Description
This is a large Italian “fascio littorio” (Fasces) with an inscription that was particularly aimed at the League of Nations sanctions towards Italy, but had a much older meaning in Italian fascism.
Made of wood and with a lion badge affixed to the top of the axe.
It’s size is from top to bottom approximately 55 centimeters.
On top, middle and bottom is inscribed:
“Sanzioni? Me ne frego!”
Which translates as “Sanctions? I don’t care”!
The saying “Me ne frego” was the fascist motto that was first used by Zaninelli on 15 june 1918, and later re-used by D”Annunzio in Fiume. See for a more indept explanaition below.
Of course adding this inscriotion to the wood fasces was in relation to the historical events taking place at the time in Abessinia ( Etiopia). The second Italian-Etiopian was was the battle for Etiopia between the fascist kingdom of Italy and the Etiopian Empire in 1935-1936. In october 1935 Italy invaded Etiopia and the war lasted seven months, after which Italia occupied Ethiopia. The attack was condemned by the League of Nations as agression of Italy and sanctions were issued against Italy.
The Fasces is dated on the left on the axe with the inscription “18-11 1935 AXIV E.F.”, which was the date of the start of the sanctions by the League of Nations against Italy.
This is a very rare original italian fascist item. Due to it’s large size it would make an impressive dislay item in any diorama or collection.
It’s a one of kind unique historical item.
- Background: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasces
- More background: Fascism lay its roots in the campaign for Italy’s late entry in the First World War, of which Mussolini was one of the leaders. It was at this time that the phrase ‘me ne frego’ – which at the time was still considered quite vulgar, along the lines of the English ‘I don’t give a fuck’ – was sung by members of the special force known as arditi (literally: ‘the daring ones’) who volunteered for the front, to signify that they didn’t care if they should lose their lives. The arditi were disbanded after the war, but many of them volunteered in 1919 for an expedition led by the poet Gabriele D’Annunzio to capture the city of Fiume (Rijeka, in present-day Croatia) and claim it for Italy during the vacuum created by the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian empire. At the time of this occupation, former arditi also formed the backbone of the original Black Squads during the terror campaigns that began in 1919 and culminated with the ‘March on Rome’ of 1922, which completed Fascism’s swift rise to power.
‘Me ne frego’ was the title of one of the most famous songs of the Fascist era. Its original version, dating around 1920, hails D’Annunzio and Mussolini as the fathers of the fascist movement, recycling the old war song of the arditi as the third stanza.
Me ne frego I don’t care
me ne frego I don’t care
me ne frego è il nostro motto, I don’t care is our motto
me ne frego di morire I don’t care if I should die
per la santa libertà! … For our sacred freedom! …
Later versions removed mentions of D’Annunzio, who faded fairly quickly into the background. In the meantime, Mussolini made the slogan his own, and explicitly elevated it to the philosophy of the regime.
The meaning of ‘Me ne frego’ also known as the Black-Shirt motto ‘I don’t care’ written on the bandages that cover a wound wasn’t just an act of stoic philosophy or the summary of a political doctrine. It was an education to fighting, and the acceptance of the risks it implied. It was a new Italian lifestyle. This is how the Fascist welcomed and loved life, while rejecting and regarding suicide as an act of cowardice; this was how the Fascist understood life as duty, exaltation, conquest. A life that had to be lived highly and fully, both for oneself but especially for others, near and far, present and future.
