Part Two: The Man Who Invented Fascism

of the last episode got more absurd as we continued. Um, and it ended with me learning what he looked like. So now that I haven't imagine in my head, it might be easier for me to imagine what he how he's going about his life. Um. Yeah, he's his claim to fit his he has so many claim to fames, which is he really does, which is crazy because you would think, I don't know, Uh, he wouldn't quit, He wouldn't quit. And I can't wait to learn how he

uh literally invented fascism, which is crazy. Yeah. This he's got a lot of gas left in the tank. This guy so much bullshit, He so much bullshit. He's lived a full life of bullshit, and it's it's not even at the halfway point. Really his activity is notable. That's astonishing For a little I do want to say, like, as interesting as I find this guy, his biography Gabrielle de Nunzio, Poet, Seducer and the Preacher of War by Lucy Hughes Hallett, I really recommend, like it's it's one

of the best biographies I've ever read. UM Like, very compulsively readable. Um Hugh's Hallett is a is a fantastic writer and very a very critical um I in a really interesting way, Like I, I really appreciate her perspective on this guy. So I very much recommend that book. I mean, all the clothes you've read from it are are amazing. Yeah. Abriel de Nunzio loved planes. Loved planes, big plane fan. He'd been an enthusiastic fan of the

new technology since its inception. In nineteen nine. He had made headlines at a famous air show in Brescia for writing with an American aviator named Glenn Curtis over an adoring crowd of thousands. The seat he sat on during the flight was later auctioned off to his legions of adoring fans. Prior to World War One, Gabrielle had repeatedly

pressed the Italian government to start an air force. When the war started, Gabrielle's enormous fame and belligerent speeches managed to secure him a lofty position in the Italian military. The government expected him to write a song of war, some brilliant poem that would light a fire in the hearts of the Italian soldiery and helped to get the nations fully behind a war most of them still did not want. He was officially attached to the Third Army as staff to the Duke of Aosta, but he was

given unlimited freedom to basically do whatever he wanted. He could go to any part of the front he desired, partake in any maneuvers or actions he wanted to partake in. His job was generally to inspire the military in whatever ways seemed interesting to him. So that's the job this guy gets. At the start of World War One, Gabriel's first trip up to the front was delayed by the difficulty he had designing and hiring someone to sew his

custom uniforms. He eventually solved that problem while thousands of his countrymen dashed themselves to bloody chunks and Austrian machine gun nests. He spent so much time waiting at a fancy hotel to get all of that sorted out that yet again he went broke. His manager suggested he go to Third Army headquarters and start working. He'd get free food and lodging and be paid. But once he arrived in Venice, the closest city to the front, he yet

again set him up in the fanciest possible hotel. As much of an incorrigible dandy as he was do Nunzio's writing during this period shows he was eager to actually take part in war. On his way to the front, he wrote in his notebook Sense of Emptiness and Distance, Life and the Reasons for Living, a lude me between two streams between past and future, Tedium, lukewarm water, necessity

for action. Surprisingly, this was not just bluster. Two days after reaching Venice, he was on a naval destroyer doing night maneuvers, heading towards the Austrian coast. Like two weeks before he did this, one of those historians had been sunk by a mind and dozens of guys had died, so this was a very dangerous thing to do. Um. His trip wound up not having any combat in it, but he later spent time up at the front lines, where he was under machine gun fire and artillery shelling regularly.

He made friends, and he saw them die horribly. Um and none of this dimmed the nuncio's ardor for war. Lucy Hughes Howett writes, blessed are those who are now twenty years old. He said he worshiped and envied their beauty and took enormous pleasure in the opportunities that war afforded him to live alongside them as companions and arms. Their deaths were marvelous to him. When they were killed, as one after another they were, he took them into

the pantheon. He was elaborating in his writing and speeches, making them the martyrs and cult heroes of his new mythology of war. Yeah he's a guy, I mean like he's he's doing exactly what he wants, which is like infuriating. You know, he does that, that's his whole life. Yeah, yeah, out, Gabrielle is is enticing. As he found the front lines, he had no desire to actually take part in trench combat because it led to all everyone dying basically anonymously

in huge groups. And if there's one thing he could not stand, it was being part of a large, anonymous group of men. Um he had. Yeah, so he decided that the sky was more like the theater of war he wanted to get involved in. UM. It had nothing Now, this choice like had nothing to do with cowardice, but it was intimately tied to his narcissism. He was absolutely willing to die, and flying in any any length of

time was very dangerous at this period of time. UM. What he couldn't abide was dying anonymously, and pilots were at the time seen as the knights of the sky. So if he died, you know, in a plane, that was a romantic enough death for him to be willing to like take the risk. Very calculated. Yeah, he never learned to fly, but he figured he was more than capable of being a bombardier basically dropping bombs by hand

on targets like while the guy in front flew. UM. And now up at the front, he had befriended a pilot, a guy named Meraglia, who told him that a bombing raid had been planned for the city of Trieste, Austria's chief port. The city had a large Italian population, was seen by people like Gabrielle as rightfully Italy's property, and

de Nunzio here was struck by a brilliant idea. Not only would he bomb the city, he had also devised a way to air drop propaganda onto Trieste to try and incite the Italian citizens to rise up against their government. This was not an easy mission. No Italian pilot had ever flown this far in a single trip, and there would be numerous machine guns protecting the port itself from

aerial attack. It was an insanely dangerous gambit, seen as suicidal by many, and Maraglia and Nunzio would be undertaking this mission alone. Obviously, the attack had little military value, but the propaganda value of dropping bombs on the Austrian emplacements and propaganda for the Italian citizens was, in Gabrielle's eyes huge. For days, he agonized over how to drop

the leaflets, which he wrote himself. He eventually went with tiny and bags that would help the leaflets fall on target rather than getting blown to and fro the message itself was titled to the Italians of Trieste and promised an imminent liberation. Each copy was handwritten by him, a sign of how much the project mattered in Gabrielle's eyes. Once it became clear that what they planned to do, of course, the admiral in charge of Italy's air force

tried to put a stop to it. So did the government known with any measure of power, and wanted gabriel de Nunzio, Italy's most famous living poet and writer, to die flying over Austria. Morale was bad enough, after the glorious war against Austria had turned almost instantly into a blood soaked stalemate. Instead, they wanted him to sit in his hotel room and write the damn poem they'd been counting on him to write to help motivate the war effort. But now up at the front, Gabrielle de Nunzio found

himself unable to write. I have a horror of sedentary work, of the pin, of the ink of paper, of all those things now become so futile. A feverish desire for action takes me do. Nunzio protested against being grounded and a battle ensued behind the scenes of the military brass. Eventually, De Nunzio went to the time Minister and tried flattery. And here's how Lucy Hughes Hallett describes it in one

of the most deliciously catty sections of her book. You, whose own spirit is so hard working and so generous, must understand me. He stressed his physical competence. He was not a man of letters as of the old type, and skull cap and slippers. He was an adventurer. My whole life has been a risky game, he boasted of his past daring. I have exposed myself to danger a thousand times against the fences and hedges of the Roman Campagna.

He adored fox hunting in France. He had often been out on the Atlantic and chancey weather, as the fishermen of the Landez could tell you. He had ventured repeatedly in the enemy territory on the Western Front. He visited the front twice, staying on the safer side of the French lines. Most importantly, I am an aviator. I have flown many times at high altitude. This wasn't strictly true either, and he wasn't only brave. He had knowledge and skills

which could be useful. He knew Istria, he knew Trieste, he had an observant spirit. Having presented his credentials, he made his request in the most insistent terms, I pray I beg repeal this odious veto. He hinted that if he were not allowed to risk his life in his own way, he would liberately endangered by going straight to the front to bar one with my past, my future from living the herolic life would be to cripple me,

to mutilate me, to reduce me to nothing. And the Prime Minister was apparently impressed by his ardor, and permission was granted for the raid. So he gets his way, as he always tells his entire every single time, of her her way of writing that though I love that, she's just like I imagine in my head and like in parentheses being like all this like side note, like

not true. The whole biography is written with the air of like, yeah, she's just utterly unimpressed by a lot of this guy's life that I love that, but also fascinated by him and compelled to chronicle that it's an interesting book. I mean, I will say, like in my brain. When you were talking about him dropping uh, propaganda from a plane, I was I was thinking, like he might as well be dropping poetry books, Like isn't that one of the same. Isn't that kind of what they wanted

him to do? Regardless, Like isn't like it's they wanted him to inspire the people of Italy um, because like most Italians weren't really on board with the war. Like he was able to get a lot of them in the cities on board, but like most people in Italy were like, why are we Why would we get involved in this stupid thing? It would be like sends our suns off to die for this. So that's what the government wanted, was him to convince them of that, and

instead he really wants to go be in danger um. Yeah, and no, he just likes being a contrarian. Probably that's part of it. So Gabrielle and his pilot set off on August seven, and what followed was an outrageously dangerous adventure. They were shot at several times and at least one bullet struck the plane. Just flying a hundred and fifty kilometers in that period of time was very risky and it's really impossible to overstate just how fucking dangerous this was.

At one point, a bomb got stuck on the plane and Di Nunzio had to dislodge it, an act that could have easily led to the bomb exploding and killing he and his pilot. Um. I'm emphasizing the danger here because I want to make it clear that with his actions, Gabrielle in Nzio did prove that his rhetoric wasn't empty. He was not the sort of guy who would urge

others onto war and then stay safely in the background. UM. He repeatedly risked his life over the course of World War One, but the attack on Trieste was probably the most insanely dangerous act of his life. When he landed safely after dropping propaganda and bombs on Trieste and the news broke of his new exploit, De Nunzio was more famous than ever. He became the idol of the Italian public,

the nation's single greatest living hero. He could barely go out in public without being mobbed, and he continued to fly, or at least let others fly him. He dropped numerous bombs and fired machine guns, but his highest preference was at deploying propaganda. Do Nunzio was well ahead of the curve on recognizing this as the weapon of the future, and his most famous action was dropping leaflets over Vienna,

the Austrian capital, near the end of the war. The propaganda would be almost the last significant written work of Gabrielle's life, As The New Republic notes, in January nineteen sixteen, he suffered a detached retina during an air raid and was forced to lie absolutely still for several months to save other eye. During his enforced convalescence, he composed a text of in poetic verse prose, written line by line on slips of paper handed to him by his daughter Nada.

These formed the basis for his memoir Naturno, which appeared in nineteen has recently been published in supple English translation by Steven Sartarelli. It was Denunzio's entry into the stream of consciousness sweepstakes, his most openly modernist work, admired by many, including Hemingway, in spite of the fact that he considered his author a jerk. Naturno was De Nunzio's last major

contribution to literature. I mean, god, He's just praised as a God, his entire fucking life, and I think a part of the reason why he risked his life, I don't think he was actually ready to die. I think he just feels he felt invincible, and I think he

might have been it. Yeah, I mean, like, I just think there's so much um I don't know your your brain is a powerful thing, and if you actually think you're invincible, I think there's an element that like you will, you'll be fine, Like it's your whole life, You've gone away with every fucking thing. You're not going to die in a plane. And I don't think he was. He I don't think he I think he knew the whole time he was never going to die. I don't know.

He wrote a lot about being convinced that he would die on these missions, and they were very dangerous, but it is impossible to know, like how he really felt in the center of this part, because like, obviously you would have to write about being certain you were going to die as part of what you're trying to do is convince other men to go into situations where they'll probably die. And I'm sure it was extremely dangerous and I'm sure it was outrageously so like very fright frightening

and everything. But I do think there's an element to his personality where he just thinks he's invincible because he's gotten away with so much shit and he literally lands and his life starts over again. He's a god, you know what I mean. Like it's like exactly what he's been since birth. Yep. And this like really is the end of his period of time as a writer and an artist of note, Like he stops lead producing work after World War One, and like especially subs producing his

best work. Um. And while the war the end of the war more or less brought about the end of Gabrielle's career as an artist, it was not the end of his career as an asshole who shoved his dick into world affairs. Italy wound up on the winning side of World War One, but they were by far the junior partner on their side of the war. The French, British and Russians rightly viewed the misturn Coats, who got in late and sacrificed far fewer men than their allies.

As a result, Italy got very little in the way of new territory at the end of the war. Gabrielle de Nunzio considered this a mutilation, a disgusting stab in the back after all the sacrifices he had convinced his countrymen to make. One of the things that infuriated him most was the fact that the territory of the Austro Hungarian Empire was being broken up and given to its

own people. He was livid at the establishment of a Slavic state and the Balkans, and particularly livid at the fact that the city of Fume, with an assizeable Italian population, would be a part of that state. Gabrielle Donunzio decided he was not going to take this lying down, so he decided to raise an army and can or the city for Italy on his own. Yeah. The balls on this guy, I mean you can see him in the banana hammock. They're they're they're good, good, good old old balls. Um. Wow. Yeah,

the new Republican go ahead, please please Yeah. He called in the Italian government to occupy the city, and in September nineteen nineteen, after they failed to do so, he took matters into his own hands. He marched on Fume at the head of a Cadre of Arditi or daredevil stormtroopers clad in the black and silver uniforms and black fezs that would be aped like so much. That was

De Nunzio by the fascists. Greeted with cheers by the Italian speaking locals, De Nunzio announced that he had annexed Fume, expecting the government would take control, but there was no reaction. Suddenly the poet politician found himself in charge of a city in the grip of a delirious cocaine enhanced bachanal. Eventually, Fume, with de Nunzio as its deuice, declared its independence. Yeah. I keep wanting to like analyze this guy, like really okay, I think his his fame when he was a poet,

were it was. It was revered and beautiful like like like a beautiful like like not beautiful, Sorry I thought the word I'm trying. It was he was revered as this like artistic guy, and it was this like kind of like a fan base that was passionate and read

his stuff, thought he was sexy whatever. But now this kind of fame, this lesion, is this violent thing that I think he's always wanted He's always wanted to command people that will do whatever he says, and I think he got a taste of that as a like during the war. And it's scary the kind of power that this guy has. He's always had, but in this scenario, with violence and with with bringing people to literally make an army, like he's always had some type of army,

is what I'm trying to say. His army as a poet was different than his army is than this point in his life. But it's a little scary just how um, I don't know. It seems like he's really he's really obsessed with being this figure and it's because he's doing he's really good at it, I don't know well. And again, as is always the case with these guys, everyone kind

of gives him what he wants. Um. You know, Like obviously what he did was profoundly illegal, and like the Allied forces were like, yeah, Fume has to go to Yugoslavia. You can't let him do this, and they sent an army to stop him when he was marching on the city. But that army was made up of Italians and they loved De Nunzio. They refused to attack him, and hundreds of soldiers deserted to join his army as he marched on the city. That is a third power. That's crazy,

It's almost incomprehensible. Um. Yeah, and and so in the fall of nineteen nineteen, Gabrielle de Nunzio found himself as the dictator of a small state on the Mediterranean post. He was this guy's life, Jesus, well, it's something else. Um. He was fifty six years old and powerfully ill with the flu As his forces marched into town. The people

of Fume did not notice his infirmity. They were enormous fans of the celebrity poet, and thousands of them stayed up all nights, specifically so they could welcome their new dictator home with rapturous applause. His soldiers were greeted in the streets with women wearing evening dresses and carrying guns, ready to party or do battle against the Allies should they try to stop. To Nunzio, he announced the creation of a new city state, which he believed would be

a model for human society in the future. The state would be based around what he called the politics of poetry Fume. He insisted would be a searchlight, radiant in the midst of an ocean of objection. He believed that what they built there would set a fire that would burn down the old order in the world. And so he declared, fume the city of the Holocaust. Wow. That

was ch that sentence. Jesus, this fucking guy. Wow. In some ways, he's most similar to a guy like l Ron Hubbard, who was like, you just kept accelerating right up until the end, like, never take your foot off the gas, like, not for a fucking second. Yeah, that is that is crazy. It's wild. What a journey. And he's he's young in comparison to the he's he's only fifty something and dictator like that's a yeah, yeah, I'm sure I've got listeners in their fifties white Even't you

taken over a small city on the Mediterranean? Established Republican poetry? Yeah? Come on now, I'm gonna quote again from Lucy Hughes. Oh wait, no, it's a it's ad break time, isn't it is? It is? All right? Well, you know what won't turn your city into a city of the Holocaust. Whoever the ad is, whatever, exactly, they will not do that. They do not we do. That is one of our firm lines with advertisers. Do not create cities of the Holocaust. Anyway,

We're back. So I want to start with reading a quote from Lucy Hughes Hallett on like what happens in Fume After after Gabrielle de Nunzio takes over quote, the place became a political laboratory. Socialists, anarchists, syndicalists, and some of those who had begun earlier that year to call

themselves fascists congregated. There Representatives of shinn Fine, which is like an Irish republican extremist group, and of nationalist groups from India in Egypt arrived discreetly, followed by British agents. Then there were the groups whose homeland was not of

this earth. The Union of free Spirits tending towards perfection, who met under a fig tree in the old Town to talk about free love and the abolition of money and yoga, a kind of political comb street gang, described by one of its members as an island of the blessed in the infinite sea of history. Donunzian Fume was a land of the cognate, an extra legitimate place where normal rules didn't apply. It was also a land of cocaine, fashionably carried in a little gold box in the waistcoat.

Pocket deserters and adrenaline star war veterans alike sought a refuge there from the dreariness of economic depression and the tedium of peace. Drug dealers and prostitutes followed them into the city. One visitor reported he had never known sex so cheap. So did aristocratic dilettants, runaway teenagers, poets, and

poetry lovers from all over the Western world. Human nineteen nineteen was as magnetic to an international confraternity of discontented idealists as San Francisco's Hate Ashbury would be in nineteen sixty eight. But unlike the hippies, Donunzio's followers intended to make war as well as love. So it's this weird melting pot of like left wing radicals and right wing radicals who were all united in their idea that like, fuck everything else that's going on, let's all take murder

each other. They're just Desperation is a really dangerous tool because I think, similar to what you said in the last episode about like anger, like people really channeling being able to like utilize the mass, the anger of the masses, and channel in the right way. I think anger and desperation are really related in that regard because you can you can unify people with their desperation, and I think

that's the case with a lot of extremist groups honestly. Uh. But and it's also it's important to note that de Nunzio himself gets hugely into cocaine at this point, Like he's a not surprisingly loves cocaine and starts like inhaling his fucking body weight every week and fucking in blow just like and that's part of when you try to understand this place in this period, Like do Nunzian fume, It floats on an ocean of blow, like like impossible amounts of cocaine is like the only thing that would

make an experiment like this possible. Um, it sounds great. I actually would have loved to be there, Like it sounds like it kind of rules. It sounds like, I mean, especially for the time, it sounds like this oasis in a in a sea of dread, you know, especially I mean art. Yeah, yeah, it was well, it wasn't safe because there were also street gangs of fascists and it

was gunning each other down. Yeah, it's just this lawless, bizarre place where everyone's making art and experimenting with new politics and having gunfights and orgies and cocaine parties on an hourly basis. It's just incomprehensible. That is his entire life. Honestly, I can't really wrin my head around it. Every turn. I said this before, but every turn is more absurd than the next. Like I did not think this was going to go here in the beginning, Like that's crazy.

He's a monster, but he's objectively one of the most fascinating people who ever lived his life. And not be like, what the fuck, dude, you're the most fascinating people, Like a lot of historical figures like Hitler as a historical figure, very compelling as an individual, kind of a weird, boring, gross, sad life. De Nunzio a monster too, but like fuck, what a what a life? Like you gotta respect it at like a lot of that, Like that's you gotta

respect the hustle at least. It's just I'll give you that. I'll respect the hustle. And he's just problematic in so many ways. He's a monster monster. He's like, I'll run a Hubbard where he's like this terrible person. But you can't turn away from what he turned his life into. Um, I mean it works. He got what he wanted every step of the fucking way, every step of the fucking way. Basically, Dan, does this guy not suffer. I'm waiting for this guy

to suffer. Just that we're getting to that a little bit, a little bit. De Nunzio wanted Fume to be a work of art made in the medium of human lives, and it was certainly something public life. Was described as a permanent street theater performance. There were constant orgies involving huge numbers of people, and of course, like all the cocaine in the world, there was also violence and constant murdered by gangs of black shirted thugs. But oddly, left

and right found a way to meet in Fume. This was before fascism had really taken off, and write as Communism was in the process of taking over Russia, the bizarre experiment in Fume attracted the support of literally every kind of extremist. Vladimir Ilioch Lennon sent Gabrielle a pot of Caviare and called him the only revolutionary in Europe. Benito Mussolini expressed his deep admiration of de Nunzio, and

the two began a long correspondence in letters. So, like, both Lennon and Mussolini loved this guy and what he's doing in Fume. Um, it's so weird and it's so bizarre. It's hard to wrap your head around. So many people were obsessed with this guy. Like I'm thinking about what you said about Hemingway, like even like every type of person was like I gotta give it to him. But now there's like really and len like you can't ignore de Nunzio, Like then that's what Denunzio wants. You have

to like stare at him. You can't not He's just this, He's he's just like a peacock. He's his entire life. He peacocked the entirety of Europe, which is quite an accomplishment. Yeah, so fun as it sounds. Fume was not a paradise. Syphilis was astonishingly rampant, and Denunzio could be like everybody, including de Nunzio, got syphilis. When you said partners, he had wanted to ask like he must have had some

type of consequence. There must have he was his body weight was sevent like, sexually transmitted like he was more chlamydia than man um and Denunzio could also be a

brutal ruler. Midway through nineteen sixteen, he held a plebiscite promising to hand over control of the city to someone else if the people no longer wanted him in charge, and he lost the plebiscite, but he did not give up power is Centurions of Death, an elite corps of black shirted thugs kept the city under his control, and during this period, Gabrielle also introduced an innovation that everyone today is tragically agonizing. Lee familiar with the Roman salute

now most people know. Most people know the Roman salute better as the Nazi salute, that weird, creepy straight arm salute that fascists and border patrol employees do. Yeah, he invented that. He invented lying about removing your ribs to suck your dick and the fascist salute the same guy shit. No idea that one person was capable of achieving so much. It's amazing that is I'm Harry gets way too much credit. Yeah,

fucking de Nunzio. Yo, I'm going to read a quote from Count Carlos Sforza, an Italian diplomat and an anti

fascist politician who was a contemporary of De Nunzio's. Um. He wrote quote, it was he who had fume invented that Roman salute, which has now become also the German salute, and which he, overlooking its implications, copied from some statue or fresco forgetting that in Rome the sieves the citizens greeted each other by shaking hands, and that only slaves made the sign, which has been adopted by the subjects of Mussolini and Hitler. So he's they were very condescending

as far as like this, Like he didn't know. He liked the way it looked in statues, and so he made his people do it, and it took off with Mussolini's fascists, and then with Hitler's fascists, and now with border patrol employees. Um wow, I am amazing. Literally every second of this podcast blotter off to the floor. I wish I wish this this call was recorded, because my face just literally contorts and like my mouth is a gape for so much of what you're saying. I cannot

believe this guy's life. It's something else down. Immediately after taking power, De Nunzio's first action was to establish a press office, which he used to send out communicats to governments and politicians and media outlets round the world. Journalists flocked to the city, as well as political extremists. Gabrielle offered to arm the IRA with some of the tens

of thousands of rifles his forces had captured. He entertained grand visions of invading England, which he hated at the head of an Irish army, but the IRA was a little too smart for that. They wanted guns, but Gabrielle's hatred of the United States was seen as potentially alienating the nation they saw as their greatest ally. Mussolini at one point wrote to him and suggested that two of them should work to overthrow the Italian monarchy and establish

a directory essentially a powerful fascist central government. Remarkably, Benito didn't see himself as the head of this organization. He wanted to make De Nunzio the dictator, but Gabrielle was at least loyal to the Italian throne and was unwilling to take part in such a revolution. In November of nineteen twenty, Osbert Sitwell, an English writer, joined the crowds

of journalists in revolution suctionaries who'd come to fume. His goal was to see what the man who has done more for the Italian language than any writer since Dante had done with a nation of his own and Lucy Hughes Howett writes quote, Sitwell finds the streets full of colorful desperadoes. Every man seemed to wear a uniform designed by himself. Some more beards and had shaven heads like

the commander. Others cultivated huge tufts of hair half a foot long waving out from their foreheads, and a black fez at the back of the head. Cloaks, daggers, and flowing black ties were universal, and all carried the Roman dagger. Sitwell succeeds in securing an audience. He passes through a pillared hall full of palm trees and pseudo Byzantine flower pots, where soldiers lounged and typis rushed furiously in and out.

In an inner room almost entirely covered with banners, he finds two more than life size carved and gilded saints from Florence, a huge fifteenth century bronze bell, and the commandant, as do Nunzio now likes to be called, in military gray green, his chest striped with ribbons of his many medals. He seems nervous and tired, but bald and one eyed

as he is. At the end of a few seconds, one felt the influence of that extraordinary very charm, which has enabled him to change howling mobs into furious partisans. Since sit Will arrived in Fume, the great conductor Arturo Tuscanini has brought his orchestra to the town. To celebrate Tuscanini's visit, De Nunzio lays on a mock battle which is as lethal as an ancient Roman circus. Four thousand

men take part, attacking each other with real grenades. The orchestra, which initially provides a musical accompaniment Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, becomes involved in the fighting. Over a hundred men are injured, including five musicians. Now De Nunzio, discussing the event with Sitwell, explains that his legionnaires are weary of waiting for battle. They must fight one another. I have so many questions. Okay, first, I remember you said that he didn't even like politics. No,

but this is not politics. This is being worshiped by a whole city and having them fight for his amusement. For he's basically eats religion. For someone who hates religion as much as he does, he loves being worshiped. His religion is just CULTI and worship of himself absolutely, And like I've heard it said that, like you know, the rock stars of like the sixties and seventies, like the Beatles and the Stones and like Pink Floyd and stuff like those guys got about as close to being a

god as anyone has ever gotten. I think the Nunzio is the closest any human has ever experienced to really like like, at least in the modern era. You know, maybe earlier when he literally worshiped, but like in every field, that's the thing that's wild and every field imaginable, he was worshiped. My other question is he so he actually lost his eye, so he was bedridden, but then he lost the eye. Yeah, he lost one eye. So now he's even weird, weirder looking than he was before. He's

just like, does he wear a patch. I think he wears a glass eye. Okay, yeah, you know he's probably still fucking too, so yeah, oh he is fucking constantly. He never stops fucking, like always fucking. Yeah? Did he also invent Viagara? What's next? What? What? What? What I wanted to give me next? I do kind of feel like he was one of the people who never really needed that, Like he was the horniest man who ever lived.

Like that is that is Gabriel de Nunzio. Now, this whole deliriously mad state of affairs lasted only a few more weeks. In January of ninety one, pressed by the League of Nations, the Italian government finally took action against its native son. They sent a gunboat and soldiers and laid siege to the city. A few after five days of fighting and fifty some deaths, Gabrielle de Nunzio decided he had finally had enough of war. Perhaps he was scared of dying himself, or perhaps he just had no

stomach for fighting his fellow Italians. He left the city. One supporter later wrote, descriptively, under a delusion flowers, he forces his way through a city in tears. The failure of his fume ventures seems to have drained Gabrielle of much of his remaining energy. He was allowed back into Italy with a squad of his cult like followers, and he ordered them to find him a home with a grand piano, a bath through him, a laundry, plenty of

wood and coal in an enclosed garden. He told them, if within eight days none of you have found a suitable house for me, I shall throw myself into the Canal Jesus. Unfortunately, they found him a place and he occupied it for three years or so until Benito Mussolini's March on Rome ended Italy's quasi democracy and brought about

the establishment of the world's first fascist state. Mussolini's Italy and the tactics he used to present himself to the people were deeply based in things he learned from Gabrielle to Nunzio, and the poet knew it. In one letter to Mussolini, he wrote, am I not the precursor of all that is good about fascism? I I'm just speechless, honestly. Like, first of all, away with the dramatic guy, A very dramatic thing, very very dramatic, where I'm going to just

throw myself. But like he really I hate to say it, but like he thinks he's good at everything, and he kind of was the like he was very very much in Anetzcha and likes idea of the ubermention. And it's one of those guys where it's like life didn't prove him wrong. Like if you believe you're a superior being and you live this guy's life, it's kind of hard

not to remain convinced of that. That's what I meant earlier when I mentioned that I get this this feeling of like the self fulfilling prophecy of like if you think you're invincible, then you actually will get away with anything,

will be and will be invincible. Obviously it doesn't work all the time, but with this case, having lived your entire life this way since you were a literal baby god, you know, it's one of the things interesting to me, this guy being Italian and being very obsessed with like

ancient Rome and Roman iconography. The ancient Romans had um a strategy for dealing with as most cultures had to develop some sort of strategy for trying to deal with runaway egos because it's dangerous when somebody's ego gets this out of control, which is de Nunzio's whole life is lesson in that. Um. So they would have these things called triumphs. When like a Roman general went a particularly great victory, he would be allowed to go on this

massive parade through the city. He was basically dictator for a day. Everybody almost worshiped him for like a day, and they knew that this was dangerous because it really got on someone's ego. So while this guy is like the center of the entire like Roman Republic and then Empire's attention the whole day, there's a guy whose job is to stand next to him and repeatedly whisper into his ear basically, you're gonna die at some point, you're

going to die. Like, remember, you're going to die. You're just a man, and you're going to die like like someone should have been doing that for Denuncie into the ground. Damn. Yeah, that's a crazy thing. Well I know that about the it's a cool bit of history. Um So you know what,

isn't the precursor of all that's good about fascism? Sharine sponsors that's right, That is right, Robert stay Roberto the Italian unless you believe in the theory that fascism is the inevitable descendant of capitalism, because capital will always resort to authoritarian means to preserve itself in the face of civil unrest um in which well, let's just go to ads. So let's not linger on that one too much. We're

back so Hi. Mussolini is in charge of Italy now, and he well understood the value of using someone like Gabrielle. De Nunzio was too famous and popular to ignore, and so will do. Trotted De Nunzio out for public events and made sure everybody saw the poet embracing him and his new regime. In private, Gabrielle hated this. He saw Mussolini as an imitation, and his enormous ego could not stand the insinuation that he had merely prepared the way

for some other greater Italian leader. Under Mussolini, the Italian state gifted Gabrielle a ma se mansion, money and regularly sent him bizarre gifts, including half of an actual battleship, which he set up on his lawn like a gazebo. He continued to host parties and socialized, but over the next decade and change, his health gradually declined. He died in nineteen thirty eight at age seventy four. Personally, Gabrielle

disagreed with most of the decisions Mussolini made. He particularly hated the alliance with Hitler, who De Nunzio saw correctly as a monster and a fool. He was briefly courted by the anti fascist resistance in Italy as a possible foil to Mussolini, but if that was ever something that would have interested to Nunzio, he was far too old to try. I quoted count Sforza a little earlier. That was from an obituary he wrote, titled De Nunzio Inventor of Fascism in nineteen thirty eight, and I want to

read you how it opens. The War of nineteen fourteen and nineteen eighteen left in its wake, to a certain extent everywhere, and especially in Italy and Germany, a new category of white collar proletarians who saw themselves as troubled wreckage in a society in which capitalism and the world of the working man seemed equally hostile to them. By a strange paradox, it was Gabriel de Nunzio, whose lyric richness had been so splendid, and who became the poet

and the prophet of all these pathetic misfits. It was he who was the real inventor of fascism. A. Sforza goes on to note quote it was de Nunzio who invented those dialogues with the crowd, which fascism later on found so useful. At the piazzaive an Easia in Rome, to whom shall fume belong? De Nunzio called down from the capital balcony, and the mob of volunteers who had invaded Fume thundered from below to us and the poet, dictator and Italy, and the mob once more a noir

to us. This, to us later gave the key to the real love of De Nunzio for the fatherland, a love of possession, not a love of devotion and sacrifice. Lucy Hughes Hallett writes, though Denunzio was not a fascist, fascism was de Nunzian, and I think that really gets at the core of it. He personally was a weirder, more complicated guy. He didn't mean to invent fascism, but the way that he addressed the crowd, the way that he worked with the crowd, the way that he riled

people up. Um, the iconography he used, like the way that his soldiers were dressed in like these black leather uniforms was copied both by mussolini stormtroopers and later the SS. The salute that he invented, you know, and he's he's exchanging dozens and dozens of letters with Mussolini before the then rises to power like there and and Mussolini's march on Rome is very much an imitation of of the

Nunzio's March on Fume. Like he he didn't purposefully invent fascism because of the man he was, He created it as a byproduct of his ego. Yeah, well what what what date? What year did he die? Ninety eight? Right

before the war started? Because I know at the time, like Mussolini in particular, he was maybe one of the first people to really utilize the film industry in his propaganda, Like he like made an entire film studio and just used it in the late thirties, I think it was thirty seven to literally just make propaganda for fascism, and there were just so many pro war films that were made, Uh, like the Declaration. I guess the Allied Forces was also

like under the film studio that he like established. But I think that union of film and politics, I have to say, like probably did Unzio pave that way to like this artistic union of of politics and like like creative art. The first thing he established in Fume once he was in control was a press office. Like he was a little too early to really take advantage of television. Um, I mean he was, he was filmed a number of times,

like he clearly saw the potential. But he was a propagandist from the beginning, Like that was what he decided his his involvement in war should be. And I think he was just a little too old to have become a fascist dictator. If he'd been born a bit later. The man he was the kind of you know, charisma, he had, the energy he had. I think that's the kind of path he would have been on. It was just a little bit early, and he was raised in too different of a we've really wanted that as much.

I agree, I agree. I think like Mussolini is like a version of like what he could have not become. But like it's very I don't know Mussolini him, Yeah, Mussolini pretended to be him and it said that like a lot of people say that, like De Nunzio was kind of what turned Mussolini was a socialist initially, and

Denunzio kind of converted him away from that. And then Mussolini deliberately aped de Nunzio's like affectations, the way he spoke to crowds, the way he addressed people, way he patterned himself, um, and just did it with a little bit more of a modern tinge to it and more use of things like television and the radio, um, and you know, than Hitler iterated from that and that was like, yeah,

that's that Tasian flattery, same thing, you know. And I think Mussolini and Hitler they both used the mouthpiece of their generation, which was like this new filmmaking and and and it was film and propaganda and um, if they were born at the time of Nunzio with poetry, I'm sure it would have been that too. But uh, it's interesting because what Mussolini did with filmmaking in Italy was

really fascinating. And like disturbing at the same time. Um, but I think if I think you're right, I think if the Nunzio was born a little bit later, he would have used that mouthpiece the same way he used poetry, just to gardner worship and fame and use his like poetic verse in a different way. Uh. Yeah, it's a pretty cool story. I'm really intrigued. Like I there, he's genuinely what you said earlier. I agree with like maybe one of the most fascinating people to have ever lived.

Like his life at every turn was more absurd than the last. Yeah, it's kind of hard to really wrap your head around, like how much this guy did, how bold he was, how awful he was, Like he did so much and he did and I had to leave out so much, just like make this a comprehensible episode. Like I really recommend the biography by Lucy Hughes Howett Gabrielle de Nunzio, poet, seducer and preacher of war. It's fantastic and he is just absolutely a fascinating piece of shit. Yes,

a fascinating piece of ship. I would agree with that. Yeah, he's right up there with l Ron Hubbard in my list of like, fuck, what a life. Genuinely, what a life he got away with all of this? What a life he got away? And I'm sure he still has a billion of fans out there, you know what I mean, Like, I'm sure he has. His work is obviously respected. Still

he's still deemed it poet. Yeah, his poetry, his books have kind of fallen out of favor, and our scene is sort of like, you know, they were great, they were good in their time and respecting their time, they haven't really continue to have legs. I think his poetry does still have legs. He's still highly regarded as a poet. Um. I'm obviously not equipped or qualified to comment on Italian poetry or his place in there, but a lot of experts put him as regard him highly in that field. Um. Yeah,

it's something else. Huh. Yeah, I'm I've learned a lot. I've learned a lot, and I don't know. I hate how indestructible he was. I really hate that. But I mean it's like it's one of those things it's hard

to even get that. Like he does in his life kind of unhappily, like Mussolini doesn't care about him or respect him, he uses his his tactics and like, uh, sort of treats him as a like a like a pet almost like yeah, brings him out to like burnish the regime's credibility, but ignores him and what he has to say. And it's really like bums out and infuriates de n Zio. But it's hard to take too much joy in that because it means Mussolini's in charge. Yeah,

we don't win either way. We don't win. Wait, wait, what how did he die? What was the cause of death? Oh? I think it was like a stroke or some ship. He's an old, old man, you know, it's not even like a sex. There's rumors he was poisoned by a Nazi agent, but I don't, I don't hear, I don't.

I don't know see any evidence behind them. I think it's more likely he was an old man who had horribly advanced syphilis and had been doing cocaine for like a decade straight, or more like for probably for decades. But I mean even with the syphilis into cocaine to make it to seventy, like, yeah, that's a full life, a good run. He had a good run. He had a very full life. Yeah, leave anything on the table.

You can say that. Wow, So Sharine, Yes, as this influence your own your own desires in your career as a as a poet trying to figure out the best way to it, you could lead an armed march on the city of Fume. Yeah. I mean it's been a while since there was a poet that I don't know it was worshiped. I'm an audition for that role, you know. Wow, I don't know poech I mean, I love poetry. Poetry is powerful, but he really he really went a different route with it, didn't any Yeah, he was a living

monument to the power of narcissism. Yeah, speaking of narcissism, you want to plug your plug doubles, Yes, I do. Um, I'm Sharn and I'm a filmmaker, I'm a poet and I also co host Ethnically Ambiguous on the I Heart Radio network. You can thought every podcast app w go listen to it on your favorite one if you want to. And Um, I'm Shiro Hero on instagram s h E R O H E r oh and then on Twitter

at your hero six six six. And I have a poetry book on Amazon called Dime Peace Like the like a coin dime, and then piece like a piece of a puzzle, and then I'm making my next one, So stay tuned for that. If you want watch my stuff, I don't care, just to be nice to me. You can find me on the twits and the grams and the twin stagrams at behind the Bastards. Uh. Well, nope, that's not where you can find me. You can find

me on the twitters at I right, okay. You can find this podcast on the twitters and the grams at Bastards pod. You can find us on the internet behind the Bastards dot com. Um, and you can find your way uh into having an immortal impact on the future by joining my upcoming cult. Um. It's gonna be a really good time. Um. We're gonna lead a march on. I don't know what city would be easy to capture. I feel like Sacramento wouldn't put up a fight. Roseville, Roseville, Roseville.

We'll continue. You hit us up on Twitter with which city you think we should lead an armed march on to conquer? Yeah, we'll figure it out. Um, that's the fucking episode. Yeah, thanks for having me. It's I always learned so much. I always leave feeling so dead inside. Didn't think it was possible to get more dead inside.

But you know what that podcast America Feel Dead Inside Again. Yeah, that's the tagline to this podcast, right, so if we need to get some hats made, No, thanks for having me, yeah, thanks for being on