Giacomo Matteotti. Life and death of a father of Democracy

The exhibition at Palazzo Braschi pays homage to the deputy and secretary of the Socialist Unitary Party (PSU) Giacomo Matteotti on the centenary of his death, which occurred on 10 June 1924, at the hands of a fascist squad.

The exhibition, divided into four sections - The young Matteotti, the national political commitment 1919-1924, Kidnapping and death 1924-1926, The myth of Matteotti - retraces Matteotti's life, testifying together the brief passage from the liberal state to the fascist dictatorship. It ranges from the beginnings at a young age, to affirmation in the political field; from the first struggles in favor of democracy, to the opposition to the fascist regime, up to the brutal murder that put an end to his existence.

The first section documents his commitment in Polesine in favor of laborers and sharecroppers, his academic career, his journalistic activity for "La Lotta" (a weekly newspaper of Polesine socialism in the early years of the twentieth century) and his membership of the Socialist Party. The second section witnesses parliamentary activity, political action against fascism, immediately considered a tremendous danger for democratic institutions. The third section, which starts from the affirmation of the PSU as the strongest party of the left in the 1924 elections, includes the famous speech of 30 May 1924 in Parliament against the fraud and violence of the fascists, up until the kidnapping of which the 10 June 1924 in Rome, to the assassination, to the discovery of the body the following 16 August and finally to the farce trial in Chieti. In the fourth and final section, the cultural and ideal legacy of this great politician is highlighted, documented by subsequent commemorations and from the birth of the Matteotti Brigades to its enduring presence in the collective imagination.

The exhibition, full of unpublished materials, includes original documents - in particular the investigative and judicial documents, never exhibited before - such as photographs, manuscripts, objects, period books, newspaper and magazine articles, films and documentaries, works of art, sculptures, ceramics, paintings and even musical pieces dedicated to this political and intellectual figure of considerable value.The aim of the exhibition, in fact is exactly to restore to the general public the value of one of the fathers of our democracy and to make him known to the new generations, also through multimedia insights. 

The exhibition is accompanied by the catalog published by Treccani which makes use of unpublished iconographic contributions and precious testimonies.

Photo credits: courtesy pf Palazzo Braschi official site