The Stone of Adwa


  



  Who made the huge stone effigy of the Duce?

   By Alberto Alpozzi

    The first article that described the huge monument, about 15 feet tall, in the likeness of the head of the Duce, was published on February 14, 1936 on the Italian daily newspaper La Nazione; but the first picture of the effigy of Benito Mussolini, built near Adwa, Ethiopia, in 1935, appeared on the cover of the February 16, 1936 issue of the magazine L’Illustrazione Italiana” with the following caption:

    “In the basin of Adwa, in front of Mount Sulloda, a great effigy of the Duce was sculpted in a hard stone boulder. It is an anonymous work of artist-soldiers who wished to leave the most expressive mark of their passion, a reminder of their distant Fatherland, as an exhortation and a good auspice for fighters and colonizers.”

    The head of Benito Mussolini was carved as a massive and powerful, but at the same time realistic figure. This new artistic language referred to the description of Mussolini by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, which became the guideline for the official representations of the Duce:

    “Prominent lips [...] Robust and very solid head [...] A dominating head, like an angular projectile [...] Teeth of steel.”






    At the time, the sculpting of the huge head was attributed to nameless artist-soldiers, but it had been made by the Gruppo Leggero di Artiglieria Motorizzata (Light Artillery Mechanized Group) led by Lieutenant Colonel Piero Malvani, who had designed it.

    Piero Malvani had managed to reconcile his military career with his passion for the arts.

    He dedicated himself particularly to bronze sculpture, but he was also a painter and an illustrator of celebrative postcards, posters and books. He participated to many art expositions, among which the 1930 IV Fiera Campionaria di Tripoli (4th Tripoli Tradeshow) in Libya and curated the Italian Pavilion of the 1931 Esposizione Coloniale di Parigi (Paris Colonial Expo), for which he made a series of dummies that displayed the Italian military corps serving in Italian eastern Africa.

    He died in 1962.

    Today there are no traces left of the head of Duce. Apparently, it was blown up by the occupying British forces.




 

     This is a translation of an article by Alberto Alpozzi, excerpted from his blog Italia Coloniale and published here with his permission.

    If you are interested to read more in English about the history of Italian colonial Africa, please search this blog for "Alpozzi."

    All comments, as always, will be greatly appreciated.

    Thank you,

    Leonardo Pavese

 

 


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