Lingua Lictoria: The Latin Literature of Italian Fascism

© The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. During the ventennio fascista (1922-43), Italy saw a large and diverse production of original Latin literature with explicitly Fascist themes. The number of texts published in this period and the regime's direct and indirect support for their production make it clear that we are dealing with an important aspect of Fascist cultural politics, which has never yet been studied in detail. In this article, we explore what it meant to write in Latin in Fascist Italy. After introducing the authors and readers of Fascist Latin texts as well as their cultural and institutional contexts, we map the ideological functions that were attributed to Latin during the ventennio. We analyse a selection of largely forgotten Fascist Latin texts, including Luigi Illuminati's 'Dux', Giovanni Mazza's 'Italia renata', Benito Mussolini's 'Romae laudes', and Vittorio Genovesi's 'Mare nostrum'. On the basis of these texts, we discuss Latin as the language of romanita, as a modern and a specifically Fascist language, as a national and an international language, and as the language of Italian imperialism.

Publication year:2016

Accessibility:Closed