MELBOURNE - Marcello’s most recent publication, After the Fall, has enriched the historiographical landscape of architecture.

A prominent researcher and lecturer at Swinburne University, Marcello’s latest book offers an in-depth exploration of the remnants of the fascist period embedded in today’s urban fabric of Rome.

Through meticulous analysis of buildings, monuments, squares and place names, Marcello reveals how the legacy of that infamous twenty-year period (1922–1943) has profoundly shaped and continues to influence the landscape of the Eternal City.

In the context of a global debate over the status of public monuments and whether to abandon, deface, reintegrate or remove them, Marcello’s work provides a unique and deeply grounded perspective on the Roman case.

The genesis of After the Fall is rooted in Marcello’s personal experience and academic journey. Raised in Sydney, Marcello moved to Rome after studying architecture, initially intending to leave the discipline behind and focus on teaching English.

It was during her travels that Marcello was struck by the monumentality of the fascist-era buildings and began to question their persistent presence within the urban landscape. “I kept asking myself, ‘Why is all this stuff still here?’” she recalls.

This desire to delve deeper into the topic led her back to Australia to pursue a PhD. Her original aim was to study “the influence of the fascist period on post-war Rome”.

However, her supervisor redirected her to first study fascism itself. “If you want to study the effect of fascism on the postwar period, you must first study fascism,” she explains.

Her familiarity with Italy also stems from her family heritage. Her parents, both Roman, emigrated to Australia in 1967.

Her childhood in Sydney was marked by a strong connection to the Italian community and a politically active family, with her father heavily involved with FILEF (Italian Federation of Migrant Workers and Families).

“When I told them I was studying fascism, they said, ‘But wait, you grew up in an anti-fascist family, and now you’re studying fascism?’ Marcello remembers.

“I told them, ‘You have to know your enemy!’” she laughs.

After spending eight years in Italy and marrying an Italian, Marcello embarked on an academic career while nurturing her passion for writing.

The idea for After the Fall began to take real shape in 2018, when she presented her project at a conference and a publisher agreed to publish it.

The research for the book unfolded in several stages, from consulting the Central State Archives during the pandemic to exploring the city itself. “To see the effects of fascism in Rome, you have to navigate the city,” she reveals.

Her methodology involved layering different sources, starting with a custom “map of Rome in Google Maps” where she distinguished architecture from urban planning, identifying “the nodes of fascist Rome”.

Then came field research, exploring “on foot, on the sidewalks, looking at buildings and trying to understand what had happened”.

Newspapers from the time and the Corriere della Sera archive also proved crucial for filling in the “historical gaps” left by most books on fascist-era architecture.

After the Fall has three pillars of its analytical framework: chronology, location and meaning. It first examines how the relationship with the fascist past has evolved over time, the physical placement of monuments which plays a crucial role in public perception and fate, and finally, the significance of fascist sites and symbols.

Marcello, for instance, compares the still-standing inscription ‘A people of heroes, thinkers and migrants’ on the Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana in Rome’s EUR district with the one that once adorned the portico of La Sapienza University.

The latter, which celebrated the founding of the university by Mussolini and King Victor Emmanuel III, was removed and redone after the war, purging fascist symbols.

“The fact that the university was founded by Mussolini and the King is still true,” she comments.

With the changing political climate in both Italy and Europe, these monuments seem to be regaining symbolic meaning.

“We left them there as a warning to avoid repeating the same mistakes. But that didn’t work, and in my opinion, they are acquiring symbolic value and power,” she says.

With After the Fall, published on the centenary of fascism (2023), Flavia Marcello raises a crucial question: is it possible to separate aesthetic value from political and symbolic meaning?

For her, it still is. But the question commands us to reflect deeply on our relationship with a dark past, one that continues to provoke conflicting feelings.