Antonio Muñoz (1884–1960) was an art historian and architect, a renowned expert on matters of architectural conservation and reconstruction, and one of the most important figures in Rome’s cultural and artistic life during the ventennio fascista. Muñoz was Superintendent of Monuments of Latium between 1914 and 1928 and General Inspector of Antiquities and Fine Arts of the Roman Governorate between 1928 and 1944. As such, he took part in all the important urbanistic transformations of Rome that were supported or directly ordered by Mussolini, including the Via dell’Impero (today Via dei Fori Imperiali), the Piazza Augusto Imperatore, and the isolation of the Capitolium. He also played a major role in the inscriptions carved in these areas. Moreover, Muñoz inaugurated the Museo di Roma in 1930 and served as its director until 1944. In 1936, he also founded the journal L’Urbe. After the demise of Fascism, he had some smaller assignments at the National Superintendence and taught history of art and architecture at the Faculty of Architecture at Sapienza University in Rome.

Bibliography

Primary sources

Muñoz, Antonio. 1935. Roma di Mussolini. Milan: Fratelli Treves.

Secondary sources

Catini, Raffaella. 2021. ‘Muñoz, Antonio’. In Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, 77: 424–27. Rome: Instituto dell’Enciclopedia Treccani.

Antonino Nastasi