Martini: The Dead in Bligny Would Startle

Published on

by Henk Bekker

Arturo Martini's The Dead in Bligny Would Startle in the Museo del Novecento (20th-Century Art Museum) in Milan

Arturo Martini’s The Dead in Bligny Would Startle (1935) refers to a speech by Mussolini claiming the dead in Bligny “would shudder beneath the earth that covers them” if France applied sanctions against Italy for invading Ethiopia in 1935. (Around 6,000 Italian soldiers were killed at Bligny while supporting France in 1918)

Arturo Martini
(Treviso, 1889 – Milano, 1947)
I morti di Bligny trasalirebbero
The Dead in Bligny would Wince
1935
Pietra di Vicenza
Vicenza’s stone

Museo del Novecento (20th-Century Art Museum) in Milan