Fascio

Fascio (pronounced [ˈfaʃʃo]; plural fasci) is an Italian word literally meaning "a bundle" or "a sheaf", and figuratively league, and which was used in the late 19th century to refer to political groups of many different (and sometimes opposing) orientations. A number of nationalist fasci later evolved into the 20th century Fasci movement, which became known as fascism.

During the 19th century, the bundle of rods, in Latin called fasces and in Italian fascio, came to symbolize strength through unity, the point being that whilst each independent rod was fragile, as a bundle they were strong.

By extension, the word fascio came in modern Italian political usage to mean group, union, band or league. It was first used in this sense in the 1870s by groups of revolutionary democrats in Sicily, to describe themselves. The most famous of these groups was the Fasci Siciliani during 1891–94. Thereafter, the word retained revolutionary connotations. It was these connotations which made it attractive, for example, to young nationalists who demanded Italian intervention in World War I. The fasci they formed were scattered over Italy, and it was to one of these spontaneously created groups, devoid of party affiliations, that Benito Mussolini belonged. On August 18, 1914, Alceste de Ambris speaking from the rostrum of the Milanese Syndical Union (USM) began a ferocious attack against neutrality and urged intervention against German reaction and the necessity of aiding France and the United Kingdom in World War I. He equated the war with the French Revolution.

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