Urban Editing, Historic Preservation, and Political Rhetoric: The Fascist Redesign of San Gimignano

This article provides an overview of the restoration efforts undertaken in the Piazza del Duomo in San Gimignano, Italy, during the Fascist regime. The restoration of the buildings facing the piazza provided the means through which the past could be remastered and manipulated to serve contemporary political ideology. Documentary evidence ranging from architectural drawings to tourist ephemera illustrates how the process of urban editing included both the physical and rhetorical redefinition of urban space. The goal of this essay is to explicate a particular instance of common behavior in an attempt to expand the definition of Fascist-period architecture and simultaneously challenge the comfort with which architectural history claims to be familiar with Renaissance Tuscany.