ABSTRACT
After World War I, commemorations of fallen soldiers were built throughout Europe. In Italy, Benito Mussolini’s Fascist regime appropriated tributes to the dead and integrated them into its propaganda machine, connecting Italian triumphs and sacrifices during the war to the Fascists’ imperialist campaigns. Focusing on two key building types that served this strategic program – the monumental ossuaries erected in the battlefields and the so-called Casa del Mutilato, which hosted the headquarters of the National Association of Disabled and Invalid War Veterans – this chapter investigates how this fascist-era commemorative architecture in Italy is understood today.
