Epilogue and conclusion

Abstract

The arrival of war in Europe in September 1939 — and to Fascist Italy in June 1940 — touched Venetians in manifold ways, changing both nothing and everything. On the one hand, unlike during the first global conflict of the century, Venice was relatively removed from front-line fighting and an unspoken agreement between the allies that Venice should be considered città-franca ensured that the city’s artistic and architectural patrimony — and also, therefore, its inhabitants — would not this time be threatened by aerial bombardment. B.M. recalled the local response to the sounding of the air-raid siren: ‘the alarm sounds, but in Venice people are almost untroubled. Who would dare to throw bombs on this marvel of a city?’⁸⁹ As such, the city became a leave-time destination of choice for Axis soldiers and, after September 1943, home to numerous ministries, semi-state bodies and diplomatic missions of the Repubblica Sociale Italiana [RSI: Italian Social Republic].⁹⁰ The presence of civil servants, soldiers on leave, Cinecittà actors transferred from Rome to the safety of the Biennale pavilions at the Giardini, mockingly renamed Cinevillaggio, and not a few obstinate holidaymakers, all looking for the worldly entertainments for which Venice and the Lido were so renowned, conferred upon the war-time city the ‘aura of Casablanca’.⁹¹