BACCI, Péleo. La ricostruzione del pergamo di Giovanni Pisano nel Duomo di Pisa. Roma, Milano: Casa Editrice d’arte bestetti e tumminelli, [1926]

PRESENTATION COPY TO BENITO MUSSOLINI. (300 x 225). pp. 119. Yellow silk fly leaves and paste down. Black and white photography throughout. Brown leather binding with gilt eagle stamp and title and author. Spine a bit rubbed, minor hinge separation between cover and second fly leaf, overall VERY GOOD condition. 

Pisa 25 maggio- Anno V-

A S. E. Benito Mussolini

La division Generale delle antichità e belle arte. 

Arduino Colasanti 

Inscribed by Arduino Colasanti, the General of the Department of Antiquity and Fine Arts in Rome, to fascist leader of Italy, Benito Mussolini, this picture book of Pisa’s duomo demonstrates fascism’s desperate attempts to connect with what they saw to be a glorious past. Germany looked back to the Middle Ages to see a heroic ursprung for their peoples; Italy looked to the Renaissance to see the elegant intelligence of theirs. The history their national myths were based on, however, was largely misinterpreted and whitewashed to falsely support their nationalistic claims of historically-grounded superiority. Nevertheless, fascism built itself up, off of a Medieval and Renaissance time period that never existed. 

MB233