Mobile Monuments

Balbo Monument

The primary element of this memorial by Carlo Brioschi is a 2000-year-old Roman column. It was retrieved from ruins to be reused in a 6th century building in Ostia. In 1930 Mussolini had it removed from this location to be brought by ship to Chicago as a monument to commemorate the transatlantic flight of a squadron of planes commanded by Fascist general, Italo Balbo. The column was dedicated in front of the airplane-shaped high futurist Italian pavilion at the Chicago Century of Progress Exposition in 1934, with the following inscription:

THIS COLUMN TWENTY CENTURIES OLD ERECTED ON THE SHORES OF OSTIA PORT OF IMPERIAL ROME TO SAFEGUARD THE FORTUNES AND VICTORIES OF THE ROMAN TRIREMES FASCIST ITALY BY COMMAND OF BENITO MUSSOLINI PRESENTS TO CHICAGO AS A SYMBOL AND MEMORIAL IN HONOR OF THE ATLANTIC SQUADRON LED BY BALBO THAT WITH ROMAN DARING FLEW ACROSS THE OCEAN IN THE ELEVENTH YEAR OF THE FASCIST ERA

When the exposition ended and the pavilions were torn down this monument remained where it was erected, isolated and absurdly out of context, both physically and politically, as a displaced tribute to the glories of Fascism. Remarkably, it was not removed while America was at war with Italy, and there are no records of it being vandalized. A nearby Japanese garden was repeatedly burned during the war.

Recently it was cited as an example of controversial memorials by a group of Chicago residents who were denied permission to erect a monument to Puerto Rican nationalist Pedro Albizu Campos in Humbolt Park. Despite occasional controversy the column still stands in the spot where it was dedicated as a testimony to glories of Fascism. The inscription, in Itaiian and English, is weathered, but still legible. It is protected perhaps primarily by obscurity. For most people it is little more than an obstruction requiring a curve in the Lake Michigan bike path.

Back to Mobile Monuments

To Haymarket Monument

To Sullivan Arch

For more information on the history of Balbo and this monument please refer to following external sites: