The former Casa del Fascio in Bolzano (also Casa Littoria) was built between 1939 and 1942 in a rationalist style on a project by the architects Guido Pelizzari, Francesco Rossi and Luis Plattner, as the seat of the Italian Fascist Party and its collateral organisations, in Piazza del Tribunale (German : Gerichtsplatz; formerly Piazza Arnaldo Mussolini). Since the end of World War II it has housed the State Financial Offices and other state bodies operating in South Tyrol.
The convex-shaped building relates to the opposite Justice Palace, built between 1939 and 1956 to a concave design by Paolo Rossi de Paoli and Michele Busiri Vici. The former Casa del Fascio bears a monumental bas-relief designed and sculptured by Hans Piffrader, placed above a large balcony, with Benito Mussolini on horseback in the centre and in the act of the Roman salute and telling the story of the "triumph of Fascism", a work commissioned by the Fascist Party itself. It consists of 57 panels of variable width, 2.75 metres high, placed in two superimposed rows, for a linear development of 36 metres, an area of 198 square metres and a total weight of about 95 tonnes. These dimensions probably make it the most impressive bas-relief made during fascism and still exposed to the public.
Despite being state-owned and continuous protests by German-speaking South Tyroleans, the relief remained untouched for decades. In 2011, the Italian Minister of Culture Sandro Bondi finally agreed to a contextualisation or removal of several fascist era remains in the province during negotiations with members of parliament of the South Tyrolean People's Party about an upcoming vote of no-confidence. [1] In 2017, like the Bolzano Victory Monument, [2] the Piffrader frieze was also subjected, on the initiative of the South Tyrolean Provincial Administration and on the basis of a joint historical commission proposal, [3] to an intervention of historicization and recontextualization, on an artistic project by Arnold Holzknecht and Michele Bernardi, with the affixing of an illuminated inscription bearing a quotation from the philosopher Hannah Arendt in three languages (Italian, German, Ladin) — "No one has the right to obey" — as opposed to the fascist dogma of Believe, obey, combat (Credere, obbedire, combattere) still present on the bas-relief.
An infopoint has been installed on the square itself, with explanatory texts in four languages, explaining the history of the building, Piffrader's work, the more general urban context, and the quotation by Hannah Arendt. [4]
Bolzano is the capital city of the province of Bolzano - South Tyrol, in Northern Italy. With a population of 108,245, Bolzano is also by far the largest city in South Tyrol and the third largest in historical Tyrol. The greater metro area has about 250,000 inhabitants and is one of the urban centres within the Alps.
The Victory Monument is a monument in Bolzano, northernmost Italy, erected on the personal orders of Benito Mussolini in South Tyrol, which had been annexed from Austria after World War I. The 19 metre wide Victory Gate was designed by architect Marcello Piacentini and substituted the former Austrian Kaiserjäger monument, torn down in 1926–27. Its construction in Fascist style, displaying lictorial pillars, was dedicated to the "Martyrs of World War I".
The South Tyrol Option Agreement was an agreement in effect between 1939 and 1943, when the native German and Ladin-speaking people in South Tyrol and several other municipalities of northern Italy, which had belonged to Austria before WWI, were given the option of either emigrating to neighboring Nazi Germany or remaining in Fascist Italy, where the German minority was subjected to repressive Italianization efforts.
Katakombenschulen were clandestine schools established in Italian South Tyrol during the 1920s period of Fascist Italianization.
Modern-day South Tyrol, an autonomous Italian province created in 1948, was part of the Austro-Hungarian County of Tyrol until 1918. It was annexed by Italy following the defeat of the Central Powers in World War I. It has been part of a cross-border joint entity, the Euroregion Tyrol-South Tyrol-Trentino, since 2001.
Ettore Tolomei was an Italian nationalist and fascist. He was designated a Member of the Italian Senate in 1923, and ennobled as Conte della Vetta in 1937.
A casa del Fascio, casa Littoria, or casa del Littorio was a building housing the local branch of the National Fascist Party and later the Republican Fascist Party under the regime of Italian Fascism, in Italy and its colonies, and Malta. In major urban centers, it was called the palazzo del Littorio or palazzo Littorio. Littorio means lictor, the bearer of the fasces lictorii, the symbol of Roman power adopted by the Fascist party.
The South Tyrolean Liberation Committee was an underground secessionist and terrorist organisation founded by Sepp Kerschbaumer and several combatants including Georg Klotz in the mid-1950s which aimed to achieve the right for self-determination for South Tyrol and the related secession from Italy via bomb attacks.
Gerald Steinacher is Professor of History and Hymen Rosenberg Professor of Judaic Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. After serving at the South Tyrolean Regional Archives in Bozen, he was a Joseph A. Schumpeter Research Fellow at Harvard University during 2010-2011 and in 2009 a visiting scholar at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University. He lectured at the Universities of Innsbruck (Austria), Luzern (Switzerland) and Munich (Germany). In 2006 he was a Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies Fellow at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC.
In 1919, at the time of its annexation, the middle part of the County of Tyrol which is today called South Tyrol was inhabited by almost 90% German speakers. Under the 1939 South Tyrol Option Agreement, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini determined the status of the German and Ladin (Rhaeto-Romanic) ethnic groups living in the region. They could emigrate to Germany, or stay in Italy and accept their complete Italianization. As a consequence of this, the society of South Tyrol was deeply riven. Those who wanted to stay, the so-called Dableiber, were condemned as traitors while those who left (Optanten) were defamed as Nazis. Because of the outbreak of World War II, this agreement was never fully implemented. Illegal Katakombenschulen were set up to teach children the German language.
Der Schlern is a German-language monthly for the study of science, research, art and culture related to South Tyrol.
Giovanni Preziosi was an Italian fascist politician noted for his contributions to Fascist Italy.
The South Tyrolean Unterland or Bozen Unterland is a section of the Etschtal valley stretching from the regional capital Bolzano (Bozen) down the Adige (Etsch) river to Tramin and Salorno (Salurn). The area is known for its history, particularly regarding Rhaetic, Roman, and Germanic archaeological sites; its bilingualism, and its viticulture; the Gewürztraminer grape originated here.
The Sandro Italico Mussolini School of Fascist Mysticism was established in Milan, Italy in 1930 by Niccolò Giani. Its primary goal was to train the future leaders of Italy's National Fascist Party. The school curriculum promoted Fascist mysticism based on the philosophy of Fideism, the belief that faith and reason were incompatible; Fascist mythology was to be accepted as a "metareality". In 1932, Mussolini described Fascism as "a religious concept of life", saying that Fascists formed a "spiritual community".
Julius Perathoner was an Austro-Hungarian politician who became an Italian citizen after the Treaty of Saint-Germain. He was one of the most important exponents of the Liberal Party in Tyrol and the last mayor of German ethnicity of the City of Bolzano from 1895 to 1922. On October 3, 1922 the democratically elected Perathoner was forcibly deposed as mayor during the March on Bozen from Italian fascists and replaced by a fascist functionary.
The South Tyrolean independence movement is a political movement in the Italian autonomous province of South Tyrol that calls for the secession of the region from Italy and its reunification with the State of Tyrol, Austria. Concurrently, some groups favor the establishment of an interim Free State of South Tyrol as a sovereign nation while reintegration is organized.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Bolzano/Bozen in the Trentino-South Tyrol region of Italy.
Bozner Blutsonntag refers to the events of 24 April 1921 in Bozen. It was the first climax of fascist violence in South Tyrol, a German-speaking province that was annexed by Italy after World War I.
The former Casa del Fascio of Varese, today known as Questura di Varese, is a building located in Varese, Italy.