This membership card, dating to 1932, belonged to an associate of the National Fascist Confederation of Farmers (Confederazione Nazionale Fascista degli Agricoltori, or CNFA). While its designer remains unknown, the card was produced by the renowned Stabilimento di Arti Grafiche Luigi Salomone in Rome. On the document’s front side, a designated space for a photograph is flanked by fasces, each with an axe attached to one side. Just below, the Latin phrase is inscribed. In campis vita served as the motto for the Italian Federation of Agricultural Unions (Federazione Italiana dei Sindacati Agricoli, or FISA) and later for the National Fascist Confederation of Farmers, which replaced the FISA in 1926 (images below). The Confederation also displayed it on banners during processions (La stampa 1928: 4).

The motto In campis vita was closely associated with the regime’s agricultural policy, which placed emphasis on the revitalization of the countryside and agricultural activities. Although lacking clear antecedents in ancient literature, the Latin phrase evoked the ideals of agricultural and rural life commonly associated with Vergil’s poetry at the time (Fiore 1932: 2; Barton 2020). It was also regarded as ‘the motto of the Augustan period, celebrated by poets as a Golden Age’ (Francesco Astorino in Fumich 2013: 60). The slogan was occasionally attributed to Benito Mussolini. In an agricultural journal, we find, for example, the following declaration: ‘La parola d’ordine dataci dal Duce è: In campis vita, nel quale motto si compendia tutto un poema di verità e di fede’ (‘The watchword given to us by the Duce is: In campis vita, a motto that condenses a whole poem of truth and faith’) (L’Italia 1930: 88).

The same Latin phrase was also employed in colonial contexts (Fiore 1932). One notable example was its use as a slogan during the Colonial Agriculture Exhibition (Mostra dell’Agricoltura Coloniale), which took place as part of the 1936 Milan Trade Fair. Within the exhibition, the motto was displayed above a reconstructed tukul, a traditional round dwelling from eastern Africa (see this photograph from the Archivio Storico of the Fondazione Fiera, Milan).

Bibliography

Barton, William. 2020. ‘Pastoral and the Italian Landscape in the Ventennio Fascista: Natural Themes in the Latin Poetry of F. Sofia Alessio, G. Mazza, and L. Illuminati’. In Studies in the Latin Literature and Epigraphy of Italian Fascism, edited by Han Lamers, Bettina Reitz-Joosse, and Valerio Sanzotta, 77–104. Supplementa Humanistica Lovaniensia 46. Leuven: Leuven University Press.

Fiore, Mario. 1932. ‘Valorizzazione agricola della Cirenaica con particolare riguardo alla Marmarica’. Cirenaica Illustrata. Rivista mensile d’espansione coloniale 1 (7): 2nd part, 2–4.

Fumich, Sergio, ed. 2013. Il pane. Temi premiati nel Concorso Nazionale per la celebrazione del pane. 1928 - VI. Brembio: Andreani: Circolo Culturale Anticonformista.

L’Italia. 1930. L’Italia vinicola ed agraria: periodico settimanale de enologia, commercio vinicolo, viticultura e agricoltura pratica 20.

La stampa. 1928. ‘Gli agricoltori piemontesi celebrano la festa del grano’, 28 August 1928, sec. Cronaca cittadina.

Han Lamers