CasaPound Italia
(CasaPound Italy)
This oversized banner features the logo of CasaPound Italia (House of [Ezra] Pound Italy, CPI), a neo-fascist "accelerationist" organization that describes its members as "third millennium fascists" (2012). The group was founded in 2003, when members forced their way into and subsequently occupied a large palazzo (multi-story building) near Rome's Termini Station. Shortly thereafter the palazzo was designated as CPI's headquarters, and by 2010 had become home to around twenty (and largely low-income) Roman families.
The logo, an "Arrowed Turtle," purportedly symbolizes knowledge, heritage, longevity, and the right to affordable, dignified housing (2020) – a conviction which is also reflected in the organization's name, which combines the Italian word "casa" (house) with the English word "Pound" (a reference to the pro-fascist twentieth-century American poet Ezra Pound). The symbol is widely recognized in contemporary Italy, and is frequently featured on banners, posters, stickers, and other CPI ephemera.
One of the most noteworthy qualities of CPI, and one of the reasons behind its (relatively minor) successes in Italy, is its strong organizational branding. Not only does its merchandise – which ranges from far-right books and magazines to clothing to materials associated with the organization's "in-house" rock 'n roll group, Zetazeroalfa – generate revenue, it also "plays an identity-building function, allowing activists to wear branded clothes, and to distinguish insiders from outsiders" (Froio et al. 2020: 87). In addition to merchandise, moreover, CPI owns a tattoo parlor in Rome, where many of the organization's followers have had the Arrowed Turtle tattooed onto their bodies.
Rome's former mayor, Virginia Raggi of the Movimento 5 Stelle (5 Star Movement, M5S), called for CPI to be evicted from the Esquilino building in 2019 – an objective that was delayed by both CPI's threat of violence against law enforcement and, subsequently, the COVID-19 pandemic. Three years later, CPI demonstrators attacked the police who were attempting to carry out the organization's removal from the palazzo (2018). In 2023, ten senior members of CPI, including Gianluca Iannone, and Davide and Simone Di Stefano, were convicted of "aggravated illegal occupation" and sentenced to twenty-six months in prison (2023).
Images