{"id":43,"featured":0,"modified":"2024-12-09 02:55:47","latitude":41.89771411444954907210558303631842136383056640625,"longitude":12.5006577372550982119037144002504646778106689453125,"title":"Acca Larenzia","address":"","thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.wheremonstersareborn.com\/files\/square_thumbnails\/782446b960e6c007e0391f923b2160f9.jpg","creator":["Acca Larenzia"],"description":"

O<\/span>n January 7, 1978, five members of the Movimento Sociale Italiano's (Italian Social Movement, MSI) youth group, the Fronte della Giovent\u00f9 (Youth Front<\/a>, FdG), were ambushed by five Lotta Continua (Ongoing Struggle<\/a>) militants in front of one of the MSI's social centers in Rome's Tuscolano neighborhood (Fig. 1). Franco Bigonzetti was shot dead at the scene, and Francesco Ciavatta died in an ambulance shortly afterwards. Later on that day, a large demonstration in the courtyard outside of the neighborhood headquarters on Via Acca Larenzia<\/a> quickly turned violent. Following a confrontation between Roman police officers and a number of far-right demonstrators, shots were fired into the crowd. A third young man, Stefano Recchioni, was struck by a police bullet. He died two days later.

This sticker incorporates the Celtic Cross at its center, a symbol that has been co-opted by neo-Nazi, neo-fascist and white supremacist movements globally. The symbol has been banned in Italy in political contexts, though it remains a religious symbol in some parts of northern Italy. The Celtic Cross features prominently in the 2012 commemorative painting on the fa\u00e7ade of the former MSI youth center on Via Acca Larenzia, and is frequently incorporated into various neo-fascist commemorative materials in Italy (Fig. 2). In both form and design, the sticker is reminiscent of the long banners carried at the front of commemorative marches by the contemporary far right, which usually draw upon a highly contrasted black and white color palette.

Every year on January 7, Rome's neo-fascists commemorate the deaths of Bigonzetti, Ciavatta, and Recchioni. Informally organized by CasaPound Italia (House of [Ezra] Pound Italy<\/a>, CPI), this annual ceremony involves a procession through the surrounding neighborhood's streets and culminates in the gathering of participants in front of the former MSI social center on Via Acca Larenzia (Figs. 3 and 4). Typically, the leader of the ceremony stands in front of participants, who are organized in tight military-style rows, and shouts out the names of Bigonzetti, Ciavatta, and Recchioni (Fig. 5). Participants respond with the cry \"Presente!\" (Present!) \u2013 a common mnemonic device deployed during Benito Mussolini's twenty years in power which signified the imagined eternality of the Blackshirt militiamen who were killed in clashes with left-wingers in Italy during the Red Biennium uprisings<\/a> (1919-20) or during the regime's various military conquests during the 1930s (Fig. 6).

In addition to the CPI-led ceremony, members of Forza Nuova (New Force<\/a>, FN) and Comunit\u00e0 Politica di Avanguardia (Vanguard Political Community) gather annually in Rome's Verano Cemetery<\/a> to honor Italy's various far-right \"martyrs.\" Similar to the Via Acca Larenzia commemoration, this ceremony involves a procession through the cemetery, stopping to honor those deemed as part of Italy's right-wing heritage, including the Risorgimento-era patriot, poet, and writer of Italy's national anthem, Gofredo Mameli (2024), neo-fascist victims of the Years of Lead<\/a> (1968-82), and the 1933 Chapel of Fascist Martyrs, where the commemorative procession ends. \"For years now, we have chosen the Verano chapel as a symbol of all comrades who died on the path of honor,\" remarked Vincenzo Nardulli, a leading figure in Rome's neo-fascist community, explaining his group's decision not to hold their January 7 ceremony at the site of the Acca Larenzia killings. Nardulli and Giuliano Castellino, both FN operatives, were sentenced to five years and six months' imprisonment in 2020 after attacking two Express<\/i> journalists who were documenting the January 7, 2019 Acca Larenzia commemoration (2019a; 2019b; Federici 2020).

Beyond Italy's openly neo-fascist community, a number of the country's prominent politicians regularly commemorate the Acca Larenzia \"strage\" (massacre). Indeed, every year Giorgia Meloni (Meloni 2021), along with her party Fratelli d'Italia (Brothers of Italy<\/a>, FdI), circulate Internet graphics and physical posters in Italy honoring the \"fallen\" at Via Acca Larenzia, placing Meloni and her party firmly within the commemorative practices of Italy's neo-fascist community (Figs. 6, 7, and 8). <\/p>","sponsor":"","subtitle":"(Acca Larenzia)","accessinfo":"","lede":"","website":"","related_resources":[],"files":{"https:\/\/www.wheremonstersareborn.com\/files\/fullsize\/782446b960e6c007e0391f923b2160f9.jpg":{"id":57,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","title":"Acca Larenzia","thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.wheremonstersareborn.com\/files\/square_thumbnails\/782446b960e6c007e0391f923b2160f9.jpg","description":"This sticker was produced to commemorate the 1978 deaths of Franco Bigonzetti, Francesco Ciavatta, and Stefano Recchioni on Via Acca Larenzia in Rome. At its center is the Celtic Cross \u2013 a symbol that has been co-opted by neo-Nazi, neo-fascist, and white supremacist movements globally. | Photograph by Brian J Griffith (December 28, 2020)."},"https:\/\/www.wheremonstersareborn.com\/files\/fullsize\/7622abe83c54ec0b08d97cd0bf2f1fdb.jpg":{"id":180,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","title":"Fig. 1","thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.wheremonstersareborn.com\/files\/square_thumbnails\/7622abe83c54ec0b08d97cd0bf2f1fdb.jpg","description":"A photograph of the fa\u00e7ade of the Italian Social Movement's former social center on Via Acca Larenzia in Rome where Franco Bigonzetti, Francesco Ciavatta, and Stefano Recchioni were killed in January 1978. | Unknown source. 1978."},"https:\/\/www.wheremonstersareborn.com\/files\/fullsize\/25f660f040b7edb9a4d4de5d2b27146f.jpg":{"id":181,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","title":"Fig. 2","thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.wheremonstersareborn.com\/files\/square_thumbnails\/25f660f040b7edb9a4d4de5d2b27146f.jpg","description":"The fa\u00e7ade of the Italian Social Movement's former social center on Via Acca Larenzia in Rome, featuring a mural with a Celtic Cross and a Roman centurion. | Fabrizio Federici, \"Acca Larentia, protesta FNSI per l'aggressione di due giornaliste nell'anniversario della strage<\/a>,\" L'Opinione della Libert\u00e0<\/em> (January 9, 2020)."},"https:\/\/www.wheremonstersareborn.com\/files\/fullsize\/b9dd1569f1de4a32a070891df23b1d8f.jpg":{"id":182,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","title":"Fig. 3","thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.wheremonstersareborn.com\/files\/square_thumbnails\/b9dd1569f1de4a32a070891df23b1d8f.jpg","description":"A large Celtic Cross in the piazza in front of the Italian Social Movement's former social center on Via Acca Larenzia in Rome. Every January 7, Italian neo-fascists stand in military-style formation on the Celtic Cross while delivering a Roman salute to commemorate the deaths of Franco Bigonzetti, Francesco Ciavatta, and Stefano Recchioni. | Photograph by Brian J Griffith (January 11, 2019)."},"https:\/\/www.wheremonstersareborn.com\/files\/original\/9116ece8a19a41f25c149b2b8be32ed0.mp4":{"id":183,"mime-type":"video\/mp4","title":"Fig. 4","description":"A group of neo-fascists perform the Roman salute while chanting \"Present!\" in the piazza in front of the Italian Social Movement's former social center on Via Acca Larenzia in Rome where Franco Bigonzetti, Francesco Ciavatta, and Stefano Recchioni were killed in January 1978. | Video by La Repubblica, \"Roma, i saluti fascisti alla commemorazione di Acca Larentia<\/a>,\" YouTube<\/em> (January 8, 2019)."},"https:\/\/www.wheremonstersareborn.com\/files\/fullsize\/6d81e58b4bdf11f92a96299fbc970849.jpg":{"id":184,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","title":"Fig. 5","thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.wheremonstersareborn.com\/files\/square_thumbnails\/6d81e58b4bdf11f92a96299fbc970849.jpg","description":"An illustration in the interwar periodical, Our People, depicting the fascist dictatorship's \"cult of martyrs.\" The illustration features the names and photographs of several Italian officers and soldiers who perished during their years of service in the Italian military. Below the martyrs' names is an oversized \"Present!,\" alluding to their imagined eternal presence. | \"Presente!,\" Gente Nostra: Illustrazione Fascista<\/em> (August 18, 1935), p. 5."},"https:\/\/www.wheremonstersareborn.com\/files\/fullsize\/ecf06d85c989e1cc4607dfcbdd37e7a1.jpg":{"id":185,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","title":"Fig. 6","thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.wheremonstersareborn.com\/files\/square_thumbnails\/ecf06d85c989e1cc4607dfcbdd37e7a1.jpg","description":"The Brothers of Italy<\/a> commemorate the forty-first anniversary of the deaths of Franco Bigonzetti, Francesco Ciavatta, and Stefano Recchioni on Via Acca Larenzia in Rome via their Instagram account. | Fratelli d'Italia, \"La nostra #terra ha conosciuto l'odio e il furore ideologico<\/a>,\" Instagram<\/em> (January 7, 2019)."},"https:\/\/www.wheremonstersareborn.com\/files\/fullsize\/d76d3353f5244f74975417ece56f9a4c.jpg":{"id":186,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","title":"Fig. 7","thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.wheremonstersareborn.com\/files\/square_thumbnails\/d76d3353f5244f74975417ece56f9a4c.jpg","description":"Student Action \u2013 one of the Brothers of Italy<\/a>'s two far-right youth groups \u2013 commemorates the forty-second anniversary of the deaths of Franco Bigonzetti, Francesco Ciavatta, and Stefano Recchioni on Via Acca Larenzia in Rome via their Instagram account. The statue is by Arno Breker, one of Adolf Hitler\u2019s favorite artists. Titled Bereitschaft (Readiness), the sculpture shows a nude, muscular warrior clutching a sword, symbolizing the supremacy of the Aryan race. Created in 1939, it was exhibited in the German Pavilion at the Venice Biennale the following year and was later installed in Berlin\u2019s Hitler Platz. According to Luciano Cheles, the head of this sculpture is often used in neo-fascist posters because of its close resemblance to Michelangelo\u2019s David (Cheles 2023: 125). As a result, the connection to Nazi ideology is more likely to go unnoticed by the general public. | Azione Studentesca, \"7 gennaio 1978<\/a>,\" Instagram<\/em> (January 6, 2020)."},"https:\/\/www.wheremonstersareborn.com\/files\/fullsize\/864e548d8745cd973514b213258895e6.jpg":{"id":187,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","title":"Fig. 8","thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.wheremonstersareborn.com\/files\/square_thumbnails\/864e548d8745cd973514b213258895e6.jpg","description":"National Youth<\/a> \u2013 one of the Brothers of Italy<\/a>'s two far-right youth groups \u2013 commemorates the forty-third anniversary of the deaths of Franco Bigonzetti, Francesco Ciavatta, and Stefano Recchioni on Via Acca Larenzia in Rome via their Instagram account. | Giovent\u00f9 Nazionale, \"7 GENNAIO 1978 \/\/ 7 GENNAIO 2021<\/a>,\" Instagram<\/em> (January 6, 2021)."}}}