Decennalia is a polymetric poem which Ficari wrote in 1932 to celebrate the ten-year anniversary (Decennale) of the Fascist March on Rome (28 October 1922). It was awarded the first prize at the Certamen Locrense of 1932 (Ficari 1933: 7), and parts of it were also submitted to the Certamen Hoeufftianum (see below). Decennalia was first published as a self-standing booklet (Ficari 1933) and then included in Ficari’s Carmina (Ficari 1938a: 209-225) under the title Romulidae.

Decennalia is divided into two sections: Simulacra and Palilia (Visiones and Natalis Urbis respectively in Ficari 1938a). The first section, Simulacra (“Visions”), consists of 82 hexameters. Taken together, the first letter of each verse form the following acrostic: Benito Mussolinio, Italiae populique Duci Romani Imperii Restitutori Patri Patriae Vita Victoria (“To Benito Mussolini, Leader of Italy and the people, restorer of the Roman Empire, Father of the Fatherland, Life, Victory”). Simulacra is further divided into sub-sections: Crux, Aquila, Dea Roma, Dux, Fortitudo, Ephrata and Instaurata Religio. In the central sub-section, Dux, Ficari describes the apotheosis of Mussolini, whom he portrays as a providential figure and as an incarnation of Rome itself (vv. 49-52). Simulacra displays a cryptic and allegorical language, through which the author provides a synthesis of Roman symbols (e.g. the eagle and the goddess Roma) and historical episodes (e.g. Catilina’s complot in vv. 60-70) with biblical and Christian texts (the Old Testament), symbols (the Cross) and history (the birth of Christ, vv. 71-74). The aim of Ficari is the exaltation of Fascist Italy as a synthesis of imperial and Christian Rome, i.e., as the seat of the revived Roman empire and as the center of Catholicism (see also Garavani 1934).

The second section, Palilia (“the feast of Pales”), focuses on Augustan Rome. Ficari heavily draws on the literary production of that period, Vergil and Horace in particular, to propose a total identification between the empire of Augustus and Mussolini’s Rome. This section stages a fictive commemoration of the Palilia (the pastoral festival celebrated on 21 April) by Vergil and Horace, behind which one can easily read the exaltation of the regime and the celebration of the Fascist rebirth of Rome (see especially vv. 152-155). As explained by the author himself (Ficari 1933: nn. 5-11), Palilia is inspired by Virgil’s Eclogues and Aeneid 8, and by Horace’s Odes (I, 2; III, 2) and his Carmen Saeculare. The diction and imagery of these two poets is constantly alluded to by Ficari and form the backbone of the whole section. The Virgilian sub-section, in hexameters, is called Il canto di Virgilio (“The song of Virgil”, vv. 24-126), while the Horatian sub-section, composed in Alcaic stanzas, is named Carme di Orazio (“Poem of Horace”, vv. 128-203). In the final two verses of Palilia, Ficari mentions the Altar of the Fatherland in Rome (vv. 209-210), thereby indicating that Virgil’s and Horace’s poetic performances are taking place in Fascist Italy. Palilia was submitted (under the title Decennalia), without success, for the Certamen Hoeufftianum of 1933 (van Binnebeke 2020: 296 n. 7); the first section, Simulacra, was submitted as EIΔΩΛA – carmen translaticium, acrostichon, crux for the 1934-edition (van Binnebeke 2020: 302 n. 38)

Bibliography

Latin texts

Ficari, Quirino. 1933. Decennalia a fascibus renovatis. Pisauri: Typis G. Federici.

———. 1938. Carmina. Pesaro: Ex Typis G. Federici.

Secondary sources

Binnebeke, Xavier van. 2020. ‘Hoeufft’s Legacy: Neo-Latin Poetry in the Archive of the Certamen Poeticum Hoeufftianum (1923–1943)’. In Studies in the Latin Literature and Epigraphy of Italian Fascism, edited by Han Lamers, Bettina Reitz-Joosse, and Valerio Sanzotta, 245–325. Supplementa Humanistica Lovaniensia 46. Leuven: Leuven University Press.

Garavani, Giunio. 1934. ‘Quirinus Ficari. Decennalia’. Il mondo classico 4 (3): 207–8.

Nicolò Bettegazzi