No. 2 Virgil

Gorgeous pageants, tempestuous rejoicings in every city of the land, honored Italy's No. 1 Virgil (Publius Virgilius Maro) on the 2,000th anniversary of his birth (TIME, May 5). Last week Italy faced the new year with a new No. 2 Virgil.

Sponsored by wealthy Fascist patrons-- Poet Virgilio Fiorentino has just produced an epic of 20,000 verses "priced at 12,980 lire ($675) the set, handsomely bound and illustrated." Title: Twenty-Seven Songs of the Fascist Revolution. At the rate of one song (volume) per month, the 27 volumes will appear during the next three and a quarter years, subscribers paying by the volume (month).

Last week as Vol. I, Song i, came hot off the Pincianan Press, patriotic Fascist editors were not long in agreeing that Virgilio Fiorentino, "a young poet of Fascist Italy which is also young," is an authentic genius, will eventually rank with oldsters Homer, Virgil, Dante.

To help the editors make sense with their encomiums Pincianan Press provided a synopsis of all 27 volumes.

Epic Argument. Vol. I, Song I opens in Heaven on Jan. 1, 1919--the day Italy declared her "state of war" ended. A Heavenly conclave of Italian War dead and heroes of the past is summoned by the Father, Son and Holy Ghost to advise how Satan, who provoked the War, may be finally overcome.

Advice is given by the Virgin Mary, Dante and the Unknown Soldier. Finally the assemblage decides that a superman must do battle with the devil, now personified as Bolshevism. God the Father summons the Archangel Gabriel, commands him to descend to Earth and find The Man.

Obediently Gabriel descends, speedily decides that Editor Benito Mussolini of Il Popolo d'Italia in Milan is The Man, confers with him in his newspaper office. After modest remonstrance Editor Mussolini accepts the Divine mission. On March 23, 1919 he founds, under the Archangel Gabriel's personal supervision, the first Fascio di Combattimento.

Satan's Last Stand. At this Satan is "greatly worried." Summoning an arch-devil, His Infernal Majesty commands , this fiend to fly to the Paris Peace Conference and enter the body of President Woodrow Wilson. Soon the President, possessed by the archdevil,** works out a satanic scheme, has the Roman Victory put in irons, transported to Jugoslavia and chained to the Croatian rocks.

Next move of Satan is to create "from the most lurid infernal material" Francesco Saverio Nitti and make him Prime Minister of Italy. Under Nitti Bolshevism almost strangles Fascism, but God the Father in the nick of time sends Hero Garibaldi in a dream to Poet Gabriele d'Annunzio. Counseled by Garibaldi, aided by Mussolini, d'Annunzio rushes to the rescue of the Roman Victory, severs her chains and leads her triumphant to Fiume.

Satan's last stand is made when he replaces Nitti as Prime Minister with the still more sulphureous and infernal Giovanni Giolitti. Bolshevism is about to seize Italy once more. In this supreme emergency the Unknown Soldier descends from Heaven, rushes to the aid of Il Duce and Fascism, and the glorious March to Rome is planned for Oct. 26, 1922.

Mussolini to Heaven. Before the march actually takes place, Editor Mussolini is translated to Heaven. The Trinity and the Virgin approve his plan for the Fascist "corporative state." Finally in the words of the prospectus:

"The Lord shows him [Mussolini] the whole future of Fascist and Catholic Rome, which is to reunite the Latin forces against Anglo-Saxon Protestantism and which will restabilize the Empire of Universal Civilization under the sole and true faith of the Vicar of Christ."

This is No. 2 Virgil's real climax. In the last of his 27 volumes he will recount briefly how the doors of the Mussolini newspaper office were thrown open; how the Roman Victory emerged to be escorted by Il Duce on the March to Rome; how the Lord God of Hosts personally descended to Earth and watched the march from the Alban Hills; and finally how the doors of St. Peter's opened to disclose Pope Pius XI who advanced and in St. Peter's square embraced both Benito Mussolini and His Majesty Vittorio Emanuele III.

Thus in the Fascist epic the Fascist-Vatican reconciliation takes place simultaneously with the March to Rome. Actually it occurred nearly seven years later (TIME, Feb. 18). Never to this day have Il Papa, II Duce and Il Re stood simultaneously in the same room, much less joined in a three-cornered embrace.

--Asinius Pollio was the No. 1 Virgil's first patron. To this personage, a Roman Consul, the poet dedicated his Fourth Eclogue, prophesying the birth of a child who should usher in a new era of peace. This child, according to the early Christian fathers, was Christ, wherefore they hailed Poet Virgil as an unconsciously inspired prophet.

**Name: Barbariccia.

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