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Long before Nike’s “Just Do It” slogan became the mantra for a health and fitness generation of Americans, the cult of sport was promoted and glorified in service of the Fascist regime that ruled Italy from 1922-1943.

In keeping with his belief that a fit country was a strong country, Fascist Dictator Mussolini commissioned the construction of the Foro Italico, a giant sport complex on the north edge of Rome, in the 1930s. Originally known as the Forum of Mussolini, the complex was conceived as a temple dedicated to the Fascist cult of athleticism, an idea that finds its expression in sculptural and mosaic decoration.

Today, you’re most likely to visit the Foro Italico today to attend a soccer match (it’s home to both the Roma and the Lazio teams and the stadium has been rebuilt since the time of Mussolini) or the world-class tennis tournament that takes place each year in May. But, not to be missed, is the spectacular indoor swimming pool, the walls of which are decorated with mosaics designed by Gino Severini, Angelo Canevari, Giulio Rosso, and Achielle Capizzano, and created by masters and students from the Scuola Irene of Spilimbergo, in the North-East Italian region of Friuli.

The giant mosaics are done in a style that’s typical of Mussolini’s art and architecture, paying homage to the modernist aesthetic of the early twentieth century, while simultaneously giving a nod to the glorious classical art of Rome’s ancient past.

Why such interest in the glorification of sport? Peter Bondanella explains the Fascist obsession with physical exercise in his book The Eternal City: Roman Images in the Modern World (University of North Carolina Press, 1987. pp. 192-193):

The Forum [of Mussolini] was intended to celebrate sport and strenuous physical exercise. Fascist leaders like to picture their regime as a youthful one. After all, the fascist humn was “Giovinezza” (”Youth”), and not only Mussolini but a number of party leaders often had themselves photographed in various sporting poses. Some leaped over drawn bayonets or through burning hoops to demonstrate their physical fitness and personal courage. “Physical culture,” as the Fascists like to call it, was an important aspect of the regime’s ideology.

Foro Italico: Largo Lauro de Rossi, 3.