Rome (IT), Piazza di Sant'Andrea della Valle [extant] - 1937
et novus in nostra funditur urbe decor. /
Anno Domini MCMXXXVII, imperii primo.
The
inscription (1937) is still visible over the entrance of the former offices of
the National Institute of Insurances (Istituto Nazionale delle Assicurazioni,
INA) at Piazza di Sant’Andrea della Valle 6. Raffaello Santarelli authored the
text.
The
inscription is carved in sans-serif capitals. It consists of an elegiac
couplet in the form of a versus aureus; its two lines are
perfectly justified, while the date is centralised below in characters of
smaller dimensions. The text concisely connects the foreign and the urbanistic
policy of the regime as two aspects of the same ideal of greatness: the first
verse refers to the conquest of Ethiopia and the second to the construction of
Corso Rinascimento.
The
couplet’s language echoes the elegiac poets: for example, bellica is
in the same metrical position as in, e.g., Prop. 2.15.43; 3.14.15 and Ov. Met.
4.754 (the words bellica virtus as closing feet are only found
in Prud. Psych. 208); for nostra … urbe in the
same metrical position see Prop. 2.32.48 and Ov. Fast. 2.616;
4.248; 6.624; for decor at the end of the pentameter see Tib.
3.8.8; Ov. Ars 3.282; Fast. 2.764.
The
dating formula is remarkable: the Fascist dating starts from the proclamation
of Empire on 9 May 1936 rather than the start of the ‘Fascist Era’ on 28
October 1922, which is much more common.
Piazza
Sant’Andrea della Valle is the result of the deep urbanistic
transformation that changed this area of the historical centre of Rome with the
opening of Corso Rinascimento between 1936 and 1938. This alteration responded
to Mussolini’s ambition to create space around the most relevant historical
buildings and archaeological ruins of the city and, at the same time, to
modernise Rome as the capital of the Fascist State. The new avenue and the
INA’s building in Piazza di Sant’Andrea della Valle were planned by
Arnaldo Foschini (1884–1968), one of the most important Roman architects during
the ventennio, who was very close to Marcello Piacentini (Foschini
1937). The over-all design of the inscription’s architectural context complies
with Fascist propaganda. The backwall of the loggia, for example, shows the
she-wolf feeding Romulus and Remus, together with the ubiquitous fasces (Arthurs 2014: 293–95).
Bibliography
Arthurs, Joshua. 2014. ‘«Voleva essere Cesare, morì Vespasiano»: The
Afterlives of Mussolini’s Rome’. Civiltà Romana 1: 283–302.
Bartels, Klaus. 2012. Roms sprechende Steine. Inschriften
aus zwei Jahrtausenden. 4th
ed. Darmstadt/Mainz: Von Zabern, no.3.5.
Ferraironi, Francesco. 1937. Iscrizioni
ornamentali su edifici e monumenti di Roma con appendice sulle iscrizioni
scomparse. Rome: Industria Tipografica Romana, 523-4, no. 24.
Foschini, Arnaldo. 1937. ‘Il corso del
rinascimento’. Capitolium 12 (2): 73–89.
Lansford, Tyler. 2009. The Latin Inscriptions of Rome: A
Walking Guide. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University
Press, no. 12.1.
Nastasi, Antonino. 2016. ‘Urbis ad ornatum
est‘ versificata’ domus. Le iscrizioni metriche in latino di Roma
Capitale’. Semicherchio 54 (1): 31–50.
———. 2019. Le iscrizioni in latino di
Roma Capitale (1870-2018). Rome: Edizioni Quasar, 140-1.
Antonino
Nastasi
Inscription of Piazza di Sant'Andrea della Valle © A. Nastasi (Rome).