Abstract
The arrival of war in Europe in September 1939 — and to Fascist Italy in June 1940 — touched Venetians in manifold ways, changing both nothing and everything. On the one hand, unlike during the first global conflict of the century, Venice was relatively removed from front-line fighting and an unspoken agreement between the allies that Venice should be considered città-franca ensured that the city’s artistic and architectural patrimony — and also, therefore, its inhabitants — would not this time be threatened by aerial bombardment. B.M. recalled the local response to the sounding of the air-raid siren: ‘the alarm sounds, but in Venice people are almost untroubled. Who would dare to throw bombs on this marvel of a city?’89 As such, the city became a leave-time destination of choice for Axis soldiers and, after September 1943, home to numerous ministries, semi-state bodies and diplomatic missions of the Repubblica Sociale Italiana [RSI: Italian Social Republic].90 The presence of civil servants, soldiers on leave, Cinecittà actors transferred from Rome to the safety of the Biennale pavilions at the Giardini, mockingly renamed Cinevillaggio, and not a few obstinate holidaymakers, all looking for the worldly entertainments for which Venice and the Lido were so renowned, conferred upon the war-time city the ‘aura of Casablanca’.91
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Notes
P. Corner (2002) ‘Italian Fascism: Whatever happened to dictatorship?’ Journal of Modern History 74.2, pp. 325–51.
The quotation is from R. Ben Ghiat ‘Review of L. La Rovere (2003) Storia dei GUF. Organizzazione, politica e miti della gioventù universitaria fascista 1919–1943 (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri) in the Journal of Modern Italian Studies vol. 9.2, 2004.
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© 2012 Kate Ferris
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Ferris, K. (2012). Epilogue and conclusion. In: Everyday Life in Fascist Venice, 1929–40. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137265081_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137265081_7
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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