VINCERE runs down the dark upper half of the banner; beneath it an ear of wheat crosses a rank of smoking chimneys — bread and steel, the two things wars are fought with — and at the foot the name and the subtitle: ILVA, alti forni e acciaierie d’Italia.
The drawing works by juxtaposition rather than description: no furnace, no ingot, just the wheat and the smoke sharing one narrow frame under the war watchword. Of the «Vincere» banners in this group it is the most emblematic and the least literal.
The steel group, twice in this collection
Ilva was the largest Italian steel group of the period, and its blast furnaces were the exact centre of the autarky and war economies: steel was the material every other sheet in this collection ultimately depends on. The company appears twice here — once in the 1939 woodcut by Daniele Fontana published earlier, «Per l’autarchia dell’acciaio», with its bare-chested worker over the plant, and here in the war series, where the argument has moved from self-sufficiency to victory. The pairing shows the propaganda shifting register: 1939 celebrates making steel at home; this sheet, printed after Mussolini’s «vincere!» of 10 June 1940 gave the campaign its word, promises what the steel is now for.
Marks
The collector attributes the sheet to Erberto Carboni, reading an EC monogram in the dark sky at top left; nothing resolves there on our scan, and the sheet is published without an attribution.
About this image. The work is still protected by copyright: under Italian law (L. 633/1941) rights run for 70 years from the death of the author. Since the author has not been identified, that term cannot be considered expired, and the image is treated as fully protected. It is reproduced here for documentation, study and critical purposes only, under Art. 70 of L. 633/1941 and the fair-use provision of 17 U.S.C. §107. The scan was made by the collector from his own copy of the sheet, part of the period material he keeps in a private archive: owning the physical sheet is not the same as holding the rights to the work. The image is not offered for sale, no reproduction rights are granted, and any request concerning the work should be addressed to the rights holders. Cultural Heritage Online publishes this material to document it, with no celebratory intent; see our terms and the DMCA contact published there.
Sources
- Our article on the 1939 Ilva woodcut by Daniele Fontana — the company as the largest Italian steel group of the period
- Italy’s entry into the war — the source of the «Vincere» watchword
- The sheet itself, for the emblem and the subtitle.
