On September 26 of last year, one day after Giorgia Meloni, leader of the Brothers of Italy, comfortably won the Italian elections, her inseparable sister Arianna dedicated a curious publication to her on social networks.
“I will accompany you to Orodruin Mountain to throw that ring into the fire, like Sam with Frodo,” Arianna, today the party's political secretary, promised him.
It is no secret that the Italian Prime Minister's favorite reading is the fantastic universe of The Lord of the Rings. When she was Minister of Youth, she did not hesitate to pose for a magazine next to a statue of Gandalf, the wizard who helps little Frodo fulfill his mission against the dark forces. Last year's election tour was inopportune, she said, because she didn't have time to watch the new Amazon series The Rings of Power. “I don't think of The Lord of the Rings as a fantasy genre,” Meloni has come to say, who first read the epic about Middle Earth when she was just 11 years old.
Therefore, this week, between calls to the Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky and councils of ministers to approve a new decree on security, no one doubted that the Italian prime minister would find time to attend the opening of the new exhibition at the National Gallery of Art Modern of Rome. The exhibition, called TOLKIEN. Man, Professor, Author, is sponsored by the Italian Ministry of Culture, in collaboration with the University of Oxford. Officially it has the objective of celebrating both the 50 years of the death of the British writer and the 50 years of the publication of The Hobbit in Italian, but the Minister of Culture, the journalist Gennaro Sangiuliano, escaped in July that it is a “gift ” to the far-right president.
During several rooms the visitor takes a journey towards the legends of hobbits, dwarves, men, elves and orcs among books from editions from all over the world, personal objects of J.R.R.'s family. Tolkien or the costumes used for his successful films. “Tolkien, let me say it, not I but many critics say it, was an authentic and sincere conservative, a sharp conservative with a great critical spirit,” defended Minister Sangiuliano, explaining the largest tribute ever organized in Italy for an author who believes that reflects some of the values “promoted” by the Executive, such as “community, friendship, solidarity and humanity.”
Meloni's fascination with Middle-earth is not only literary, but has a lot of politics. For more than half a century, the Italian far-right has used the British writer as an intellectual reference. It all started after the Italian Elémire Zolla, critic and philosopher expert in the history of religion and esotericism, wrote a prologue in the 1970 edition of The Lord of the Rings, which linked the work as a kind of metaphor for the contrast between traditionalism and progress. Then a small sector of the Italian radical right, politically marginalized and thirsty for new myths after the defeat of fascism, began to see itself reflected in the stories of little heroes who fight against evil creatures and the established power that corrupts society. The ideals of a united community, of conservatism, of defense of Catholic themes such as mercy or providence, or the pride of small towns in Tolkien's books were more attractive to young people than Mussolini's speeches.
At the end of the seventies, when Meloni was just a baby, the Youth Front, the youth section of the post-fascist party Italian Social Movement (MSI) in which she herself joined the military when she was a teenager, organized a kind of festivals. policies called “Hobbit Fields”. The mythology forged around the fantastic saga extended to all the cadres of the MSI cubs, whose meetings began to the sound of the “Boromir horn.” They listened to the songs of the folk group called Compagnia dell'Anello (Company of the Ring), from the youth of the party, and they called one of their comrades from the far-right militancy Frodo, due to his obvious resemblance to the protagonist.
At one of these meetings of the post-fascist youth, Meloni, according to what she herself says in her autobiography, arrived disguised as the hobbit Samwise Gamyi, the loyal companion of the unexpected hero Frodo, who is her favorite character. “Sam has a quirk. He knows what his mission is: to accompany the chosen one. He is a very humble character, who comes from a very humble family,” highlights the curator of the exhibition, Oronzo Cilli. “He does not have the kingship of Aragorn, the magic of Gandalf, the strength of Gimli or the speed of Legolas. He is just a hobbit, who works as a gardener. And yet, without him Frodo would never have accomplished his mission. He knows that they will not sing about his exploits, but he does not risk everything for glory,” Meloni writes in her book.
The curator, an expert in Tolkien's work, insists on stripping the exhibition of political meaning, defending that the Italian left also cited the trilogy in its magazines or that it was loved by hippies in the sixties in the US. He promises that the only thing they asked him to do was “respect the work and memory of the author,” and nothing more. Other fans of the saga from around the world stand out in the exhibition, including progressives such as former US president Barack Obama or the writer Stephen King. Also one from Pope Francis, an avid reader of Tolkien, whom he has cited on some occasions. “We would love for you to come,” Cilli wishes. But despite his efforts, the exhibition – which cost 250,000 euros – has generated a slight controversy in an Italy where the right, starting with Minister Sangiuliano, is making an evident effort to recover a cultural hegemony traditionally linked to progressivism. Tolkien was an obvious first step.
