MUSSOLINI'S ARMY INVADED ETHIOPIA IN 1935 AND CLAIMED IT FOR the Fascist empire the following year. Envisioning a new Roman empire originating in Africa (Libya had been an Italian colony since 1911), he announced his intention to hold a universal exposition of art, science, and work at Rome – an “Olympics of Civilization.” Disregarding his 1931 piano regolatore, he chose a site south of Rome for the Esposizione Universale di Roma, or EUR ’42. This fairground, he vowed, would become the permanent nucleus of a new city, neither an extension of Rome nor its suburb. The Eternal City, it seems, was proving an eternal compromise. He wanted to build his ideal Fascist city from the ground up, and EUR ’42 was his opportunity. Partitioned on a rectilinear grid and transected by a broad cardo and decumanus, its orthogonal plan evoked an ancient Roman colony more than Rome itself. Rome's recolonization of the Mediterranean would begin here (Fig. 221).

Workers broke ground in 1937, but when Italy joined forces with the Nazis in 1940, the exhibition was canceled. By July 1943, when Allied forces bombed the outskirts of Rome, EUR ’42 had been abandoned. Two years on, Mussolini and Fascism had fallen. Construction recommenced in 1950, but far from being the monument that the posthumously dubbed “Sawdust Caesar” had envisioned, EUR (the name stuck, but not the date) became another Roman suburb, albeit one with grand aspirations.

Mussolini also oversaw three of Rome's largest urban propaganda projects in the 1930s – one each for sport, education, and entertainment. Confinedto Fascist Party members, these extravagant enclaves aimed to provide nearly self-sufficient, strictly controlled environments at varying distances outside the walls. Foro Mussolini, a “City of Sport,” opened in 1933. It housed the flagship school of Opera Nazionale Balilla, a national organization that molded ideal Fascist youths through rigorous sports programs. It was also an arena for massive spectacles exalting the regime. Mussolini hoped to stage the 1944 Olympics there as a capstone to EUR ’42. They too were canceled, but the dream came to oblique fruition when the venue, renamed Foro Italico, hosted the 1960 Olympics (Fig. 222).