The Image of King Vittorio Emanuele II and the Remaking of Rome

TERRY KIRKTerry Kirk has taught History of Art and Architecture at the American University of Rome since 1988. His research there, ranging from Piranesi to the present, was brought together in the recent two-volume survey The Architecture of Modern Italy (Princeton Architectural Press, 2005). His work on the architecture and urbanism of late nineteenth-century Rome, especially the state’s monumental buildings such as the Palace of Justice, has recently expanded into early twentieth-century topics, particularly the city’s transformation under the Fascist regime. He is currently writing a critical biography of the Fascist architect and urbanist Marcello Piacentini.

Abstract

After 1860, the construction of the image of King Vittorio Emanuele II was a political imperative for newly-united Italy. In this essay, the impact of the King is examined in the architectural and urbanistic projects that left in built form indelible marks on the complex layered culture of Rome. The Vittorio Emanuele monument in his honour and those to a range of other Risorgimento figures, as well as the city’s new urban plan and the architecture of its institutions, reveal the use of built form in the service of the nation. They demonstrate a calibrated strategy for the reconfiguration of Rome as the secular capital of the new nation.

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