If local conditions and context help explain why the Bigio didn’t return to Piazza Vittoria in 2013, national trends of the kind outlined in the introduction point to why the idea was first entertained. The Paroli administration’s commitment to the project was of a piece with the ‘new’ right’s efforts to overturn traditional anti-Fascist historical memory. Reclaiming public space was a small but important element of this.

In some FI and AN-controlled areas of Italy, streets, squares, and parks were renamed after Fascists (and neo-Fascists), new plaques commemorating Fascist-era events or individual Fascists were erected and old plaques and inscriptions restored. In one notable case, in 2012, the AN mayor of Affile in Lazio funded the construction of a mausoleum for the Fascist military leader and alleged war criminal Rodolfo Graziani.⁷⁹

The justificatory narratives used by local leaders typically stressed the same points: these were not ideological acts but rather a sign of a new calmness within Italy; Fascism was now history rather than politics, to be viewed without prejudice or fear.