ABSTRACT
In 2011, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Italian unification, historical studies looked back a century and touched upon various issues related to Rome 1911, when only fifty years of the nation’s history had passed. The studies considered the celebrations as a new idea of nationhood. 1 There was an Ethnographical Exhibition as a moment of national identity-building through characteristics identified by the new science of ethnography, 2 while the Exhibition of Fine Arts was a ‘super Venice Biennale’ for the dualism it revealed between Italian regionalism and an international context, 3 with the ephemeral architecture of its pavilions and other buildings, its use of symbolic architectural and archaeological landscapes to promote the nationalist sentiments of italianità and romanità all centred on the young capital of Rome. 4 And then there were the political controversies concerning the celebrations … 5
