ROME – For the second day in a row, residents of the Italian capital woke up to a scary reminder From the country’s darkest past. Stickers celebrating 100 years of The biography of Benito Mussolini in Romewhich led to 20 years of Fascist rule, adorns many buildings in the city center, and a huge banner promising “100 years later, the march continues” is hoisted over a pedestrian bridge in front of the ancient Roman Colosseum.
They were soon demolished by the mayor of Rome Roberto Gualtieri, but not before selfies of neo-fascists spread before them. “Illegal posters to celebrate the centenary of the March of Rome that appeared last night on some streets are unacceptable and shameful,” Gualtieri wrote on Twitter. “I ordered them to be removed immediately.”
Guglielmo Mangyapan/Reuters
The posters may be gone, but there are at least a dozen monuments – including a massive obelisk in front of the Olympic Stadium inscribed with Mussolini’s name in white marble – that the city is paying dearly to preserve. There is also an ‘Il Duce’ mosaic on display at Ostense Train Station which he built for the arrival of Adolf Hitler in May 1938.
Four hours north of the capital, in Predappio, where Mussolini was born and where his crypt is regularly decorated with notes and flowers, the neo-fascists will gather forcefully to re-race Friday and plan to hold three days of “celebrations” in order to celebrate.
City officials, who turn a blind eye to trinket stores selling Mussolini and Hitler memorabilia including wine labels and key chains, told The Daily Beast they expect up to 2,000 people this weekend to celebrate the anniversary. They will be met by members of ANPI, the national association of Italian partisans, who fought against the regime and who plan to march on their own. Police expect tension. “This is a worrying signal,” Gianfranco Pagliarolo, the association’s national president, told the Associated Press. “It is clear that the victory of the nationalist right will lead to the return of provocative positions of neo-fascism … We are not worried that we will fight with political and, if necessary, legitimate weapons.”
The new Italian Senate president has a vault full of fascist memorabilia from WWII
While Italy’s new prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, condemned fascism, telling Parliament this week, “I have never felt sympathy or rapprochement with undemocratic regimes, including fascism, since I have always considered the racist laws of 1938 the lowest point in Italian history, which is Naked, her party’s crest bears the symbol of the fascist torch, and Ignazio “Benito” La Rosa, the newly elected president of the Senate from her party, has a collection of fascist memorabilia displayed in his basement.
Italy has a law against celebrating fascism, but it is rarely enforced and it is common to see statues and portraits of the dictator in bars across the country. There were also several Mussolini heirs in elected office, including his granddaughter Alessandra Mussolini, who was elected to the European Parliament in 2006, after which she said, “It is better to be a fascist than a homosexual” while being interviewed on state television. Rachel Mussolini, a great-granddaughter and a member of the Meloni party, won the most votes in the recent city council elections in Rome and is likely to climb the political ladder as one of Meloni’s subjects.
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