Obelisk or Mussolini Monolith is an obelisk in Rome made of Carrara marble . It is the largest monolith that was sawed out of the mountain with wire saws and then worked on in the 20th century . The obelisk with a gilded tip is 17.40 meters high and weighs almost 300  tons .

The object of fascist monumental architecture , produced under Benito Mussolini from 1928 and handed over to the public in 1932 , still stands today. The words MVSSOLINI DVX ('Mussolini, the Führer') and the symbol of the Italian fascists , the bundle of lictors , are stamped into the obelisk in large letters . This front side is illuminated by powerful headlights at night.

The obelisk is not a monument among others, but the end of Mussolini's urban planning ideas. He portrays Mussolini as the creator of a state and the era of fascism.

location

The obelisk marks the center of the Foro Italico in the north of Rome in the district Della Vittoria in the XV Municipality. It stands on the Piazza Lauro De Bosis, which was named after the anti-fascist Adolfo Lauro De Bosis (1901-1931).

Foro Italico

The 220 m long and 30 m wide Ponte Duca d'Aosta by architect V. Fasolo (completed in 1942) with a Mussolini obelisk in the background in front of a steel structure

The Foro Italico was one of the most important building projects of the fascist regime in Italy. Rome wanted to compete for the 1940 Summer Olympics with the sports facilities . The complex in Rome includes the Rome Olympic Stadium and the Olympic Swimming Pool , "built by Enrico Del Debbio and Luigi Moretti in that gigantic style that was supposed to imitate the splendor of the old world empire [ ancient Roman ]". Mussolini wanted to build his own forum, surpassing the forums of Caesar and Augustus . “The Foro Italico offers a typical and well-preserved example of the instrumentalization of sport for the purposes of the ideology of fascism and its mastery .” In addition to the Mussolini obelisk and the 60 monumental marble statues in the Foro Italico there are the inscriptions DVCE (' Führer '), DVCE A NOI (' Führer - mit uns'), MOLTI NEMICI MOLTO ONORE ('Much enemy, much honor') and DVCE LA NOSTRA GIOVINEZZA A VOI DEDICHIAMO ('Duce, we give you our youth').

The bridge over the Tiber , the Ponte Duca d'Aosta , the Mussolini Obelisk and the Fountain of the Spheres are located on the Piazzale del Foro Italico , in the middle of which is the globe made of Carrara marble with a diameter of 3 meters and a weight of 37 tons on one axis. Behind it is the Rome Olympic Stadium .

MVSSOLINI DVX lettering

Lettering of the Balilla for the tenth anniversary of Italian fascism, 1932

While the Foro Mussolini was renamed the Foro Italico , the monolith still bears the MVSSOLINI DVX lettering carved in stone to this day. The capitals or capital letters (capital letters) are arranged vertically. The lettering MVSSOLINI covers the upper part of the obelisk and DVX the lower left side part. To the right of the lettering DVX is a symbolized bundle of lictors (Latin fasces ), a symbol of power of the Italian fascists, which is also part of Mussolini's coat of arms. The arrangement of the writing follows the design of the obelisk, which divides the side with the lettering into different rectangular areas. The letters DVX are larger than those of the MVSSOLINI name. Each capital letter should be a little over a meter high. The font is in capitals and is carved into the stone as a shallow groove (approximately 5 cm).

In the base of the obelisk, the fascist youth organization of Italy, the Opera Nazionale Balilla , immortalized itself with another lettering: OPERA BALILLA ANNO X (youth organization Balilla: 10th anniversary).

Neither the Balilla nor Mussolini's lettering was removed, although after the end of the fascist system in Italy all references and the name of Mussolini had to be removed. A technical explanation of why this did not happen is that the letters are too large or too deep to remove. Another explanation takes several aspects into account: the Allied troops took up residence in the Forum Mussolini, and the large stadium became a parking lot for their army vehicles. In the post-war period, Italy found it difficult to come to terms with the past, because fascism was understood as German rule. The twenty-year rule of the Duce was ousted. The buildings of the forum were renovated, completed and largely regained their old functions. The fascist symbolism of the monuments was preserved, and the staff of the forum from the time of fascism remained in the leading positions.

Manufacturing and transportation

Image of the Mussolini obelisk mounted in a transport frame
Transport with ox carts. A path specially created for transport can be seen.

The Mussolini obelisk made of Carrara marble was an integral part of the planning of the forum. The fascist government tried to gloss over the crisis of the entire Italian economy and marble production with spectacular large orders, which should be equal to the great works of the Roman emperors. This also includes the 60 monumental statues and the stone globe made of Carrara marble on the Forum Mussolini, which measures three meters in diameter, weighs 37 tons and is therefore probably the world's largest ball made of natural stone .

In 1928, the excavation and dismantling of the raw marble block for the obelisk began in the quarries of the Apuan Alps near Carrara . First of all, a massive stone bank of the marble deposit had to be selected that did not show any cracks, crevices or defects. A layer of marble was found in the Fantiscritti area in the mountains above Carrara in the Carbonera quarry.

First, the stone cutters, called Marmoristi in Carrara , cut the block free from the rock layer. After the block was detached from the rock layer, it was 19.00 × 2.35 × 2.35 meters in size. This marble block was pushed into a prepared wooden beam structure weighing 50 tons, which was to cover it and protect it from damage and thus enable it to be transported. The transport from a height of 800 meters over the mountain slopes was carried out using a special method, the so-called  lizzatura . The stone block is secured with ropes that are slowly released. Using this method and securing it with steel ropes, the 300 ton raw block slid into its wooden frame on wooden planks smeared with soap into the valley. A natural incision in the marble mountains, the so-called Grande Canale near Fantiscritti, was used for the removal  .

36 pairs of oxen pulled the obelisk in the plain eleven kilometers to the harbor in Marina di Carrara , using 70,000 liters of soap as a lubricant on the wooden planks. 50 men were involved in the transport and it is said to have taken eight months. A ramp was raised in the port of Marina di Carrara. Before that, the wooden scaffolding was removed and the block was pushed from the ramp onto the Apuano barge , which had been drained on sand and whose loading area was at the same height as the ramp. In June 1929 the barge first transported the block to Fiumicino and then on the Tiber to Rome. The production of the monolith itself required a total of 10,000 man hours and the block rises 17.40 meters at its place of installation. The block and production cost 2,450,000 lire , a substantial sum at the time.

In Rome, the obelisk was unloaded from the ship and pulled through the streets to its place of installation with a tractor, accompanied by great public interest. A ramp had been built to position it. The monolith was placed in a steel frame and lifted up using hydraulic presses and placed on the base.

On November 4, 1932, Mussolini presented the Mussolini Obelisk, the Palazzo dell'Accademia Fascista and the Stadio dei Marmi to the public after holding a celebration in Rome to mark the tenth anniversary of the fascist takeover in Italy.

restoration

In 2006, the Italian Olympic Committee commissioned the restoration of the place of honor including the Mussolini obelisk for 2.2 million euros. The obelisk was scaffolded and should only be cleaned. Neither the attachment of an explanation board nor the removal of the lettering was intended or planned.

In April 2015, the President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, Laura Boldrini ( Sinistra Ecologia Libertà ), called for the inscription on the obelisk to be removed, but received cross-party criticism, both from right-wing and right-wing extremist camps and from the Partito Democratico .

Interpretation critical of ideology

In Mussolini's speeches, the importance of Rome for Italian fascism is glorified:

“Rome is our starting point and point of reference, it is a symbol for us, or if you will: our myth. We imagine a Roman Italy, that is, a wise and strong, disciplined and imperial one. Much of what is the immortal spirit of Rome comes to life in fascism. "

For Nanni Baltzer, the obelisk not only marks the end of Mussolini's urban planning concept, but also of an era of fascism. This view is derived from the title page of the documentation of the Propaganda Office of the Governor of Rome:

“With Corinthian columns behind us, in the upper half we see the protagonist, Mussolini, who hits dilapidated and densely nested buildings, ancient spoilage and cobbled streets with a pickaxe. It becomes clear that he 'only' wants to remove the anonymous, unsanitary and non-functional parts of the city. The ancient past, on the other hand, supports his back and is the basis for his regime: Accordingly, Mussolini appears here not only as a representative of the state and thus the client of the action, but above all he is the active Duce, the leader who builds on tradition ' das New 'creates what can be seen in the lower half of the title page:' Carried by the people '(it stands for' in the people ') it lays the foundation for a number of new buildings from recent years. But: Mussolini not only lays the foundation stone for building new houses, streets, quarters or cities, but he is also the creator of a state and an era - fascism.
The end point or the exclamation point of the whole page is the obelisk signed Mussolini at the bottom right, which forms less the counterpoint than a bracket with the ancient columns at the top left: In fact, it is the obelisk that still stands on the Foro Italico in Rome today, the earlier Foro Mussolini, which was one of the very large, early, prestigious urban planning projects of fascism. "

See also

literature

  • Ibario Bessi (photos), Romano Bavastro, Rosario Bertolucci, Vittorio Prayer (text): Luci di Marmo . Pacini Editore, Pisa. 1989 (Italian / English)

Web links

Commons : Mussolini Obelisk  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ D. Medina Lasansky: The Renaissance perfected: architecture, spectacle, and tourism in Fascist Italy. Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006, ISBN 978-0-271-02507-0 , p. 13 ( Google Books , accessed October 17, 2009).
  2. ↑ Georg Bönisch: The way into the dictatorship. Hitler's teacher. Spiegel Special Story No. 1, 2008.
  3. ↑ a b Nanni Baltzer: "Noi dobbiamo creare (...) un'arte dei nostri tempi, un'arte fascista" (Mussolini). Photography and Architecture in Fascism . In: Thesis, scientific journal of the Bauhaus University Weimar. 2003, Issue 4, pp. 175–186, pp. 180–181, doi : 10.25643 / bauhaus-universitaet.1264 .
  4. ↑ Heike Hamann: Italy's Mussolini's sports palace is to be sold . In: Die Welt , June 20, 2000, accessed October 17, 2009.
  5. ^ Foro Italico - Sport and Fascism. Deutsche Welle , August 1, 2009, accessed October 5, 2016.
  6. ↑ a b Mussoliniforum. In: arch INFORM ; Retrieved October 17, 2009.
  7. ^ Chasing Obelisks in Rome. InItaly.com, accessed October 17, 2009.
  8. ↑ Claudio Reto Miozzari: Foro M. Dealing with the memory landscape of the Foro Mussolini (Foro Italico) in Rome. Licentiate thesis of the University of Basel 2004/2005, accessed on October 17, 2009.
  9. ^ A b c Luciana and Tiziano Mannoni: Marble, Material and Culture , Callwey, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-7667-0505-9 .
  10. ↑ Luigi Moretti. Piazzale del Monolite. ArchiDiAP.com, with images of the marble globe, accessed on October 5, 2016.
  11. ↑ Bessi et al. a .: Luci di Marmo , p. 46.
  12. ↑ a b c Mario Pinzari: Methods, techniques and technologies for quarrying ornamental stones. In: Marble in the World . Società Editrice Apuana (ed.), Carrara 1990, p. 164.
  13. ↑ a b Bessi u. a .: Luci di Marmo , p. 174.
  14. ↑ Bessi et al. a .: Luci di Marmo , p. 47.
  15. ↑ Bessi et al. a .: Luci di Marmo , p. 176.
  16. ↑ Alexander Smoltczyk: La Duce Vita. Coming to terms with the past in Italian - an obelisk in honor of Benito Mussolini is being renovated . In: Der Spiegel . No. 26 , 2006, p. 108 ( online ).
  17. ↑ Lisa Maria Gasser: The Duce has to go. salto.bz , April 19, 2015, accessed October 5, 2016.
  18. ^ Ute Schleimer: The Opera Nazionale Balilla or Gioventù Italiana del Littorio and the Hitler Youth. A comparative representation. Waxmann, Münster 2004, ISBN 978-3-8309-1445-7 , p. 60 ( GoogleBooks ).

Coordinates: 41 ° 55 ′ 54.8 "  N , 12 ° 27 ′ 31.8"  E