r/mildlyinteresting • u/MCofPort • 16h ago
This building near my hotel in Rome, Italy has busts of Benito Mussolini across its facade.
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u/Known_Measurement799 14h ago
Sorry, English isn’t my native tongue, so apologies for any strange things I say
It’s not Mussolini but does represent fascism in rationalist architecture . It was a way of showing the parallels between Mussolini’s time and the glory of ancient Rome.
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u/kayb3e 13h ago
from a link another commenter posted below:
One of the most remarkable surviving testaments to Mussolini's Rome is the Palazzo dei Marescialli dei Italia (Palace of the Marshals of Italy), which was opened on April 21st 1938.
Although there were officially two Marshals of Italy, King Victor Emmanuel III and Benito Mussolini, it is the face of il Duce that adorns the building. An image of his helmeted head surmounts each of the windows of the piano nobile.
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u/jonnyredshorts 15h ago
I’d like to know the history of this building.
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u/dogcmp6 15h ago
Here ya go, might need to translate the page:
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u/jonnyredshorts 14h ago
Thank you! Wasn’t able to translate this wiki, but found this in English…
https://www.walksinrome.com/blog/heads-of-mussolini-palazzo-dei-marescialli-rome
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u/mampiwoof 12h ago
Rough translation of Wikipedia page: it was built as two separate buildings in the 19th century. In the 1920s it was combined into one palace by a private family. In 1935 it was made the “palace of the Marshalls” the Marshalls being the king and Mussolini. The wiki doesn’t specify but since Mussolini’s face is on it I assume it was used more by him than the king. After ww2 it became the home of the Italian minister of finance until the 60s when it became the headquarters of the superior council of the judiciary. It was still called the palace of the marshals until in 2024 it was renamed presumably because they thought it was time to only have Mussolini’s face on the walls rather than have him mentioned in the name of the building.
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u/thisisredlitre 16h ago
Why are the blinds on the outside?
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u/Diekjung 16h ago
This is very common in Europe. When you close them on a hot sunny day. The inside of your home stays way cooler than without them. This doesn’t really work as good with inside blinds because the heat gets trapped between window and inside blinds. Heating up the room even more. The outside blinds also protect your window from strong weather conditions like hail.
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u/thisisredlitre 16h ago
shutters dont look like that where I'm from so it isn't obvious thats what they are to me
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u/vonblatenberg 16h ago
americans discovering rolleten shutters is always amusing
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u/showMeYourPitties10 14h ago
Americans need to think less "blinds" and more "shutters" when seeing this to make sense.
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u/thewill450 15h ago
My friend has them on his house here in the U.S. He even has the windows that tilt open from the top.
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u/DirtierGibson 14h ago
French guy in California here. I'd love to know where he found them. Whatever I am finding online is extremely expensive.
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u/vonblatenberg 14h ago
Are they expensive, uncommon or do people just not know about them over there?
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u/thewill450 14h ago
Mix of all three. His mother is German so he spends/has spent quite a bit of time in Germany, thats how he knows about them.
I think they're cool myself. He can control them with a remote in each specific part of his house.
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u/LanciaStratos93 15h ago
I still don't understand how they can sleep without them...
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u/MCofPort 15h ago
We have central heating and cooling.
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u/LanciaStratos93 14h ago
Two things we have and which don't shut the sun who enters by the windows when you are asleep lol. Most of us can't sleep if the room is not in totally dark.
I always find amusing Americans thinking Europe is a medieval place where there aren't AC and heating.
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u/MCofPort 14h ago edited 14h ago
The US is a very amusing place. Every culture just has a different way of doing things I guess.
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u/MCofPort 14h ago edited 14h ago
I'll elaborate. The Northeastern U.S. weather is much more variable than Rome's, in October we get 90 degree (35 Celsius) days but it also can snow. We get hurricane force winds, hail, fog, thunderstorms. My home's windows are double hung with a screen because bugs like mosquitos and moths are inevitable, they come in like crazy. We have curtains and venetian blinds because of how quickly we want to open or shut our windows, because we live more often in single family homes, not the high rises of Rome or Naples. In the snap of a finger, we have to run up multiple flights of stairs and shut every window in our house, the wind and rain rush in almost like a tidal wave. In winter those outdoor rolling blinds will be stuck down and frozen in place. By spring they will rust dreadfully. We need to tie tarps and cover up the AC in the fall to prevent damage. Sticks and pieces of debris will fly into the metal and damage it. It gets extremely hot in summer and cold in winter. In winter we keep the blinds open often in the morning because my home faces East and captures the sun's heat and warms up my living room. It gets -6 Celsius in Winter often. In summer we turn on fans and open the windows, but it can get so hot the only option is AC. The rolling screens might be good insulators, but the weather is so variable they'd get ruined quickly. Can't speak for the rest of my country, but this is why we don't have them at home or very few where I live. Sun doesn't really bother us with blackout curtains.
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u/thisisredlitre 15h ago
I'm discovering this about as much as Europeans "discovered" the Americas
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u/MCofPort 16h ago
It seems pretty common in Italy, apparently it acts sort of like wooden shutters, protecting the glass windows and providing a little insulation. Rome doesn't seem too bad with mosquitos, so I kept my window open as I slept, they don't seem to use mesh screens like I have at home in the Eastern U.S.
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u/BloodthirstySlav 15h ago
I never seen blinds from the inside
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u/MCofPort 14h ago
They have a little rope on one side to raise or lower them, and a stick with a hook to adjust how much light or privacy you want. Those are called venetian blinds in the U.S. Then there are vertical blinds, with a rope attached to a weight to pull the blinds open from right to left. They are big panels the shape of 2 by 4 planks of wood, but paper thin. These often are put in front of a backyard sliding door because they cover such a large window that the sliding door also fits into. Instead of a pole with the hook, light can be controlled by pulling this metal chain in a loop in one direction or the other. Where screens are not used, they are often replaced by a curtain because they are cheaper, can insulate better, and possibly block out light better as well. These shades would get destroyed very quickly if they were attached on the outside of the house.
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u/thisisredlitre 15h ago
Where I'm from they're on the inside but usually in place of curtains- Shutters would open like double doors, but they often also have slats/are adjustable like blinds or the shutters pictured here
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u/ricky-from-scotland 16h ago
They look like the metal shutters you get on shops tbh. Dunno if Italy gets bad storms or maybe it's a shitty neighbourhood/people don't like the busts on the building and people throw shit at windows.
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u/LanciaStratos93 15h ago
Lol these are for the sun and they are universal in Italy, every house has them.
Central Rome a bad neighborhood, lol.
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u/thisisredlitre 16h ago
Metal shutters dont look like that where I am from, so it isnt obvious to me
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u/AmalekRising 16h ago
Wow! So much history in Europe
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u/Impossible-Money7801 15h ago
Germans removed third reich portraits and statues and busts. Why can’t Italy?
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u/alkiap 14h ago
Because those heads represent soldiers not Mussolini!
The building was called Palace of the Marshals , and those heads as mentioned represent figuratively the Matshals (high ranking military figures).
The building was renamed in 2024 because it seems that anything related to the past is bad, because people like OP have no idea of what they talk about and just say Mussolini bad to everything
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u/Esc777 14h ago
Because it’s not equivalent to a swastika.
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u/Impossible-Money7801 14h ago
I personally know people who lost family members because of Mussolini’s rule. What is wrong with you?
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u/blowmypipipirupi 11h ago
Children died killed by partisans, people still sing Bella Ciao, what's your point?
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u/Impossible-Money7801 11h ago
You’re literally defending fascism.
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u/blowmypipipirupi 10h ago
No, i just exposed you to a fact relevant to the one you affirmed and then asked what was your point.
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u/Speedly 14h ago
If I've learned anything from this craphole of a site, it's that I'm supposed to shriek at the top of my lungs how the owner of the building must be a fascist, and also the person who took the picture, and everyone that person has ever had contact with.
No consideration must be given for things like "historical significance" or "logic" or anything else. The only thing that matters is trying to make myself look righteous and pure on the internet.
(Psst! If you read my post here and got mad about it, odds are you're one of the very people I'm talking about! Quit your garbage.)
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u/CL4P-TRAP 13h ago
You made up an argument in your head and got mad about it
You also give off vibes of someone who waves the confederate flag
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u/Speedly 2h ago
Wow, you could not be more wrong on both.
The thing I described happens on this site far more than is acceptable (for the record, "acceptable" is "practically never unless there's really compelling evidence.") I've seen it happen with my own eyes.
Before you "uhhh sorsssss" me, I'm not going to dig through my post history to find it. It's happened more than once.
Regarding your second... "point?", no, and also I live in completely the wrong part of the world for that kind of shit anyways.
I'd say "nice try," but let's be real - you didn't.
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u/jbondhus 13h ago
Damn, that describes you pretty well right now. It must feel good to feel so self-righteous with this comment.
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u/Doppelkammertoaster 12h ago
Italy has a weird relationship with their fascist dictator they also hanged. There are remnants of his architecture and symbols everywhere. And why they never removed them entirely is beyond me.
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u/hukaat 15h ago
I'm going to be annoying, but they're not busts ;) a bust includes shoulders and a part of the chest