ABSTRACT
Like glass, marble was used in diverse ways throughout the building. The traditional media and typologies in which marble was employed during the Fascist era included mosaics, inscriptions, bas-reliefs, sculptural decoration, and monolithic monuments. Marble served as the medium for the innovative use of another traditional aspect of the built environment in Italy: epigraphy. The Casa del Fascio in Como was both the most iconic building erected in interwar Italy and the best-known work by Giuseppe Terragni. The most important use of marble in the Casa del Fascio was as the cladding for the entire exterior. The two decades of fascist rule saw broad use of marble in buildings and urban spaces intended to legitimize the regime by associating it with its imperial predecessor. The extensive appearance of epigraphs carved into marble surfaces tied the Fascist regime to its authoritarian predecessors.
