Costruzioni letterarie e valori cromatici nel Danteum di Pietro Lingeri e Giuseppe Terragni

In 1938 Giuseppe Terragni and Pietro Lingeri designed the Danteum, a monument to be erected in the new via dei Fori Imperiali in Rome. The project area, before the Basilica di Massenzio, is endowed with special symbolic value, since during the Fascist period this was already considered a suitable site for the architectural competition for a Palazzo Littorio. Both in the 1934 competition and in the 1938 project the problems connected to the inclusion of new elements onto the ancient remains called into question the chromatic issue as one which designers should take into far greater account. In this respect, the Danteum is the monument that more than others displays a quite interesting sequence of spacial structures which parallel Dante’s work while, at the same time, offering a peculiar chromatic synthesis in the ideal and material relationship with the various features of the historical period and the archaeological site. In this work the resulting mix of literary and architectural language was to serve as a tool to promote the ideology of the Fascist regime, while making of Dante Alighieri, through his work and thought, the interpreter of an autocratic view of political power.