Foro Italico

This guide to Foro Italico in Rome starts at the marble obelisk carved MUSSOLINI DVX, the only public monument to Benito Mussolini still standing in the city, and traces the sports complex architects Enrico Del Debbio and Luigi Moretti built for him from 1928 as a fascist reimagining of the ancient Roman forum. It follows the obelisk's 1932 dedication on the tenth anniversary of his seizure of power, and the Latin parchment a classical scholar composed to be buried beneath it. Look for how the forum's name changed after the war, even as the obelisk stayed.