Floor Mosaics, Romanità, and Spectatorship: The Foro Mussolini’s Piazzale dell’Impero

The concept of romanità (Romanness) is used as a framework for exploring the modes of spectatorship elicited by the floor mosaics from the Foro Mussolini’s Piazzale dell’Impero, a space designed by Luigi Moretti and inaugurated in 1937. While the piazzale’s floor mosaics clearly evoked the formal features of ancient Roman pavements, they also resulted in a kinesthetic viewing experience that recalled such precedents. What made this viewing experience ideologically productive was the particular way Moretti used the mosaics to move spectators, both physically and affectively, in hopes of heightening their sense of engagement with Fascist Italy’s pursuit of empire.