Palazzo Braschi dressed for the 1934 plebiscite: rows of "SI" around the Duce
For the single-list plebiscite of March 1934, the facade of Palazzo Braschi in Rome, seat of the Fascist Federation of Rome, was covered with a giant face of Mussolini surrounded by rows of the word SI (Yes). The only answer on offer is repeated scores of times around the leader, so a No reads as refusing both the man and the crowd of Yeses.
- Date
- March 1934
- Period
- Interwar
- Made by
- Fascist Federation of Rome (Partito Nazionale Fascista)
- Region
- Western and Central Europe
- Country
- Fascist Italy
- Medium
- Photograph
- Issuer type
- Party
- Regime
- Fascist Italy
- Leader
- Benito Mussolini
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Persuade or win support
- Theme
- Elections and party politics
- Event
- 1934 Italian Plebiscite
- Techniques
- Identity fusionBandwagon
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- Wikimedia Commons, retrieved September 27, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (PD-Italy; PD in the U.S. under the URAA date rule, PD-URAA)
Photographer unknown, Rome, 1934. Via Wikimedia Commons.
Text on the object
SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI [face] SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI SI
YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES (repeated in a grid covering the building's facade, around a giant portrait of Mussolini)
The facade decoration is a grid of the single word 'SI' repeated many dozens of times around a sculpted/painted head of Mussolini; the exact count of repetitions cannot be determined precisely at this image's resolution (458 x 417 px, and the upper and lower rows are partly cropped by the photograph's edges), so the layout above is illustrative of the pattern rather than a verified cell-by-cell count.
