In Benitum Mussolini is a poem in Alcaic stanzas which Sofia Alessio wrote to celebrate Mussolini and the Fascist regime. Like other Mussolini-odes composed between 1929 and the early 1930s, the poem depicts Mussolini and the Fascist regime in highly eulogizing terms (stanzas 1-7), describing contemporary Fascist society as the place where a new Golden Age is taking place (stanzas 8-16). In the last stanzas (17-20), Sofia Alessio mentions the Lateran Pacts and the renewed role of Italy as universal beacon of Roman and Catholic civilization. Barton (2020: 99-101) analyses the way in which this poem describes the regime’s technological advancements and its dominance over nature.

In Benitum Mussolini was first published in 1932 (Sofia Alessio 1932), but was originally written in 1929, a few months after the Lateran Pacts, and then submitted to the Certamen Hoeufftianum of 1930 with the title Ode in Benitum Mussolini supremum fascium ducem. This is most likely the same Latin composition which Sofia Alessio also submitted to the Concorso Dux, a Latin poetry competition meant to celebrate Mussolini and organized by the National Association of Fascist Teachers (Fera 2006: 311-312). Although the rules of the Certamen Hoeufftianum forbade that published poems be submitted to the jury, Sofia Alessio resubmitted the poem for the 1934 edition of the Certamen, this time under the title De Fascibus renovatis (Sacré 2020: 217-219; van Binnebeke 2020: 287n20, 300n13). Sofia Alessio resubmitted it yet one more time in 1936 with the title De Fascibus and with an additional stanza celebrating the Fascist invasion of Ethiopia (Fera 2006: 315). This poem was republished in Sofia Alessio (2002 1:461-467).

Bibliography

Latin texts

Sofia Alessio, Francesco. 1932. “In Benitum Mussolini.” Il Mondo Classico 2: 73–75.

———. 2002. Musa Alessiana. Carmi Odi Epigrammi Latini. Translated by Ugo Verzi Borgese. 2 vols. Gioia Tauro: Tauroprint.

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.

Fera, Vincenzo. 2006. “Microcosmo letterario meridionale: Morabito tra Francesco Sofia Alessio e Alfredo Bartoli.” In La poesia latina nell’area dello stretto fra ottocento e novecento: atti del Convegno di Messina, 20-21 ottobre 2000, nel centenario della nascita di Giuseppe Morabito (1900-1997), edited by Vicenzo Fera, Daniela Gionta, and Elena Morabito, 311–35. Messina: Centro Interdipartimentale di Studi Umanistici.

Sacré, Dirk. 2020. “The Certamen Hoeufftianum during the Ventennio Fascista: An Exploration (with Unplublished Poems by Vittorio Genovesi and Giuseppe Favaro).” In Studies in the Latin Literature and Epigraphy of Italian Fascism, edited by Han Lamers, Bettina Reitz-Joosse, and Valerio Sanzotta, 199–241. Supplementa Humanistica Lovaniensia 46. Leuven: Leuven University Press.

Nicolò Bettegazzi