Traces of Fascist Urban Iconography in the Latina Province, Italy

The colonization of the plain of Agro Pontino to the south of Rome and the
reclamation of the notorious Pontine Marshes is said to be the most ambitious
programme and grandest display of fascist power in Italy. Now known as the Latina Province but then as Littoria, the region is a potent symbol of Mussolini’s ambition to build Italy’s future based on Roman ideology and the ‘Myth of Rome’. Aside from bringing under control the region’s problems associated with climate, topography, hydrology, and ecological degradation, and the building of infrastructure such as public roads, bridges, electricity cables, and telephone wires, five modern cities and18 satellite villages, were established in the 1930s. Today, the province can be
interpreted as a ‘symbolic resource’ by which fascism attempted to facilitate
transition through the deployment of symbolic elements across a macro-micro
continuum.
Rejuvenation of the province is perhaps the largest indicator of Mussolini’s fascist
revolution, and the urban fabric of the region is adorned with fascist iconography
manifest in the monuments and memorials on public display. But at a smaller scale,
visual elements reinforce the identity, meaning and structure of fascism in the form
of manhole covers, inscriptions and commemorative plaques on buildings. Many of
these symbolic elements have since been removed in the light of attempts to
disassociate the place with that time in Italy’s past. But there remain traces of fascism
that still serve to stimulate the urban graphic memory.
In this paper we report on the use of historical methods combined with photo-
documentation and screen analysis to examine some of these symbolic resources as
traces of fascism in the twenty-first century modern metropolis of Latina. A review of
the literature and screen-based propaganda on Latina Province will identify the
extent to which symbolic resources were deployed to promote Mussolini’s ideology,
and reveal some of the more discreet and unacknowledged representations of fascist
power. Analysis of the numerous newsreels, documentaries, and films from the
Istituto Luce – the ‘Educational Film Union’ provides a resource to demonstrate how
the visual language of fascist propaganda changed from 1932–1943. In doing so, we
explore the overlooked iconography that worked to reinforce the mythology of the
‘reclamation’ and combined the rural and the urban dimension as a double-faced
identity to be shown differently depending on the audience, the message ‘piloted’ by
the propaganda and the intended emotional impact.