The inscription (1925) can be read along a frame under the balustrade of the balcony of Palazzo Caffarelli, on the right of the entrance (Piazzale Caffarelli 4). The author of the text is Raffaello Santarelli.

The inscription is carved in sans serif capitals. The text recalls the restoration (that consisted of a partial demolition and reconstruction) of Palazzo Caffarelli. The Palazzo hosted the German embassy until 1918, when it was transformed into an extension of the Capitoline Museums, named “Museo Mussolini”, and inaugurated on 31^st October 1925.

The authorship of Santarelli is not mentioned in contemporary published sources or in the scholarship. However, the text can be attributed to him because of some of its specific phrasing (see the biography on Santarelli) and because he certainly authored the inscription which was inside the museum (see here). Mussolini is called strenuus Italae rei moderator, as in other inscriptions which Santarelli authored; the special royal commissioner, Filippo Cremonesi (1872–1942), is called Urbi praefectus regius (‘royal prefect of the City’), just as in the inscription of the Acqua Marcia’s cistern in Villa Borghese. The title ‘prefect of the City’, evokes the office of imperial prefect, assigned by the emperor himself in the Roman empire from the very beginning with Augustus’ reign. As in the inscription of the cistern, the year 1925 is referred to as the Jubilee year.

The restoration of the building was projected by the architect Ghino Venturi (1884–1970). In 1950, the museum was renamed “Museo Nuovo” (“New Museum”).   

Bibliography

Bocconi, Settimo. 1925. ‘Il nuovo Museo Mussolini’. Capitolium 1 (8): 469–81.

Ferraironi, Francesco. 1937. Iscrizioni ornamentali su edifici e monumenti di Roma con appendice sulle iscrizioni scomparse. Rome: Industria Tipografica Romana, no. 218.3.

Nastasi, Antonino. 2019. Le iscrizioni in latino di Roma Capitale (1870-2018). Rome: Edizioni Quasar, 168–70.

Antonino Nastasi