Il Papa e Il duce: Sixtus V's and Mussolini's plans for Rome, capital of the world: Fid-Bau Portal

Il Papa e Il duce: Sixtus V's and Mussolini's plans for Rome, capital of the world

Anker, Andrew

Sixtus V and Mussolini were each leaders who sought to represent their political aspirations through major projects in their capital cities. As non‐native Romans, it was perhaps inevitable that the two leaders’ attempts to portray Rome as an international city would conflict with centuries of Roman architectural, urban and cultural history. The conflict was fought between trans‐national organizations—the Counter Reformation Church and the Italian Fascist movement—and local government. Il Duce and Il Papa had reasons to fear Roman independence and cultural tradition: for Sixtus it was a reminder of the city's other history, as the centre of pre‐Christian Europe, while for Mussolini, traditional working‐class neighbourhoods presented a constant threat to his party's political domination. This paper traces similarities in Mussolini's and Sixtus V's urban ideology, and discusses how their shared passion for such things as obelisks and expansive boulevards demonstrates, on the one hand, a desire to internationalize the city and, on the other, an effort to eliminate traces of what Mussolini referred to as “colore locale.”