Rome (IT), Piazza del Viminale [extant] - 1931
The inscription (ca. 1931) is still visible, divided into four parts, on the colonnettes in front of the Palazzo del Viminale in Rome. Its author is unknown.
The inscription is carved in Roman square capitals on the four low colonettes at the beginning of the ramps that lead to the ministry’s building. The colonettes are topped by sculptures of eagles, symbol of the Roman legions. The text directly addresses the eagle as a victorious symbol of Italian Fascism and its renewed imperial ambitions. The text presents some rhythmical and syntactic correspondences (per fines perge ~ per orbem clamitans; victrix … evola ~ audax … clamitans); the anastrophe nostros per fines is remarkable. The word Ducis was imperfectly erased at the end of the Second World War, and is still readable today.
Piazza
del Viminale was designed by Manfredo Manfredi (1859–1927),
architect of the facing Palazzo del Viminale, which serves as the seat of the
Ministry of Internal Affairs. It was inaugurated by Mussolini on 5 May 1931.
The fountain at the square’s centre and its sculpted decorations were executed
by Publio Morbiducci (1889–1963), an important and appreciated artist deeply
involved in public Fascist commissions. The Piazza’s iconographic
programme airs the myth of romanità: the fountain shows, on the
front, the she-wolf feeding Romulus and Remus, and the pillars have paired
imperial eagles on the top. On the lower part of the pillars were
sculpted fasces, probably removed around the same time as the
word Ducis (see Archivio Storico Istituto Luce, A Roma
la sistemazione di piazza del Viminale, Giornale Luce A0773, 05/1931).
Bibliography
Bartels, Klaus. 2012. Roms sprechende Steine. Inschriften aus zwei Jahrtausenden. 4th ed. Darmstadt/Mainz: Von Zabern, no. 10.14.
Ferraironi, Francesco. 1937. Iscrizioni ornamentali su edifici e monumenti di Roma con appendice sulle iscrizioni scomparse. Rome: Industria Tipografia Romana, no. 827.
Nastasi, Antonino. 2019. Le iscrizioni in latino di Roma
Capitale (1870-2018). Rome: Edizioni Quasar, 46–47.
Antonino
Nastasi
Inscription at Piazza del Viminale © A. Nastasi (Rome).
Inscription at Piazza del Viminale © A. Nastasi (Rome).
Inscription at Piazza del Viminale © A. Nastasi (Rome).
Inscription at Piazza del Viminale © A. Nastasi (Rome).
Inscription at Piazza del Viminale © A. Nastasi (Rome).