Yesterday I had a dental appointment. My dentist’s studio is in a very pretty part of Rome with very pretty bourgeois aesthetics.
In Ancient Rome, niches were popular as they provided a display space for statues and urns. Until minimalist low budget buildings became the norm, niches were an architectural habit. That’s why I’d never given much attention to the niche outside my dentist’s studio. But yesterday that changed.
The niche displayed a statue of Venus holding a pitcher in one hand and something that, from a distance, looked like a cell phone (which of course it wasn’t).
My dentist’s Venus holds a pitcher that represents water, a vital element for life and thus a symbol of fertility. Venus, because of her birth, has a close relationship with water. Her dad, Uranus, ruler of the cosmos, was overthrown by his son, Saturn. To emphasize his victory, Saturn threw his father’s genitals into the sea. The penis swam around in the sea foam and, voilà, Venus was born.
Current events are existentially crushing and the feeling of doom is omnipresent. It’s easy to go into a depressive loop. But the other day internet offered this advice: “The amount of good things in your life depends on your ability to notice them.”
For unfortunate reasons, I’d missed my last dental appointment and was sure my dentist and his assistant were going to reprimand me. Instead, they embraced me, told me they were happy to see me, and asked how I’d been. They made me feel special.
When I left the studio, I was still high on the good vibes. And for the first time in the 15 years I’ve been going to my dentist, I stopped and looked at Venus and decided to photograph her to remember the moment.
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Appropriations for AI will be jinxed.
+ Unfortunatley, I don’t know the author of the above cited quote
Fascism is on the rise. To better understand why, I feel the need to reflect on the fascism that led to WWII.
Fascism is the belief that we are not all equal. That there are those who impose. Then there are those who are imposed upon. As a woman, I am in the category of “imposed upon”.
Poster by Gino Boccasile via Wikipedia translated as “the Italian woman with her renunciations and her sacrifices marches alongside the fighters”
At the turn of the century, while other parts of the world were experiencing new approaches to women’s emancipation, Italian fascists were doing their best to restrict women from deciding for themselves. Fascists (males, of course) were deciding how women were to take care of their bodies, what they should study, what kind of participation in politics they could have, what their obligations to the regime were and blah blah blah. Fascists may have believed in progress for the state, but not for women. Women, they believed, were only there to serve their cause.
New Order fascist poster by Gino Boccasile via Wikipedia
Mussolini came into power with his March on Rome in October of 1922. Hitler came into power in January 1933, 11 years after Benito. In fact, Hitler had been inspired by Mussolini. But once Hitler gained power, Mussolini’s role was radically transformed from prophet to acolyte. Why was this?
It was Hitler who first sought out Benito because Benito was considered the guru of fascism. Initially, Mussolini was not impressed by this attention. But, after the Nazis’ triumph in the 1933 elections, Mussolini took another look at his northern neighbor.
“Germany is really your friend” poster by Gino Boccasini
Although Mussolini had been the original mentor, that changed when he tried to invade Greece from Albania. Unable to take control of the situation, Germany took over the Balkans and saved Italy from an embarrassing defeat. That’s when Hitler decided he was the alpha man who could get things done and that Mussolini was only to follow his lead.
E tu cosa fai? (and what are you doing) poster by Gino Boccasile
Fascist men all seem to suffer from the Macho Male Syndrome. If you’re male, you must be virile. And as proof of this virility, you need to be ruthless, competitive, angry, and incapable of properly expressing any emotion save for rage. Fascists see empathy not as a strength but as a weakness.
Poster by Gino Boccasile “Non tradite mio figlio” (don’t betray my son)
Fascists practiced Hegemonic Masculinity. That is, the sociocultural practice legitimizing men’s dominant position in society. A woman in fascist Italy asking herself “What are my perspectives?” would know full well that they were not the same as a man’s.
Italian priest and politician, Vincenzo Gioberti, expressed his thoughts on women like this: “Women are to men, somehow what the plant is to the animal or the parasitic plant to the one it latches to for sustenance.” In other words, women are like parasites. SOURCE
When Mussolini took over, Italy’s civil code was based on the Napoleonic code of 1806 established when the French occupied Rome. This code was the basis on which individual rights were established. It stated that: families were patriarchal, the father had the parental authority, only civil marriages were recognized, children born out of wedlock were cut out of an inheritance, adultery was a crime only for women, and etc.
For fascists, women’s primary role was to have babies as an increase in demographics was important for Mussolini’s goals. Mussolini needed soldiers, factory workers, and settlers for the African colonies. And women were expected to fulfill this need.
Gino Boccasile poster
Italy and Germany, having arrived at unification only c. 1870, were in dire need of modernization to economically compete with other countries as industrialization in both Italy and Germany was way behind. Mussolini’s big dream was that of creating the New Roman Empire which meant geographical expansion. He invaded Africa and established the Italian Colonial Empire (1882-1960). The African colonies included Libya, Eritrea, Somalia, and Ethiopia.
And, as we’ve seen, you need people to colonize someone else’s country.
In the early years of fascism, Mussolini seemed willing to concede more rights to women as there were many women’s groups pushing for it. But the willingness would morph periodically during the early years of fascism. However, in 1926, Mussolini banned all political parties and their propaganda. Why have elections if other choices have been obliterated? Why do you need the right to vote if there is no one to vote for?
Servizio Ausiliario Femmile
Dictators do not emerge overnight.
Virility was publicly exalted whereas femininity was privatized and idealized. But this virility had to be on display and had to contribute to the cause. In 1927, a celibacy tax was imposed on all men between 25 and 65 of age who were not yet married. And, of course, homosexuality, which didn’t help the demographic cause, was a crime.
Despite the fascist preoccupation regarding wasted sperm, prostitution was permissable but only in state runned bordellos. The logic was that men were too virile not to fornicate all the time. Therefore, prostitutes were needed to pacify the macho within. Bordellos were also needed because the State worried about sexually transmitted diseases. By controlling the bordellos, women would be given routine medical checks. I don’t know how they dealt with unwanted pregnancies, though, as any kind of birth control as well as abortions were not permitted. Although there was some conflict between Fascists and the Catholic church (it’s always about power), the Church was complicit in keeping women in limbo.
Patriarchy affects our health. Women and their emotions are minimized and/or completely dismissed causing a mutilation of women’s self-esteem. Domineering males and their gaslighting techniques undermine a woman’s authority. Men, acting like little roosters, need to crow all the time. Patriarchy is also why men feel the right to be both psychologically and physically abusive towards women.
Fascism discriminated against women. Discrimination has its consequences as seen in this excerpt from a previous post, The White Doll:
In the 1940s, psychologist Mamie Phipps Clark and her husband conducted a series of experiments known as the “Doll Tests”. The intent was to see the psychological effects of segregation on Black children.
Black children (ages 3-7) were presented with a white doll and a black doll then asked which doll was beautiful, which doll was good, which doll was ugly, and which doll was bad. The majority of the children indicated the white doll as good and beautiful whereas the black doll as bad and ugly. The psychologists concluded that discrimination and segregation had caused these children to feel inferior thus mutilating the perception they had of themselves.
Segregation subjected Blacks to a collective solitary confinement. Deprived interaction with the mainstream world, Black children grew up feeling isolated and inadequate. They considered themselves losers even before the game got started.
The results were so concrete and devastating that they were used in the case of Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 landmark Supreme Court case in which the justices ruled unanimously that racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional.
To accompany the text of this post, I’ve used posters by Gino Boccasile (1901-1952) as he was a major Mussolini supporter and provided many propaganda posters for the dictator. After the war, Boccasile was imprisoned for having collaborated with the fascists. His reputation damaged, he had difficulties finding work and supported himself by making pornographic drawings for publishing companies.
Although I have referred to various sources, the source of info mainly used here is from Victoria de Grazia’s “Storia delle donne nel regime fascista”. (How Fascism Ruled Women. Italy 1922-1945).
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Appropriations for AI will be jinxed.
Bibliography:
de Grazia, Victoria. “Storia delle donne nel regime fascista”. (How Fascism Ruled Women. Italy 1922-1945). Marsilio Editori. Venezia. 2023.
On January 25, the Sicilian town of Niscemi found its inhabitants forced to evacuate their homes after a massive landslide. Can you imagine what it’s like to see your home sliding down a hill and turning into rubble?
The landslide, it’s said, was caused by the heavy rainfall provoked by Storm Harry. Also, according to Italy’s Civil Protection, one large landslide reactivated an old fault line creating an even bigger disaster.
The area of Niscemi is a geographically unstable terrain already suffering from erosion. Luckily, after seeing large cracks in the ground appear in residential areas, the mayor ordered an evacuation that saved many lives.
Every day, worldwide, we see disasters caused by deteriorating infrastructures and sloppy, negligent attitudes towards monitoring safety precautions. Just recently, in Switzerland, a fire started in a bar in Crans Montana killing 40 people and injuring many many others. Or, in Texas on the other side of the Atlantic, c 135 people died including numerous children at Camp Mystic when the Guadalupe flooded last year.
After a disaster, fingers are always pointed everywhere save towards the real cause. Because we know that these disasters are often provoked by thinking that it’s better to save money than to save lives.
It was George Santayana, Spanish philosopher, who wrote “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” And it looks like some of us missed out on a few history lessons. Especially those related to fascism.
In 1870, Italy reached complete unification and, with Rome as its capital, became known as the Kingdom of Italy. Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia was declared its King.
Fifty-two years later his grandson, Victor Emmanuel III, would appoint Mussolini as Prime Minister thus permitting the National Fascist Party to gain total control of the government. All opposition was crushed and authoritarian rule imposed.
A racist and anti- American propaganda poster made by fascist illustrator Gino Biccasile via
Initially, Italian fascism was seen as something positive. After WWI, Italy was in a state of political chaos and economic despair. Fascists promised to bring stability and national pride to Italy.
Carlo Emilio Gadda (1893-1973), an engineer student at Milano’s Politecnico and a zealous nationalist, volunteered for WWI. Part of a machine gun team, Gadda was capture and spent months in a German POW camp. His life as a prisoner in addition to his brother’s death during the war, profoundly affected his worldview. He was a convinced fascist.
Gadda finally graduated in 1920. And, until 1935, he continued to work as an engineer. But then something snapped from within and Gadda no longer felt the same enthusiasm for fascism as he had initially. Maybe because he dumped being an engineer to become a writer and thus activated parts of his brain he hadn’t been using before. And these new areas were not comfortable with fascism.
In 1945, Gadda wrote the pamphlet “Eros e Priapro” declaring that Italian fascism and the fascination with Bentio Mussolini was essentially a middle class movement. The extreme satire and somewhat obscene content created difficulties in finding a publisher. But Gadda was finding his “voice” and, in 1946, his crime novel “Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana” was published in five episodes in the magazine “Letteratura”. It would later be published as a novel in 1957 and would be considered Gadda’s masterpiece and “a philosophical meditation on a murder in a middle-class house during fascist rule, set in Rome.”
Gadda was enchanted by “cronaca nera” (crime news) and read it religiously. One story in particular mesmerized him—the story of Angela Barrucca’s murder.
Angela Barrucca is an attractive 34-year-old woman from Colleferro, a small town not far from Rome. Along with her husband and three kids, she lives at Piazza Vittorio 70. Angela’s husband is a merchant who earns well. And, unlike most Italians after the war, Angela and her family have a comfortable income.
the Cataldi sisters
Angela meets two sisters who also come from Colleferro but who have not been lucky like her. Lidia and Franca Cataldi, 17 and 23 years of age, lost their home during the bombings. And their father, a butcher, lost his business. Like so many others, the young women leave their town and go to Rome hoping to find work. There they meet Angela who is generous and tries to help them. But, instead of being grateful, they are greedy. Angela always gives them food and clothing. Nevertheless, Angela notices objects missing after visits from Lidia and Franca. Angela and her husband decide to no longer help the women out.
On the morning of 19 October 1945, the two sisters go to Angela’s house with the intent of stealing her fur coat. First, they ask her for money and when Angela says no, they start beating her up. Lidia has a knife and uses it to slash Angela’s throat. While Lidia is stabbing Angela, Franca fills a suitcase with valuable objects.
Afraid that Angela’s two year old son, Gianni, locked in the bathroom, will be able to identify them, they slash his throat, too.
Lidia and Franca are caught within a few hours. Tried, Lidia is sentenced to life imprisonment whereas Franca is sentenced to 30 years.
This is the true story that inspired Gadda’s “Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana” (translated into English as “That Awful Mess on the via Merulana”). But, instead of setting it in 1945, the setting is that of 1927 early Fascist Rome. A murder takes place in an apartment on via Merulana near Piazza Vittorio. Liliana Balducci is found dead in her home a few days after a neighbor lady has been robbed of her jewels. The theft quickly loses its importance when confronted with the brutal slitting of Liliana’s throat. Detective Francesco Ingravallo is called in to investigate the murder. Ingravallo not only knew the victim but had a secret crush on her as well.
Liliana, unable to have her own children, feels the need to “adopt” young girls as nieces to fill the void of her own childlessness. Ingravallo is attracted to the nieces but knows he must repress his urges. Like Gadda, Ingravallo has difficulties being spontaneous in the presence of women.
The book is full of sexual innuendos and often unpleasant ones at that. Gadda is blatantly misogynist and not much of a gentleman with the ladies. He describes Liliana, povera signora, as having been found “lying in an infamous position, supine…” with her grey skirt pulled up high enough to see her underclothing. And a lengthy description of Liliana’s underclothing (including garters and stockings) takes place. Ingravallo compares Liliana’s body with “those legs slightly spread as if in horrible invitation…to the furrow of the sex.” Ingravallo says it reminded him of being at Ostia during the summer “when the girls are lying on the sand baking themselves, when they let you glimpse whatever they want.”
As the investigation grows, it becomes apparent that almost everyone living in the building was connected to one of the two crimes. But the book, instead of focusing on resolving the murder, focuses on social critique and on what Calvino calls “the infinite stratification of reality”. Gadda is not interested in finding the murderer. He is more interested in practicing pastiche, playing with language, and practicing crass satire. It is a detective story where the detective doesn’t solve the crime. Like some kind of French existential novel, where, despite having read 388 pages, you have no solution to the whodunit.
Gadda had, in my opinion, a somewhat disturbed interior life. Maybe, in part, due to his childhood. Gadda was in his early teens when his dad died leaving the family in dire straits. Adele Lehr (1861-1936), Gadda’s mom, was a schoolteacher and described as “severe”. And now it was up to her to maintain her family. But her fixation with making a Bella Figura often misdirected the family’s income. In his diary, Gadda described how he would be nasty to his mom because they disagreed so much.
La Bella Figura reflects the idea that you have to present yourself in the best way possible as a form of self-respect. But also as a means to impress others.
Gadda was a Milanese snob believing that his city was fundamental for the country’s formation. The 19th cen Milanese bourgeoisies were brought up thinking that Milan was a model of enlightened rationality. But having been born and raised in Milano certainly had not made him a happy man. To the contrary. Gadda’s childhood was dominated by frustration especially after his dad’s death. The dad’s irresponsible investments created a permanent anger in mom that she shared with her kids.
In 1922, Gadda and his sister leave for Argentina on the Principess Mafalda
Gadda had a strong bond with his sister, Clara. She, too, had been victim of her mom’s need to control and the two became dependent upon one another for emotional nourishment as mom had no time for affection. Both Clara and Gadda continued to live with their mom until Clara married in her early 30s. And Gadda would continue living with his mom until her death when Gadda was 44 years old.
In 1950, at the age of 56, Gadda moved to Rome and worked for Italian radio (RAI) and lived in a cheap apartment on via Blumenstihl. And, in 1957, he published the book that would lead him to success.
After Gadda’s death, he was buried at the Protestant Cemetery in Rome. However, the Milanese wanted to bring him “home” and accused the Romans of “kidnapping” Gadda. But it was Gadda himself who wanted to be buried in Rome, the city that had been his home for over 20 years.
My friend, Janet Cooper, was in Rome this past weekend. We made an appointment for Sunday morning and, as she was staying near the Colosseum, we headed towards the Fori Imperiali.
Looking away from the Colosseum and towards via delle Carine, you can see the church of Santa Maria della Neve al Colosseo on the left, on the corner with via del Cardello. Turn around and you see this:
Peek-a-Boo Colosseo
The last weekend of the month, via dei Fori Imperiali is closed to traffic making it a great place for walking with friends and family. In fact, despite the grey weather, there was much animation.
Beneath the wall is via dei Fori Imperiali (Imperial Fora). The fori are a series of monumental squares and their buildings. They are all in the same area facing via dei Fori Imperiali. The forums are: Forum of Caesar (46 BC), Forum of Augustus (2 BC), Forum of the Peace (75 AD), Forum of Nerva (81-96 AD), and Forum of Trajan (113 AD), the latter built using the spoils from Dacia.
The Forum aka Foro, was the center of public life. It offered Romans a place to congregate and exchange social and business activities.
Because of the ongoing metro construction in the area, part of via Cavour was closed. But it gave us a chance to admire the corbels aka lions holding up the balconies.
A corbel, in architecture, is a support to help bear the weight of the balcony.
“The Imperial Fora are a monumental architectural complex, formed by a series of buildings and monumental squares, the centre of the political activity of ancient Rome, built in a period of about 150 years, between 46 BC and 113 AD.”
The Narrative Within 