Hermit in Paris: Autobiographical Writings

by Italo Calvino

  I don’t know if that was the last time that Mussolini wore a top hat; it could well have been, because by now, having secured the Church’s consensus, he could start putting Italy into uniform. This shift in Fascist style (at least as it might have been perceived in the provinces) I would date to the tenth anniversary of the Fascist revolution, 1932. A tenth anniversary which remains linked in my memory with the fortnight’s holiday I had in the fourth year of primary school, and with the series of commemorative stamps.

  At that stage Mussolini’s iconography had taken an important step forward in its glorification of the Roman emperors; so much so that one of the stamps in this series portrayed the equestrian monument to the Duce at the stadium in Bologna, modelled on Verrocchio’s statue of Colleoni, with the inscription underneath: ‘Se avanzo seguitemi’ (If I advance, follow me). (There was a second part to this lapidary sentence: ‘Se indietreggio uccidetemi’ (If I retreat, kill me), which would come true in due course.) It has to be said that this was one of the few stamps (now I could not tell you of any others) with Mussolini’s effigy: stamps were one of the few domains where the sovereignty of the sovereign continued to be displayed: a Victor Emmanuel III whose bodiless head might have been that of an extremely tall man.

  The equestrian-monument Duce appeared in profile; another important shift this, from the frontal image to the side-image, much exploited from that point on, in that it enhanced his perfectly spherical cranium (without which the great transformation of the dictator into a design object would not have been possible), the strength of his jaws (also emphasized in the three-quarters pose), the continuity of the back of his head with his neck, and the overall Romanness of the whole.

  It was in those final years of primary school that my enrolment in the Balilla could not be postponed any longer because it became compulsory even in the private school which I attended. I remember very clearly the smell of musty material in the depot of the Casa del Balilla where you bought the uniforms; I remember the old storekeeper, a wounded war veteran; but what I want to recall now is the badge with the pin showing the Duce in profile, which helped to keep our blue kerchief pinned on (the colour meant: Dalmatia; that was what was explained to us, following a logic whose connections mean nothing now). I remember this portrait in profile with his helmet, but the adoption of that helmet must be a few years later than the memory I am trying to focus on now; so, either the blue kerchief was initially tied without a badge, or there was a first version of the badge with his profile showing a bare head. What I wanted to get at was a dating of the moment when the Duce becomes a profile on a badge, like a Roman emperor (thus invading the numismatic field which was reserved for the king for more than one reason), but I do not have enough evidence available.

  We are still in the years 1933–34. It was then that I saw a portrait (or sculpture) of Mussolini in the ‘Cubist’ style, in the sense that it was in the shape of a cube with geometrical features. This was in an exhibition of drawings put on by the local primary schools, where I had to sit the entrance exam for high school. The cube, with an inscription that said something like ‘Portrait of the Duce as the Duce prefers’, was displayed as a model for the children’s drawings. For me this memory is the start of the notion of the existence of a ‘Fascist style’ based on the modernity of smooth, square surfaces, which would superimpose itself and in many cases become identical with a ‘twentieth-century style’, which was already widespread even in the provinces.

  Conforming to this style is the inscription DVX, looking like a Roman numeral, on the bases of busts or columns, often symmetrically placed alongside the analogous word REX. (By this stage the effigies of king and Duce are always together, and if one is missing it is not the Duce’s.) In a more neoclassical and sinuous ‘twentieth-century’ style was the bust by Wildt with the laurel crown, the toga and the empty eye-sockets: an image which appeared very different from the ones then current, but which nevertheless had all the stamp of its official nature, in that it appeared as the frontispiece to the edition of his Scritti e discorsi (Writings and Speeches).

  I would like also to recall here an image that was in all our reading books: the house where the Duce was born in Predappio. That too was given to school-children to copy; and here I have nothing to object to, because it was a very beautiful house to draw, an example of a traditional Italian house in the country, with an outside staircase, a very high ground floor, and walls with few windows.

  The classical image of Mussolini was by now established and not destined to undergo changes throughout the period of the peak of his dictatorship (namely the best part of the 1930s). Radio and cinema were the principal media not only of the dissemination but also of the very formation of this image. I never went to any mass rallies where Mussolini was present, because I hardly ever moved from the provincial area I was brought up in, which he did not like and never came to, but I believe that in the cinema the leader’s image was more effective and tangible than when it was seen directly by the crowd underneath that balcony; and in any case his voice was always transmitted via loudspeakers. The audio-visual media of the time were, in short, an essential component of Mussolini’s Roman cult.

  Another necessary component was of course the prohibition of any criticism or sarcasm. One of the first Mussolini speeches I remember was, I think, the one about ‘libro e moschetto, fascista perfetto’ (book and rifle make the perfect Fascist); at the end of it the Duce brought out from beneath the window-sill a book and a rifle: a wonderful coup. I remember having heard previously at home an anti-Fascist uncle who had seen it in the cinema. (If it was not that speech, it must have been another from the same time, shortly after 1930; this can be checked on film.) I recall my uncle describing his gestures, his fists firmly on his hips, and at a certain point the gesture of blowing his nose with his hand. I remember my aunt’s interjection: ‘Well, what do you expect? He’s a builder!’ A few days later I saw this Luce film with the speech, and recognized the grimaces described by my uncle, and even the quick blow of his nose. The image of Mussolini came to me, then, filtered through the sarcastic discourse of adults (certain adults) which jarred with the chorus of praise. But that chorus was expressed in public, whereas reservations remained confined to private conversations and never dented the unanimity that the Regime made great show of.

  Mussolini soon learnt that the camera mercilessly emphasized every grimace and tic in his gestures, and I think that if you went chronologically through the films of his speeches you would see how his control of every gesture and pause and acceleration in rhetorical rhythm became more and more effective. However, the style of his performances remained the same as it had been from the start. Nowadays when young people see Mussolini in old films they find him ridiculous and cannot understand how there were enormous crowds who praised him to the skies. And yet the Mussolini model of oratory has continued to find imitations and variations throughout the whole world down to our own time, especially under populist or third-world labels, still exploiting the same regressive techniques.

  In an age when enormous possibilities for manipulating the masses and for using them to consolidate one’s power opened up, Mussolini was one of the first to construct a personality which corresponded to this intention in every single thing. That image of his as a popular leader with all the attributes that were easiest to swallow by the masses of his day (energy, arrogance, bellicosity, posing like a Roman captain, a plebeian pride which contrasted with everything that had been up until then part of the image of a statesman), all this he communicated through the physical characteristics of his person, his military dress, his oratory punctuated by brief ‘lapidary’ phrases, the booming voice, even his very pronunciation (for instance, in the words ‘Itaglia’ ‘Itagliani’ the sounds of his Emilia-Romagna origins took on an assertive note). Once the idea had been planted in people’s heads that a leader must be endowed with an image like his, it was implicit that whoever did not possess that image could not be a leader.

&nb
sp; For Hitler, who physically was the complete opposite of Mussolini, this must have been an enormous problem, in the period when Mussolini was his model. (The person who understood this point with supreme psychological sophistication was Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator .) Hitler managed to overcome his handicap by going in the opposite direction from the Italian dictator, emphasizing the nervous agitation of his looks (his face, his moustache, his quiff of hair), or of his voice, adopting his own style of gestures and rhetoric which were such as to unleash a fanatical energy that bordered on the hysterical. In his dress the Führer avoided showiness, preferring the most ordinary of uniforms (the opposite of his dauphin Goering who flaunted his corpulent body in a series of garish uniforms which were always different).

  I am speaking of that period by going back to my boyhood memories when I got my idea of the world mostly through the newspaper illustrations that most struck my imagination. Thinking back to the personalities who dominated world news at the time, the one who stood out most from all the others in terms of his visual image was without a doubt Gandhi. Although he was one of the people who was most caricatured and about whom huge numbers of anecdotes circulated, his image managed to instil the idea that in him there was something serious and true, even though very remote from us.

  In 1934 (I’m quoting dates based on my memory’s outline of events: if I’m wrong, it will be easy to correct them) the Royal Italian Army changed its uniform, which up until then had been the one they had worn in the First World War. For the Italy of that time, when many people were in the army (in addition to lengthy military service, you could also be ‘called back’), this new uniform (with the flat beret, the jacket with the collar open to show your tie, long trousers for officers in dress uniform) marked a turning-point which at the time was merely one of appearance, but which was to coincide with the entry into a decade of wars.

  Along with the uniform the helmets also changed: instead of the First World War helmet, evoking as it did the poor infantry in the trenches, there was the drooping dome-shaped helmet, which belonged to a new age of industrial design. (The ‘aerodynamic’ lines in car design belong to the same era: but in this case I would need to check dates and types of car.) For Mussolini’s iconography this was a huge turning-point: the classic image of the Duce became the one with the helmet, which looked like a metallic extension of the smooth surface of his head.

  Underneath the helmet his jaw stands out more, acquiring a decisive importance because of the disappearance of the upper part of his head (including his eyes). Since his lips were kept turned up (an unnatural position but one denoting the power of his will) his jaw stuck out in front as well as laterally. From that moment on, then, the Duce’s head seems to be made up essentially of helmet and jawbones, whose volumes counterbalance each other and also counterbalance the curve of his stomach which was then just beginning to stand out. The uniform was that of Honorary Corporal of the Militia. Instead of his profile, which could look a bit squashed under the helmet, official photo-portraits preferred an almost three-quarters angle which allowed them to catch a flashing glance beneath his helmet. What inevitably did get lost beneath the helmet was the emphasis on his thoughtful forehead, a key attribute of the Mussolini of the 1920s; his character was thus changed in a way: the Duce as thinker was replaced by the Duce as condottiere.

  This is the portrait of Mussolini that could be considered canonical and which I had before my eyes for most of my time at school, at sports, before call-up, etc. Matching this effigy of the Duce there was nearly always a portrait of the king, in profile, complete with helmet, moustache and protruding chin. King Vittorio’s head was certainly much smaller than the Duce’s, but in these portraits it was enlarged so as to appear, thanks also to the angle, almost of the same volume as that of his irreplaceable prime minister. I think both of them wore round their neck the Collar of the Annunziata, which was a gold chain with a little plaque just where the knot of the tie would be.

  Of course there were also portraits of the Duce bare-headed. Perhaps basing himself on Erich von Stroheim, Mussolini had been able to transform his bald head from physical defect (like the ‘Before’ photos in cure-for-baldness advertisements) into a symbol of virile strength. His stroke of genius, again in the 1930s, was to have the remaining hair on his temples and neck removed. Also very common were pictures of him in the fez with the Honorary Corporal’s red braid; or in the party uniform, and on his beret the eagle with angular wings. Very frequent too were the images of him on horseback, among which one should recall the one where he holds the Sword of Islam, brandishing it towards the sky.

  On the rare occasions when he was portrayed in civilian dress, he showed that he had adopted a less formal style than previously. One summer he was present at manoeuvres with a white yachtsman’s beret, cavalry boots and trousers and a jacket that was sky-blue, I think. (What I am recalling here is a colour plate by Beltrame in the Domenica del Corriere: the Duce is helping artillery-men to drag a cannon up a slope.) Then there were the famous shots of him in the ‘Battle for Grain’: the Duce in his vest or bare-chested at the threshing machine, with his helmet and motor-cyclist goggles, lifting sheaves of corn amid the farmworkers. (Farmworkers or Security Police? The common joke at the time was the Duce congratulating the man on his excellent threshing: ‘Well done! What can I do to reward your labours?’ ‘Transfer me from the police station in Rome to the one in Palermo, Duce!’)

  The photos showing him in private life were more rare: there were a few family photos, others showing him skiing or swimming or flying an aeroplane. They were distributed – so they said – because some foreign newspaper had printed rumours about his illnesses.

  With the Conquest of Ethiopia, the cult of the Head moved more and more towards his apotheosis. The formula used in ritual acclamations: ‘Hail to the Duce! To us!’ was turned into a lengthy ‘Hail to the Duce Founder of the Empire!’ Jokes of the time had it that Starace66 was so stupid that he could not keep that phrase in his mind (even though he invented it) and every time he had to shout it he furtively had to consult the piece of paper he had written it on.

  That was also the period of Starace and his anti-bourgeois ‘dress revolution’, which consisted mostly in providing new uniforms regularly for the party’s gerarchi: Fascist jackets without lapels, and black, khaki and white Saharan uniforms … To return to our subject, this was the period when the Duce’s appearance was multiplied in that of all the gerarchi who tried to imitate him: they shaved their heads and temples to simulate virile baldness, they stuck out their chins, and made their necks swell out. Others remained faithful to brilliantined hair, like Galeazzo Ciano, who on the other hand did try to imitate his father-in-law in his poses when making speeches. But he was not photogenic and his unpopularity was surpassed only by Starace’s.

  The war was approaching. I entered adolescence and it is as if my visual memory of those years becomes less receptive than my childhood memory when the way people looked was my main channel of contact with the world; now my mind started to fill nebulously with ideas, reasoning, value judgments, and not just the external aspects of people and environments.

  At Munich in 1938 the two dictators played the last round in this game of images, their gutsy expressions (that word ‘gutsy’, which today is wasted emptily, would have been most appropriate then) contrasting with the thin, old-fashioned figure of Neville Chamberlain with his tails, stiff collar and umbrella. But at that point the message the masses picked up was what Chamberlain’s umbrella conjured up, namely peace; and Mussolini, too, who at that point presented himself as the saviour of peace, elicited the last spontaneous cheers of the crowd.

  Then came the war. Mussolini now wore the uniform of the Royal Army (campaign dress with forage cap and boots): he had had the army confer on him the lofty title of Marshal of the Empire. On battle fronts that were still far away young men a little older than I began to die (those born around 1915, the year-groups that bore the brunt of the war). Muss
olini’s outline, which up until a little while before tended towards roundness, now began to thin, to look haggard and tense. His stomach ulcer intensified along with the inevitability of the catastrophe. Particularly striking were the photos of his meetings with Hitler who now had him in his hands and did not allow him to say a word. Mussolini’s uniform now includes a huge coat and cap with a visor of distinctly Germanic style.

  Faced with the reality of the military defeats, the choreography of the parades revealed their vanity even to those who had not had eyes to notice it before. The rumour that started after El Alamein (as rumours did circulate, spreading throughout Italy) that along with the Italian troops retreating through the desert was the white horse Mussolini wanted for his triumphal entry into Alexandria, marked the end of his condottiere iconography.

  The day was approaching when the Duce’s portraits which had multiplied over Italian walls would be removed from their immobility as symbols of the established order and would be brought out into the open air through the streets and piazzas, in a tumultuous saraband. This happened on 25 July 1943 (or to be more precise, a day or two later) when the crowd which could no longer be kept at bay invaded the Case del Fascio and flung the effigies of the overthrown dictator out of the windows; everywhere you could see his paternal image mocked and spat upon; the pyres with his military portrait on top of them; plaster or bronze busts dragged along the pavement, with his huge head which overnight had become a relic from another epoch and was now an object of fun.

  Was that the end of the story I had been telling up till now? No, a month and a half later we saw the dramatic photos of a ghostly, badly shaven Mussolini, snatched from Campo Imperatore by Skorzeny and taken north of the Brenner back to Hitler. Mussolini was the ghost of himself but he had no choice but to continue putting forward his weary image in the midst of aerial bombardment and the rattle of machine-guns.