The Future Was Then: The Changing Face of Fascist Italy

 

In early 1918, a little-known, largely unimportant Northern Italian writer and bureaucrat penned a newspaper editorial calling for the emergence of “a man ruthless and energetic enough to make a clean sweep” to revive the Italian nation. During a speech in Bologna three months later, he suggested he might be the very person for whom he had pressed; four years later, he led a march on Rome to prove that, in fact, he was.

His name was Benito Mussolini.

In the aftermath of World War I, the Italian peninsula was not what it once was: the home of the Roman Empire—perhaps the most powerful the world had ever known—and of the Renaissance, when culture and art had flourished, and tremendous wealth had been amassed. Italy had since sunk to a place among Europe’s poorest nations, and its people were disaffected and disunified. In the first two decades of the 20th century, it had been dragged through a global war, a devastating pandemic, large-scale emigration, food shortages, and rapid inflation. Mussolini, a former schoolteacher and soldier, gradually built a cult of personality around his reputation as a populist, purposefully buffoonish bully, and earned the support of an unusual coalition between the nation’s industrial elites, who saw opportunity, and its rural poor, who saw him as one of their own. In 1922, he gathered thirty thousand thugs in black shirts at the capital, raising one-armed “Roman salutes” to demand the resignation of the sitting prime minister. Italy’s figurehead king, Victor Emmanuel III, feared violence and quickly handed power
to the young radical.  

Mussolini seized power without being elected; he ruled without morality. He controlled every branch and office of his nation’s government, and vowed to rule without any checks or balances, claiming he would restore law and order. The king, and many Italians, believed him. 

Two years later, after his second election, Mussolini completely replaced the government with extreme loyalists. He stated his goals for the nation he intended to build: its reemergence as a world power and the reestablishment of the Roman empire, offering pride to the people and glory to the country. The next 21 years would be among the most turbulent in the history of a peninsula with two millennia of turmoil preceding it: the then-fledgling nation of Italy—only 50 years beyond the reorganization of its scattered duchies, principalities, and provinces into a unified state—underwent a tempestuous shift as it was electrified by colonialist, industrialist, and racist ambitions that would take it into World War II, its own civil war, and, finally, the founding of the modern Italian Republic.

As Italy expanded geographically, culturally, and creatively, it felt for many Italians that the future was now. Through the State—and its tremendous cultural influence on private enterprise—a new national identity was presented, promoted, and urged, in a transformation not only of Italy but of the Italian people. 

And so then began the task of selling Italy: at home, abroad, and as an idea in itself.

Please note that this exhibition contains violent imagery that some visitors may find disturbing.

Unless otherwise noted, all posters, sculptures, and ephemera are from the Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna. 

Whenever feasible, Poster House reuses materials from previous shows to drive sustainable practice. 

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA).

Large text, Spanish translation, and a Plain Language summary are available via the QR code and at the Info Desk.

El texto con letra grande, la traducción al español y un resumen en lectura fácil están disponibles a través del código QR y en atención al público.

ITALY AS AN IDEA

L’Italia come un’idea

 

In 1941, construction workers digging out Rome’s Termini train station struck a piece of marble that revealed itself to be a giant, two-thousand year old bust of Emperor Hadrian. It was just one of a near constant stream of discoveries made during state efforts to restore Italy to its perceived former glory—public works led to public triumphs as it became increasingly obvious that Italy’s basement was teeming with antiquities. They were statues of nobles, merchants, divine emperors, larger than life and seemingly permanent: the art of the state raised to show men as gods. Museums opened everywhere, full of Roman legends meant to inspire but also as reminders that Italy is a nation that was. Mussolini saw this as yet another indication of the need for a third Roman Empire. An Italian empire. His empire. 

 

Although Italy had been united approximately 70 years earlier, the young nation remained linguistically, culturally, and ethnically undefined. After World War I, the rising tide of nationalism across Europe reached the peninsula, and many of Italy’s greatest poets, writers, painters, and designers soon all had one idea in common: that liberty was boring. Mussolini’s regime was strongly supported by artists in the Futurist movement; its leader Filippo Marinetti even merged his Futurist Political Party with Mussolini’s National Fascist Party in 1919. While Italian Futurism and Italian fascism remained formally separated, their ideologies heavily overlapped: it was poets and writers, painters and designers who would draw the face of the nation, both at home and abroad. 

 

The face of Italian fascism was created by creatives; it was maintained not just by marching but by museums. Margherita Sarfatti, a Venetian Jew and a peerless, influential critic, connoisseur, and patron of Italian art, was Mussolini’s longtime lover and the uncrowned queen of Italy; her funds sustained Mussolini’s newspaper, Il Popolo d’Italia, that had rocketed him to rule. A one-eyed fighter pilot, Gabriele D’Annunzio, was Italy’s greatest living poet and novelist, and the author of the entire ritual of fascism that inspired Mussolini’s imitation: it was not the dictator but the poet who crafted the theater of roaring speeches, the Roman salute, the blackshirted followers with their primal responses and strong-arm oppression. It was that same writer who suggested an ultimately powerful method of persuasion: dissidents would not be bested by rhetoric but by castor oil, a very effective laxative, to humiliate, disable, or kill them. 

 

As art created the regime, so did the regime turn to art and, by extension, to advertising to reiterate its cause. The resulting works often mixed Futurist themes with those of Romanità—the return of Roman classicism and a sense of Italian superiority—as Mussolini struggled to reforge a new empire of tenuously connected Mediterranean and African conquests. Futurism, emphasizing modernism, power, and speed had been born in Italy; at the same time, its counterpoint, the Novecento movement (“Ninehundred, referring to the 1900s), rejected avant-garde artistic movements in favor of the representational art of the Italian past. The movement’s first exhibition opened in Milan in 1923 with Mussolini, styling himself as “Il Duce” (the Leader), as the keynote speaker. 

 

Opponents of the regime howled that Mussolini, a highly educated newspaper writer fluent in three languages and a former schoolteacher who read 19th-century philosophy books in his spare time, had made a point of macho posturing, championing brute force and anti-intellectualism. In response, he noted that “our artistic past is admirable, but as for me, I couldn’t have been inside a museum more than twice.” Nevertheless, art provided an avenue to influence the population, and Mussolini saw the opportunity.

A poster of a towering gate decorated with military statues built in the shape of the word

FIAT, 1927

Giuseppe Romano (1905–67)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • In 1926, Giuseppe Romano was hired by Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino (FIAT, the Italian Automobile Factory of Turin) to help coordinate the firm’s larger marketing operation with that of its individual dealers who at that time had creative control over the promotion of their own businesses.
  • This poster reflects the monumentalism, combining classical and modern forms, typical of the art and architecture of the fascist period. Romano transforms the FIAT acronym into a factory-temple topped by Greco-Roman statues in an obvious allusion to antiquity. FIAT has not conquered Gaul or Germania as the ancient Romans did, but rather modern industry. Meanwhile, under a swirling red and yellow sky suggesting the dawn of a new era, modern cars dart into an unseen but brightly optimistic future. 
  • This edifice most likely references the Arch of Titus in Rome, a first-century construction built to commemorate the sacking of Jerusalem by Roman forces under the leadership of the general of that name. The fascist army often held symbolic parades during which soldiers marched through the arch; in 1938, Adolf Hitler and Mussolini walked through it together to herald a renewed conquest of the Jewish people. 
  • This advertisement became a graphic touchstone, frequently referenced and mimicked by both fine and commercial artists, most notably by René Magritte in The Art of Conversation (1950) and Reynold Brown in his poster for the movie Ben-Hur (1959).

A poster of a woman reaching up from a steering wheel to wave an Italian flag.

Ardita FIAT, 1933

Alberto Bianchi (1882–1969)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • FIAT was and is Italy’s largest manufacturer of automobiles. In 1933, it began production of the FIAT Ardita, a torpedo-shaped car; fewer than nine thousand of them would be manufactured over the next five years.
  • The name was chosen to represent the nationalist, fascist spirit of the era: ardita means, roughly, “the daring one,” and also blatantly references the Arditi, an elite Italian unit of assault troops that revolutionized modern warfare during World War I. Forerunners to today’s special forces, the Arditi broke into enemy lines in advance of the regular infantry, killing at close range with daggers and hand grenades.
  • The woman’s hat in the poster further associates the car with the Arditi as they wore similar black fezes that would later become part of the general fascist military uniform.
  • FIAT was a remarkably conventional company, and in spite of its name the Ardita FIAT was anything but daring, close in style to standard American automobiles of the time. Thus, this poster reflects not FIAT’s own creativity, but simply that of its graphic design department.

A poster of a round orange baby's head framed by green ribbons of text.

Buitoni, 1928

Federico Seneca (1891–1976)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • Federico Seneca, one of the masters of Italian advertising, lived a life that closely mirrored the rise of fascism itself: a classically trained artist, he worked as a poster designer before World War I when he enlisted and became a military seaplane pilot. During the war, he met and began a lifelong friendship with Gabriele D’Annunzio, the writer and veteran who, after Mussolini, would emerge as Italian fascism’s most singular guiding creative hand. 
  • At the beginning of the 1920s, Seneca was hired by Perugina chocolates (two of his designs for the brand are also on display in this exhibition) and became the director of the entire company’s marketing for nearly two decades; he produced this poster for  Buitoni pasta after its merger with Perugina.
  • The looming, round-faced head of a child highlights the biopolitics of the era, implying that babies fed in fascist Italy would inevitably be chunky and healthy despite the reality that many were on the brink of starvation. 
  • The enigmatic advertisement also showcases one of the pervasive effects of Italian fascism on design; the glowing infant is simultaneously both charming and rather menacing, reflecting the ominous tone endemic to the national mood of the period, as if to say: Buy Buitoni. Or else.

Lanital Brochure, 1937

Attributed to Bruno Munari (1907–98)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • The modernist designer Bruno Munari did not believe that art should be separated from life, but rather that objects should be both beautiful and functional. As such, much of his work for the most mundane or basic products stands as highly conceptual and ambitious. This corporate brochure for Lanital fabric, for example, features a metallic- gold cover, avant-garde photomontage layouts, and the newly patented spiral binding that allowed books to lay flat.  
  • Also owned by SNIA, Lanital is a synthetic wool made from regenerated fiber based on the casein protein found in milk. After Italy faced sanctions from the League of Nations for invading Ethiopia in 1935, the need for domestically produced synthetics rose tremendously, encouraging the kind of innovation that was eagerly celebrated by Mussolini. The Futurist Marinetti even wrote “Poem of the Milk Dress” as an avant-garde advertising campaign for the company, seeing its new fabric as the manifestation of the “milk clothing” he had foreseen in his Manifesto of Futurist Women’s Fashion in 1920. 
  • As the nearby posters for other synthetic fabrics also indicate, it became desirable from an advertising standpoint not only to excuse but also to elevate these cheap materials to bring them to a fashion-conscious population. Just as other inexpensive and ersatz products were marketed as the height of style, here Munari was recruited to convince Italians to dress themselves in, essentially, cheese crumbs by creating a hyper-stylized, Futurist-inspired pamphlet, blending art, design, and poetry. 

SNIA Viscosa: le opere assistenziali (SNIA Viscosa: Welfare Programs), 1938

Erberto Carboni (1899–1984)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • SNIA was a manufacturer of rayon or “viscosa” (viscose), a semi-synthetic fabric used as a cheap substitute for silk. It was also one of many Italian corporations that provided welfare programs for its workers, most of them based in company towns where there was little distinction between the dominant business and the local government.
  • This modernist promotional booklet about SNIA’s childcare assistance for its workers reflects the pervasive use of ambitious, unconventional design within the commercial sector under fascism. Here, Erberto Carboni incorporates photomontage, translucent plastic pages, and a spiral binding—as well as the expected photographs of Mussolini. 
  • Corporations wanted to emulate the declared benevolence of the fascist regime and worked ceaselessly to produce propaganda like this booklet to demonstrate how they were helping to better the lives of their workers and the surrounding communities.

A poster of two fashionable women in patterned dresses with bold text at their knees.

Esposizione Rhodia Albene (Rhodia & Albene Fabric Show), 1936

Marcello Dudovich (1878–1962)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • Marcello Dudovich was one of the greatest Italian graphic designers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Trained at the prestigious Royal Academy in Trieste, he was instrumental in the huge advances made in Italian poster design during this time, along with his contemporaries Leonetto Cappiello and Leopoldo Metlicovitz.
  • Here, Dudovich relies on familiar motifs for his longtime client, the nationwide department store La Rinascente, for which he had been producing graphic work for more than 15 years. In this appeal to glamour, he modernizes the sweeping movements of the figures in opera posters he had created throughout his career, embodied in the confident strides and expressions of these female protagonists. As in much of the design of the period, nationalism plays a part, with the understated red, white, and green tones of the Italian flag prominent in the clothing of the future-facing models.
  • In spite of the feeling of luxury, however, the poster is selling unstated austerity: Rhodia and Albene fabrics were offered as sleek, new alternatives to silk and satin. In reality, Rhodia was made from pressed, purified cellulose (wood pulp) and Albene was flat-threaded rayon with an acetate base—both cheap materials suited to the budgets of the many Italians still suffering from the Depression but marketed as the height of opulence.

A poster of a blue cartoon figure spinning a fluffy ball of cotton into thread.

Sniafiocco, 1933

Araca (Enzo Forlivesi Montanari, 1898–1989)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • Starting in 1920, the Società di Navigazione Italo Americana (SNIA), an Italian shipping company that had moved away from cargo transport, began purchasing Italian factories that produced cheap, moth-resistant, silk-like synthetic fabrics, especially rayon or viscose, for a nation that could not readily afford the real thing. In 1920, SNIA produced just over one million pounds of this material; by the dawn of the Great Depression in 1929, it was making nearly 22 million pounds of it and became the first Italian company to be listed on the foreign stock exchange. 
  • Such innovation coincided with Mussolini’s directive to Italian businesses to establish the country’s self-sufficiency by introducing methods of production that would allow it to manufacture items that would otherwise be imported. By the end of the 1920s, Italy had such success with creating synthetic fabrics that it was responsible for nearly 20 percent of the world’s output.
  • The fiocco in Sniafiocco means “tuft,” a small, soft ball of cotton not unlike the one positioned in front of the anthropomorphic figure in this design. While it may not be actual cotton, the visual appeal of the artificial product combined with the declaration that it is a “national” commodity suggests to the viewer that it is actually better than the real thing.  
  • SNIA was one of many textile producers in Italy. Like other companies, it understood the value of riding the wave of intense nationalism in order to bolster its brand recognition and domestic sales. As such, it unofficially dubbed its product “Il cotone nazionale” (The National Cotton). 

A poster of a cartoon white figure with long limbs stuck inside blue rectangular cans.

Lubrificanti FIAT (FIAT Lubricants), 1934 

Marcello Nizzoli (1887–1969)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • Mussolini’s regime followed the Futurist movement’s desire for speed and velocity, and pursued his own ambitions towards the creation of a new Italian Empire through colonial acquisitions around the Mediterranean. As a result, Italians began organizing popular automobile races throughout both Italy and, as Mussolini conquered overseas territories, its colonies. First created for FIAT by Marcello Nizzoli in 1925, this figure, known as “L’omino bianco” (the little white man) was a stylized version of one of the mechanics who accompanied professional drivers in those races.
  • As with the Sniafiocco “National Cotton” advertisement, here an almost featureless geometric form stands in as the Everyman, promoting FIAT’s automotive lubricants against the signature fascist colors of red and black. This style of figure (which appears in many of the posters from this period) also suggests a robust body in service to the nation. 
  • Nizzoli—best known as the chief designer of Olivetti typewriters—was a student of Futurism and greatly influenced by Fortunato Depero, whose style and love of blocky semi-human figures is clearly visible in Nizzoli’s work.

A poster of two brown figures embracing on a yellow background.

Cioccolatini Perugina (Perugina Chocolates), 1929 

Federico Seneca (1891–1976)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • In 1929, Federico Seneca took first prize at the International Exhibition of Posters in Munich in the middle of his decade-long residency with the company Perugina/Buitoni, which would end four years later when he left Perugia for Milan to open his own studio.
  • This design marks a significant departure from Seneca’s earlier work, blending the longtime popular advertising trope of giving inanimate objects human characteristics with the Futurist desire to reduce human forms to sleek, geometric machines. Here, faceless, chocolate-colored figures lean romantically toward one another while carrying tiny, green boxes of Perugina chocolate.
  • Like many companies in the fascist period, Perugina worked to elevate products born from meager circumstances. In this case, the company’s founder, Luisa Spagnoli, created Perugina’s famous Baci chocolates when import bans left cacao in short supply; Perugina soon began rolling the chocolate shavings left over from its truffles and bonbons  into balls. Spagnoli originally called them “cazzotti” (punches, for their fist-like shape) before settling on the more alluring “Baci (kisses).

A poster of a soaring white airplane bisecting red text above a ship on the ocean.

Cioccolato Ali d’Italia (Wings of Italy Chocolate), 1931 

Mario Gros (1888–1977)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • In 1931, Italo Balbo, the minister of the Italian Air Force, and his team led a series of transatlantic flights to South America to promote Italian dominance within the realm of aviation. This poster advertising the 80-year-old chocolate manufacturer Talmone builds on the popular success and publicity of those expeditions to enhance the prestige of the brand and its “Wings of Italy” chocolate.  
  • As Italian nationalism and colonialism expanded at the end of the 19th century with Italy’s invasion of countries on the African continent, Talmone more overtly began to associate its brand with Egyptian and other North African themes. In the 1930s, motifs like those in this poster connected the company’s image to new developments in aviation and the national pride that came with them. 
  • Here, Talmone is linked to the Italian exploration of the New World, and features Columbus’s caravel and the date 1492 at the lower right, a powerful reminder that Italians had once been at the forefront of international colonization and surely would be again.

A poster of a white propeller plane with large blue bird's wings coming out of it.

Il giorno dell’ala (Day of the Wing), 1930

Maga (Giuseppe Magagnoli, 1878–1933)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

A poster of birds soaring in a diagonal line above a a prancing black horse.

Giornata dell’ala (Day of the Wing), 1933

Giovanni Minguzzi (1897–1953)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

A poster of a large white bird wing cutting diagonally across the poster with airplanes and parachutes in the background.

Il giorno dell’ala (Day of the Wing), 1930

Melkiorre Melis (1889–1982)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • Air shows, colloquially known as “Wing Days,” were common events in Italy during the fascist period, and typically used as public demonstrations of the increasing power of the nation. While these three posters advertise separate events, each designer’s graphic approach to the topic reflects the same overall mandate: Italy is unparalleled in aviation technology. 
  • Giuseppe Magagnoli’s poster links the contemporary Italian airman to the aquila (Roman eagle), a near-sacred symbol of the ancient empire’s military might, reflecting the fascist obsession with the country’s triumphant history. The accompanying text states that ticket sales will benefit housing for the orphans of fallen aviators.  
  • In his poster for the same event, Melkiorre Melis emphasizes more graphically the dangers faced by Italian airmen, three of whom are shown parachuting into an active battlefield with bombs exploding all around them. Four years after producing this design, Melis was sent to run the Muslim School of Arts and Crafts in Tripoli, the capital of Libya, a new Italian colony. 
  • The final poster, by Giovanni Minguzzi, promotes an air show in Ravenna, a northeastern coastal city near Mussolini’s hometown of Predappio, hosted by the Francesco Baracca Air Club. The club was named after a World War I fighter pilot, and its symbol of a rearing or prancing horse would later be adopted by car manufacturer Enzo Ferrari for his company’s iconic logo. 
  • Minguzzi’s poster also features the fasces, a bundle of sticks surrounding an axe, that was adopted by the Italian fascist government in reference to imperial Rome, where it was a symbol of authority. It might also refer to the many bird studies by Futurist artist Giacomo Balla, underscoring the fact that fascist artists appropriated many of the aesthetic elements of Futurism.

A poster of a naked figure laying on its back at the edge of a cliff overlooking an ocean with a large man's face in the background.

La conquista dell’aria (The Conquest of the Air), 1940

Fernando Matticari (1908–78)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • Romolo Marcellini’s film La conquista dell’aria (The Conquest of the Air) is a sweeping, cinematic pseudo-documentary history of human flight, starting with the failed attempt of Icarus (shown in this poster collapsed naked on the rocks, his wings broken) and ending with the aviation triumphs of the fascist regime. 
  • While modern flight was invented by the Wright Brothers in the United States, the poster focuses on Italy’s historic contributions to aviation history, including the aforementioned Icarus, who hailed from Sicily, as well as the omnipotent, ghostly head of Leonardo da Vinci, whose aeronautical designs inspired centuries of inventors. This same portrait of Leonardo also appeared in Matticari’s other poster for the film, only this time in yellow tones behind a juxtaposition of one of the Italian master’s early drawings of a flying machine and a contemporary Italian plane. 
  • The fascist government provided substantial funding for the nation’s film industry, including building Cinecittà in Rome, the largest film studio in Europe; it was intended to rival Hollywood and highlight Italy’s cinematic modernity. The regime’s heavy-handed censorship and a tendency in the artistic and film communities to appease the government meant that many Italian films throughout the 1930s effectively served as propaganda.

A poster of a large man in a black suit bent over with the face and shoulder of a woman inside of his arm.

Bel Paese, 1932

F. Quillio (Carlo Pandolfi, 1906–43)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • Carlo Pandolfi used many pseudonyms, including the one with which he signed this poster, representing a graphic bridge between semi-abstract Futurism and the more elegant art of the late 19th century. In it, the long, leading arm of the waiter draws the viewer’s attention past the woman—whose face is rendered in the style of an Art Deco Leonardo da Vinci model—to the large block of Galbani’s Bel Paese cheese.
  • Bel Paese means “beautiful country,” and the label leaves no question about which country the company is referring to: an arrow-like slice cuts straight into the center of Italy on the map. The packaging also features a portrait of the Italian geologist Antonio Stoppani, whose treatise on the Italian land—Il Bel Paese—gave the cheese its name. 
  • At the time, packaging for the cheese that was exported to America featured a map of the United States rather than Italy, indicating that this poster is promoting Bel Paese to a local audience. 
  • Like much advertising of the period, the high-class sophistication of this image, with its tuxedoed waiter and glamorous diner, was a reflection not of the reality of impoverished Italy but of how Italians wished to be seen on the world stage.

A poster with silhouettes of various mechanical equipment and large slanted text on a yellow background.

Orgoglio (Pride), 1938

Carlo Bompiani (1902–72)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • Orgoglio (Pride) is a 70-minute industrial morality film about a factory owner whose ambitious son attempts to convince him of his business ideas; he does not take them seriously until the son is injured on the job. 
  • Like most films produced in Italy during the fascist period, Orgoglio was created with substantial funding from the Italian government and embodies, in turn, its political and social values. A reflection of governmental notions of industry, the movie exemplifies the idea that both ambition and sacrifice for a larger good are intertwined: the dogmas of the past can grow only through the physical dedication of the young. 
  • Designer Carlo Bompiani uses the O-shapes of the film’s title as the gears of an industrial belt, fully incorporating the text as a graphic element within the poster. Its long, skinny form indicates that this poster would have been displayed above a doorway.

A poster of a Black athlete doing a handstand with large shoes on their hands.

Campeggio, 1936

Mario Borrione (1903–84)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • Campeggio (camping) was a style of shoe designed for the Fratelli Bima corporation by photographer Sebastiano Campagna. It became one of the company’s most successful models and was the forerunner of the modern boat shoe.
  • By 1936, Mussolini had begun to embark on his great quest to reestablish the glory of the ancient Roman Empire by forging a new Italian one through foreign conquest. Most notably, Italy’s 1936 victory in Ethiopia led him to refer to Italians as “conquerors” and himself as the founder of their empire. 
  • This poster shows the far reaches of the Italian imperial fervor of the period immediately following declaration of the Italian Empire, when images of Africans appeared everywhere in Italian advertising. Such imagery, portraying African subjects through an exoticized lens, functioned to mask the violence, exploitation, and racism underpinning Italy’s colonial ambitions, softening the reality of conquest through seemingly playful and glamorous compositions.

ITALY AT HOME

L’Italia a casa

 

Benito Mussolini was not an attractive man, at least not conventionally: short and heavyset, he had been a second-rate soldier in Italy’s first world war. By his own admission, he had been a totalitarian child, a temperament that did not improve with age. In his private life, he placed his first wife under surveillance, abandoned their son, and had their names wiped from the public record. To the Italian people, he made many promises: to revive the Roman Empire through colonial conquest, restore the country’s agricultural self-sufficiency, codify the use of the unified Italian language instead of more than a dozen different dialects, and increase efficiency in a nation known throughout Europe for falling short and running late. To do this, he would increase factory production, improve the quality of Italian products, and build transit infrastructure to create better roads and more punctual trains.

 

The first fascist movements emerged in Italy during World War I. The term itself comes from the fasces lictoriae, a bundle of sticks wrapped around an axe that had been an ancient Roman emblem of the authority of civic magistrates. The symbolism of the fasces suggested strength through unity: a single rod is easily broken, while the bundle is difficult to break. In 1919, Mussolini founded the Italian Fasces of Combat in Milan, which, two years later, became the National Fascist Party. The party rejected the view that violence is inherently negative or pointless and instead focused on political brutality as a path to national rejuvenation and manifest destiny—in this case, the creation of a new Italian empire—as an imperative. 

 

The movement was rife with imagery that made its way into both governmental and commercial design as Italian artists often eagerly bent themselves to the work of the authorities, allowing a new nation opening up to fashion and conspicuous consumption to be flooded by fascist iconography. At the height of Mussolini’s power, the commercial world completely and unambiguously submitted to the triumph of his totalitarian regime.

In addition to the fasces, its sister symbol, the Roman eagle, became a prominent emblem of the government, routinely appearing in advertisements, films, posters, and art. Mussolini declared himself “Il Duce” (from the Latin word “dux” meaning “leader”), and the very initial “M” of his name was co-opted for ubiquitous marketing usage. Above all, his face was domineering and ever-present, locked in a perpetual grimace, chin often turned upward in priggish, preening defiance. In parades, propaganda, fearful news articles, and advertisements, Mussolini was a homunculus made fantastic god, lionized by his followers. Foreign powers, however, often saw him as a joke of a leader from a silly little country.

 

In the beginning, Mussolini wanted to become Italy; in the end, Italy became Mussolini. Myriad sculptures, paintings, and posters were almost uniformly made to honor Il Duce and his acolytes—often fumbling mediocrities made mad with power. And what power it was: his violent, totalitarian and eventually ethno-nationalist regime ordered no fewer than 5,000 political assassinations, had many more thousands tortured, and pulled Italy into a world war that would see 450,000 Italians dead by its end. 

And in the end, the trains never did run on time.

Profilo continuo (Continuous Profile), 1933

Renato Giuseppe Bertelli (1900–74)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • Produced in multiple editions, this is one of the most famous sculptures of Mussolini. In it, the artist merges the themes of the fascist and Futurist movements, combining the Roman god Janus, whose two faces could see simultaneously into the past and the future, with the sweeping dynamism of the machine-obsessed present, giving Mussolini the power to look in all directions at once.  
  • Italian fascism was aesthetically and culturally inspired by the Futurist movement. Launched by writer Filippo Tommaso Marinetti in his Futurist Manifesto of 1909, it called for a unified campaign focused on the Futurist ideals of speed, modernism, and power. This sculpture closely adapts Marinetti’s thoughts on Futurism—and, by extension, fascism; here Italy’s dictator is an all-seeing god moving so fast he becomes blurry. 
  • Mussolini loved the piece and its blended ancient and Futurist allusions, declaring it one of his official portraits. It was subsequently mass-produced for both institutional and consumer customers in terracotta, wood, and aluminum editions, available in different sizes, and with a patent approved by the dictator himself.

Dux, 1929

Thayaht (Ernesto Michahelles, 1893–1959)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • This geometric human head represents Mussolini as a stylized version of the chivalrous Renaissance knight that was part of the legacy of Italian national identity and enthusiastically embraced in fascist mythology. 
  • In line with both Futurist and fascist ideology, the sculpture makes sacred this very human leader, melding Italy’s glorious past with a modern, forward-looking reality. Like much of the fascist agenda it symbolizes, it is abstract, with individual features reduced to machinelike uniformity.
  • The sculptor personally presented the prototype for the sculpture in iron and stone to Mussolini, who adored it and ordered the production of thousands of copies in various materials for distribution around the country. Thayaht’s career as a designer would remain both award-winning and busy up through the late 1930s, when he retired.

Fante ferito (Wounded Soldier), 1924

Giandante X (Dante Pescò, 1899–1984)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • Dante Pescò, an artist working under the pseudonym Giandante X, produced anti-fascist and anarchist paintings, sculptures, and illustrations. Popular with critics but unpopular with the Italian government, he was imprisoned in a series of concentration camps in France after his arrest in 1939. 
  • Pescò would make several sculptures of Mussolini over the course of his career, all of them featuring sagging, oozing features—a contrast to the projected image of Il Duce as a strong and statuesque leader and Italian soldiers as unbreakable heroes.
  • Cast in bronze but seemingly soft and drooping, the sculpture does not resemble the Roman-style busts that Mussolini used as propaganda, but instead portrays a fallen Italian soldier (who conspicuously resembles Mussolini himself). It reflects instead a grim and common Italian experience of relatively recent times: with eyes closed, and face slack, it more closely resembles a death mask.

A poster of a towering black monument behind a yellow sphere with bold red text.

13e Foire de Milan (13th Milan Fair), 1932

Giacinto Mondaini (1902–79)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • Founded in 1920, the Milan Fair was an annual showcase for the latest Italian goods, from technological inventions to fine handicrafts. By the 1930s, it had become a destination event for those interested not only in Italian design but also in the innovations of other exhibiting countries. 
  • Printed for distribution in France, this poster features a stylized black eagle reminiscent of the standard of ancient Rome and the new emblem on Italian military uniforms. Its wings have been transformed into the ubiquitous “M” of Mussolini while the 13A could easily be mistaken for its talons clutching the globe. 
  • The Italian-language version of this poster was so well received that it appeared in the 1936 Mostra del cartello e della grafica pubblicitaria (Exhibition of Poster and Advertising Graphics) in Rome along with several of the other posters in this show. The very existence of such a government-sponsored exhibition indicates the importance of graphic communication to the regime.
  • While Giacinto Mondaini created posters like this one promoting the fascist enterprise, he was also one of the founders of the satirical magazine Bertoldo that skewered the government with biting jokes and political cartoons (including contributions by a young Saul Steinberg). While not in favor of such material, the regime grudgingly accepted it.

A poster of a large red letter M with a small blue dot attached to its upper lefthand corner.

M, 1928 

Nicolaj Diulgheroff (1901–82)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • As Mussolini’s power solidified and his domestic popularity expanded, Italian companies scrambled to associate themselves with his regime. Here, the Metzger beer company does not bother to show its product but rather a single, fascist-red, gigantic “M”—the initial of both the company’s name and that of Il Duce, suggesting a natural synchronicity between the two. 
  • This single letter, like the government, is imposing and totalitarian, dominating the page. The design fits well within the oeuvre of Nicolaj Diulgheroff under the Mussolini regime; his early Constructivist roots merged fully with that of the Futurist movement in his corporate and fascist imagery of this period. 
  • As Metzger beer had been sold in Italy since 1848, it is interesting to compare the severe modernity of Diulgherof’s design with slightly earlier posters promoting the brand. Leonetto Cappiello’s poster from 1911, for example, represents an avant-garde approach to advertising that relied on whimsy and charm rather than intimidation.

L’Italia fascista in cammino (Fascist Italy on the Move), 1932

Author: Gioacchino Volpe (1876–1971)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • Inspired by his ally Gabriele D’Annunzio, Mussolini had famously adopted the habit of giving frequent shouting speeches from the balcony of his office in Rome. Here, as in the Schawinsky poster, L’Italia fascista in cammino (Fascist Italy on the Move) offers Mussolini as a simultaneously solitary and mass figure; even while isolated on that balcony, he is supported by throngs of Italians through photomontage. The photograph of the crowd is described as depicting 150,000 people listening to Mussolini in Turin’s Piazza Castello on October 23, 1932.
  • Printed by the Blackshirts in honor of the 10th year of Mussolini’s government, this book is written in Italian, German, Spanish, English, and French, and contains 516 photographs, primarily propaganda examples of Italian heroism, often enacted by large groups: children exercising, soldiers looking heroically upward toward the future, and infantry companies in training. It also highlights some of Italy’s creative initiatives, including technicians at work, artists and artisans at their easels and desks, and movie directors with cameras mounted on automobiles.
  • The text honors various achievements from the past decade, including a treaty of conciliation between Italy and the Vatican, a labor charter, a train bringing Italian bread to rural areas, numerous industrial expositions and fairs, depictions of “serene motherhood,” medical advances for all citizens, and the modernization of the recent Italian colonial territories of Libya and the island of Rhodes.

Mostra della Rivoluzione fascista (Exhibition of the Fascist Revolution), 1932

Luigi Bottazzi (1903–43)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • The cover of this catalogue for the Mostra della Rivoluzione fascista (Exhibition of the Fascist Revolution) shows a stone bust of Mussolini against a background of type that chants “Du-ce, Du-ce, Du-ce” (Lead-er, Lead-er, Lead-er). 
  • The catalogue features both color and black-and-white photographs of the government-mounted exhibition and its objects, including one revealing that Sironi’s monumental poster for the event was also transformed into a mural near the entry staircase. It also includes a reproduction of a note from Mussolini congratulating the Italian people on “their” victory and urging them to keep up the good work.

A poster of a large foreboding sword made of stone with dates on it and red, white and green text.

Mostra della Rivoluzione fascista (Exhibition of the Fascist Revolution), 1932

Mario Sironi (1885–1961)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • In honor of the 10th anniversary of his seizure of power, Mussolini organized a two-year celebration of his regime at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome. Printed in several languages, including French and Spanish, the exhibition was advertised around the world and drew four million global visitors. Spread across 14 large rooms, it made no pretense of historic fact; this was an openly propagandist retelling of the rise of Italian fascism from 1914 to 1922. 
  • Triumphal and emotional, the exhibition was designed by many of Italy’s leading artists to present their country not as a relic of the past but as an avatar of the future. Artists were advised to heed Mussolini’s specific instructions to do “things of today.” The results were modern and bold, without any trace of nostalgia for the decorative styles of the distant or recent past. 
  • Mario Sironi was one of the favorite artists of Mussolini’s mistress, Margherita Sarfatti. With her encouragement, he embraced Futurism as early as 1913, and was hired to create murals for many public buildings. An avid fascist, he continued to deeply influence the movement long after his departure from Italy. 
  • Sironi was instrumental in the development of this exhibition, providing the architectural design for several of its rooms in addition to this poster. The composition incorporates two standard symbols of the regime: the fasces alongside a dagger.

A poster of a red capital M over a shape in colors of the Italian flag on a black background with bold text.

Viva Il Duce (Long Live the Leader), 1936

Erberto Carboni (1899–1984)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • Printed by a regional fascist organization, this poster proclaims “Viva Il Duce” (Long Live the Leader), asserting that “l’Italia ha finalmente il suo Impero” (Italy finally has its Empire).
  • On May 9, 1936, Mussolini proclaimed the establishment of the Italian Empire in East Africa following Italy’s second invasion of Ethiopia. After successfully gaining control of the region, he united it with the existing Italian colonies of Somalia and Eritrea to create Italian East Africa. This was the culmination of part of his great plan to restore the former Roman Empire and build a sense of solidarity and success among Italians who had not historically “enjoyed” the same colonial conquests as their European counterparts.
  • Erberto Carboni’s composition incorporates the Roman eagle sandwiched between the Italian flag and Mussolini’s bold, red “M.” While he may not have come up with the tagline in this poster, the designer became known after the war for his skill at coining such slogans for companies like RAI (the Italian national broadcasting organization); Carboni also invented “Con pasta Barilla è sempre domenica“ (With Barilla pasta, it’s always Sunday)—the company’s most famous slogan.

A poster of an athletic man with a hat made of flags and his arm held out holding a weapon.

XV Fiera di Milano (15th Milan Fair), 1934

Gino Boccasile (1901–52)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • A true believer in fascism, Gino Boccasile depicts the classical ideal of the muscular, powerful male form in this poster for the 15th Milan Fair, almost as if a Roman statue has come to life. The traditional crown of laurels on the figure’s head is created here by the flags of the many countries participating in the event, including the United States, Great Britain, France, Switzerland, and Hungary. 
  • At the outbreak of World War II, Boccasile was hired by the fascist government to illustrate racist anti-American propaganda. With the fall of Italy in 1943, he became a supporter of the Italian Social Republic (a Nazi German puppet state) and joined the Italian SS division, designing its recruitment and propaganda posters. After the war, Boccasile was imprisoned as a war criminal, and, following his release, initially supported himself by making pornographic drawings for British and French magazines. 
  • As with many posters promoting the fascist cause, the small text at the bottom of this design states that bill posters will not be subject to the normal advertising tax.

A poster with several red airplanes in flight behind a green statue with an eagle on top.

Accademia Aeronautica (Air Force Academy), 1938

Alberto Mastroianni (1903–74)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • The theme of flight was key to both the fascist regime and to the branding of Italian corporations. Mussolini’s government invested tremendous resources in rehabilitating and expanding Italian air power in an attempt to enhance the country’s global reputation. Companies eager to align themselves with successful methods of propaganda also used aviation imagery to sell their products.
  • As a result of successful propaganda campaigns like this one, the average Italian citizen saw fascism as almost synonymous with flight regardless of what was actually being sold. Here, even the planes of the air force are secondary to the green standard (emblems carried in triumphal parades by the ancient Roman Legion) that dominates the foreground and is embellished with the Roman eagle, the fasces, and the abbreviation SPQR of the Latin phrase Senatus Populusque Romanus (The Senate and People of Rome).  
  • This is a recruitment poster for the Accademia Aeronautica (the Italian Air Force Academy), founded in 1923, one year after Mussolini came to power. The design is intended to underscore Italy’s expanding capabilities in the skies and promotes a competition for three hundred students to enroll in a military that just two years later would be embroiled in a world war.

Cultura fisica della donna (The Physical Culture of Women), 1933

Author: Dr. Giuseppe Poggi-Longostrevi 

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • The fascist movement associated itself closely with ancient Greco-Roman ideals of athleticism and beauty: just as statues personified sculpted grace, so too would the real bodies of good, fascist Italians. This publication focuses on women’s physical fitness and includes 193 illustrations of 84 different exercises that a woman can do at home in order to remain in peak health. 
  • The role of women in Italian fascist society was clearly defined by the state; a woman should be healthy and fit in alignment with classical ideals but her most important role was that of a traditional wife. The ideal Italian woman could demonstrate her patriotism and support her country by giving birth to sons she would raise to become soldiers or daughters who would, in turn, become mothers themselves. 
  • Women could only vote at the municipal level, and while girls were not banned from studying or working, school costs for girls were raised and restrictions were put in place to prevent women from having any real authority over men in professional or government life.
  • The regime’s control of the female body was part of a larger culture of biopolitics used to serve nationalist aims that effectively made fertility, health, fitness, and fashion tools of the state. The government sponsored contests for “ideal mothers” and, starting in 1927, Mussolini’s battaglia della natalità (Battle for Births) introduced a range of incentives for women to increase the Italian population. Families with more than six children were tax-exempt, for example, and loans were partially forgiven for every child born.

Lo sport fascista (Fascist Sport), 1936

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • The fascist government’s interest in athleticism led to an explosion of sports leagues, tournaments, conferences, clubs, and publications. This particular magazine highlights a variety of athletic activities, from crew to horseback riding.
  • Perhaps the most important image of athleticism within Italy at this time was Il Duce himself: thousands of staged propaganda photographs were produced of Mussolini playing sports, working in the fields, and engaging in other “manly” activities.
  • Just as Mussolini’s body was a potent symbol in life, it remained so in death. After his murder, supporters jockeyed for its possession and, today, more than a century after his rise to power, they still make yearly marching pilgrimages to his grave.

Almanacco fascista (Fascist Almanac), 1935

Mario Sironi (1885–1961)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

Almanacco fascista (Fascist Almanac), 1934

Mario Sironi (1885–1961)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

Almanacco fascista (Fascist Almanac), 1932

Mario Sironi (1885–1961)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • From 1922 until Mussolini’s downfall in 1943, the regime published an annual almanac highlighting its achievements during the past of the year and featuring cultural notices and general facts about Italy.
  • Each issue of the magazine was hundreds of pages long and was intended to serve as a point of reference for all citizens in almost every aspect of their lives. The 1935 edition, for example, included an introduction by Mussolini, the names of the months and their corresponding mythologies, a list of all government offices and their duties, updates on newly completed buildings, an article on the “new situation in Europe,” and essays on various cultural and religious sites.
  • These three covers were designed by Mario Sironi, an artist known for his use of monumental, weighty forms and dedication to the Fascist Party. Despite this, his work was often criticized by fanatical members of the regime for not being ideologically driven enough to create truly effective propaganda.

Campo grafico (Graphic Field), 1939

Enrico Bona (1900–76)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • Founded by painter Attilio Rossi and produced from 1933 to 1939, Campo grafico (Graphic Field) was a showy, avant-garde, Futurist magazine that highlighted new developments in Italian graphic design, eschewing European artistic norms. It discussed new techniques in detail and featured special issues on photomontage, photography, poetry, and design. Each edition was signed by a different Italian artistic luminary—in this case, Francesco Tommaso Marinetti. 
  • Marinetti, whose signature graces the cover of this issue, was the most significant founding father of Futurism, one of the authors of its earliest manifesto in 1909, and the producer of countless other documents that would steer the movement for a generation. He was also a coauthor of the Fascist Manifesto and an unabashed supporter of Mussolini. 
  • When this issue was published in 1939, editor Enrico Bona was running out of money and knew it would be the last. He therefore pulled out all the stops and produced an especially expensive edition featuring foil embossing, plastic pages, and a cover design by the idolized Marinetti. This copy not only includes Marinetti’s printed signature but also his hand-written signature in ink and a personal dedication.

A poster of an outstretched hand with a flat palm with white text running across it.

Giornata delle due croci (Day of the Two Crosses), 1936

Walter Roveroni (1899–1985)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • In this poster, a hand signaling “stop” is raised emphatically while the message alerts the viewer to “La realtà/ancora 35.000 morti l’anno” (“The reality: still 35,000 dead yearly.”) This statistic refers to the rampant spread of tuberculosis in Italy during the 1930s. 
  • The Day of Two Crosses mentioned at the lower margin of the poster refers to the joint effort of two aid organizations, the French Cross of Lorraine and the Red Cross, to expand the use of the tuberculosis vaccine, at that time only available medically for little more than a decade.
  • Medical initiatives formed a huge part of the fascist commitment to the development and modernization of the nation, which had been plagued, literally, for centuries and which had suffered multiple cholera and typhus epidemics in recent decades. Mussolini—who was himself in poor health, having been wounded by a mortar bomb in World War I, and rumored to suffer from syphilis—put a tremendous focus on healthcare, drastically reducing the death rate from malaria through the draining of the Pontine Marshes and establishing Littoria (very roughly translated as “Fascistville”) as a utopian colony for forward-looking, politically and physically fit Italians. 
  • While this poster promotes an entirely different political cause, the designer, Walter Roveroni, was likely inspired by John Heartfield’s powerful and well-known 1928 election poster for the German Communist Party in which the hand symbolizes the power of the working class.

A poster of a large white X with bold slanted text on a black background.

Duce ritorna presto (Leader Come Back Soon), 1934

Domenico Chiaudrero (1913–2000)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • This poster was produced as a pandering piece of propaganda to commemorate Mussolini’s visit to the city of Turin. Asking him to “come back soon,” the poster stresses the region’s fealty to its leader while reaffirming to others that they should be similarly appreciative of Mussolini’s care and attention.
  • In his composition, printed around the time of the 1934 election, designer Domenico Chiaudrero presents two stylized arms, crossed over each other and offering the Roman salute demanded by the National Fascist Party; one of the hands has been transformed into a blood-red Roman eagle and Mussolini’s infamous “M” is positioned at their intersection. 
  • This election season represented a monumental geopolitical shift for Italian voters, who, as in the previous election, could only be men in trade unions, the military, or the clergy.  With the rise of Hitler to German chancellor in 1933, Italy was on a precipice. Mussolini called for a four-way alliance with Germany, France, and England while simultaneously threatening Hitler with war if he challenged Italian territorial interests in Austria.

La direttissima Bologna-Firenze, 1934

Attilio Calzavara (1901–52)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • The first work on what would become the Bologna-Firenze express line (known as “La direttissima”) began in 1864. However, it was not until April 22, 1934, that the line was  fully opened to trains. This was a source of pride for Italy and a revolution for connections: a train line that could finally and efficiently cross the Apennine spine of the nation. 
  • It is commonly quipped that Mussolini made the trains run on time, usually to suggest that good things can come out of terrible situations. In reality, though, they did not: merciless strikebreaking by the regime and the repression of workers’ rights meant that trains in fascist Italy were often late.
  • The myth of the efficiency of the rail system under Mussolini is rooted largely in fascist propaganda. Large-scale rebuilding of Italy’s railways, including the Direttissima promoted in this finely printed book, had already long been underway before Mussolini came to power, yet he still claimed credit for the temporary success of his predecessors. Mussolini’s government did improve railways services to select luxury villages in Northern Italy (often building on La direttissima) but this was almost always to impress foreign visitors rather than to benefit working-class Italians.

Prima Mostra Nazionale Istruzione Tecnica (First National Exhibition of Technical Instruction), 1937

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • The Prima Mostra Nazionale Istruzione Tecnica (First National Exhibition of Technical Instruction) opened to the public on December 16, 1936, at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome. During its run, it showcased the fascist and Futurist interest in school programs that promoted science and technology. 

The exhibition was spearheaded by Giuseppe Bottai, the newly appointed minister of national education, a Blackshirt racial supremacist who first met Mussolini at a 1919 Futurist meeting. The show was full of propaganda, emphasizing Italian technological advances and, more importantly, style, displaying building schemes as well as engines, widgets, models of ships and airplanes, and farm equipment. While this was described as the First National Exhibition of Technical Instruction, a second was never mounted.

Balilla Magazine, 1934

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • Propaganda was the soul of the fascist regime, and its leaders used it to reinforce the popular perception of the justice and wisdom of Mussolini’s orders. This notion was expressed at all times and by every means, and directed at everyone: men, women, and children alike.
  • Between 1902 and 1908, Mussolini had worked sporadically as an elementary school teacher, and therefore knew how easy it is to convince children of the “truth.” In addition to pure indoctrination in schools, the fascist government imbued community sports leagues and comic books with its messages. The most famous children’s magazine of the period was Balilla (which shared its name with the paramilitary youth organization). This particular issue contains quotes and suggestions from Mussolini himself intended to inspire young readers.
  • In ancient Rome, dates were counted from the beginning of a specific emperor’s authority; Mussolini restored this system so that years were counted from the one in which he came to power. The year XIII at the top of this issue thus refers to the 13th year of Mussolini’s reign.

Il covo (The Den), 1937

Giuseppe Pagano (Giuseppe Pogatschnig, 1896–1945)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • Il covo (The Den) is one of Italian fascism’s most famous propaganda texts. It was written by Giuseppe Pagano, one of the best-known teachers at la Scuola di mistica fascista (the School of Fascist Mysticism) in Milan, founded in 1930 to train the fascist leaders of the future. The publication focused on the mythology of fascist ascendancy and, in lurid and sensationalist photographs, saluted Mussolini’s rise to power and his cult of personality.
  • The stark cover featuring a skull with a knife clenched firmly in its jaw became an iconic symbol of the fascist regime, used on flags, badges, and other propagandist ephemera (the motif had first appeared on the knives of the Arditi soldiers in World War I). Three editions of this book were published, each containing different information but with this same cover design. 
  • The architect and designer Giuseppe Pagano had originally been among the greatest proponents of fascism; however, he resigned from both the school and the party in 1942 and was arrested the following year as a member of the Resistance. He was ultimately transferred to Mauthausen, the Nazi concentration camp, where he was tortured, beaten, and eventually died from maltreatment on April 22, 1945, just 13 days before its liberation.

Postcard, 1932

After Thayaht (Ernesto Michahelles, 1893–1959)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • This mass-produced postcard features an image of Thayaht’s famous sculpture with a printed inscription in Mussolini’s handwriting that translates as: “This is Benito Mussolini just as Benito Mussolini likes.”
  • Postcards like this were widely available; they were far more affordable than regular stationery and not as expensive to mail. They also reflected the regime’s active cultivation of a sense of intimacy and accessibility around Mussolini, incorporating his authoritarian presence into the mundane activities of everyday life. The average Italian was able to obtain an image of the “high art” of the period on a postcard and use it for both correspondence and decoration.
  • Thayaht reworked the original sculpture frequently throughout his career. One of his most famous paintings shows the head of Mussolini on top of a similarly geometric body, steering a ship toward victory. Breaking free from his shackles and avoiding barbed wire in the skies, he navigates toward a map of Europe accompanied by a fleet of military aircraft.

Letter to Benito Mussolini, 1936

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • Mussolini was seen as a father figure to the nation and Italians frequently wrote him fan mail as well as letters asking for particular favors. 
  •  The writer of this letter has simply addressed it to “The Leader, Rome,” much like a child mailing a wish list to “Santa, North Pole.”

A poster of a black and white group of soldiers carrying flags and weapons marching forward.

Vincere come il Duce comanda (Win as the Leader Commands), 1941

Ettore Mazzini (1891–1960)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • At the beginning of 1941, Italy had only been fighting in World War II for six months and was already losing. The Italian military had been woefully unprepared for battle. The Royal Army was largely depleted, its tanks were of poor quality, and almost all of the country’s artillery was leftover from World War I. Only half of the Royal Air Force’s biplane fleet was airworthy, and the Royal Navy lacked a single aircraft carrier.
  • Italy’s few military resources had been stretched even thinner by its many prewar conflicts, not least the pacification of Libya, its intervention in Spain (where Italy had been instrumental in the installation of  General Francisco Franco), and invasions in Ethiopia and Albania. Before Britain declared war on Germany in September 1939, Mussolini had hoped that its government would continue its history of concessions and policy of appeasement. He was exceptionally wrong.
  • Mussolini nonetheless maintained Italy’s involvement in the war due to his unwillingness to reconsider his ambition to restore the Roman Empire in the Mediterranean (which he called by its classical name, “Mare Nostrum,” or “our sea”).
  • This poster reminds Italians of their only goal: to win (vincere) as Mussolini commands. The flag may be tattered and the soldiers tired, but they are armed with determination and the support of their nation: mothers, farmers, and workers are united as they march together over rough ground.

A poster of a yellow M over an asymmetrical red shape with white Olympic rings.

Littoriali dello sport (Fascist Sports Gathering), 1939

Franco Chelini (1916–after 1960)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • The Gruppi Universitari Fascisti (Fascist University Groups, or GUF as in this poster) was the student branch of the Partito Nazionale Fascista (Italian National Fascist Party, or PNF as here). Founded in 1920, the GUF united Italian students in an effort to educate the future ruling class according to the principles and purposes of Mussolini’s regime. 
  • Beginning in 1932, the GUF organized annual meetings called “littoriali” devoted to sports. In 1934, it added similar gatherings for culture and art. These meetings were essentially rallies, propaganda events under the guise of competition, and always an opportunity for a celebration of the cult of Mussolini. Winners at these competitions were usually awarded a golden “M” patch to wear proudly on their clothing. 
  • In this poster advertising one of the sports meetings in Florence, the ever-present “M” of Mussolini is subtly designed to look like three fasces. The red may refer to the most common color of the feluca, a felt Robin Hood-style hat with a long, pointed brim traditionally worn by Italian university students enrolled in gruppi goliardici (fraternities), and which had become a GUF symbol.
  • To enhance Italy’s power and prestige, Mussolini desperately wanted Rome to host the Olympic Games. Three members of the International Olympic Committee were Italian, and Mussolini built numerous sports complexes on the assumption that Italy would be awarded the honor. Posters like this one featuring the Olympic rings were part of the ongoing campaign as Italy bid to host both the 1940 and the 1944 games.

A poster of the midsection of a figure holding a dagger at their waistline with a small outline of Italy above the handle.

Camicia nera (Blackshirt), 1932

Paolo Federico Garretto (1903–89)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • The Voluntary Militia for National Security (unofficially called the Camicie Nere, or “Blackshirts,” for its distinctive uniforms) was the paramilitary wing of the National Fascist Party, used to terrorize Italians into submission.
  • Originally founded by army officers and nationalist intellectuals, the group was started to bust peasant unions. Led by Mussolini and organized in a structure based on that of the Roman legion, it attacked and tortured dissenting Italians and provided “security” for highways, trains, and border patrols. It also inspired Adolf Hitler’s corps of paramilitary “Brownshirts” in Germany. 
  • Commissioned by the Fascist Party, this poster promotes a propaganda documentary produced in honor of the 10th anniversary of Mussolini’s March on Rome. Here, Paolo Garretto developed a design for a cover he had created for La Rivista magazine two years earlier, highlighting the needs of an expansionist, fascist Italy. 
  • Over the heart of the faceless Blackshirt is the outline of the nation alongside that of Corsica, an island that had fallen out of Italian hands in 1775 and that was now part of Mussolini’s colonialist plan. Floating above this reunified landmass are the fasces, directly aligned with the point of sharp blade, suggesting that it is only through aggression and strength that Italy will regain what it has lost.

A poster of a black and white photograph of a man's facial profile with large block letters spelling SÌ at the bottom.

Sì (Yes), 1934

Xanti Schawinsky (1904–79)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • Commissioned by the National Fascist Party and created by Swiss-born artist Xanti Schawinsky, who had trained at the Bauhaus in Weimar, Germany, this poster was originally circulated as an insert within La Rivista Illustrata del Popolo d’Italia (The Illustrated Magazine of the Italian People), the official supplement to the daily newspaper Il Popolo d’Italia (The Italian People, founded by Mussolini in 1914). The poster was intended to reinforce Mussolini’s power after that year’s sham election.
  • In the 1934 election (more of a referendum since Italy was a single-party state by this time), voters were presented with a slate of 400 names in one unified tablet: a complete government with the voters’ only choice being yes or no. The National Fascist Party won with an unsurprising 99.84 percent of the vote.
  • While the sense of the overwhelming crowd that defines Mussolini’s body here (drawn from a photograph taken during the election) is visually consistent to a degree with his face, featuring the enlarged monochrome dot pattern of off-set lithography, the design also emphasizes the authority of Mussolini by distinguishing his serious expression from the swarming mass of citizens below. Inspired by Abraham Bosse’s engraving for the frontispiece of Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan (1651), the poster is considered a masterpiece of Italian graphic design.

A poster of a man in ancient Greek clothing with his arm around a tower of wheat.

La vittoria del grano (The Victory of Grain), 1926

Gerolamo Bartoletti (1893–1962)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • The Roman poet Juvenal, writing at the turn of the 2nd century, quipped that the Roman Empire was built on bread and circuses. Two thousand years later, Mussolini’s attempt to establish a second empire was built on the same aspiration: that if he kept the Italian people well-fed and entertained, he could appease them while earning their loyalty and complicity. 
  • This poster advertises the third National Victory of Grain Competition. When the fascist government came to power in 1922, Italy was importing about one third of the wheat it needed. In a land where the most common meal was pasta, this essentially meant that there was a food crisis. In response, in 1925 the government began the “Battle for Grain,” partly at the expense of its more lucrative national exports. Farmers were relocated, primarily from the Veneto and Emilia-Romagna regions in northern Italy, to more central locations where the marshes were drained and reclaimed for use as wheat fields. By simultaneously promoting new farming techniques and introducing improved seed varieties, the regime boosted domestic wheat production; by 1935, the import of foreign grains had fallen by 75 percent.
  • This design leans heavily into typical Italian fascist themes of Romanità (a return to Roman classicism mixed with Futurist and modernist motifs), incorporating an idealized classical figure holding a bundle of wheat styled to suggest the fasces.

A poster of a pair of hands holding up a basket of lush fruit above a stack of papers.

Giornale di Agricoltura della Domenica (Sunday Agricultural Journal), 1938 

Luigi Martinati (1893–1983)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • High rates of illiteracy, particularly in rural communities, were a tremendous problem in Italy before Mussolini’s rise to power. Starting in 1923, education reforms emphasized classical studies, obedience, and national loyalty. By doubling government spending on education and standardizing the school system, the regime reduced illiteracy rates from 27 percent to 17 percent by 1936, making news publications, including propaganda, accessible for the first time to previously uneducated citizens. 
  • The Giornale di Agricoltura della Domenica (Sunday Agricultural Journal) was first produced in the northern city of Piacenza in 1891 and was intended for rural Italian farmers, whose ability to make Italy agriculturally self-sufficient was a top priority for both the fascist movement and Mussolini. Originally apolitical, the journal ultimately aligned itself with the government under the leadership of Giuseppe Tassinari, the undersecretary of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.
  • Produced by the Fascist Confederation of Farmers, this poster informs viewers that they can subscribe to the journal through the Provincial Fascist Union, the National Farmers’ Bank, or the Agrarian Guild. It also notes the party’s support for the publication as part of larger fascist efforts to establish Italian agricultural self-sufficiency. 
  • The design highlights the muscular hands of a worker holding a bountiful basket of peaches, grapes, wheat, and apples—all Italian-grown products.

Cuisine Futuriste (Futurist Cooking), 1913

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876–1944)

Private Collection, NYC

  • Marinetti and the Futurists proposed a complete revolution in everyday life and wrote numerous pamphlets and manifestos to encourage this change. They believed that the only means of establishing Italian artistic superiority in the eyes of the world was by violently destroying all current institutions.
  • Cuisine futuriste combines gastronomy and art, transforming the daily dining experience into a multisensory performance in which knives and forks are abolished and perfumes are added to the food to enhance its flavor. The book also demands a complete overhaul of the Italian diet to favor the avant-garde and the theatrical: most notably, it commands impoverished Italians to give up pasta, a cheap staple of the country’s food supply and one that Marinetti associated with pessimism and a lack of passion. 
  • While some of Marinetti’s views on Italian cuisine may seem merely eccentric or even laughable, others reflected some of the most sinister tenets of fascist ideology. He believed that Italy should reject all food imported from other nations and that men should consume only that which stimulates their natural aggression. Here, the chef raises his right arm in the Roman salute, an ancient gesture made popular in fascist Italy by the poet Gabriele D’Annunzio. 

Stencil of Benito Mussolini, c. 1935

Attributed to BOT (Osvaldo Barbieri, 1895–1958)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • As the dictator of Italy for an entire generation, Mussolini was an overpowering political and military presence; he was also, in many ways, a cultural icon. Local authorities throughout the nation ordered that quotes from the leader be inscribed on public buildings—some of which still exist today—and graffiti praising Il Duce and the new empire was frequently splashed on buildings by young fans. In addition, structures were covered in images of Mussolini that might be hand-painted or drawn, or applied by stencils like this one. 
  • Osvaldo Barbieri, who styled himself Barbieri Osvaldo Terribile (BOT), was a World War I veteran and painter who joined the Futurist movement in 1928 as an apprentice of Fortunato Depero and, later, Marinetti. He quickly became one of Italy’s most frequently exhibited contemporary artists, eventually earning the attention of Italo Balbo, the famed aviator and governor of the Italian colony in Libya.
  • While in Libya between 1934 and 1940, BOT underwent a tremendous culture shock and, by some accounts, went insane. He soon created an entirely new second persona, that of an African man named Naham Ben Abiladi, with whom he would exhibit art in “joint shows.”

A poster of a black and white female baby face on top of photographs of soldiers and children with blue and yellow shapes.

Partito Nazionale Fascista (National Fascist Party), 1937

Franco Mosca (1910–2003)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • Best known for his posters showing alluring women advertising motorcycles, scooters, and a wide range of other items, Franco Mosca created this decidedly unsexy poster for the Fascist Party’s 1937 national exhibition in Rome; it highlights the government’s childcare and summer-camp initiatives.
  • Although colonie (summer camps) had been organized on a charitable basis through the church and other organizations since the late 19th century, the fascist government co-opted these programs as a means of training and perfecting the next generation of Italians. Like the German concept of the volkskörper (national body), where the strength and health of ethnic Germans was seen as essential to national rebirth, Italy wanted to ensure its children were physically ideal citizens. As such, these camps focused on rigorous exercise, nutritious meals, and fresh air.
  • The summer camps also provided the perfect environment for initiation into the Balilla, founded in 1926 and absorbed in 1937 into the Gioventù Italiana del Littorio (GIL, the youth section of the National Fascist Party). This paramilitary organization trained young children in war-games and loyalty to the state. They were given daily lessons in politics and taught to see Mussolini as a father figure they should both respect and adore. These efforts intensified in the lead-up to Italy’s entry into the war in June of 1940.
  • Similar to the poster in which Mussolini’s body is defined by a huge crowd of people, here the stylized fasces is partly composed not of wood or rope, but of images of Italian children.

A poster of futuristic buildings on a diagonal with objects flying around them and very abstracted text.

1o Circuito Città di Portogruaro (First Circuit of the City of Portogruaro), 1933

Luciano Vignaduzzo (1908–??)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • Sponsored by the Reale Automobile Club d’Italia (Royal Automobile Club of Italy), this inner-city motorcycle race, open to both Italians and foreigners, was promoted by the central government as well as local authorities. It reflected the fascist embrace of Futurism’s fascination with speed and modernity: velocity was closely tied to progress, and progress, in turn, to national pride. 
  • This event came on the heels of a propaganda nightmare for the regime; seven months earlier, it had decreed that all the children in the city of Gruaro had to participate in a trial for a new vaccine against diphtheria. Of the 253 children given the vaccine, 28 died. The neighboring city of Portogruaro (about 10 minutes away) was chosen for this motorcycle race to shift focus from the tragedy.
  • The Art Deco design shows the city’s 15th-century church and more recently completed bell tower as well as the equestrian statue that serves as a monument to the soldiers who perished in World War I. 

A poster of several eagles flying around a large flaming torch.

I giovani italiani (Young Italians), 1927 

Designer Unknown

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • As Mussolini expanded the Regia Aeronautica (the Royal Air Force), it became the pride and joy of the fascist regime. Dramatic recruitment posters like this one were produced by the thousands to encourage young men to join as pilots. 
  • A flock of aggressive-looking Roman eagles, shown circling an eternal flame held aloft by three fasces, represents the air force. The text below translates as: “Young Italians inspired by the epic exploits of De Pinedo and De Bernardi must become warriors of the sky.”
  • Francesco Di Pinedo was a Naples-born World War I flying ace who frequently performed in air shows and demonstrations after the war; during the 1920s, he also became famous as a pioneer of long-distance air travel. Mussolini called him il messaggero d’italianità (The Messenger of Italianity) and he was promoted to deputy chief of staff of the Royal Air Force a few years before his death in 1933 after losing control of his aircraft.
  • Mario De Bernardi, also a World War I aviator, was widely known for his victories in international air races after the war; he went on to perform aerobatic stunts in both commercial and propaganda films throughout the fascist period. He died of a heart attack mid-flight in 1959. 

A poster of a geometric colorful airplane on the ground with a group of male and female passengers standing outside looking at a map.

Tutti a volare (Flight for All), 1931

Designer Unknown

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • By the time this poster was produced, Taliedo, a suburb of Milan, had long been associated with air shows. Since 1910, it had been the home of the “Aerodrome of Italy,” and was filled with hangars and aircraft. In 1931, it was Milan’s only airport but it would be abandoned six years later after the opening of Linate, a larger commercial airport.
  • This poster uses an airplane from among Taliedo’s bountiful supply to promote flights to nowhere. For just 40 lire (equivalent to $50 today), any citizen could purchase a ticket to ride in an airplane over the city in what are literally described here as “voli propaganda” (propaganda flights). Those wishing to take the whole family could buy six tickets for the price of five! 
  • With its image of a well-dressed, if slightly out-of-fashion and featureless family, the poster incorporates a standard concept of fascist propaganda: an appeal to those who are nostalgic for a supposedly easier time. 
  • Air shows and tourist flights like these gave average Italians a chance to experience the miracle of flight. Very few could actually afford commercial air travel at this point, and aircraft were thus often sent out empty from Italian airports to establish the country’s reputation as a leading carrier.

A poster of two thin race cars with drivers whizzing by bare trees.

IV Coppa della Perugina (4th Perugina Cup), 1927

Federico Seneca (1891–1976)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • Throughout the 1920s and ’30s, the Italian government encouraged commercial companies to organize and sponsor competitions of all types to promote Italian goods and culture. While many of these were certainly appealing to an international audience, the main purpose was to reinforce Italian supremacy in all things to the Italian people. 
  • In the early 1920s, the Perugina chocolate company was eager to expand the reach of its brand. Recognizing the popularity of automobile races throughout Europe, it started the annual Perugina Cup. This poster promotes the final year of the event before it was forced to shut for financial reasons. 
  • Both automobile racing and air shows embodied an intrinsic part of the fascist mythology around modernity and technical progress. They also adhered to a moral code reflected in general government policy: audacity and bravery are to be rewarded. Through participation in these events, either as spectators or sportsmen, Italians were celebrated as intimately connected with the regime: modern, high-tech, and extremely aggressive.

ITALY ABROAD

L’Italia all’estero

 

Mussolini imagined himself padrone (master) of a new Europe; his own fascist movement had inspired later ones by Adolf Hitler in Germany and Francisco Franco in Spain, and he felt an urge to bind and grow the Italian presence abroad.

 

Fascism did not simply touch the lives of all Italians; it permeated every aspect of their lives. Recognizing that facism had found early sympathizers in Great Britain and the United States, Mussolini wished to further touch the world outside of Italy’s borders, asserting himself and his regime across Europe and even the extending oceans. His fervent interest in aviation as a means to political dominance would lead to a massive expansion of the Italian Royal Air Force, and propaganda “cruises”—large diplomatic group flights—to the Americas were routinely organized to maintain good diplomatic relations with foreign nations and warm ties to diasporic Italians living primarily in the United States, Argentina, and Brazil.

 

In many ways, these efforts were initially successful as esteem for Italy rose in the outside world; ten years into his regime, Mussolini frequently received public and private praise from the leaders of larger nations. But Italy’s alliance with Germany and its Führer, Adolf Hitler, who would initially marvel at Mussolini and then grow to dominate him—would prove disastrous. Germany’s military assistance would prove critical to Italian military victories in the Eastern Mediterranean and Africa in the creation of Mussolini’s much-dreamed of Italian Empire, but increasing German pressure would ultimately lead a reluctant Mussolini to establish new racial laws in 1938. In May 1939, Mussolini and Hitler united their countries’ interests in the “Pact of the Steel,” drawing Italy into the war on Germany’s side in June of 1940.

 

Mussolini was reported to be deeply hesitant to enter the war, hoping that the mere threat of bloodshed would be enough to coerce other European nations into simply giving Italy more land and a higher international standing with few or no actual hostilities. In the end, Italy would be invaded by a coalition of American, British, and Canadian forces in 1943. Mussolini was promptly dismissed from his position by the Fascist Grand Council and, with the support of a small Italian resistance militia, forced first into exile and then, during an emerging civil war, to his death.

 

The regime’s efforts to use Mussolini’s outsized cult of personality to improve Italy’s standing on the global stage were, in some ways, quite fruitful: Italian aviation flourished, travel boomed, and the country established a (short-lived) colonial empire in the Horn of Africa. Such achievements, however, came at great cost. The newly industrialized and modernized nation had become a war-torn, bombed-out, impoverished landscape by the end of the war. And while Mussolini began his tenure triumphantly standing on the palace steps in Rome, he ended it hanging upside down from the rafter of a Milan gas station.

A poster of an ancient statue of a man with a helmet and holding a slender green figure of a woman in his hand.

L’Art Italien (Italian Art), 1935

Umberto Brunelleschi (1879–1949)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • The fascist period in Italy was one of intense mythmaking, as autocrats, bureaucrats, and artists mobilized to connect the nation to its glorious past. This poster promoting a French exhibition of Italian art perfectly reflects this desire to present a cultural continuum; in it, the goddess Roma holds a statue of winged victory in front of a giant fasces lictoriae
  • Two large exhibitions on this theme, sponsored by the Italian authorities, were held simultaneously in Paris in 1935. At the Petit Palais, many of the nation’s greatest Renaissance masterpieces were displayed in Exposition de l’art italien: de Cimabue à Tiepolo (Italian Art: from Cimabue to Tiepolo), including the Birth of Venus by Botticelli and Leonardo da Vinci’s Virgin of the Rocks, as well as works by Raphael, Michelangelo, Titian, and Caravaggio.
  • Meanwhile, at the Jeu de Paume, the sister exhibition of Italian art of the 19th and 20th centuries advertised in this poster was offered as evidence of Italy’s contemporary dominance in art and culture. It highlighted works by Armando Spadini, Umberto Boccioni, and Federico Andreotti who, according to its curator, were the “champions of Romanità”—a word suggesting the fascist regime’s restoration of Italy to the glories of the classical past. Both shows were mounted with substantial support from the Italian government and included significant works from French and Italian museums. 
  • These two exhibitions opened shortly after the Mussolini-Laval agreements of January 1935, in which the French prime minister, Pierre Laval, signed a deal with his Italian counterpart in an attempt to stifle Nazi German ambitions; the French would give Italy a free hand to conquer Ethiopia, redefine French Somaliland as part of Italian Eritrea, and give part of French Chad to Italian Libya, paving the way for the establishment of the “Italian Empire” in Africa the following year.

A poster of a scowling man in a military hat on a red background.

What do You say, America?, 1942

Designer Unknown

Poster House Permanent Collection

  • Outside of Italy, Mussolini was largely viewed as a villain or a stooge. Produced the year before the Allied invasion of Sicily in July 1943 and the collapse of the Italian government, this American propaganda poster presents a photomontage of Il Duce alongside one of his more sobering statements. The viewer is then asked to agree or disagree with the statement and, presumably, support American intervention against a war-hungry tyrant.

A poster of several stationary black eagles with an airplane flying by in the background.

1o Salone internazionale aeronautico (First International Air Show), 1935

Plinio Codognato (1878–1940)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • Air shows became a mainstay of fascist propaganda as Italy sought to assert its currency on the world stage. So many of these shows were held, in fact, that it is almost impossible to catalog them all. 
  • This poster for a 1935 Milan air show incorporates many symbols commonly used by the regime: four noble Roman eagles perch on top of bright-red fasces as they observe the power of an accelerating Italian plane. 
  • While it is not precisely described here, the airplane closely resembles a Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 Sparviero, known in English as a Sparrowhawk, first flown the previous year. When it was introduced, it was the fastest bomber in the world and quickly became a symbol of national prestige. As such, it was frequently entered in fly-offs like the one advertised in this poster.

Una favola vera (A True Fairy Tale), 1936

Illustrator: Anna Maria Tommasini (1901–87)

Cover: Tina Tommasini (1902–85)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • In celebration of the new Italian Empire in East Africa, this “true fairy tale” was written for children by a real-life Sicilian prince, Ferdinando Hardouin-Monroy-Ventimiglia. It was meant to teach them about the new, larger Italy—not just the peninsula where they lived, but also its territories in Libya, Eritrea, and Ethiopia, whose capital city Addis Ababa was now christened with the appropriately Italian name of Nuovo Fiore (New Flower).
  • The story follows the life of Benito Mussolini from the moment of his birth (on a feast day with the bells ringing out in celebration of the future Leader) through his March on Rome. The accompanying watercolor illustrations are bright and cheery with elements of Futurism, while fasces, flags, and ribbons dance in the wind.  
  • The March on Rome that led to two decades of totalitarianism, suffering, and death is explained to young readers by the author in this way: “only with [Mussolini’s] genius does he frame the forces of youth…and with the best of Italian youth that arises from the people he goes to conquer the State.”

Enimmi della scienza moderna (Riddles of Modern Science), 1930

Giulio Cisari (1892–1979)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • Inspired by similar stories by Jules Verne, this collection of fantasy tales for children by Egisto Roggero reflects the obsession with technological advancement typical of every society in the modern era. 
  • While the contents of the book may be common, its wildly Futurist cover indicates how pervasive the art movement was within Italy during the 1920s and ’30s. Just as Futurism backed fascism, so did fascism allow Futurism to become the accepted visual language of the period.

Guida D’Italia: possedimenti e colonie (Guide to Italy: Possessions & Colonies), 1929

Collection of Brenno Campo

  • Produced by the Touring Club of Italy, a travelers’ organization, this guide to the country’s colonies provides helpful insights for the imperialist traveler of the fascist era. The very act of guiding tourists was part of Italy’s larger goal of being taken seriously as an international power. A publication like this one, meant for the domestic market, helped shape how the Italian empire was perceived by Italians, most especially the upper classes. 
  • The text focuses on Italian territories in Greece and North Africa, including tips on the best ways to reach all destinations from Italy and from other Italian colonies. It also highlights Italian-focused activities, locations, and restaurants, and provides lists of phrases in the relevant local languages.
  • While guides like this one were widely available, such trips were impossible for most Italians, with the cost of arriving by air or sea to many of these locations representing several months’ income.

Abbasso la guerra imperialista (Down with the Imperialist War), c. 1935

Designer Unknown

Private Collection, NY

  • Printed after the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, this anti-fascist leaflet proclaiming “Down with the Imperialist War!” reflects the upswell of resentment among Italians toward the government in spite of the huge quantity of pro-fascist propaganda being printed at the time. Like many similar pamphlets and posters, this leaflet would have been disseminated throughout Italy. 
  • This particular design references The Face of Fascism, a 1928 composition in which German photomontage artist John Heartfield overtly turns Mussolini’s portrait head into a skull. Shocking and direct, the image was frequently reprinted and circulated around Europe. While some versions, like this one, were made domestically, the majority were printed by immigrant communities abroad, in France and the United States, for example, and smuggled back to Italy.
  • Pasting such protest art on city walls carried harsh punishments; this leaflet was produced with a rubberized backing that allowed it to be swiftly applied with water. The police would seize such material during searches of the regime’s opponents, and this is why large caches of them survive in state archives today.

Vanity Fair, 1932

Miguel Covarrubias (1904–57)

Private Collection, NYC

  • In 1932, Vanity Fair commissioned Mexican caricaturist Miguel Covarrubias to design the cover for its October issue, marking the 10th anniversary of Mussolini’s March on Rome. 
  • In the design, Mussolini raises a Roman salute, the emphatic gesture now known worldwide as the hallmark of tyranny, his eyes wide and wild, as King Victor Emmanuel III, Italy’s now largely forgotten figurehead monarch, attempts to bend his ear. 
  • Emmanuel had been the nation’s hereditary king when Il Duce took power a decade earlier; retained nominally on the throne but now utterly powerless, his official role was largely limited to riding in parades and appearing on coins.

A poster of a Black female blindfolded by a piece of fabric with three race cars moving out from her outstretched hands.

Lotteria di Tripoli (Tripoli Lottery), 1936

Adolfo Busi (1891–1977)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • Motorsports were phenomenally popular in Italy, and as the nation began colonizing Africa and the Mediterranean, it also began to institute automobile races in those places. 
  • The first Tripoli Grand Prix was held in Libya in 1925, immediately following a two-year period of intense colonization. The government sold lottery tickets (as advertised in this poster) and used leftover funds to create a special prize based on the outcome of the race. The winner would receive three million lire (just under four million dollars today), though the results of the 1933 lottery led to widespread accusations that it was rigged. 
  • The race and lottery were established in Libya to raise capital and promote tourism that would encourage Italians to move there permanently. Despite the enthusiasm of the colonial governor, General Emilio De Bono, these efforts were a financial failure; De Bono had to intervene personally to save the 1929 race, and the 1930 event was largely unattended.
  • This poster was created as part of an attempt to revive the flagging race and lottery. Adolfo Busi, a graphic designer who had worked on the 1931 Tripoli Fair and many campaigns for the Barilla pasta company, was tapped to design an advertisement that would appeal to a racialized sense of exoticism. To meet this brief, he focused the composition on a blindfolded, bejeweled Black woman to emphasize the supposedly honest and open nature of the lottery and its incredible prize money.

A poster of a driver with goggles on holding the steering wheel of a pink race car with stacks of money bundled at the bottom.

Lotteria di Tripoli (Tripoli Lottery), 1937

Leopoldo Metlicovitz (1868–1944)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • Beginning in 1937, German automobile drivers began to dominate Italians in the Tripoli Grand Prix, winning all but one race in the years leading up to the war. 
  • In this poster, Leopoldo Metlicovitz provides a stark alternative to the design by Adolfo Busi from the previous year; rather than highlighting Italy’s colonialist endeavors, he focuses on a smiling driver and a pile of money. The silhouettes of two minarets in the background are the only indication that this race is not happening in Europe. 
  • Metlicovitz is considered one of the fathers of Italian poster art. When he designed this poster, he had already been working for 49 years and had provided the advertisements for turn-of-the-century operas and classic Italian products as well as at least four compositions for the fascist writer and poet Gabriele D’Annunzio. This poster was one of his last.

A poster of the bows of two towering ships with a map in the background.

Rex & Conte di Savoia, 1932 

Giuseppe Patrone (1904–63)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • This poster announces the Italian Line’s two new, high-speed ships, SS Rex and SS Conte di Savoia, both of which could cross the Atlantic to New York City in six and a half days.
  • During her maiden voyage from Genoa on September 27, 1932, the Rex sailed at the highest average speed of any ocean liner in history, capturing the prestigious Blue Riband from Germany’s SS Bremen. Such symbolic victories, especially against Germany, were viewed as massive political successes, helping to establish Italian supremacy. 
  • While they became symbols of national pride, the ships were not as fully glamorous as advertised, with many desperate, starving Italians using the cheaper sections to emigrate elsewhere. After the passing of Italy’s racial laws in 1938, there was also an increase in the number of Jewish-Italian sea passengers, many of whom sailed to America aboard the Rex to escape persecution.
  • Both ships remained in service until Italy’s entrance into the war in June of 1940, at which time the Rex was moored in Trieste harbor for safekeeping and the Conte di Savoia was requisitioned for war service. Both ships would be destroyed during the war.

A poster of two floating hands playing a decorative red and white drum.

Mostra coloniale dell’artigianato libico (Colonial Show of Libyan Craftsmanship), c. 1936

Marcello Dudovich (1878–1962)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • As Italy could not claim the historic “glory” of vast colonies like many of its European counterparts, references to its recent efforts to expand Italian dominance throughout North Africa and the Mediterranean almost always went hand in hand with exoticized imagery.  
  • In this poster for a Libyan “craftsmanship fair” (essentially a folk-art festival) at the Italian department store Rinascente, Marcello Dudovich presents a pair of Black hands playing a djembé drum. The design was widely circulated just after the declaration of the Italian Empire and subsequently used to promote other iterations of the exhibition throughout Italy. 
  • In the mid-1930s, Italy’s expansionist program was at fever pitch. Anything to do with the country’s presence in Africa was of particular interest due to its recent colonial acquisitions, leading to countless festivals and exhibitions like the one seen in this poster. Importantly, the average Italian was not aware of the complexities or nuances of individual African cultures—and would not necessarily have found the image of a traditional West African instrument incongruous in a promotion for a Libyan (North African) craft fair.

A poster of the profile of a Black female face with white hoop earrings and cursive text.

Mostra artistica Fiera del libro (Book Fair Art Exhibition), 1936

Ivanhoe Gambini (1904–92)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • As seen elsewhere in this exhibition, the Italian fascination with the African world spiked following Mussolini’s declaration of the Italian Empire in 1936. Images of Black Africans—especially women—appeared everywhere in highly varied forms. Some, like the figure in this poster, were represented as veneri nere (Black venuses), exoticized and sexualized, while others were depicted as poor and clownish to emphasize their supposed racial inferiority to Italians. 
  • This poster promotes an art show and a book fair in the northern city of Varese, near Milan. The event took place inside the city’s Colonial Institute to coincide with “Colonial Day,” and the advertised film screenings and conference most likely reflected this theme.

A poster of a fashionable white woman in a dress with gloves getting blown by a breeze.

Croisières “Italia” (Italy Cruises), 1938

Marcello Dudovich (1878–1962)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • The Genoa-based Société de Navigation offered luxury ocean-liner service in Europe and across the Atlantic. This poster, printed for a French-speaking audience, promotes cruises to Italy from any of the Société’s ports of call.   
  • The poster was printed during a time of dramatic change in the Italian government’s racial policy, pressed upon Mussolini by an increasingly powerful Adolf Hitler. The previous year, Rome had passed a decree distinguishing the Eritreans and Ethiopians from other subjects of the newly founded colonial empire; in the Kingdom of Italy, Eritreans and Ethiopians were to be addressed as “Africans” and not as native Italians. In 1938, the Manifesto of Race (a pseudoscientific report on the supremacy of Italians) was published at the same time as Mussolini was backtracking on his long-held belief that Italian Jews had “lived in Italy since the kings of Rome and should remain undisturbed.” On November 17th of that year, a decree announced that Jews would be stripped of citizenship and blocked from government and higher education. Newspapers and magazines, at the urging of the government, reminded all “ethnic Italians” of the race laws and of the inferiority of other groups in their midst, particularly Jews.
  • In this poster, Italian luxury is embodied by a new “perfect Italian,” a woman who looks particularly Aryan. The flag behind her is that of the Italian Line, derived from the Renaissance-era maritime flags of Genoa, from which the line’s ships sailed, and Trieste, an Austrian city annexed to Italy at the end of World War I. Trieste was also the headquarters of Cosulich, one of the shipping companies that had merged to create the Italian Line.

A poster of a slender green and red monument with an aircraft flying behind it on a blue and yellow background.

Ala Littoria, 1935 

Tito Corbella (1885–1966)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • Ala Littoria was the national, government-owned airline of Italy during the fascist period, and the forerunner of Alitalia and today’s ITA Airways. In 1925, Italian commercial aviation was largely unknown; by 1930, Ala Littoria, a conglomeration of smaller airlines, was the third busiest in Europe ahead of those run out of England and the Netherlands. The Italian tricolor featured prominently on its aircraft, and, in 1934, it began to offer international service on the direct orders of Benito Mussolini. 
  • The year before this poster was printed, Ala Littoria began service to Italy’s African colonies. The airline had become synonymous with Italian imperial ambition as well as with the regime and its leader (thus the fasces seen in the lower right as part of its official logo). 
  • This connection is reinforced by this composition in which a Savoia-Marchetti S.74 soars past the Mussolini Obelisk, a skyscraping monument designed by Constantino Constantini in 1932 in honor of the 10th anniversary of the fascist regime and emblazoned with the words “Mussolini Dux” (Mussolini Leader). 
  • As with most Italian propaganda, the glorified content does not reflect reality. Only three models of the airplane were produced, all of which would be destroyed in the war.

A poster of several planes flying across the Atlantic Ocean and a colorful map.

Crociera aerea transatlantica (Transatlantic Air Cruise), 1931 

Umberto Di Lazzaro (1898–1968)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

A poster of many white airplanes flying in tight formation on a dark blue background.

Crociera aerea del Decenniale (Decennial Air Cruise), 1933 

Marcello Dudovich (1878–1968)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

A poster of yellow airplanes flying in a straight line to a vanishing point between two large flags.

Crociera aerea del Decenniale (Decennial Air Cruise), 1933 

Umberto di Lazzaro (1898–1968)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

A poster of a towering man's head behind many grey airplanes flying upwards.

Crociera aerea del Decenniale (Decennial Air Cruise), 1933 

Luigi Martinati (1893–1983)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

A poster of an aerial view of cities with a white pathway curving from foreground to background.

Crociera aerea del Decenniale (Decennial Air Cruise), 1933 

Luigi Martinati (1893–1983)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • These five monumental posters highlight some of the many ways Italian designers chose to celebrate Italy’s attempts to conquer the skies. 
  • In 1931, Italo Balbo, Mussolini’s air minister, organized a month-long formation flight of 14 planes from Orbetello, Tuscany to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; the journey is represented in the first two-sheet poster by a line between the two countries. The text along the bottom highlights the many Italian-produced technologies that made this feat possible.
  • The success of the 1931 flight led to Balbo planning a second in 1933 to honor the 10th anniversary of Mussolini’s founding of the Italian Air Force (noted in the posters as the “decenniale”). On this trip, 25 aircraft had originally been intended to circumnavigate the globe; however, the itinerary was ultimately pared down to 13 stops, starting in Rome and ending at the Century of Progress exhibition in Chicago.
  • Balbo, once a fascist icon, later opposed the Nazi alliance and was killed in Libya in 1940, mistakenly shot down by the Italian Navy. Subsequent rumors implied that Mussolini had ordered Balbo’s murder—an inaccuracy that endured for decades.

Stars and Stripes, 1945

Private Collection, NYC

  • Allied forces, including those of the United States, fought the combined Italian and German armies throughout North Africa before landing on the Italian island of Sicily in the summer of 1943. The Italian government immediately collapsed, and Mussolini was reduced to being the leader of a German puppet state as a civil war erupted between the fascists and the partigiani (partisans).
  • By April of 1945, Mussolini’s position even in his largely imaginary government became untenable, and he flew toward the Swiss border with his mistress. On April 27, they were caught by Italian partisans and summarily executed the next day. His ally, Adolf Hitler, would commit suicide two days later.
  • As Mussolini’s body had been a symbol of the regime’s strength, it now became an equally powerful symbol of its downfall. A mob of partisans, angry Italian civilians, and U.S. soldiers watched as Mussolini’s corpse was dragged to a public square in Milan that had recently been the site of a partisan execution. He was stripped, beaten, urinated and defecated upon, and finally hung upside down from a gas-station rafter. This edition of the American military newspaper, the Stars and Stripes, from April 30, was one of many that announced his execution.  
  • With Mussolini’s death, the Allied war in Italy was effectively over. His absence left a vacuum for the American and British occupation that would lead to a new era of very different propaganda.

Postmortem Hanging of Mussolini and Other Fascists, 1945

Pietro Samuèl Campo (1916–2011)

Collection of Brenno Campo

  • Taken by an Italian emigrè serving in the United States Army, this photograph shows Mussolini hanging alongside the dead bodies of other fascist leaders murdered over the previous two days. The image serves as a potent reminder of how powerful the symbol of Mussolini’s body had been both in life and death. 
  • Italian partisans, watched by American troops, purposefully took the desecrated bodies of Francesco Maria Barracu (Undersecretary to the Presidency), Benito Mussolini (Prime Minister of Italy), Claretta Petacci (Mussolini’s mistress), Alessandro Pavolini (Minister of Popular Culture, and the authority who approved most Italian propaganda posters and documents seen in this exhibition), and Achille Starace (Secretary of the National Fascist Party) to Milan’s Piazzale Loreto, the site where a group of their fellow partisans had been executed the previous August by Mussolini’s regime. 
  • After the hanging, the bodies were taken into custody by the U.S. Army, which delivered them to the city morgue for autopsy. Although buried in an unmarked grave, Mussolini’s body was repeatedly stolen and hidden by fascists and anti-fascists alike for the next twelve years until it was finally interred in a family tomb in the town of Mussolini’s birth.  
  • Adolf Hitler was notified immediately of Mussolini’s death and the circumstances around his public exhibition. He then recorded in his Last Will and Testament that he intended to choose death rather than become “a spectacle arranged by Jews”—the following day, Hitler killed himself in Berlin.

A poster divided vertically in half with black and white photographs of adults and children.

Fame=caos, pane=ordine (Hunger=Chaos, Bread=Order), c. 1947

Designer Unknown

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • This poster presents a strict dichotomy between Italian life under the fascist regime and under the Marshall Plan. On the left, totalitarianism leads to starving children, while on the right, food and order have brought a flourishing democracy. The central and lower text translates as: “freedom to choose the life of tomorrow. This is why America has already sent aid to Italy in the sum of 1,140 billion lire.” 
  • Following the fall of Italy in 1943, a civil war broke out as Mussolini’s remnant government, occupying German forces, invading Allied armies, and Communist-leaning partisans battled for control of the country. With the war’s end in 1945, an Italian Republic—the modern nation of Italy—was established, and political parties now began to jockey for power.
  • The largest and most successful of these was the American-backed Christian Democratic Party, promoted in this poster and nicknamed “The White Whale” due to its huge membership and official color. In opposition to its primary rival, the Communist Party, it became in many ways the voice of American interests in Italy; under pressure from the U.S. President Harry Truman it formed a broad coalition that, with support from the American government and the Catholic Church, won local elections in 1948 and went on to control the nation for the next 40 years.

A poster of a tall red smokestack with a plume coming out of the top and bricks in front.

Mostra della Ricostruzione Nazionale (National Reconstruction Exhibition), 1950 

Rolando Monti (1906–92) & Francesco Perotti (1907–55)

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • After the war, the United States implemented the Marshall Plan, a means of distributing economic aid to assist European countries in their reconstruction; it was also intended to provide a cultural and political bulwark against the Soviet Union. Over a four-year period from 1948, the United States distributed $13.3 billion (approximately $178 billion today) to 16 western European nations based (roughly) on the size of their populations. 
  • The plan was built on the theory that economic resuscitation would lead to a Europe that was simultaneously stronger but also more reliant on, and supportive, of American interests. As a result of this European Recovery Program, as it was known, by the end of 1948 Italian industrial production had returned to prewar levels.
  • Sponsored by the Italian National Tourist Board, this poster advertises an exhibition on Italian recovery. It suggests that Italian rubble is being turned into bright, new, active factories with the assistance of American capital.

A poster of a loaf of bread divided in half by white text on a blue background.

Il pane che noi mangiamo (The Bread That We Eat), 1948 

Designer Unknown

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli Collection, Bologna

  • As the United States and the Soviet Union fought for influence within Italy through the Christian Democratic and Communist parties respectively, there was a significant proliferation in printed propaganda on both sides.
  • This poster makes the case for the benevolence of the American government, which poured millions of dollars in financial aid and rations into the hungry, bombed-out, and worried nation. It indicates that Italian bread is currently made of 40 percent Italian flour and 60 percent American flour—and, most importantly, that American flour is free of charge. 
  • In the postwar period, Allied influence (particularly that of the Americans and the financial assistance of the Marshall Plan) would become generational: American subsidies provided food, rebuilt cities and roads, and reestablished many basic services that had been disrupted during the war. 
  • Additionally, American-backed politicians, particularly through the Christian Democratic Party, would dominate Italian politics at every level for a half century, while many figures from the fascist era quietly transitioned to the new ways of the Republic. Meanwhile, the American military would become a lasting presence in Italy, with military bases throughout the country that remain under its control even today. 

Acknowledgements

Curation

B.A. Van Sise

 

Exhibition Design & Production

Ola Baldych

Mihoshi Fukushima Clark

Randee Ballinger

 

Installation

John F. Lynch

Rob Leonardi

Diego Cadena Bejarano 

 

Registrar

Melanie Papathomas

 

Woodwork 

Rob Leonardi

 

Graphic Installation

Keith Immediato

 

Printers

Full Point Graphics

XD Four

 

Special Thanks

Nicola Lucchi, PhD

Tiziana Rinaldi Castro, novelist & journalist

Steven Heller, design historian

Stephen Coles, Letterform Archive

Anna Di Paolo, Touring Club Italy

Anna Chiara Di Maio, linguistic consultant

Catherine Bindman, editor

Randy Ferreiro, proofreader

Sofía Jarrín, Spanish translator

Pull Quotes

 

“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.”—Benito Mussolini

 

“Art, it is said, is not a mirror, but a hammer: it does not reflect, it shapes.”—Leon Trotsky 

 

“Fascist education is moral, physical, social, and military. It aims to create a complete and harmoniously developed human, a fascist one according to our views.”—Benito Mussolini

 

You must always be doing things and obviously succeeding. The hard part is to keep people always at the window because of the spectacle you put on for them. And you must do this for years.”—Benito Mussolini

 

“The supreme object of the Fascist Revolution is the change in the temperament, in the character, in the intellectual outlook of the Italian people.”—L’Italia Fascista in Cammino

 

“What a swine this Mussolini is.”—Winston Churchill

 

The wretched end of Benito Mussolini marks a fitting end to a wretched life. Shot to death by a firing squad, together with his mistress and a handful of Fascist leaders, the first of the Fascist dictators, the man who once boasted that he was going to restore the glories of ancient Rome, is now a corpse in a public square in Milan, with a howling mob cursing and kicking and spitting on his remains.”—The New York Times, April 30, 1945

Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli is an Italian cultural institution with nationwide reach, established in New York in 1984 by the efforts of Massimo and Sonia Cirulli. It is based on an important private collection of more than ten thousand artworks, documents, and artifacts dedicated to twentieth-century Italian culture.

The Fondazione’s goal is to promote, at both a national and an international level, twentieth-century Italian art and visual culture, through an innovative reading and multidisciplinary approach to the heritage of that era. It also aims to create an international center of excellence for the study and dissemination of Italian creative culture, from the early 1900s to the 1970s, that is, from the birth of modernity and the concept of “Made in Italy” to the postwar economic boom.

The Fondazione undertakes a variety of cultural projects, such as exhibitions, events, and publications reflecting the multifaceted character of its holdings but also based on exchanges and collaborations with public cultural institutions as well as private collections in Italy and abroad. These relationships are facilitated by the breadth of a collection that encompasses several disparate fields, including the decorative arts, architectural design, industrial design, graphic design, and illustration. These materials tell the story of modern Italian culture from a range of unusual perspectives. Among the masters of Italian art included in the collection are Giacomo Balla, Fortunato Depero, Lucio Fontana, Osvaldo Licini, Bruno Munari, Gio Ponti, Luigi Russolo, and Mario Sironi. The building housing the Fondazione’s exhibition space and headquarters has a  strong symbolic connection to the history of twentieth-century Italian architecture and design, as it was envisioned by Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni in 1960.