Planning memory: the imposed legacy of fascism in the city of Rome

The aim of this article is to reflect on the legacy of Fascism inscribed in the city of Rome from the point of view of Semiotics of Culture. Paradoxically, this presence is almost tacitly accepted in the urban landscape and scarcely the subject of attention and disputes. Despite the emblematic nature of some buildings, such as barracks or memorial places, it seems that the censorship of architecture praising Fascism in public spaces has been limited to renaming (such as the case of schools) and eliminating the most evident symbols of the regime, in contrast to the much harsher censorship of works of art apologetic of Fascism or of the figure of Mussolini. A large number of architectural and urban works have highlighted the extent of Rome's historic area transformation, denouncing the falsifying aspects and the radical destruction carried out. Recent historical studies have emphasised, in an interesting way, the semiotic character of the operation to create the capital of Fascism. A semiotic study of what happened allows us to understand the extreme difficulty of the challenge of Fascist memory resemantization. A focus on the manipulation of cultural memory in urban spaces, an aspect that historical studies generally do not consider, will prove central: the spatial syntax underlying the monumental and memorial operations of Fascism and the construction of the point of view of a practicing observer immersed in those spaces. Considering specifically the emblematic case of the Roman Forum area, I will analyse the way in which the selection of elements of the past from the point of view of the present and the coherent deformation of the urban space produce a legitimation of Fascism as the consistent outcome of Italian history in terms of archaeology and city planning.