The 1908 earthquake of Messina. An accounting perspective on the city’s reconstruction between faith and Fascism

This article focuses on the 1923–1937 period when the rise of Benito Mussolini’s Fascist regime drove public works programmes. The 1908 earthquake almost destroyed Messina and, in the Fascist period Angelo Paino, the new Metropolitan Archbishop of Messina, fostered the reconstruction of the ecclesiastical heritage of the city and surrounding villages. Primary and secondary sources were collected and analysed to investigate the role of accounting and calculation practices in interpreting the urban reconstruction programme that the Fascist government actively supported. This research contributes to accounting history research adding the new reading of accounting, disasters and urban reconstruction, and highlighting the relations between the Fascist regime and the Catholic Church within an urban reconstruction programme following one of history’s major catastrophes. We obtained several findings, including an interpretation of the Fascist regime’s reconstruction of the city’s churches and key public buildings as an instrument of consensus among the Catholic electorate.