The Monument to Giacomo Matteotti is an abstract sculpture, meant to memorialize this anti-fascist politician, murdered on 10 June 1924 as he walked near this spot on Lungotevere Arnaldo da Brescia, near the Ponte Pietro Nenni, in Rome, Italy.
The Monument to Giacomo Matteotti is an abstract sculpture, meant to memorialize this anti-fascist politician, murdered on 10 June 1924 as he walked near this spot on Lungotevere Arnaldo da Brescia, near the Ponte Pietro Nenni, in Rome, Italy.
Giacomo Matteotti (born 1885) was a deputy in the parliament, a prominent member of the Unitary Socialist party, elected in Rovigo. On 30 May 1924, he rose to criticize the violence occurring recent elections, the antidemocratic legislation (Acerbo law) which assigned two-thirds of the parliamentary seats to the party with the most votes (Mussolini's party was the largest party with 35% of the vote); during next days on English press he joined to critics against fascist officials supposed to have received bribes from Sinclair Oil company. [1] He knew his speech could incite violence against his person. While he was walking towards the parliament, on 10 June 1924, he was waylaid by five men and sequestered into a Lancia Lambda and stabbed several times. Among the five was a prominent member of the Fascist secret police. It has never been clear whether or not prominent fascist leaders, such a Mussolini or his circle, approved or ordered the murder.
The monument is situated beside the Lungotevere, on a small semicircular green plot, built as a terrace above a series of stairs leading to the Tiber riverbank. It was inaugurated in 1974, fifty years after his murder. The sculptor is Jorio Vivarelli (1922-2008): the bronze memorial has two parts: one a tall slender spire, resembling an unopened flower, or pistol, or lance-leaf shape, or a flame [2] Along the ground is a tangle of organic forms, compared to roots or a bramble or a knot of bones. Towards the street is a plaque with the above noted phrase from his last speech.
The sculpture was funded by a private fund-raising effort by the socialist party. The sculptor putatively entitled the monument as The idea, the death, inspired by the famous phrase attributed to Matteotti; [3] by the way, the monument includes the line "Although you can kill me, the idea within me can never be killed".
In a letter to the Giacomo Matteotti Foundation, the sculptor indicated the horizontal element ... through the exasperation of form and matter, wants to signify maceration and physical destruction, understood in a universal sense, in a tragic moment in history. The vertical element signifies the ideal ascending towards space, through a sprouting, pure, lyrical form, a symbol of clarity and hope. Vivarelli himself, as a former Italian soldier, had been imprisoned and deported north by the Nazi forces in 1943. [4]
The area is peppered with graffiti, and in January 2017, the original plaque in memory of Giacomo Matteotti was smashed: a new plaque place on the 80th anniversary of his death, reads "The PSDI in memory of the 80th anniversary of vile assassination of Giacomo Matteotti”. [5]
Giacomo Matteotti was an Italian socialist politician. On 30 May 1924, he openly spoke in the Italian Parliament alleging the Italian fascists committed fraud in the 1924 Italian general election, and denounced the violence they used to gain votes. Eleven days later, he was kidnapped and killed by Fascists.
Roberto Farinacci was a leading Italian Fascist politician and important member of the National Fascist Party before and during World War II as well as one of its ardent antisemitic proponents. English historian Christopher Hibbert describes him as "slavishly pro-German".
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Giacomo Acerbo, Baron of Aterno, was an Italian economist and politician. He is best known for having drafted the Acerbo Law that allowed the National Fascist Party (PNF) to achieve a supermajority of two-thirds of the Italian Parliament after the 1924 Italian general election, which saw intimidation tactics against voters.
The Aventine Secession was the withdrawal of the parliament opposition, mainly comprising the Italian Socialist Party, Italian Liberal Party, Italian People's Party and Italian Communist Party, from the Chamber of Deputies in 1924–25, following the murder of the deputy Giacomo Matteotti by fascists on 10 June 1924.
Amerigo Dumini was an American-born Italian fascist hitman who led the group responsible for the 1924 assassination of Unitary Socialist Party leader Giacomo Matteotti.
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Francesco Fausto Nitti was an Italian journalist and fighter against fascism. His father Vincenzo (1871–1957) was evangelical preacher of the Italian Methodist Church. His mother was Paola Ciari (1870–1932).
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The Assassination of Matteotti is a 1973 Italian historical drama film directed by Florestano Vancini. The film tells the events that led to the tragic end of Giacomo Matteotti and to the establishment of the dictatorship of Benito Mussolini in Italy. It was awarded with the Special Jury Prize at the 8th Moscow International Film Festival.
Ponte Giacomo Matteotti, formerly Ponte del Littorio, is a bridge that links Lungotevere Arnaldo da Brescia to Piazza delle Cinque Giornate in Rome (Italy), in the Rione Prati and in the Flaminio and Della Vittoria quarters.
Lungotevere Arnaldo da Brescia is the stretch of the Lungotevere that connects via Ferdinando di Savoia to ponte Matteotti, in Rome, in rione Campo Marzio and the Flaminio quarter.
Giacomo is an Italian given name corresponding to English James. It is the Italian version of the Hebrew name Jacob.
Alessandro Casati was an Italian academic, commentator and politician. He served as a senator between 1923 and 1924 and again between 1948 and 1953. He also held ministerial office, most recently as Minister of War for slightly more than twelve months during 1944/45, serving under "Presidente del Consiglio" Bonomi.