The Roman salute, also known as the Fascist salute, is a gesture in which the right arm is fully extended, facing forward, with palm down and fingers touching. In some versions, the arm is raised upward at an angle; in others, it is held out parallel to the ground. In contemporary times, the former is commonly considered a symbol of fascism that had been based on a custom popularly attributed to ancient Rome.[1] However, no Roman text gives this description, and the Roman works of art that display salutational gestures bear little resemblance to the modern Roman salute.[1]
Beginning with Jacques-Louis David's painting The Oath of the Horatii (1784), an association of the gesture with Roman republican and imperial culture emerged. The gesture and its identification with Roman culture were further developed in other neoclassic artworks. In the United States, a similar salute for the Pledge of Allegiance known as the Bellamy salute was created by Francis Bellamy in 1892. The gesture was further elaborated upon in popular culture during the late 19th and early 20th centuries in plays and films that portrayed the salute as an ancient Roman custom. These included the 1914 Italian film Cabiria whose intertitles were written by the nationalist poet Gabriele d'Annunzio. In 1919, d'Annunzio adopted the cinematographically depicted salute as a neo-imperial ritual when he led an occupation of Fiume.
Through d'Annunzio's influence, the gesture soon became part of the rising Italian Fascist movement's symbolic repertoire. In 1923, the salute was gradually adopted by the Italian Fascist regime. It was then adopted as the Nazi salute and made compulsory within the Nazi Party in 1926 and gained national prominence in the German state when the Nazis took power in 1933. It was also adopted by other fascist, far right and ultranationalist movements.
Since the end of World War II, displaying the Nazi variant of the salute has been a criminal offence in Germany, Austria, Czechia, Slovakia, and Poland. Legal restrictions on its use in Italy are more nuanced and use there has generated controversy.[2][3] The gesture and its variations continue to be used in neo-fascist, neo-Nazi, and Falangist contexts.
- ^ a b Winkler (2009), p. 2
- ^ Since the historicity of the salute has never been properly questioned, performing it is prosecutable only when "meant to exalt exponents, principles, events and methods" of the extinct National Fascist Party.
- ^ "Saluto fascista, la Cassazione: "Non è reato se commemorativo" e conferma due assoluzioni a Milano" [Fascist salute, Supreme Court of Cassation: "Not a crime if memorial" and confirms two acquittals in Milan]. La Repubblica (in Italian). Milan. February 20, 2018. Retrieved January 3, 2020.