Among the many medals with a portrait of Duce Benito Mussolini, dating back to the fascist period and which will go up for auction in San Marino, in the auction Artemide LXI of 4-5 May, in lot 1111 there is a very particular one. It’s about a medal for merit minted in gold, just 24 millimeters in diameter and weighing 8.44 grams, minted by the Royal Mint of Rome.
The specimen, already listed by Gianfranco Casolari in his work 25 years of history. Mussolini medals and decorations 1922-1945 (Aes Rude, Rimini 1996) on page 514 (n. sd/253), could apparently pass as one of the many coinages of the fascist state, with the obverse depicting a turreted Italy facing to the left and the classic fasces in the background flat, barely hinted at in the relief unlike the female profile that dominates the roundel.
The very rare fascist medal of merit in gold in the Artemide LXI auction
A very particular personification of Italy
Female profile? Attentionbecause the face in question is not that of a young woman with classical features, or of a proud warrior Italy – as we are used to imagining it – but rather that of the leader of fascism, with thick hair of a woman and hair gathered in one chignon at the nape of the neck.
The medal, without date, is marked with the crowned Z and signed PT, an author whose name Casolari does not reveal to us but which should correspond to Pio Tailetti, born in Rome in 1971 and died in the capital in 1948 and who in the period 1914-1939 is cited several times in the operational reports of the Royal Mint as the author of medals of merit, war, commemorative and with portraits. A little-known artist but who, for about a decade, was in fact the main coin engraver of the Italian monetary workshop.
Another creation by Pio Tailetti from 1926, this time with a decidedly “macho” portrait of the Duce
Tailetti also signs others medals with portraits of Mussolini, for example that of the 1926 Nations Cup, an international equestrian competition which took place in Naples in May of that year. Also of notable rarity, it is known in gold in the important diameter of 50 millimeters and weighs almost 75 grams.
A gaffe in Mussolini’s cult of personality?
Returning to the curious subject of the medal at the center of these lines, a depiction that today we would define fluid genderit comes naturally to ask whether Mussolini approved or appreciated – net of the cult of personality that characterized his long parable of power – this “camouflage”.
Aurelio Mistruzzi, in 1925, modeled this famous medal with Mussolini “helmsman of Italy”
Of course, giving Italy the features of the Duce could be considered the maximum expression of identification between the head of the Government and the nation, between a people and its destiny. However, we know well that Mussolini always made virility one of his flags, a rudder to keep firmly in propaganda operations. In this regard, just think of the project for a 10-lire state note (which would later be revived during the Lieutenancy period, on which two male nudes appeared and which the dictator defined as “horrible, super-Balkan” (read more here).
So why did Mussolini allow this medal (which was very rare) in which he was portrayed as a woman to be created and awarded? A sensational one oversight in the “image management” system of the leader? Or an ego so huge that it also accepted that identification with Italy which, however, made it look more like a wiry housewife from the Romagna countryside than to an allegorical figure inspired by classical models? The mystery remains.
Tags: rare medal DUCE role LADY ITALY
