DEEP VIEW
Predappio and
the memory of the
dictatorship
Marcello Flores
Historian, professor at the
Università degli Studi di Siena
Carlo Giunchi
cultural manager
I
t was recently announced that the mayor of the town of Predappio had decided to use a
large disused building, the former Casa del Fascio e dell’Ospitalitá, as a site for the study,
dissemination and narration of Italian history under Fascism. The news sparked a debate
and a controversy that is still alive and bears witness to the difficulty that surrounds any
public discussion of Fascism. Instead of exploring how a museum on Fascism in Italy might
have to be designed, the debate focused –exclusively– on the problem of the political and
moral expediency of this choice. The main problem, in fact, seemed to be in the site selected
for the museum, the town of Predappio. The events that helped to build the myth of
Mussolini during the twenty years of Fascism in Italy (and in the post-war years as well, up
until the most recent times) are closely linked to this small town. It is not simply the town
near where, in a small village called Dovìa, Benito Mussolini was born on 29 July, 1883;
nor is it just a town of houses leaning against a medieval fortress, similar to many others
scattered in the hills of Romagna, a bustling region in the heart of Italy. Today Predappio’s
fame has spread beyond the country’s borders. It is a new town that was built in twenty
years, completely obliterating the preexisting one. So, if it was the old Predappio that gave
birth to Mussolini, it was Mussolini himself that gave birth to the new Predappio.
The first stone of the new town was laid on 15 April, 1925, in the presence of the main
authorities of the regime. From the beginning it was clear that the function of Predappio
was to celebrate the myth of the origins of the founder of Fascism. These origins had
to be rooted in the people, and so the need for sobriety was repeatedly stressed; indeed,
Mussolini himself intervened on several occasions to tone down some aspects he considered
excessively luxurious, even removing tombstones that were too ornate or demolishing the
sumptuous staircase that had been built to approach his place of birth. Predappio Nuova
can therefore be considered as the first of those one hundred or so cities and large districts
22
Observing Memories
ISSUE 3