This article focuses on Fascist artist Mario Sironi’s urban landscapes as a site of modernity and its contradictions. With their gloomy buildings and deserted streets, Sironi’s landscapes highlight two of modernity's woes: The periferia of the “liberal” city and the fear for its inhabitants’ degeneration and sterility. In his “Il discorso dell’Ascensione,” Mussolini openly accuses industrial urbanism of its sterilizing effect on the Italian race, thus, jeopardizing his imperial ambitions. By giving an aesthetic form to the Regime’s fears, Sironi reaches two goals: The aestheticization of fascist politics, as described by Walter Benjamin, and the creation of the Soreal social myth that would ultimately propel Italians toward the resolution of their presumed problems. Moreover, the article suggests a reading of Sironi’s murals as an integral part of the urban landscapes’ reading and interpretation. The murals’ fascist imperial rhetoric would lose its referent should the Italian race succumb to physical degeneration and sterility.

本文关注法西斯主义艺术家马里奥·西罗尼（Mario Sironi）的城市景观，将其视为现代性及其矛盾之处。西罗尼（Sironi）的建筑郁郁葱葱，街道空旷，彰显了现代性的两大祸患：“自由”城市及其居民的退化和不育的恐惧。墨索里尼在他的《 Il discorso dell'Ascensione》中公开谴责工业都市主义对意大利种族的消灭作用，从而危害了他的帝国野心。通过赋予唯美主义的恐惧一种美学形式，西罗尼实现了两个目标：如沃尔特·本杰明（Walter Benjamin）所描述的法西斯主义政治的美学化，以及创造苏里亚式社会神话，这最终将推动意大利人解决其假定的问题。此外，本文还建议您阅读Sironi的壁画，将其作为城市景观阅读和诠释的组成部分。如果意大利种族屈服于身体的退化和不育，壁画的法西斯帝国主义修辞将失去其指涉。