The Danteum is an unbuilt monument proposed by a scholar of Dante, approved by the Benito Mussolini's Fascist government, designed by the modernist architect Giuseppe Terragni.
The intention was to celebrate the famous Italian poet Dante and extol the virtues of a strong fascist state that bases its foundations on the glory of imperial Rome.
In 1938 Rino Valdameri, then director of the Brera Academy in Milan and president of the Società Dantesca Italiana (Italian Dante Society), had proposed to the Mussolini Cabinet to build, in time for the Universal Exposition of Rome E.42,[1] a Danteum to celebrate the great poet.
[3] Valdameri had also proposed a board of directors of twenty members to the nascent institution, made up of ministers, supporters and intellectuals, under the high supervision of the Head of government (Mussolini).
Rather than attempting to illustrate the narrative, however, Terragni focuses on the text's form and rhyme structure, translating them into the language of carefully proportioned spaces and unadorned surfaces typical of Italian Rationalism.