MUSSOLINI COLOSSUS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 90, 14 March 1935, Page 8

MUSSOLINI COLOSSUS.

GIGANTIC STATUE PLANNED. Bigger than any statue Rome has eve-r seen; bigger than the Capitoliiie Jupiter and Palatine Apollo, or the gigantic figure of Nero which gave the great Colosseum its name —such is the statue which will be dedicated to Signor Mussolini and the Fascist Youth. It will b-e larger even than the legendary Colossus of Rhodes, one of the seven wonders of the world.

According to the Rome correspondent of the Morning Post, the Mussolini Colossus is planned to he 213 feet high. That is to say, the figure will Ire 42ft. higher than the Nelson column. It will he of bronze. The head, the feet, and the legs as far as the knees have already been cast. The name of the artist entrusted with this enterprise is Bellini, who has one example of Jiis work among the Herculean figures encircling the Stadium of Mussolini.

The statue is being erected on the initiative of the Fascist youth training and athletic organisation. According to present plans, it is to stand, over the Forum of Mussolini on the shoulder of Monts Mario, whose 456 feet elevation makes a' complementary protuberance to that of the 435 feet dome of Saint Peter’s on the western skyline of Rome.

The moulding of the enormous figure is being done in special sheds erected on a jealously guarded part of Monte Mario —each sector of the Colossus being enlarged in turn from a life-size model. The casting is carried out in a foundry behind the Vatican City. The work has been going on for nearly a year in secret and no outsider ha.s so far been allowed to see the model, nor any sketch or photograph of it. The statue will show the Mussolinfan figure with the torso and thighs swathed .in lion’s skin and with an 80foot arm raised in Fascist salute over Rome. The head, already finished and cast, is 30 feet high and is otherwise about the size of a house. The finished bronze feet are 28 feet long and the. completed metal of each leg to the knee, about 53 feet long. Another year will be needed to complete the plaster work and a further year to finish the bronze castings, the whole being a three-year job, of which already onethird has been done.

Simultaneously with this, the site on Monte Mario is being prepared and the hill will require to be reinforced with concrete to support the enormous weight it will bear. “When erected the statue will be the largest in the world, -exceeding in height by G2 feet .its nearest rival in New York Harbour. Bellini’s Fascist Colossus will thus . eclipse Bartholdi’s Liberty Enlightening the World.