Institutional Flags and Fascist-Era Memory in Montecassiano (Macerata, 2026): Power, Space and Historical Layers
This photograph, taken in Montecassiano (Macerata) in 2026, captures a striking juxtaposition of political symbols embedded within a single architectural frame. Above the balcony, the Italian national flag and the European Union flag represent contemporary institutional identities, while directly below, an inscription dating to the Fascist era remains visible, marking the building with a trace of its ideological past.
This coexistence produces a layered visual narrative in which different political regimes—authoritarian, national, and supranational—overlap without fully erasing one another. The inscription, likely referring to a year in the Fascist calendar, testifies to a period when time itself was redefined as an instrument of political power under Benito Mussolini. Its persistence on the façade highlights the material durability of ideological inscriptions, even after the regime that produced them has long disappeared.
At the same time, the presence of the Italian and EU flags signals a reconfiguration of political identity in the present, grounded in democratic and transnational frameworks. Rather than removing the past, the building incorporates it into a new symbolic order, where older meanings are neither fully neutralized nor entirely dominant.
Within the framework of Power, Memory and Space, the image exemplifies how urban environments function as palimpsests of political history. Memory here is not linear but stratified: traces of past authority remain embedded in space, interacting with contemporary symbols and producing tensions that reflect ongoing negotiations over identity, heritage, and historical responsibility.
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