June, 1940: Mussolini’s Italian regime decides to enter the war in support of Hitler’s Germany. Rome has not yet been bombed, but the population has already been warned about possible air raids.
These are some of the posters from that time: fascist propaganda placards or notices giving instructions on what to do in the event of bombings. And now, 86 years later, the ones you see here were discovered beneath a shoe store display window in Prati, one of Rome’s nicer neighborhoods.
PIER GIORGIO VALENTINOTTI
Resident of the Prati neighborhood
It's a great surprise, because these are posters that remained protected by a display window; this shop, which has been there for a very long time, practically covered them. It means that, from a historical point of view, this is something very interesting. And so it is also a treasure for the city. My goodness, Rome is a city that wouldn’t really need many more gifts.
But this discovery has not only amazed local Romans; it has also impressed tourists strolling near the Vatican.
ABIGAIL FABERBEGA
Tourist
So I thought, since Rome is a very historic city, a lot of archaeology and everything, I thought that this would fit perfectly to the picture that something new, which wasn't known before, would appear. I thought it was very interesting
Although the posters are well preserved, they must be meticulously restored so the history is better preserved. The restoration work is being carried out by the Central Institute for the Pathology of Archives and Books.
VALENTINA
Paper materials restorer
You need to have a lot of patience and act with great caution. It takes time, so you first have to carry out tests and see whether more time is needed; if so, you have to allow the necessary time. And of course, you also need knowledge of the characteristics of paper materials and of any glues or adhesives used to post them. We have to do it with care and love. It’s a mix of knowledge, obviously, and also some experience in working manually.
More than eight decades later, these rediscovered posters are not merely scraps of paper stuck to a wall, but are living fragments of Rome’s long and complex memory.
