An image of Benito Mussolini, framed and placed in the antechamber of Italy's Minister for Economic Development, has caused a new controversy over the legacy of fascism in the country. It was inside an exhibition that commemorates the 90 years of the ministry, which has decided to remove it to "avoid controversy and manipulation."
It was the largest union in Italy, the CGIL, which has denounced the presence of photography in Palazzo Piacentini, headquarters of the ministry dedicated to Italian industrial policy. To celebrate the 90th anniversary of the opening of the headquarters, built between 1929 and 1932 by Marcello Piacentini, a benchmark of Mussolini architecture, they have decided to organize this exhibition of all the ministers he has had, including the dictator.
Before this building housed the offices of the Ministry of Economic Development, it was the headquarters of the Ministry of Corporations, and Mussolini was its prime minister between 1932 and 1936, as head of government.
The union considered that this fact is "disturbing", as well as "serious and unacceptable". But it was the former secretary of the progressive Democratic Party Pier Luigi Bersani who sparked the controversy by demanding that the portrait of him as minister (between 2006 and 2008) be removed if it remained in the same place as that of Mussolini.
The current acting minister, Giancarlo Giorgetti, justified the image within the "Great Italy" exhibition and pointed out that, "although no one has noticed", Mussolini's portrait is also in the gallery of the prime ministers in Chigi Palace, the seat of the Executive, for many years, without anyone having protested. Giorgetti, a heavyweight in the League, has all the numbers to become the next Economy Minister in the government of Giorgia Meloni.
But his decision has not pleased all the far-rightists. The new president of the Senate, Ignazio La Russa, revealed that there is another image of Mussolini in the Ministry of Defense and considered that his withdrawal may be "cancel culture." La Russa, political heir to post-fascism and Giorgia Meloni's right-hand man, is known for his nostalgic positions of the dictatorship and for collecting several relics from that period in his house.
The future government of Giorgia Meloni, who will surely take the oath of office next week, will begin its journey together with a very uncomfortable anniversary for Italy, the hundred years of the March on Rome that brought Mussolini to power. Meloni now publicly denies fascism, but began his political career in the youth of the post-fascist Italian Social Movement, created by the followers of Mussolini.
