Mussolini, Redux

THRICE A YEAR IN PREDAPPIO, a small town in Italy’s north-eastern region of Emilia Romagna, tourism receives a sharp boost. Predappio is the birthplace of Benito Mussolini, Italy’s former Fascist dictator. It becomes a site of pilgrimage for modern-day sympathisers and nostalgists on Mussolini’s birth and death anniversaries, as well as during the week in October that marks the anniversary of his March on Rome, the 1922 gathering of squadristi, or Blackshirts, which brought the Fascists to power. The march marked the beginning of Mussolini’s 23-year reign as dictator of Italy, during which he assumed the title by which political sympathisers still refer to him: ‘Il Duce’, derived from the classical title of Dux, Latin for ‘leader’.

Compared to neighbouring Germany, where the causes and consequences of World War II effected decades of public soul-searching about the country’s period of Nazism, Italy appears to have repressed its memories of fascism to some degree. In spite of decades of left-wing activism, which include rulings outlawing Fascist propaganda, reminders of its political heyday in Italy are common in many parts of the country—from calendars of Mussolini photographs to the oft-repeated notion that he was not as bad as Hitler. Italy’s long-serving former prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, is fond of expressing his approval of Mussolini, saying that he “did well” in some ways; in 2011, he remarked that, on reading Mussolini’s letters, he felt there was a certain kinship between them.

On the thrice-yearly pilgrimages, supporters come to Predappio from all over Italy, wearing black, their shirts often adorned with Fascist badges. As depicted in these photographs taken in April and October 2012, they take out processions from the town centre to the cemetery of San Cassiano, the site of Mussolini’s tomb, crying Fascist slogans and singing songs from the movement’s glory days in the 1920s and 1930s. Italian flags and bouquets with flowers of red, white and green (Italy’s colours) go hand in hand with manganelli, the truncheons that recall the weapons of the original Blackshirts. Predappio’s town council, led by a succession of centre-left mayors in recent years, banned the sale of Fascist memorabilia in 2009, but trade in these items continues online.

Mussolini’s family home, Villa Carpena, purchased while he was still the young editor of Avanti!, retains a certain dynastic importance. Though the tide of Italian support turned against the Fascist regime during World War II, and Mussolini was captured and executed by Italian resistance in 1945, his cult of personality continues to thrive posthumously. His wife and children were allowed back into Villa Carpena after the war, thanks to conciliatory gestures by Italian governments. In his memoirs, Mussolini’s son Romano wrote that they were initially confined to living in their former garage. But by the time of the death of Mussolini’s wife Rachele in 1979, they had regained full possession of the property, and it was restored as a museum to Mussolini and his ideology in 2002.

Soon after the war, his mausoleum became a site of frequent fighting between young Fascists and left-wingers, but like Villa Carpena, it now seems to be consecrated to the Duce’s memory. The quasi-religious ceremonies at Predappio are often presided over by Giulio Tam, a Catholic priest who was once a member of the Society of St Pius X, an extremist Catholic organisation. In 2011, the New York Times reported that between 80,000 to 100,000 visitors annually attended Tam’s meetings in Predappio. During these ceremonies, he led prayers before Mussolini’s tomb, before going on to harangue his sympathetic audience about a Europe in imminent danger of succumbing to a Muslim majority and gay marriage, a culture far removed from the purifying visions of Il Duce.