This medal, cast at an unknown mint in bronze, silver, and gold, was produced in at least three different dimensions; the bronze version was available with a diameter of both 40 and 60 mm; the silver version with a 40 mm diameter; the exceptionally rare golden version with a diameter of 80 mm. The medal was designed by Aurelio Mistruzzi and celebrates victory in the Battle for Grain, an attempt by the Fascist government to increase domestic food production in order to become more self-sufficient.

The medal is undated, but is recorded as early as 1925, the year of the Battle for Grain. It is also catalogued under 1926 suggesting that it was reused over multiple years. In 1930, the medal was exhibited as part of the Second Syndicate Exhibition (Seconda Mostra del Sindacato) held at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome (Imbellone 2011: 53).

The medal’s obverse features a profile portrait of Mussolini with the title Dux, followed by a small flame. The reverse displays personified Abundantia (Abundance) holding two children. In her hand is a sickle and beside her a bushel of wheat. At the lower section lies an ear of wheat.

The Latin phrasing is a reference to Vergil’s Georgics 2.513-514: Agricola incurvo terram dimovit aratro. / Hinc anni labor, hinc patriam parvosque nepotes / sustinet (‘The farmer tills the earth with his curved plough. From this comes the yearly toil, from this he sustains the fatherland and its small descendants’). In the medal’s design, however, the subject of the verb remains ambiguous. In Vergil, it refers to the farmer (agricola), but the medal presents two possible alternative subjects: either Caritas, who on the medal supports the small children, or Mussolini, the Dux depicted on the obverse. It is not uncommon for the text the reverse to refer to the person or figure depicted on the obverse (consider e.g. another of Mistruzzi’s medals in Casolari III.1).

The medal’s use of Vergil’s Georgics ties the Fascist battaglia to Augustus’ attempts to ruralise the Romans, a parallel that was not uncommon in contemporary discourse (compare e.g. Quattrone 1930, De Virgilio et fascium regimine).

Bibliography

Erlend Myklebust