FROM SEGESTA TO CALATAFIMI: Mussolini Rewrites History
CONTENTS:
(1) MEMORIAL STONE STYLE
(2) ANCIENT NOBILITY
(3) FOLLOW THE FASCES
(4) THERE WAS A CITY HERE...
(1) MEMORIAL STONE STYLE.
The Italians have a name for this sort of ponderous effusion…
STILE DA LAPIDE = MEMORIAL STONE STYLE
That is to say: NEVER FAILING IN THE MEMORY OF ANCIENT NOBILITY / NEVER DOUBTING THE DESTINED FUTURE / UNDER THE AUSPICES OF BENITO MUSSOLINI / IN THE FOURTH YEAR OF THE FASCIST ERA
Stile da lapide can sound as potent as the Voice of God on first reading. Then you scratch your head and wonder what on earth they are going on about.
.webp)
The time was 1926 (Year Four of the Fascist Era). And the place is a barely two-lane bridge over a rivulet in northwestern Sicily—where you see rocky crags, vineyards and marshland all at once.
(2) ANCIENT NOBILITY
We are between Segesta and Calatafimi—barely four miles apart on the old road.
Segesta and Calatafimi.
What do these two localities have in common?
Nothing really, except geographic proximity.
And glorious —if unrelated— histories going back many centuries.
Segesta was the principal city of the Elimi, an ancient Sicilian people—dating at least to the Tenth Century B.C. A large theater and a breath-taking Doric Temple remain above ground, in a setting of astonishing natural beauty.
Calatafimi is a lively small town, founded by the Arabs—who called it Kalat-al-fimi (Castle of Eufemius), evidently alluding to a previous Roman or Byzantine fortification.
Little was heard of the place, however, until 15 May 1860 when Giuseppe Garibaldi and his thousand red-shirts engaged the forces of the Bourbon Kings—a crucial step on the way to the unification of Italy.
The Sicilian capital of Palermo fell just two weeks later, after a three-day siege (27-30 May 1860).
FOR MORE ABOUT THE RISORGIMENTO AND THE STRUGGLE FOR ITALIAN NATIONHOOD, SEE:
JEWS IN THE RISORGIMENTO
Calatafimi already had its share of older nationalist monuments, some of them decidedly odd. But it was left to Benito Mussolini to incorporate this town into his new narrative of fascist state-building.
Mussolini's interventions were bold and instantly recognizable. In the mid-to-late 1920s, the Duce was still in the full flush of his transient love affair with the Futurist avant garde— before embracing the romanizing monumentality of his later Imperial phase.
And so, astounding déco baubles started popping up in a place that was far nearer to North Africa than Milan or Turin (not to mention Paris, New York and Weimar).
FOR MORE MUSSOLINI ERA MONUMENTS, SEE:
E.42: Mussolini's Fascist Theme Park on the Outskirts of Rome
HEALTHY FASCIST MIND, HEALTHY FASCIST BODY: Mussolini’s Foro Italico in Rome
CAESAR AUGUSTUS IN A CAGE: Mussolini's Museum of Roman Civilization
(3) FOLLOW THE FASCES
But how do you get from Segesta to Calatafimi (or Calatafimi to Segesta)—literally and metaphorically—while hewing to Mussolini's tenuous narrative?
Just follow the fasces and let PRISCA NOBILTÀ (Ancient Nobility) fill in the gaps...
FOR MORE FASCES, SEE:
ANNO FASCISTA = FASCIST YEAR: Florence’s Mussolini-era sewer caps
SKATING OVER HISTORY IN ROME'S MUSSOLINI FORUM
Past a crumbling terminal on the Pispisa bridge...
Then up a long steep path —with fasces left and right—to the great Temple of Segesta...
Then over to the Theater. On the next hill...
The theater dates from circa 300 BC, a century or so later than the Temple.
It hosted some 4,000 spectators—in a panoramic setting that could easily upstage any theatrical production.
The Theater, in fact, was first excavated in 1927— barely a year before the lavish directional sign was put in place.
All proud achievements of the Mussolini Regime. Linking the past to the present...as it was or might have been.
(4) THERE WAS A CITY HERE...
What about the Elimi—or Elymians—who built and occupied the entire city (temple, theater and all)?
We still don't know where they came from and when, before they annexed a large chunk of Western Sicily.
In later days, they got lost in the shuffle—absorbed into the prevailing narrative of Italian Manifest Destiny.
Then there is the peculiar reality of Segesta today.
Once there was a thriving city, extending over these barren hills.
Vestiges still emerge from the ground—if we look for them—which only archeologists usually do.
But Segesta, as the world now knows it, is only a temple and a theater.
They seem to spring from the earth on their very own.
Pristine elements of Ancient Nobility...ready to plug into any narrative we choose.
Related posts
ANNO FASCISTA = FASCIST YEAR: Florence’s Mussolini-era sewer caps
Benito Mussolini had a rare knack for signs and symbols. Throughout Italy, they still follow us wherever we go.
What about Florence's ubiquitous "Anno Fascista = Fascist Year" sewer caps?
Thereby hangs many a tale...
CAESAR AUGUSTUS IN A CAGE: Mussolini's Museum of Roman Civilization
Il Museo della Civilità Romana...in the EUR, Mussolini's bold new World's Fair district in Rome.
For the Duce, what did Civiltà (Civilization) really mean?
How about his obsession with massive bronzes of Roman Emperors?
Caesar Augustus in particular...
E.42: Mussolini's Fascist Theme Park on the Outskirts of Rome
What if the Duce threw a World's Fair and no one came?
That is basically the story of the E.U.R. (Esposizione Universale Roma 1942)—one of the Eternal City's strangest and most intriguing districts.
SKATING OVER HISTORY IN ROME'S MUSSOLINI FORUM
In Rome, the Foro Italico (Italic Forum) still broadcasts Mussolini's message of Fascist power through physical strength—if anyone bothers to listen.
Nowadays, the martial clamor is reduced to a pleasant whir of skateboard wheels rolling over the celebrated mosaics—a veritable encyclopedia of Fascist imagery.
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