MARCONI AND BALBO DISCOVER AMERICA
For the Italian side of the story, see:
GUGLIELMO MARCONI: Fascist Hero of Science (and more)
CONTENTS:
(1) THE VIEW FROM PLAZA MARCONI (PHILADELPHIA)
(2) MARCONI-MANIA vs. BALBO-MANIA
(3) ITALO BALBO AND THE COLUMBUS THING
(4) THE SECOND COLUMBUS CRASHES AND BURNS
(1) THE VIEW FROM PLAZA MARCONI (PHILADELPHIA)
History is written by the victors.
They also name the streets.
After the collapse of the Fascist Regime, its democratic successors scratched out Via dell'Impero (Empire Street) and Piazza Imperiale (Imperial Square). Then they swapped in Via Cristoforo Colombo (Christopher Columbus Street) and Piazza Marconi (Marconi Square).
An easy decision —it would seem— pairing a bold explorer and a brilliant scientist. Who could possibly object to schoolbook heroes of that sort?
Then the wheel of history turned, yet again. Christopher Columbus now raises even more ire than Benito Mussolini. But somehow, Guglielmo Marconi still enjoys a free pass.
Christopher Columbus and Guglielmo Marconi have long kept company, in public spaces wherever we go. We can imagine them communing across time and space—here represented by South Broad Street—in a medium-sized park in South Philadelphia.
An odd couple or not? It depends on how you read the past. South Philly is an Italian-American neighborhood with a long memory. And when it comes to history, there is more than enough to go around.
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In fact, the explorer and the scientist are both relatively recent arrivals. Marconi appeared on this spot only in 1975, then Columbus a year later in 1976.
At that time, Marconi Plaza was nothing new—dedicated nearly forty years earlier, on September 26, 1937. Barely three months had passed since the inventor's death, astonishing speed for any government administration.
The late scientist was both a public hero and a household word, with "Marconi" and "radio" virtually synonymous. At that time, Marconi monuments were rushing into production around the country and around the world.
For Philadelphia's city fathers, the solution was cheap and easy. They already had the park— right there in their preeminent Italian neighborhood. So, all they needed was a fresh plaque.
(2) MARCONI-MANIA vs. BALBO-MANIA
Working the press and generating headlines around the world was an essential part of Marconi's job—as President of the Royal Italian Academy. According to its charter:
The scope of the Italian Academy is to promote and coordinate the arts and letters, to preserve their pure national character according to the spirit and traditions of this lineage, while favoring their expansion and influence beyond the borders of this state.
"Have Americans put me wise..." How is that for reading the room?! Openness and international cooperation were Marconi 's chief themes and he was fluent in both English and the jargon of Transatlantic Business. From 1899 to 1919, his Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America had been based in New Jersey (until its forced sale to the Radio Corporation of America).
The Italians staged a massive public relations blitz at the Century of Progress International Exposition in Chicago. Guglielmo Marconi played a starring role but he wasn't the hottest ticket in town. The unrivaled headliner was Italo Balbo —then relatively young (37 years old in 1933), compellingly macho and a legendary hero of the Fascist Movement. One of Mussolini's oldest allies, Balbo helped mobilize the 1922 March on Rome—the brilliant stunt that propelled his mentor to the forefront of Italian politics.
Grand-style bravado was Balbo's special thing and looking back, the March on Rome now seems a relatively home-spun production. In the years that followed, he emerged as a daring pilot whose aerial exploits entranced the public—first-ever long-distance flights and elaborate choreographies in the sky.
Then in 1929, the Duce appointed Balbo Minister of Aeronautics, putting the entire Air Force at his disposal.
Chicago's Century of Progress Exposition was made-to-order for the Mussolini Regme, since that same century also saw the Unification of Italy and the emergence of the Fascist Corporate State. Balbo rose to the occasion and then some—captaining a fleet of 24 seaplanes on a 6,000 mile journey from the Italian coast to the shore of Lake Michigan.
Media coverage was extensive, eager and stunningly superficial —for us today. Time Magazine gave Balbo their cover and nearly 2,200 words, exuding glib admiration for his aeronautical prowess, amidst droll "insights" into Italian customs and Catholic superstitions.
When it came to politics, we might describe the article as "Fascism-curious". Time lingers over titillating details of coercive violence and Machiavellian intrigue, but ultimately plays it all for a laugh—dissolving the whole "Mussolini thing" into a picturesque blur of local color.
(3) ITALO BALBO AND THE COLUMBUS THING
There was at least one gaping hole in that magazine's reporting. Time does not mention Christopher Columbus, even once—unlike everyone else on the job. Balbo as the Second Columbus was the chief story of the day. Journalists loved it, because it was so obvious and the copy seemed to write itself.
Balbo measured himself against the other Great Navigator as often as he could. On July 17. 1933, he engineered a mythic photo-op at the new Columbus Monument, recently installed at the Exposition.
A full-dress dedication came a few weeks later, after Balbo's departure for New York, Washington and ultimately Italy. This was the highlight of Italian Day at the Century of Progress.
On August 3, 1933, some 25,000 visitors—mostly Italian-Americans—packed out the Columbus ceremony. There was even an address by Benito Mussolini.
The initial plan was for the Duce to broadcast live from Rome by radio, but these arrangements fell apart (where was Marconi?) So the text was read by Ambassador Augusto Rosso.
"By the initiative of the Italian Community ....the daring Genoese navigator who sailed the oceans to discover a new continent ...Italy, rejuvenated by Fascism is happy to join in the celebration ....Italy has sent through the skies the fleet of her aviators... to the Amercan people..."
The Duce left no box unchecked and his boldly-imaged message was replicated in every available medium.
This extravagant mash-up has an old-fashioned look. Even with the state-of-the-science amphibious vehicles, it evokes a nostalgic souvenir from a softly-focused past.
The Latin inscription seems to say it all:
Terrae Aërisque Honorate Heroa's Antiquae Progenitos Novaeque Romae
(The Earth and the Air Honor the Heroic Progeny of Ancient and New Rome)
Then there are the dates, one enshrined in popular history and the other as recent as yesterday:
XII-X-MCDXCII...12 October 1492...Columbus' Landing
XV-VII-MCMXXXIII...15 July 1933...Balbo's Landing
A host of questions come to mnd...
Why a Latin inscription?
Why the Roman numerals?
Why only two words of English: Italian Heroes?
Who is the "Progeny of Ancient and New Rome"?
What do they share with Mussolini's "Italy Rejuvenated by Fascism"?
This work evidently exists in two versions: a print and a postcard. (I have not seen the originals.)
It was produced in Chicago in 1933, by Joe Stangarone.
Joe— not Joseph or even Giuseppe. An eagerly assimilating neo-American, it would seem.
Few could work a crowd, especially an Italian-American crowd, like Italo Balbo. Speaking in Italian on behalf of an empowered Fascist Regime, he broadcast a message of ethnic pride, innate strength and bold self-reliance—uttering words that his listeners were unlikely to hear anywhere else.
(4) THE SECOND COLUMBUS CRASHES AND BURNS
Ultimately, Italo Balbo was too charismatic for his own good. Back in Italy, many saw him as the Duce's self-appointed successor and an overly-eager one at that.
Although Mussolini and Balbo had been political allies for as long as anyone could remember, essential differences were becoming harder and harder to ignore. According to Balbo, Germany was undermining Italian autonomy and obstructing Italian priorities—while an impotent Mussolini looked on.
Then there were the creeping excesses of Nazi racial policy, which the Duce was unable or unwilling to oppose. Balbo was born and raised in Ferrara, amidst ardent Jewish fascists, and he maintained close relations with them until the very end.
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Rome was not big enough for both Mussolini and Balbo. Only a few months after his American triumph, the Duce shunted him off to Libya as Colonial Governor. He also pulled the plug on Balbo's long-running media sweep. Italian newspapers —going forward —were ordered to feature him far less and mostly in subordinate roles.
During the remaining six years of his life, Italo Balbo still found plenty to do— albeit in political exile and detached from his popular base. North Africa was emerging as a principal theater of the Second World War and this daring fighter pilot was right on the spot.
While serving as Governor, Balbo also flew aerial missions on the front line. Then on 28 June 1940, his plane was brought down by friendly fire, while returnng from a reconaissance foray over Tobruk.
The Duce did not bother to feign grief —at least not to those in his inner circle who knew the score. But the public response was a different matter entirely.
HEADLINES: Eternal Glory to Those Who Have Fallen in the Service of the Fatherland / The Heroic Death of the Fighter Pilot Italo Balbo in the Sky Over Tobruk / The Duce Orders that Flags Be Flown at Half Staff Today and Tomorrow and that the Symbols of the Fascist Party be Draped in Mourning / A Life of Fascist Passion and Warlike Daring / The Supreme Holocaust
The "Holocaust" reference was a nod to ancient Greek history, signifying a holy sacrifice and more specifically, a burnt offering. In any case, Balbo exited at the age of 44, without seeing the final immolation of the Fascist and Nazi Regimes. Mussolini and Hitler both outlived him by nearly five years, dying only two days apart on April 28 and April 30, 1945.
As for Italo Balbo's legacy, across America there is barely one at all— apart from a run of vivid newspaper stories now more or less lost in time. For a brief moment, he seemed ready to join Christopher Columbus and Guglielmo Marconi in the Italian Pantheon —or the Italian-American Pantheon, at least.
Chicago is the chief and perhaps only place where Balbo's memory persists, recalling a moment when that city was the epicenter of the world. Balbo Drive still cuts through Grant Park and across Columbus Drive, in the heart of the Loop, marking the high-point of the Second Columbus cult.
Just a bit south, in the same run of lakeside parks, is the Balbo Column. Benito Mussolini plucked it from the site of Ostia (the ancient port of Rome) and sent it half-way across the world in Balbo's own hydroplanes —with its new base and Fascist inscriptions.
On 15 July 1934, it was installed in front of the Italian Pavillion at the Century of Progress Exposition—proclaimed to a largely ethnic crowd by Balbo himself, long-distance. (This time the radio broadcast worked.)
That was Balbo's last hurrah on the American scene, but the column remains now that everything else is gone.
QUESTA COLONNA
DI VENTI SECOLI ANTICA
ERETTA SUL LIDO DI OSTIA
PORTO DI ROMA IMPERIALE
A VIGILARE LE FORTUNE E LE VITTORIE
DELLE TIREMI ROMANE
L'ITALIA FASCISTA SUSPICE BENITO MUSSOLINI
DONA A CHICAGO
ESALTAZIONE SIMBOLO RICORDO
DELLA SQUADRA ATLANTICA GUIDATA DA BALBO
CHE CON ROMANO ARDIMENTO TRASVOLO L'OCEANO
NELL' ANNO XI
DEL LITTORIO
This column, twenty centuries old, was erected on the beach of Ostia, the port of Imperial Rome, to watch over the fortunes and victories of the Roman triremes. Fascist Italy, with the sponsorship of Benito Mussolini, presents to Chicago a symbol and memorial in honor of the Atlantic Squadron led by Balbo, which with Roman daring, flew across the ocean in the 11th year of the Fascist era.
For decades, Chicago activists— overwhelmingly non-Italian, of course —have set their sights on Balbo Drive and the Balbo Column. This began right after World War Two, when naming-rights were in hot demand for the latest crop of heroes.
"Chicago boys of Italian descent who fought in Italy do not wish to honor the Fascist who betrayed his own people as well as conducted a war against our country."
Thus spoke Russell Root, a Republican candidate for Mayor in 1947, but he didn't get very far in his election bid either.
In 2018, there was a concerted push to make Balbo Drive over to the pioneering African-American journalist Ida B. Wells, but that hit local Italian opposition and stalled out too. After the usual negotiations, another nearby thoroughfare was appropriated for Wells, while Balbo Drive remains as it was —and will probably remain for some time to come.
Ida B. Wells launched her momentous career with a self-published critique of Chicago's 1893 Columbian Exposition —the great national celebration where no African-American need apply.
As we work our way through history, we still hit Christopher Columbus at every turn— more than five centuries after his death.
But who was this Great Navigator ...really?
You might be sorry you asked!
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