The Rome Index
Modern Rome — the 20th century
Fascism, liberation, la dolce vita and the republic that shaped the city you visit.
Fascist Rome (1922–1943)
Mussolini used Rome as a stage — creating the Via della Conciliazione leading to St Peter's (demolishing medieval streets to do so), building EUR for a world's fair, and clearing areas around ancient monuments to make them more legible as symbols of imperial continuity. Much of this physical transformation is still visible.
Liberation and the Republic
Rome was liberated in June 1944 with relatively little destruction compared to other Italian cities — the Allies entered just ahead of the German withdrawal. The Republic was declared in 1946; the Christian Democrats dominated politics for the next fifty years.
La dolce vita and after
The postwar economic boom made Rome briefly the centre of European film, fashion and celebrity culture — the 1950s and 60s Via Veneto period. The city has since settled back into its long role as a working capital with a tourist economy layered on top, rather than a cultural centre in the Hollywood sense.
Postwar reconstruction priorities
Unlike many European capitals that suffered extensive wartime destruction requiring large-scale reconstruction, Rome's relatively light physical damage in WWII meant postwar development focused more on new peripheral expansion (housing the growing population) than on rebuilding a devastated historic centre — a different urban development story from cities like Berlin or Warsaw.
The 1960 Olympics as a turning point
Rome hosted the 1960 Summer Olympics, a moment often cited as marking the city's postwar international rehabilitation and modernisation — several sporting venues and infrastructure improvements from this specific period remain in use today, a physical legacy of that particular chapter in the city's 20th-century development.
