"Pagan Rome was Rebuilt in a Play: Roggero Musmeci Ferrari Bravo and the Representation of Rumon." The Pomegranate 14.2 (2012), pp. 212-232.

[The Pomegranate 14.2 (2012) 212-232] doi: 10.1558/pome.v14i2.232 ISSN 1528-0268 (print) ISSN 1743-1735 (online) Pagan Rome was Rebuilt in a Play: Roggero Musmeci Ferrari Bravo and the Representation of Rumon1 Christian Giudice2 Gothenburg University Department of Literature, History of Ideas and Religion Box 200, 405 30 Göteborg [email protected] Abstract Outside of its national boundaries, studies regarding twentieth-century Italian occultism have been sorely lacking. While the role of occultism and occultists in nations such as England, Germany, France and the United States has been studied in detail, the events and main characters that influenced the esoteric circles in early twentieth-century Italy have been mostly neglected or relegated to very cursory enquiries. It is my intention in this paper to focus on the theme of a Pagan new beginning for the newly reunited Italy, first sketching a historical portrayal of the influence that the idea of Ancient Rome had on both artists and occultists, then utilizing recently discovered archival material, to focus on poet and playwright Roggero Musmeci Ferrari Bravo and his tragedy on the birth of Rome, Rumon Sacrae Romae Origines, viewing the play as an attempt to mass-initiate the audience to the alleged palingenetic virtues of Roman traditionalism, in view of a new Italian renaissance. Keywords: ancient Roman religion; Neo-Paganism; Roman Traditionalism. Italians…should not be fooled by French occult novels that arrive here from the Babylon that is Paris. Rome would deserve a dedicated study, with regards to occultism Giuliano Kremmerz 1. The author would like to thank Dr. Letizia Lanzetta and the staff at the Istituto Nazionale per gli Studi Romani for their kind help in assisting me while consulting the archive of the Fondo Musmeci-ignis during my brief stay in Rome in July 2012. 2. Christian Giudice is a PhD candidate in the Department of Literature, History of Ideas and Religion, at Gothenburg University, Sweden. © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2014. Unit 3, Kelham House, 3 Lancaster Street, Sheffield S3 8AF. Giudice Pagan Rome was Rebuilt in a Play 213 Availing myself partly of hitherto unpublished archival material, I shall discuss the mise en scène of a 1929 theatrical play by Roggero Musmeci Ferrari Bravo (1868–1937), Rumon: Sacrae Romae Origines, as part of a wider revival of ancient Roman traditions within Italian art of the beginning of the twentieth century. More than a simple pageant celebrating Rome’s dies natalis and the foundation of the city in 753 BC, the tragedy itself, performed on the Palatine Hill before Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) and other high-ranking members of the newly established Fascist Council, represented a mass ritual of initiation into a new life which would ideally blend the Pagan virtues of Roman antiquity with the modern political manifestation represented by Fascism.3 Michael Taussig’s theory of magic as mimesis can be used to explain the underlying principle for the magical effect of a theatrical play in modern times: in the words of Leigh Wilson, who has employed Taussig’s theories in her Modernism and Magic (2013): “in the mimetic act the power of the original is translated to the copy, and more than this, the copy becomes more powerful than the original.”4 The occult characteristics of Musmeci’s play represent a prime example of the occult representing a manifestation of social modernism and adhere to Roger Griffin's argument, according to which “only when occultism serves as regenerating vehicle for a civilization, it can be considered as a legitimate manifestation of social modernism in its own right.”5 In the Roman occult milieu and the anticlerical writings of major figures in Italian literature, Paganism was considered, by part of the Italian intelligentsia, if only for a brief time, one of the viable options for a new beginning for the Italian modern man. By the recovery of tradition, Italian occultists and artists tried to connect past traditions and present interpretations of them, in order to secure a future that would enable people to conjugate the sense of belonging of tradition to the thrust of modernity of early twentieth-century Italy. The ideal of Rome as caput mundi was one of the strongest cohesive elements in post-Risorgimento Italy, and was clearly embraced by the Duce in his speeches to the people: 3. For the definitive work on Fascism as a modern movement, see Roger Griffin, Modernism and Fascism: The Sense of a Beginning under Mussolini and Hitler (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). 4. Leigh Wilson, Modernism and Magic: Experiments with Spiritualism, Theosophy and the Occult (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2013), 15; for Taussig’s original contribution, see Michael Taussig, Mimesis and Alterity: A Particular History of the Senses (London: Routledge, 1993). 5. Griffin, Fascism and Modernism, 134. © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2014 214 The Pomegranate 14.1 (2012) Celebrating the birth of Rome means celebrating our type of civilization, it means exalting our history and our race, it means resting firmly on the past to better launch ourselves towards the future.6 The Conquest of Rome and its Effect on the Arts On 20 September 1870, with the breach of Porta Pia, General Raffaele Cadorna (1815–1897) annexed Rome, and therefore the Papal States, to the Kingdom of Italy, de facto putting an end to papal temporal power: it was in this period of political turmoil that Pope Pius IX (1792–1878) complained of being “prisoner in the Vatican.”7 By that decade, anticlerical sentiment was rife throughout Italy, mostly due to three factors: firstly, the very heroes of the Risorgimento themselves were for the most part valid exponents of anticlerical behaviour: Giuseppe Garibaldi’s (1807–1882) famous motto IIpriests to the plough" and his definition of Pope Pius IX as “a square meter of dung” is a convincing prototype of what most of the leaders of the unity of the Italian peninsula thought about Christianity and its representatives on earth.8 Secondly, the positivist thrust in universities, brought forth by esteemed academics such as the Dutch professor of medicine Jacob Moleschott (1822– 1893) at the Universita’ di Torino and by luminaries of Italian literature such as Arturo Graf (1848–1913) and Mario Rapisardi (1844–1912), 9 is an aspect that we must take into consideration, if we acknowledge the fact that in January 1873 the study of theology was forbidden in every State university by the ScialojaCorrenti law.10 Thirdly, and most importantly for the purpose of this essay, anticlericalism bloomed in popular song and in higher forms of art and poetry. Traditional compositions were extremely explicit and, probably because of their coarseness and boldness, have survived to these days. A very pertinent example is the traditional Se quanno more un prete (ca. 1870): 6. Benito Mussolini, Opera Omnia, vol. 18, ed. Eduardo and Duilio Susmel (Florence: La Fenice, 1951–63), 160. 7. David Kertzer, Prisoner of the Vatican (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004), 37. 8. Mario Milani, Giuseppe Garibaldi: Biograia Critica (Milan: Mursia, 1982), 511. 9. For an all-too-explicit example of Rapisardi’s anticlericalism see his Lucifero (Milano, Libreria editrice G. Brigola e C., 1877). 10. Maurilio Guasco, Storia del Clero in Italia dall’Ottocento a oggi (Bari: Laterza, 1997), 64. © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2014 Giudice Pagan Rome was Rebuilt in a Play 215 When a priest dies And the church bells ring All whores come round to visit: A client has just died. When a pope dies And they sing the Miserere I feel a sense of gladness: The whoremonger is dead. But when it’s me to die, I don’t want Jesus Christ But a flask of good wine, And a goliardic song.11 Giosuè Carducci (1835–1907) too, with his infamous Inno a Satana (1869) captures the zeitgeist of the imminent fall of the Papal State through the verses, “May the incense and the prayers rise up to you! You have defeated the priests’ Jehovah!”12 The breach of Porta Pia, though, inspired even loftier themes in Italian poetry, which defied the rhetoric of sheer anticlericalism and referred to a newly rediscovered and exciting dimension: the celebration of recently conquered Rome, the glorification of its antiquity, and the possibility of the beginning of a new era, with the Immortal City newly cast as the omphalos mundi. Gabriele d’Annunzio (1863– 1938), the Poeta Vate so central to the Italian culture of the beginning of the twentieth century, wrote his Ode a Roma in 1901, reflecting upon the idea that “nothing is bigger or more sacred. It bears the light of a star. It shines not only over [Rome’s] sky, but over the entire world.”13 Carducci himself wrote his Roma in 1893, losing himself “whilst, from the Janiculum, I look down with wonder over the city’s pictured form—a mighty ship launched towards world dominion.”14 Giovanni Pascoli (1855–1912), without doubt one of the greatest poets of Italian fin de siecle, had composed his Hymnus in Romam (1913), celebrating the city’s greatness in Latin, in order to pay an even greater homage to Rome’s illustrious antiquity.15 It 11. Leoncarlo Settimelli and Laura Falavolti, Canti Satirici Anticlericali (Rome: Savelli, 1976), 56. 12. Giosuè Carducci, Inno a Satana (Lodi-Milano: Pubblicazione della Plebe, 1873), 2–3. 13. Gabriele d’Annunzio, Ode a Roma (Rome: Giuseppe Grassi Bertazzi, 1901), 2. 14. Giosuè Carducci, “Roma” in Terze Odi Barbare (Bologna: Zanichelli, 1893), 19–20. 15. In Giovanni Pascoli, Poemi del Risorgimento (Bologna: Zanichelli, 1913), 23–40. © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2014 216 The Pomegranate 14.1 (2012) was clear by the first decade of the twentieth century that artists, poets, playwright, and Rome’s cultural circles had been given impetus by the possibility of a rebirth of Rome’s grandiose past. Of this period the pseudonymous author Rumon writes, “The dominant sign is that of Rome. The arts overflow with Floras, with Venuses, but also of martial epiphanies and of mythological figures related to the [city’s] soil.”16 The author then goes on to provide an account of Adolfo Apolloni (1855–1923) and the members of the Circolo Artistico representing a faithful pageant of the Palilia, the sacred feasts in honour of the archaic divinity of the Palatine hill.17 Thus artistic expression was closely mingled to the exaltation of Rome and to “a return to archaism, in which the predominant aspect was the sacred and religious one.”18 When referring to this return to archaism with reference to painting, Benito Mussolini (1883–1945), future head of state, wrote that he had seen the “creation of a new, revolutionary culture, granting to the document, to the dogma, to fantasy, the guidance of our path towards the building of a new society.”19 Rome’s Cultural and Occult Milieu Another poet, albeit less known, had written a Carme a Roma (1914) at the outbreak of the Great War: the poet’s name was Roggero Musmeci Ferrari Bravo (1866–1937), his nom de plume: ignis, Latin for IIfire." IIignis IIwas to be always spelled with a lower case i, the poet considering himself but one of the many sparks of creativity promoting a Pagan renaissance. According to H. Caelicus, author of the introduction to the printed version of Rumon, “the very pseudonym of the author, Ignis [sic], brings forth the idea of different fires 'conflagrating' at once. (It is sufficient to recall the title of two journals of initiatic studies published in the 1920s, Ignis and Ur, Phoenician root for the word 'fire')."20 Not much is known about his early life, but the discovery of the artist’s private archive in Rome’s Istituto Nazionale di Studi Romani has given scholars, Fabrizio Giorgio in primis, 16. Rumon, “ignis, il Poeta di Roma,” Pieta 3 no. 6 (Rome: Associazione Tradizionale Pietas, 2013), 23. 17. Rumon, “ignis, il Poeta di Roma,” 24. 18. Fabrizio Giorgio, Roma Renovata Resurgat, vol. 2 (Rome: Settimo Sigillo, 2011), 346. 19. Yvon de Begnac, Taccuini Mussoliniani (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1980), 404–405. 20. Roggero Musmeci Ferrari Bravo, Rumon: Romae Sacrae Origines (Rome: Libri del Graal, 1997), 7. © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2014 Giudice Pagan Rome was Rebuilt in a Play 217 the chance to reconstruct a tentative biography. After the death of his father, Musmeci Bravo’s mother Clotilde moved to Rome from Sicily, and funded her son in order for him to gain a degree in medicine and surgery, and a second one in jurisprudence.21 The degrees were to be of little practical use, since ignis soon decided to devote his life solely to the arts. In his Carmen, Musmeci shows all of his enthusiasm towards the idea of a new Roman Pagan renaissance, and the first three verses are indicative of the sense of urgency felt by the author: “Time is running out, Mother [Rome]! Yet you sleep! Has the ancient slavery [to the Vatican] and its restrictions made you drowsy and somnolent?”22 The poem locates its verses within the framework of the ancient Roman carmen solutum. In his invaluable introduction to the play itself, H. Caelicus also comments, “It appears to be evident that ignis, in writing this Carmen, was inspired by the idea of Rome’s reawakening and by the idea of an Italian Victory in the name of Rome.”23 Roggero Musmeci Ferrari Bravo in his Studio. © Istituto Nazionale per gli Studi Romani. 21. Both documents are preserved in the Istituto Nazionale di Studi Romani. 22. Musmeci, “A Roma (carmen solutum),” Rivista di Roma, Nuova Serie,6, nos. 4–7: 443. 23. Musmeci, Rumon, 12. © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2014 218 The Pomegranate 14.1 (2012) In the years prior to the First World War, ignis had laboured extensively writing his magnum opus, Rumon, Sacrae Romae Origines [Rumon: Rome's sacred origins] (1929), a drama in five acts which retraced the myth of the foundation of Rome from the divine origins of the twins Romulus and Remus to the death of Romulus and his subsequent ascension to the heavens. Before considering the play itself, it is crucial to analyse the cultural and occultural milieu in which Musmeci lived and created his art. He frequented the coterie of intellectuals that gravitated around the famous third saletta (a small salon) of the literary Caffé d’Aragno, situated in Via del Corso 180 in Palazzo Marignoli, where cultural debates were frequent and heated, and Musmeci was involved in a more than one sword duel in order to defend his ideas, whence he received the wound on his cheek that scarred him for life.24 The Caffé d’Aragno was frequented by the most disparate characters, from Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876–1944), author of the Futurist Manifesto (1909),25 to the hermetic poet Giuseppe Ungaretti (1888–1970), to poet, author ,and painter Ardengo Soffici (1879-1964), who, as we shall see, because of his close friendship with Mussolini, would play a pivotal role in the mise en scène of Rumon. Behind this boisterous and clamorous façade though, circles more inclined towards occultism were similarly interested in a new beginning for Roman glory: many of such occultists have been defined Roman traditionalists. Piero di Vona provides us with a clear definition of what is meant by these terms: We will describe this brand of traditionalism as Roman, both because it referred to people who wrote in journals published and circulated in Rome and belonged to the cultural milieu of the capital, and because it was inspired by the Roman and pagan [sic] tradition, or at least stemmed from the belief that the idea of Rome was still alive and retained its utility in [the twentieth] century.26 In 1929, Traditionalist thinker Julius Evola (1898–1974), in his esoteric journal Krur, published an article entitled La Grande Orma, signed by an author under the pseudonym “Ekatlos.”27 The article in question narrated a discovery made in 1913 of a crypt,in which a sceptre and a ritual, written on ancient bandages, were uncovered by a group 24. For a humorous account of Musmeci Bravo’s lost duel, see Adone Notari, La Saletta d’Aragno (Rome: Sapientia, 1928), 80–83. 25. Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, “Futurisme,” Figaro, 20 February 1909, 1. 26. Piero di Vona, Evola, Guénon, De Giorgio (Borzano: SeaR, 1993), 219. 27. Ekatlos, “La Grande Orma,” Krur 1, no. 12 (1929), 353–55. © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2014 Giudice Pagan Rome was Rebuilt in a Play 219 of Roman occultists. The ritual described had then been performed regularly, every night, for the following months: its scope was to bring back the conditions under which a new Rome would exalt the destiny of the Italians. According to Ekatlos’s account, the occultists had witnessed many visions during the performance of the rite, including that of Pagan heroes of antiquity: “and we saw, basking in their light, the ancient and august figures of Heroes of our Roman race. The Great War which conflagrated in 1914, unexpected by anyone else, we knew about. We also knew the outcome. Both were seen by us where things dwell before they become real.”28 Much has been written about the possible identity of Ekatlos, but, for the purpose of our present study, it is only important to notice that, while ignis was writing Rumon, in the same years antecedent to the war, occult rituals were undertaken in order to awaken the spirit of Pagan Rome.29 According to most scholars, including Stefano Arcella, Ekatlos’ article was entrusted to Evola by an anonymous occultist close to one of the academies of the Schola Philosophica Hermetica Classica Italica, founded by one of Italy's most notable occult figures of the twentieth century: Giuliano Kremmerz (1861–1930).30 Kremmerz, hyeronym of Ciro Formisano, had become an occult teacher in 1896 and had first practiced in Naples.31 Through the foundation of the S.P.H.C.I, Kremmerz focused primarily on a therapeutic form of magic, but it is clear from his writings that he, as many other exponents of the Roman traditional milieu, considered his knowledge to be pre-Christian and Pagan in nature. Kremmerz was a strong advocate for a renaissance of Pagan Roman mores and there are many references to this specific subject scattered throughout the journals he edited, such as Il Mondo Secreto (1897–98), La Medicina Ermetica (1899–1900) and later Commentarium (1910). In a text called La Morte (1940) Formisano stated strongly: “I believe in this Italian…mission seen as a sign of philosophical, scientific and artistic renaissance . . . . The end of the world may be the death of this whole rancid old age, submerged by a rejuvenation of light and thoughts.”32 28. Ekatlos, “La Grande Orma,” 354. 29. Piero di Vona, Evola, Guénon, De Giorgio, 202. 30. Stefano Arcella, “L’Enigma della Grande Orma,” Esoterismo e Fascismo, ed. Gianfranco de Turris (Rome: Mediterranee, 2006), 125–47. 31. For a introductory review of Kremmerz and his ideas, see Piero di Vona, Giuliano Kremmerz (Padua: Edizioni di Ar, 2005). 32. Giuliano Kremmerz, La Scienza dei Magi, Vol. II (Rome: Mediterranee, 1974– 75), 337. © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2014 220 The Pomegranate 14.1 (2012) Another great figure in Italian occultism, who devoted his life to the restoration of the Roman Pagan tradition, was Arturo Reghini (1878-1946), neo-Pythagorean, mathematician and prolific author.33 Reghini claimed to have been initiated in the Schola Italica, an occult initiatory school, which boasted of an uninterrupted lineage, which allegedly harkened back to the alleged synthesis between the school of Pythagoras (ca. 570 bce—ca. 495 bce) and the earliest traditions of ancient Rome. According to Gennaro d’Uva, researcher and follower of Reghini’s theories, “upon the Italic Tradition, born from the union of the people of the Peninsula, a great ethnic and spiritual synthesis of the ancient City took place, from which the sacred People and Tradition of Rome originated.”34 Claiming affinity with the ideas of other thinkers that had manifested Ghibelline ideals, such as Dante Alighieri (1265–1321), and theories considered to be unorthodox, Giordano Bruno (1548–1600) and Tommaso Campanella (1568–1639) often being quoted as his precursors, Reghini argued for a primacy of Roman tradition above all others, arguing that the metaphysical superiority of Roman spirituality lay not in the language and the race, but in the “the place itself, the soil, the very air. Rome, Rome caput mundi, the eternal city, historically manifests itself as one of Earth’s magnetic regions.”35 In what is arguably his most popular article, Imperialismo Pagano (1914), Reghini denounced the imperialists of his days for believing in the alluring fables of pacifism, humanitarianism, democracy, and socialism, while “that meagre core of Pagans and Pythagoreans, conscious of the occult connection which unites the past to the future, categorically claimed to believe in the imperial destinies of Rome.”36 Rumon Must “March Forth” Whether milieu of the day or if he was actively involved cannot be ascertained 33. Two biographical studies on Reghini have been published to date: Roberto Sestito, Il Figlio del Sole: Vita e Opere di Arturo Reghini, Filosofo e Matematico (Ancona: Ignis, 2003), and Natale Mario di Luca, Arturo Reghini: Un Intellettuale Neo-Pitagorico tra Massoneria e Fascismo (Rome: Atanor, 2005). 34. Gennaro d’Uva, “La Tradizione Italica,” in Politica Romana, 5 (1997–98): 106–125. 35. Arturo Reghini, Paganesimo, Pitagorismo, Massoneria (Furnari: Associazione Pitagorica, 1986), 146. 36. Arturo Reghini, “Imperialismo Pagano,” Salamandra 14 (1914). © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2014 Giudice Pagan Rome was Rebuilt in a Play 221 for sure, even after a thorough analysis on the extant documentation on him. There is proof of his being in epistolary contact with members of both the Kremmerzian School, in the figure of Alberto Russo Frattasi, editor in chief of the journal Commentarium, and with the exponent of the Schola Italica, Evelino Leonardi (1871–1939). These acquaintances could point out to some knowledge of the old Pagan spirituality on the poet’s behalf.37 What we know directly from ignis was that he did believe in the existence and influence of benign daimones, who he considered to be guides in his artistic endeavours: “I am possessed, yes, by more than one spirit […]; I had already written seven pages of Rumon on paper; for one and a half months I was prevented from writing a single verse of the script; but one morning a benevolent daimon whispered to me: today you are a poet: work!”38 The poet’s magnum opus was completed in the early months of 1914. On 21 April, the traditional dies natalis of Rome, a curious blend of bohemians and literary critics were invited to ignis’ home in the central Via del Vantaggio 7. That night Roggero Musmeci Ferrari Bravo recited his drama in five acts in front of a captivated audience. The event was so memorable for those present that nine years later, in 1923, in L’Idea Nazionale, a journalist enthusiastically wrote, “We had never witnessed the performance of a dramatic work more anticipated and awaited for than this. It has been at least ten years that, in Rome, literary figures, journalists, artists and actors talk about this tragedy of enormous proportions, most singular and savage.”39 That night, decked in an azure robe, ignis had sparked the imagination of those present and for weeks the press was brimming with glowing reviews, which judged the drama “of a conception equal to the grandiosity of the subject matter.”40 Both theatrical critics and Musmeci were convinced that the drama was to be performed outdoors, specifically on the Palatine hill, where Romulus, according to myth, had led oxen and plough to mark the first borders of the city. The entrance of Italy in the First World War, however, thwarted any plan of organizing Musmeci’s theatrical debut. The poet, a fervid nationalist, willingly enrolled at the age of 47, and served as a medical officer. Many Roman traditionalists, Arturo Reghini and his mentor Amedeo Rocco Armentano (1886–1966), to name but two, saw the war as an opportunity to 37. 38. 39. 40. 1914, 4. Musmeci, Rumon, 8. Quoted in Giorgio, Roma Renovata Resurgat, 349–50. Il Trovarobe , IIPrimo Saggio di 'Rumon'," L’Idea Nazionale, 8 May 1923, 4. Anonymous, “Il Rumon di Roggero Musmeci,” Il Messaggero, 22 April © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2014 222 The Pomegranate 14.1 (2012) re-establish the borders of antiquity, the sacra limina of the Italian peninsula, thus, in their view, enhancing the power of Rome and Italy, and willingly fought in the trenches to achieve their aims.41 When Italy had won the war, just as the visions spoken of in Ekatlos’s article had foreseen, and once Benito Mussolini had installed himself as head of the government with the March on Rome of 28 October 1922, Musmeci saw a new opportunity to stage his drama:. Counting on the influence of some of his close friends had on Mussolini, chiefly the fascist intellectual and Saletta d’Aragno frequenter Ardengo Soffici (1879-1964) and archaeologist and future Senator Giacomo Boni (1859–1925), he had come to realise that the times to stage Rumon were indeed propitious.42 Soffici's plea to Mussolini in order to gain funding for the representation of Rumon is a masterpiece in the art of persuasion: I will begin with my opinion, which you are already aware of: Rumon is a tragedy that can be placed in the same league as Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar… I’d like to bring to your attention that the title of Poeta di Roma, bestowed upon ignis by Jean Carrére, has been granted to Vergil and Horace only. Augustus lives, today, amongst us all in spirit, more because of these two poets than for his imperialist politics.43 Mussolini’s letter in reply was short, but imperative: “We must absolutely make Rumon march forth: the Government backs this initiative most fervidly, for it is part in the bigger plan for a national renaissance. Most fascist and cordial salutations.”44 It was through the funding of the president of the Fascist Council, then, that Rumon was scheduled to be performed on 21 April 1923, during a series of celebrations enacted to commemorate the foundation of Rome. An enthusiastic ignis commented on the fact that only Mussolini could understand the value of such a work of art in view of a Roman renaissance.45 The funding was provided by many sources 41. For a thorough introduction to the broad discourse on the sacred borders of Italy, see Marco Baistrocchi, “Terra Italia,” in Politica Romana 1 (1994): 27–41. 42. For more information on Ardengo Soffici, see Giuseppe Raimondi and Luigi Cavallo, Ardengo Sofici (Firenze: Vallecchi, 1967), for Giacomo Boni, see Sandro Consolato, “Giacomo Boni: Archeologo-Vate della Terza Roma,” in Esoterismo e Fascismo (Rome: Mediterranee, 2006), 183–95. 43. Fondo Musmeci-ignis, Binder 4, Folder B, Document IV, Letter from Ardengo Soffici to Benito Mussolini, undated. 44. Fondo Musmeci-ignis, Binder 9, Folder 1, Document I, Letter from Benito Mussolini to Ardengo Soffici, 7 March 1923. 45. Fabrizio Giorgio, Roma Renovata Resurgat, 362. © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2014 Giudice Pagan Rome was Rebuilt in a Play 223 and on one archival document we find a list of donors, who were all high ranking members of the new Cabinet. The list includes “His Excellency Benito Mussolini 10,000 lire, as a token of encouragement; 10,500 lire [from the] Ministry of Public Education; His Excellency [Francesco] Giunta (1887–1971), Ministry of Internal Affairs, 2,000 lire; His Excellency [Edmondo] Rossoni (1884–1965), Ministry of Internal Affairs, 3,000 lire.”46 Even though the money at disposal may have seemed more than enough for the staging of a play, problems soon arose, and, realizing the impossibility of staging all five acts, Musmeci decided to focus on one act only, the third and the one with most occult references to the foundation of the Urbs Aeterna. Even by performing the third act alone, the sheer amount of props and actors necessary was staggering: “The stage [on the Palatine hill] had an extension of 350 square meters and the main actors amounted to 60, while the extras and stand-ins were almost 300.”47 The actors chosen to perform the play were the most famous of their day, including Elisa Severi (1880–1955) as Ilia, Giulia Cassini Rizzotto (1865–1943) as Larenzia, and Giuseppe Sterni (1883–1952) as Re Romo, the archaic usage of the name Romulus being used for greater effect.48 The company in charge of the set-up of the tragedy did not complete its work on time, and Rumon was rescheduled to 6 May 1923: Musmeci, who had patiently worked for eleven years to compose his homage to Rome, refused to attend the performance, clearly outraged by the change of date. In a letter, which Giorgio convincingly argues was sent to Mussolini himself, he wrote, the day after the performance, “My voluntary absence, yesterday, from the Palatine stadium: to preserve my dignity untainted by any speculations, has deprived me of the touching joy of witnessing Your noble satisfaction, most high and sought after prize for my feat.”49 Rome is Rebuilt Nevertheless, at 17:30, the third act was staged on the Palatine hill in front of a populous audience, among which figured prominent members of parliament such as Giacomo Acerbo (1888–1969), Senator Filippo Cremonesi (1872-1942), and figures more connected to 46. Fondo Musmeci-ignis, Binder 8, Document D. 47. Fabrizio Giorgio, Roma Renovata Resurgat, 362. 48. A full list of actors and a review of their performance is to be found in Anonymous, “Rumon di Ignis al Palatino,” Il Messaggero, 8 May 1923. 49. Fondo Musmeci-ignis, Box 2, Folder 1, Document 2. © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2014 224 The Pomegranate 14.1 (2012) the esoteric circles such as Senator Boni and Giovanni Antonio Colonna di Cesaro’ (1878–1940), anthroposophist thinker and collaborator to Reghini’s and Evola’s journal Ur.50 The white oxen and plough delimit the sacred borders of ancient Rome. © Istituto Nazionale per gli Studi Romani. The two main events of the third act are the delimitation of the city’s borders, ploughed in the ground and implicating the resacralization of Rome’s soil, and the pronunciation of the sacred and occult names of the city. The ritualistic aspect of the third act is clear from the very beginning, when the twelve Fratres Arvales, the priests in charge of agricultural and seasonal rites, enter the scene chanting a Carmen Arvale, invoking local Lares with the crowd of future Romans assembling and chanting the word triumpe, a propitiation for the success of the rite, repeatedly, in a crescendo.51 After an invocation made to Pale and Palatua, protectors of the Palatine hill, Romo demands an oath from its citizens. The wording is archaic, but the concepts expressed clearly allude to Mussolini’s Rome too: 50. For an excellent introductory article about the thinkers who collaborated to the journal Ur, see H.Thomas Hakl, “Julius Evola and the Ur Group,” Aries 12, no. 1 (2012): 53–90. 51. Musmeci, Rumon, 96. © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2014 Giudice Pagan Rome was Rebuilt in a Play 225 I call upon you all, to the oath, to be renewed, alone, when you will join ranks with others, tomorrow. Swear that you will always follow the eagles, never desert, never turn your back in a shameful retreat; swear to this! Clamor. Promise to bring them to victory! Clamor. Promise to give your life! Happy while running towards certain death! Swear this! Huge clamor. Exalted. Be glad, Father! listen to these sons of yours swear on your name: either to die or to win!52 Soon after, the legendary dispute between Romo and Remo ensues, Remo being left out of the most important part of the ritual: the utterance of the sacred names of Rome. What follows is the central, and I would argue, most important part of the act, and indeed of the play itself. Nine people, who have been divinely inspired with a sacred name to give to the city, stand forth, but only four are invited by the Augur to proclaim them aloud, the remaining five being kept unspoken “by the old decree of the gods.”53 The tradition of the secret names of Rome is an ancient one, and we find important accounts of it in Pliny (23–79), Macrobius (ca. 400) and Servius (ca. 500), just to mention three great authors of the Roman past.54 Rome was considered to possess a public name, a sacerdotal name and a secret name, which remained unuttered. Sandro Consolato gives us a clear explanation as to the meaning of this tradition: “The nomen—considering the just relationship between the name and the named res—is the Numen and/or the Genius of what is given a name. The secret name of Rome, distinct from its public one ('Rome' itself) is the one behind the Numen that protects the Urbs and its destiny, and is therefore the name Macrobius (ipsius vero Urbis nomen eitam doctissimis ignoratum est) mentioned remaining secret in order not to 52. Musmeci, Rumon, 103. 53. Musmeci, Rumon, 107. 54. Pliny, Naturalis Historiae Libri (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1961), III-65, 49; Servius, Ad Aeneidem (Leipzig: B.G. Teubrer, 1881), II-351; Macrobius, Saturnalia (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1961), III-9, 69–71. © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2014 226 The Pomegranate 14.1 (2012) withstand the rite of evocatio by the enemies of Rome.”55 According to this tradition, knowing a city’s name would enable any enemy to destroy it, since possessing the real name of a man, or in this case a city, has always been thought to enable complete control over it.56 Other artists were shown to devote great attention to the secret names of Rome in the twentieth century: Giovanni Pascoli, in the aforementioned Hymnus in Romam, in a footnote of the 1911 edition of the hymn wrote: “Rome had three names: Amor in the mysteries, Flora in the heavens and Roma on earth.”57 The correspondence between the terms Roma and Amor has been considered by many scholars to be a perfect integration between Amor (Venus), “archetypal and primigenial reality of Roma (Mars).”58 It is also a felicitous trait d’union between Aeneas’ stock, which descended from Venus, and Romulus’ progeny, which originates from Mars, thus providing an explanation to the early honours, which were tributed to an androgynous tutelary numen of Rome, as a monument on the Capitol Hill can attest through the inscription 'GENIO URBIS ROMAE SIVE MAS SIVE FOEMINA’.59 The sacrality and ritualistic nature of this specific moment in Rumon, therefore, must not be underestimated: the names uttered in sequence are inscribed on golden triangular gold plates by the Pontifex are thus Martia and, a fitting relation to the interplay between masculine and feminine powers, Saturnia, probably a reference to Vergil’s (70 bce–19 bce) Saturnia Regna,60 and Amor. The play reaches its climatic moment when Romo steps up to pronounce the final name that will consecrate the land and the newly (re)founded city: “To you, father Gradivus [Mars], to you, oh Sun! To you Consenti Gods! To all Gods and Goddesses… To the Heroes I offer… To the World I offer… ROME!”61 According to the text of Rumon, a flame lifted itself to the sky from the altar, the press mentions the audience 55. Sandro Consolato, “Il Nome Segreto di Roma,” http://www.juliusevola.it/ risorse/template.asp?cod=468&cat=RECE&page=3. 56. Umberto Eco, La Ricerca della Lingua Perfetta nella Cultura Europea (Bari: Laterza, 1993), 193–209. 57. Giovanni Pascoli, “Hymnus in Romam,” in Hymni (Bologna: Zanichelli, 1911), 23. 58. Consolato, “Il Nome Segreto di Roma.” 59. Pietro de Angelis, Le Origini di Roma e il Svo Nome Segreto (Roma: Arti Grafiche Santa Barbara, 1937), 85. 60. Vergil, Eclogae, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967), IV-6, 28. 61. Musmeci Bravo, Rumon, 110. © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2014 Giudice Pagan Rome was Rebuilt in a Play 227 standing up and cheering aloud. Loris Gizzi (1899–1986), who interpreted Remo, told Caelicus that Mussolini himself had gone onstage to congratulate every actor for their great effort. The performance of Rumon had been a theatrical triumph. Rumon: A Rite of the Lineage The reviews in the following days were unanimous: Rumon had been a success, but had gone beyond representing a simple pageant. Fabrizio Giorgio correctly states that the performance was perceived more as a rite of evocation of the city’s originsrather than just a theatrical representation.62 L’Idea Nazionale’s pseudonymous reviewer Il Trovarobe seemed to have a similar opinion, describing the play as “a rite of the lineage.”63 An anonymous journalist for Il Messaggero commented, “Yesterday’s performance was so powerful that for a moment it took us back in time when…the sacred origins of Rome were recalled in a scene vivid with colour and rich in lights.”64 Many reporters noticed the ritualistic aspect of the third act: l’Impero described the audience as appreciating a spectacle as solemn as a rite,”65 while critic Marco Ferrigni described the third act as being “so masterfully set on stage that it requires the grandiosity of an epiphany.”66 Renato Del Ponte, the foremost expert in Roman traditionalist studies, describes it as a rite of consecration, certainly denoting in the author, or in the groups of which he was an emanation, not only a philological knowledge of Roman tradition (we need to think that during pauses ianulii and iunonii verses of the Arval Brothers were sung accompanied by flutes, but also some occult aspects, as may be seen by the ritual incision on golden plates of the arcane names of the Urbs, and the exegesis, willingly incomplete, of the meanings of the names of Rome.67 Missives from friends shared the same enthusiasm: author Nino Bolla (1896–?) wrote about receiving the “gift of your [ignis’] poetry,”68 62. Giorgio, Roma Renovata Resurgat, 362. 63. Il Trovarobe, “Primo Saggio di Rumon,” L’Idea Nazionale, 8 May 1923, 4. 64. Anonymous, “Rumon di Ignis al Palatino,” Il Messaggero, 8 May 1923, 4. 65. Remo Renato Petitto, “Allo Stadio Imperiale del Palatino: Rumon,” L’Impero, 8 May 1923, 4. 66. Marco Ferrigni, “Oltre i Limiti del Teatro,” in I Libri del Giorno, vol. 12 (1929), 718. 67. Renato Del Ponte, Il Movimento Tradizionalista Romano del Novecento: Studio Storico Preliminare (Scandiano: SeaR Edizioni, 1987), 34. 68. Fondo Musmeci-ignis, Binder 8, Folder E, Letter by Nino Bolla 7-5-1923. © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2014 228 The Pomegranate 14.1 (2012) poet Ettore Serra (1890–1959) on God incarnating, and becoming living word, argued that “men, then, talk of certain creations as being works of magic” and concluded, “maybe Vergil was for many centuries considered a MAGICIAN for this reason.”69 Close friend Otto Schanzer (1890–1942) exalted “the story of the highest civilization ever to grace the face of the earth, summed up with an incredible power of synthesis! The formation of the Roman People and the determination of its solar destinies, leaps out of Rumon more clear and persuasive than from one hundred volumes of ancient history.”70 Romo pronounces the sacred name of Rome. © Istituto Nazionale per gli Studi Romani. Thus Rumon can be seen to have acted on three levels: first, it enthralled the common spectators, who by 1923 entrusted Mussolini with their hopes for a better future for Italy, possibly through a modernization of ancient Roman ideals and principles; and second, it represented the culmination of thirty years of literature and poetry, which had been given impetus by the conquest of Rome and the 69. Fondo Musmeci-ignis, Binder 9, Folder 1, Letter by Ettore Serra 31-1-34. 70. Otto Schanzer, “Rumon,” Gazzetta del Popolo, 29 January 1929, 3. © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2014 Giudice Pagan Rome was Rebuilt in a Play 229 successive unification of the Kingdom of Italy. As I hope to have demonstrated, the interest in Pagan Rome shown by poets and playwrights was not a mere stylistic device: most had a very firm grasp of the subject matter, whether they did belong to the Roman traditional milieu or not. Finally, it manifested in an esoteric and powerful fashion the tangible idea for a new, Pagan beginning for Rome and all of Italy, which had been circulating in Rome’s occult milieu during the first three decades of the century. Not only was Rumon a re-enactment of Rome’s foundation, which aimed at an increase in power and prestige for the Urbs, but it also represented a powerful ritual of dedication and re-consecration to the ancient ideals and values exalted in the third act. The play was so successful that plans were made to perform Rumon at the Augusteo for the rest of the month of May 1923, but a lack of funds prevented ignis to ever see his drama represented on stage. An English enthusiast, Lord Edwin Beckwith Annam (n.d.), owner of a film company based in Hampton Road, London, offered to buy the rights to Rumon, but artistic divergences between Musmeci and Beckwith Annam prevented the possibility of Rumon becoming a full-length feature.71 In an undated letter to Mussolini, Soffici had realized the value of Rumon as an instrument of propaganda and had written, “I am sure you have understood the political importance for you, which on national soil and maybe more so abroad, if RUMON were adequately represented, printed, filmed in a new project."72 Concluding Remarks In 1929, Rumon was published by Editrice Libreria del Littorio, whose editor Giorgio Berlutti in a letter to Musmeci Bravo, wrote, “The Italian people will listen with profound emotion to this epic song that narrates the sacred origins of Rome, on whose imperial streets Mussolini’s will leads new generations. Because of this, I believe, Rumon will never die.”73 The dream of a new Pagan empire, which would put an end to Christianity's influence and usher in what Mussolini liked to refer to as “New Rome,” however, were short lived. In 71. Fondo Musmeci-ignis, Binder 10, Folder F, Contract offering 96,000 lire a year issued by Lord Beckwith Annam. 72. Fondo Musmeci-ignis, Binder 9, Folder 1, Letter from Ardengo Soffici to Benito Mussolini. 73. Fondo Musmeci-ignis, Binder 4, Folder B, VII, Letter from Giorgio Berlutti to Musmeci Bravo. © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2014 230 The Pomegranate 14.1 (2012) 1929, the Duce signed the Concordat with Pope Pius XI (1857–1939), which granted independence to the newly re-formed Vatican State and proclaimed Catholicism as the official denomination of the Italian people. This was the final blow to the enthusiastic efforts of the small group of Roman traditionalists who had tried to steer the new government towards an acceptance of Pagan mores. Musmeci shifted his attention on the study of divine proportion and sculpture, and seemed to have disappeared from Rome’s literary milieu. He died in 1937 a poor man, embittered toward the Fascist regime, which had all but forgotten one of Italy’s most celebrated artists of his day. In a letter written to G. Medici Del Vascello (1883–1949), he bemoaned his fate: “I have loved my country, as a fascist, with the greatest love, as can attest both my works and the comments on them made by men famous for their knowledge. I have economically ruined myself to total misery, all the furniture in the studio will be auctioned off soon.”74 Fascist bureaucracy actually did grant Musmeci a subsidy, but only in 1938, when he had been dead for a year.75 As commentator H. Caelicus rightly notices in his introduction to Rumon, we do not know for certain whether Musmeci had been the medium through which some aspects of Roman traditionalism manifested, inspired by occultists who preferred to remain behind the scenes, or if he consciously was aware of the existence of an occult classical tradition. The elaborate details pertaining to occult practices and ancient Roman customs allow me to speculate that he indeed was aware of the work being undertaken by Reghini, Kremmerz, Evola and others. What is certain beyond any doubt is that at least for one evening in May 1923, a formidable mimetic ritual named Rumon helped manifest visions of a possible Pagan future for Rome and Italy. Bibliography Archival Sources: Istituto Nazionale per gli Studi Romani, Fondo Musmeci-ignis, Rome. Anonymous. “Il Rumon di Roggero Musmeci.” Il Messaggero, 22 April 1914, 4. ——. “Rumon di Ignis al Palatino.” Il Messaggero, 8 May 1923. Arcella, Stefano. “L’Enigma della Grande Orma.” In Esoterismo e Fascismo, edited by Gianfranco de Turris, 125–47. Rome: Mediterranee, 2006. Carducci, Giosuè. Inno a Satana. Lodi-Milano: Pubblicazione della Plebe, 1873. 74. Fondo Musmeci-ignis, Raccoglitore II, Fascicolo 4, XIII, Letter from Musmeci Bravo to Medici del Vascello, 2. 75. Giorgio, Roma Renovata Resurgat, 376. © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2014 Giudice Pagan Rome was Rebuilt in a Play 231 ——. “Roma,” Terze Odi Barbare. Bologna: Zanichelli, 1893. Consolato, Sandro. “Giacomo Boni: Archeologo-Vate della Terza Roma.” In Esoterismo e Fascismo, ed. Gianfranco de Turris, 183–95. Rome: Mediterranee, 2006. ——. “Il Nome Segreto di Roma.” http://www.juliusevola.it/risorse/template.asp? cod=468&cat=RECE&page=3 (accessed 8 August 2013). Baistrocchi, Marco, “Terra Italia,” Politica Romana 1 (1994): 27–41. d’Annunzio, Gabriele. Ode a Roma. Rome: Giuseppe Grassi Bertazzi, 1901. d’Uva, Gennaro. “La Tradizione Italica.” Politica Romana 5 (1997–8): 106–25. de Angelis, Pietro. Le Origini di Roma e il Svo Nome Segreto. Rome: Arti Grafiche Santa Barbara, 1937. de Begnac, Yvon. Taccuini Mussoliniani. Bologna: Il Mulino, 1980. del Ponte, Renato. Il Movimento Tradizionalista Romano nel Novecento: Studio Storico Preliminare. Scandiano: SeaR Edizioni, 1987. di Luca, Natale Mario. Arturo Reghini: Un Intellettuale Neo-Pitagorico tra Massoneria e Fascismo. Rome: Atanòr, 2005. di Vona, Piero. Evola, Guénon, De Giorgio. Borzano: SeaR, 1993. ——. Giuliano Kremmerz. Padua: Edizioni di Ar, 2005. Eco, Umberto. La Ricerca della Lingua Perfetta nella Cultura Europea. Bari: Laterza, 1993. Ferrigni, Marco. “Oltre i Limiti del Teatro.” I Libri del Giorno, vol. 12 (1929), 718. Ekatlos, “La Grande Orma.” Krur 1, no. 12 (1929): 353–55. Giorgio, Fabrizio. Roma Renovata Resurgat, vol. 2. Rome: Settimo Sigillo, 2011. Griffin, Roger. Modernism and Fascism: The Sense of a Beginning under Mussolini and Hitler. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/ 9780230596122 Guasco, Maurilio. Storia del Clero in Italia dall’Ottocento ad Oggi. Bari: Laterza, 1992. Hakl, H. Thomas. “Julius Evola and the Ur Group,” Aries 12, no. 1 (2012): 53–90. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/147783512X614830 Honoratus, Maurus Servius. In Vergilii Carmina Commentarii. Leipzig: B.G. Teubrer, 1881. Kertzer, David. Prisoner of the Vatican. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003. Kremmerz, Giuliano. La Scienza dei Magi, vol. 2. Rome: Mediterranee, 1974–75. Marinetti, Filippo Tommaso. “Futurisme.” Le Figaro, 20 February 1909, 1. Maro, Publius Vergilius, Eclogae. London: Macmillan, 1967. Milani, Mario. Giuseppe Garibaldi: Biograia Critica. Milan: Mursia, 1982. Mussolini, Benito.Opera Omnia, vol. 18, edited by Eduardo and Duilio Susmel. Florence: La Fenice, 1951–63. Musmeci Ferrari Bravo, Roggero,. Rumon: Sacrae Romae Origines. Rome: Libri del Graal, 1997 [1929]. Notari, Adone. La Saletta d’Aragno. Rome: Sapientia, 1928. Pascoli, Giovanni. “Hymnus in Romam.” In Hymni, 23. Bologna: Zanichelli, 1913. Raimondi, Giuseppe, and Luigi Cavallo. Ardengo Sofici. Florence: Vallecchi, 1967. Petitto, Remo Renato. “Allo Stadio Imperiale del Palatino: Rumon.” L’Impero, 8 May 1923, 4. Rapisardi, Mario. Lucifero. Milano: Brigola e C., 1877. Reghini, Arturo. “Imperialismo Pagano,” Salamandra, 14 (1914). ——. Paganesimo, Pitagorismo, Massoneria. Furnari: Associazione Pitagorica, 1986. Rumon, “ignis, il Poeta di Roma,” Pietas 2, no. 6 (2013): 22–29. Schanzer, Otto, “Rumon,” Gazzetta del Popolo, 29 January 1929, 3. © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2014 232 The Pomegranate 14.1 (2012) Secundus, Gaius Plinius, Naturalis Historia. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1961. Sestito, Roberto. Il Figlio del Sole: Vita e Opere di Arturo Reghini, Filosofo e Matematico. Ancona: Ignis, 2003. Settimelli, Leoncarlo, and Laura Falavolti. Canti Satirici Anticlericali. Rome: Savelli, 1976. Taussig, Michael. Mimesis and Alterity: A Particular History of the Senses. London: Routledge, 1993. Il Trovarobe. IIPrimo Saggio di 'Rumon.'" L’Idea Nazionale, 8 May 1923, 4. Theodosius, Ambrosius Macrobius. Saturnalia. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001. Wilson, Leigh. Modernism and Magic: Experiments with Spiritualism, Theosophy and the Occult. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2013. © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2014