Italy’s Public Memory of its Main Anti-fascist Martyr: Giacomo Matteotti in the Public Space One Century After his Murder

Abstract

10th June 1924: the socialist deputy Giacomo Matteotti was murdered by a fascist group. After his famous speech in the Parliament, where he denounced Mussolini’s regime machinations, he was kidnapped, killed and his body hidden for two months. Even though previous cases of opposition to the regime took to the other murders such as the one of Don Minzoni, the name of Giacomo Matteotti became soon a symbol of resistance. A standardized photo of his face, the place of his kidnapping, and some of his supposed last words were sacralised. His end caused friction even within the fascist government, while the strong emotional support of the people, who went to the famous Arnaldo da Brescia embankment in Rome, where Matteotti was kidnapped, was strongly prevented by the fascists. Matteotti was able to start the anti-fascist mythopoiesis, to shape it, at the very moment when the parallel fascist mythopoiesis was getting stronger. His myth got so widespread that he became the prototype of the anti-fascist martyr: even the communist Palmiro Togliatti had to admit it in 1928. During the Resistance war, 19 years after his murder, some partisan formations took on his name. Following the way of his myth, after the liberation in 1945, how was he honoured in the public sphere? Who is Giacomo Matteotti today, besides being the name of many squares and streets? What is said about him now on the web, in particular on Wikipedia, ChatGPT and Bard (now named Gemini) and social media? Where are most of the places named after him? How did Italy’s capital, Rome, honour him? What is and what was the public and the political use of his story? Thanks to digital tools and analysis, a profile of who Giacomo Matteotti is today can be reconstructed. The history of the present time can help historians explain what Matteotti’s myth means in the public sphere and, in particular, in public place(s).