0.

Preface

II. The, not Another

Like Pierre Menard14 retracing the steps of Miguel de Cervantes to reproduce the Don Quixote, Fascist
reworkings of Rome sought not to compose another15 Rome, but rather to compose the16 Rome. Few
times in history has the choice of a determiner been so important. This subtle play on language
and subsequent radical alteration of meaning permeated the Fascist rhetoric in which the second
instalment of the Roman fiction is couched. The second grouping of objects in Invisible Cities
elucidated the dexterous manipulation of language during this time, and included both a transcript
and recording of Mussolinis seminal 1922 Past and Future speech, in which were spoken the words:
Rome is our point of departure and reference; it is our symbol or, if you wish, our
myth17.
The identity of the speaker is unknown, though it is understood the exhibition claimed this to
have been Mussolini himself, in spite of no record elsewhere of such a recording of the original
speech ever existing. It is likely that in proffering such a lie the curators satirised the
frequency with which fiction boldly posited in the appropriate demeanour is unquestioningly
accepted as fact. Regardless of the speaker, the inclusion of the speech in two different mediums
underscores the impact of mode of presentation upon the overall effect and meaning of identical
content.
In reading the Past and Future speech, one becomes aware not only of the primacy of recapturing
this immortal spirit of Rome18 as a Fascist objective, but also the regimes recognition of the
artifice embedded in the narrative they sought to amend. In redacting a story that was in part
already myth, Fascists commenced their reworking of the Roman fiction into one only tenuously
grounded in fact. Arguably this tendency towards faction19, or a retelling of fact that
wouldread as a novel20 is a distinctively journalistic trait as much a vestige of Mussolinis
previous occupation as a propagandistic move.

n his 1981 post-modern epic Lanark, Alasdair Gray writes that by Arts is manufactured that
great mechanical Man called a state1. These words have perhaps never been truer than Rome,
whose character within the public consciousness was shaped by some of historys finest
artists: prodigies in architecture, literature, politics, and rhetoric. With skill and careful
consideration these elite excavated, excised, and deconstructed Rome in a stereotomic process
of construction of the ideal city2. Yet while the propensity for alternately exhuming and
concealing the urban remains of ones predecessors is not by any means uniquely Roman3, one may
argue that nowhere has the resulting image of such a process been so widely enduring as that of
Rome. Initially a conduit for ancient posturing at equivalency with sophisticated contemporaries
and major ancient world power players, the narrative of Rome began as a mere embellishment of
truth. It was in later Fascist Italy that this story was bridled as a tool of the state, to
cataclysmic effect. While nationalistic ideology ignited the flame powering Fascist purifications
of the city, it was the thrill of creation that fanned the blaze that disfigured and later
eclipsed the factual basis upon which such fantasy was founded. By invoking a narrative that
was in itself part falsification, 20th century Romans divorced themselves almost entirely from
the historical reality; the deracination of monuments and ideologies diminishing their prior
existences. Invisible Cities4: The Disappearance of Rome charted this episodic mutation of
the Roman narrative, combining both ancient and mid-20th century retellings of this story to
examine not only their substance but also the manner of their retelling. Though the scarcity of
documentation (particularly of a photographic nature) is anomalous for the exhibitions 2014
context, no doubt this has only added to its intrigue and richness of meaning. From the limited
surviving resources I have attempted to reconstruct the exhibition as faithfully as possible;
thoughas with all storiestake all that follows with a grain of salt, if not an ocean, if you
live by the sea.

The speech is one of several text inclusions in Invisible Cities, which also displayed clippings
of Mussolinis interviews in the Monthly Tourist Magazine (1935) and National Geographic (1937),
14
Borges, Jorge Luis. Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote. In Ficciones. Buenos Aires: Emece Editores, 1956.
15
ibid. at page 91
16
ibid.
17
Mussolini, Benito. Past and Future speech at 1922 Birthday of Rome celebration, as cited in by Tio , Nil in
Spatial Myths. In Topographies of Fascism: Habitus, Space, and Writing in Twentieth-century Spain. Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 2013. 146. emphasis authors own
18
ibid.
19
defined by Tom Wolfe as combining the skills and stamina of an ace reporter with the techniques of fiction,
cited by Caudill, David Stanley. in Faction: Truman Capote, Legal Ethics, and In Cold Blood. In Stories About Sience in
Law: Literary and Historical Images of Acquired Expertise. Farnham, Surrey, England: Ashgate Pub., 2011. 102.
20
ibid.

1
Gray, Alasdair. Lanark: A Life in Four Books. Edinburgh: Canongate, 2001.
2
Dey, Hendrik W. The Motives for Aurelians Wall. In The Aurelian wall and the refashioning of Imperial Rome,
A.D. 271-855. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011. 146.
3
Robin Boyd writes of 1960s Australian architectures [scraping] of decoration from the sides of architecturea
simple act of housekeeping after the Victorians squalid behaviour. The Pursuit of Pleasingness. In The Australian Ugliness. Melbourne: Cheshire, 1960.
4
Named, it appears, for the 1972 novel by Italo Calvino of the same name. For more on this connection, see afterword.
4

I. (Six) Memos for the Next Millennium

The popular identity of Rome is ensconced in the iconography of its ancient incarnation: an
eternal city5 whose name connotes monumental masonry and colonnaded structures. One must question
the origin of these characteristics that we now recognise as definitively Roman, and in doing
it is impossible to ignore the distinctly non-Roman birthplaces of these. Much has been made of
Invisible Cities inclusion of a quote from Livy, who of the Macedonian elite wrote:
(T)hey poked fun at the appearance of the city itself, which had not yet been beautified in
either its public or its private spaces6
The quote itself was printed on cardstock in Roman font7 and mounted as one would an artwork,
with this self-conscious isolation and framing of content pervading the exhibition as a whole.
In contextualising the exhibition the quote is invaluable, foregrounding the construction of
Romes image against self-assertion via an illusory representation that far outstripped reality.
To project this narrative of sophistication and significance, ancient Romans turned to their
contemporaries, appropriating the imagery of Greece and the Hellenistic East (amongst others) to
falsify power and wealth using a pre-existing visual vocabulary.
To do this, the Romans [rooted] around [Greek and Hellenistic] prefabsemiology8 to concisely
establish parallels between themselves and these ancient world powers. One such example of this
emulation is the similarity of the Roman Basilica form and the Egyptian oecus Aegyptius9, with
floor plans of the former included in Invisible Cities. While records only indicate the broad
groups into which the objects were sorted and not their exact placement, one may infer that
representations of the two typologies were displayed alongside and in juxtaposition to one
another. The formal similarities are striking, particularly in conjunction with ancient accounts
of the functional similarities between the typologies. The purposive basis of such structures
as reception spaces for visiting foreign dignitaries is illustrative of the tendency in ancient
Rome to augment reality, adumbrating the repeated manifestation of this very proclivity in
years to come. Invisible Cities also included plans of Roman templesfrequently and erroneously
thought to be categorically Roman constructions in the vicinity of those of the podium temples
of Ancient Greece (see fig 1.). The indisputable parallels again underscore the meticulousness
with which the Roman image was even at this early stage being crafted from fragments collected
from far afield.
5
Atkinson, David, and Denis Cosgrove. Urban Rhetoric And Embodied Identities: City, Nation, And Empire At The
Vittorio Emanuele II Monument In Rome, 18701945. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 88, no. 1 (1998): 33.
6
Livy, 40.5.7 (182 BC)
7
For more discussion pertaining to Invisible Cities use of font refer to afterword
8
Deleuze, Gilles, and Flix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press, 1987.
9
Vitruvius, De Architectura 6.3.9

Fig. 1 Comparison of plans of Temple of Aphaia (L), Aegina10, Greece with Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus11
(R), Rome.

With the passage of time this appropriation grew more brazen, evolving from the adaptation of foreign
elements and stylistics to the unabashed excision and transplantation of materials and artefacts.
Invisible Cities highlighted this physical and ideological looting by way of a Corinthian capital
surviving from Sulas 69 BC Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. Part of a column removed from the
Athenian Temple of Olympian Zeus, and reinstalled in Sulas Temple, the capital is a clear example
of Roman employment of pre-existing signifiers of power and wealth to perpetuate a narrative and
image. Beyond this, it highlights the impunity of such extractions and subsequent utilisation,
suggesting that the political influence (and corollary ability to perform blatant thievery)
of Rome eventually aligned with the image it had projected. What are the implications of this
convergence of the foregoing Roman fiction and the reality? As Baudrillard writes, to simulate
is to [produce] true symptoms12, and thereby [threaten] the difference between the true
and the false13. Such a theory would posit causality between the two; in presenting a fiction
of their city as on par with their contemporaries, Romans were in fact pre-empting the reality
The implications of such a statement are profound; primary amongst them being the insinuation that
any fiction intricately furnished and repeatedly affirmed transforms into fact. Hence, while the
actuality of ancient Rome was not always congruous with retrospective visualisation of a sophisticated
and organised whole, subsequent repetition of this narrative has accorded incontrovertible
acceptance of this as fact. This logic also confers on audiences the ability to view objects
decontextualised within an exhibition context and recognise them as inherently representative of Rome.

10
image via The Temple of Apha - gina. The Temple of Apha, gina. http://lhodges.users37.interdns.co.uk/me/
aphaia/aphaia.htm
11
image via On the Kinds of Temples. Vitruvius Book 3, Chapter 3: Translation. http://www.vitruvius.be/boek3h3.
htm
12
Baudrillard, Jean. The Precession of Simulacra. In Simulacra and Simulation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press, 1994. 3.
13
ibid.
2

Fig. 3 The paradox of modern tourism28: the reduction of an entire city (or here, country) to its monuments,
and equation of this distillation to the citys real identity

all of which suggest a leader seeking realisation of fantasy in place of historical veracity.
Examining urban renovations of 1920s and 30s Rome, one cannot help alarm at the parasitic manner
in which Mussolinis Rome consumed the reality upon which it was conceived. Reconstruction of
Rome as the ideal city21 necessitated the destruction of years of decadence22, a dismantling
captured by the process images of urban development projects displayed in the exhibition.
Again, records of the exact images are incomplete, but it is known that photographs of the
Via dellImpero (see fig. 2) and Largo di Torre Argentina were included. Given what exists
of the exhibition cover page (see fig. 3) it would not be unreasonable to suggest that
the Capitoline Hill and excavation work thereupon were also included: all three projects
in keeping with Fascist equation of physical isolation to a preservation of both form and
ideology. As with the foregoing excisions of the ancient Romans, however, the identity of the
monuments as more than mere physical entities cannot be said to have endured their deracination.
Rather, like the severed limb or fruit fallen from the tree, the monuments have putrefied upon
separation from the body of which they were constituents, so that Largo di Torre Argentina
no longer exists as Largo di Torre Argentina, but a facsimile thereof. Indeed, the only
objects capable of retaining consistent denotations and meaning regardless of their location
are theatre props: stage sets, backdrops, and other implements by which a fantasy may be
furnished. This reduction of Rome to a dramatic tableau calcifies the Fascist instalment of
the Roman story as a conscious and complete severance from reality: a work of pure fiction.

One of Invisible Cities more eclectic inclusions was a series of satellite images of Rome from
Google Maps. Curious about these maps is not their capturing of the image of early 2000s Rome,
but rather the manner in which seminal Roman monuments are summarised. The Marcello theatre
is described as a home to summer concerts while the Altar of the Fatherland is reduced to a
white marble memorial monument (see fig 5.). The conciseness of these descriptions highlight
the relegation of significant architectures and moments to ornamental artefacts upon which is
projected the spectacle (such as the summer concerts), thereby transforming them into props
for retelling yet another adaptation of Roman fiction.

Fig. 2 1932 view of construction work on the Via dellImpero from the Colosseum23

21
see n2. above
22
Benito Mussolini, La nuova Roma (25 December 195), in Opera Omnia di Benito Mussolini, eds. E. and D. Susmel,
vol. 20 (Florence, 1951-1963); quote in Etlin, Modernism in Italian Architecture, 1890-1940, 392.
23
Image via the Museum of Rome, Municipal Photographic Archives, AF 24428. , (September 1932) Photographer unknown.

28
Advertising copy sourced from Autumn, Winter, & Spring: Guided Holidays in Europe and Britain 2014/15, Trafalgar Tours. 2014.
8

It is no surprise, then, that Invisible Cities included a selection of Piranesis fantastical

imaginings of Rome, this unapologetically and entirely fabricated version of the city aligning
with the flagrancy with which Mussolinis Rome departed from the history preceding it. As
with the Past and Future speech presented in two media, the exhibition reiterates one idea
in two modes and registers: Piranesi erring towards the patently mythological while Mussolini
adopted a subtler, insidious approach. Diametric as these representational methods may be,
their message is identical: our understanding of Rome is ensconced in the representations of
our predecessors, whose selectivity disfigured the source material almost beyond recognition.

III. If (On a Winters Night) A Traveller

While the Roman narrative is best known in its ancient and Fascist incarnations, these remain but
two of the most prevalent versions of the story amidst a cacophony of conflicting retellings. Ton
Otto and Rachel Charlotte Smith write of the contraction of the time horizon to the immediate
future and a shallow past25, and it is this same condensation and conflation of multiple editions
of the Roman fiction that ensued in the years subsequent to Mussolini. By the time of Invisible
Cities opening in 2014, there were enough fictions of the history of Rome to fill the Library
of Babel26 ten times over: told in whispers or entombed between pages, if not played out on
widescreens or captured with the lens of a camera. The friction between these representations
did not go unremarked upon by the exhibition, part of which was dedicated to exploring late 20th
century and early 2000s annotations upon the Roman manuscript.
What remains of the exhibition catalogue and promotional copy suggest elucidation of the manner
in which Rome was reimagined in the early 21st century, this time as a touristic commodity
distinct from prior identities as a bastion of power or playground for dictatorial fantasies.
Such an interpretation is gleaned from the exhibitions display of assorted pamphlets and
promotional material for guided tours and Roman holidays (see fig. 4). On first examination these
are almost laughable for their puerile distillation of Rome as bipartitely constituted of Ancient
ruins alongside contemporary retail and leisure promenades. However, it is arguable that this
simplification in post modernity was the only possible progression for a fiction painstakingly
outlined by the hand of prior authors both ancient and modern. Pursuant to Mussolinis surgical
treatment of the Roman urban fabric and demarcation of the street and monument, into what else
could the Roman story evolve? By framing the citys architectural icons within the void space and
rendering streets the arterial pathways by which these could be accessed, Mussolini ensured that
the story of future Romes could take one of only two paths: the podium for glorified antiquity, or
the embodiment of the modern city27. The incoherence of the 21st century iteration of the Roman
narrative extends this paradox, with the included travel brochures foregrounding the disjuncture
between simultaneous portrayals as a repository of ancient history and facilitator of modern
tourist consumption.

Fig. 3. Only known surviving exhibition guide cover page24. The location of the exhibition remains unknown

24
It is believed that the image was taken from Ramieri, Anna Maria . 2.1 A general survey. Internet Archaeol. 31.
Terrenato et al. A General Survey. http://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue31/1/21survey.htm (accessed May 19, 2014).
6

25
Otto, Ton, and Rachel Charlotte Smith. Design Anthropology: A Distinct Style of Knowing. In Design Anthropology: Theory and Practice. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013. 17.
26
As described by Borges, Jorge Luis. The Library of Babel. In Ficciones. Buenos Aires: Emece Editores, 1956.
27
Benito Mussolini, speech in Campidoglio (21 April, 1924) ; quote in Baravelli, G. C.. The Rome of Mussolini.
In Policy of Public Works Under the Fascist Regime. Roma: Societa editrice di Novissima, 1935. 67.
7

Sources

Books
Baravelli, G. C.. The Rome of Mussolini. In Policy of public works under the fascist regime.
Roma: Societ editrice di Novissima, 1935. 67.
Baudrillard, Jean. The Precession of Simulacra. In Simulacra and Simulation. Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press, 1994. 3.
Borges, Jorge Luis. Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote. In Ficciones. Buenos Aires: Emec
Editores, 1956.
Boyd, Robin. The Pursuit of Pleasingness. In The Australian ugliness. Melbourne: Cheshire,
1960.
Deleuze, Gilles, and Flix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987.
Dey, Hendrik W.. The Motives for Aurelians Wall. In The Aurelian wall and the refashioning of
Imperial Rome, A.D. 271-855. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011. 146.
Gray, Alasdair. Lanark: A Life in Four Books. Edinburgh: Canongate, 2001.
Otto, Ton, and Rachel Charlotte Smith. Design Anthropology: A Distinct Style of Knowing. In
Design Anthropology: Theory and Practice. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013. 17.
Ti, Nil. Spatial Myths. In Topographies of Fascism: Habitus, Space, and Writing in Twentiethcentury Spain. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013. 146.
Fig. 5 Google Maps prosaic summaries of historic sites in Rome simultaneously summarise their literal
meaning and fail to capture their nuanced significance. Arguably the latter is impossible in such few words,
though the elements of these sites that the map has identified as integral are nonetheless bemusing29.

Journals
Atkinson, David, and Denis Cosgrove. Urban Rhetoric And Embodied Identities: City, Nation, And
Empire At The Vittorio Emanuele II Monument In Rome, 18701945. Annals of the Association of
American Geographers 88, no. 1 (1998): 33.
Caudill, David Stanley. Faction: Truman Capote, Legal Ethics, and In Cold Blood. In Stories
About Sience in Law: Literary and Historical Images of Acquired Expertise. Farnham, Surrey,
England: Ashgate Pub., 2011. 102.
Websites
On the Kinds of Temples. Vitruvius Book 3, Chapter 3: Translation. http://www.vitruvius.be/
boek3h3.htm.
Ramieri, Anna Maria . 2.1 A general survey. Internet Archaeol. 31. Terrenato et al. A general
survey. http://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue31/1/21survey.htm.

The constant flux of the image and story of Rome, and ensuing futility in attempting to secure an
eternally consistent denotation of meaning by this very moniker, resurfaces in the last of the
objects30 on display. In the months preceding the exhibition, the public was invited to submit
their own photographs and other mementos of Rome. Though there is no way of reassembling this
collection, one can only imagine the breadth of such gathered material, and the different facets
of the city they would have alternately accentuated or suppressed. Regardless, the collection
and presentation of such myriad captures and perspectives would foreground the impossibility
of creating one cohesive or consistent narrative of Rome, in spite of the best efforts of many
throughout history.
Loathe though we may be to admit it, all we identify and exalt as Romanand indeed Rome is
predicated upon the esteem with which we regard the narrative retellings of our forebears. It
is ironic that it is only when confronted by something as meticulously curated and presented as
Invisible Cities that we question the source and veracity of the stories we accept as history,
or the facts we accept as truth. All retellings of the past are products of unceasing redaction

The Temple of Apha - gina. The Temple of Apha, gina. http://lhodges.users37.interdns.co.uk/

me/aphaia/aphaia.htm.
29
30
12

Map data 2014 Google

In the sense of having been verified by sources other than word of mouth
9

the manifestation of the decisions and revisions31 of their respective authors. Yet we must be
wary of this inevitable process of deconstruction and reassembly, for it serves only to draw us
away from the reality of the point of our departure.
The fiction of Rome has endured in many forms since antiquity, surviving heavy amendment under
Fascism and the intermediary period preceding it, only to mutate once more within the post-modern
framework of the 21st century. Architectural and historic landmarks have remained in a corporeal
sense, but of the discarnate Rome of a bygone era that these objects purport to represent, the
same may not be said. With fragments and educated guesswork we may attempt to recapture this,
though as with all fallen empires and regimes, tourist luggage, and gallery exhibitions, this
Rome has disappeared, never again to be seen.

-I.

Briefly, on Typography and Calvino

Given the scrupulousness with which the Invisible Cities exhibition was assembled, it is
impossible to overlook the typography of the remaining printed material as having been set in
the Roman typeface Bodoni. Roman in this case denotes the adaptation of Roman square capital
letters those found in inscriptions such as that beneath the pediment of the Pantheon alongside
Caroline miniscules, with the appellation Roman again ascribed to boldness and antiquity in
perpetuation of an image that is both idealised and reductive. This focus on minutiae is echoed
in the exhibitions entitlement after Calvinos 1972 text of the same name: the plot of which
is centred upon one explorers imaginative retellings of cities he has visited. Naturally the
parallels between this thematic concern and the 2014 exhibition are numerous, and it is in homage
to this connection that parts I and III of this text were named for other Calvino works.
Finally, as we part, a caveat: dont believe everything that you read. It is unavoidable that
the story is shaped by the hand of whoever grasps the pen, and one never can be too certain when
deciphering the handwriting of another.

31
reverse

Aptly, this quote from TS Eliots The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock (1915) concludes with which a minute will
10

11

13