Quis Contra Nos?
STATUTUM ET ORDINA
TUM EST
JURO EGO
SI SPIRITUS PRO NOBIS
QUIS CONTRA NOS?
FlUME OF ITALY
27 August, 1920
The
Enduring Will of the People
Fiume, for centuries a free Commune of ancient
Italy, declared her full and complete surrender to the mother-country on October
10, 1918.
Her claim is threefold, like the
impenetrable armour of Roman legend.
Fiume is warden of the Italian marches
[borders / frontiers], the furthest bhold of
Italian culture, the most distant land that bears the imprint of Dante. From
century to century through all vicissitudes, through strife and anguish, Dante’s
Carnaro has done faithful service to Italy. From her as from a centre the
spiritual life of Italy has shone forth and still shines forth over shores and
islands, from Volosca to Laurana, from Moschiena to Albona, from Veglio to
Lussino, from Cherso to Arbe.
This is her claim from history.
Fiume, as of old Tarsatica, placed at the
southern end of the Liburnian rampart stretches thence along the Julian Alps and
is contained entirely within that boundary which science, tradition and history
alike confirm as the sacred confines of Italy.
This is her claim from position.
Fiume, with will unwavering and heroic courage,
overcoming every attack whether of force or fraud, vindicated her right, two
years ago, to choose her own destiny, her own allegiance on the strength of that
just principle declared to the world by some of her unjust adversaries
themselves.
This is her claim founded on Roman right.
In contrast to this threefold claim stands the
threefold wrong, iniquity, cupidity, and force to which Italy submits in sorrow,
leaving unrecognized and unclaimed the victory that she, herself, has won.
Thus it comes to pass that the
inhabitants of the free city of Fiume, faithful to their Latin origin
and determined to carry out their lawful decision are framing a new
model for their constitution to suit the spirit of their new life not
intending to limit that constitution to the territory which, under the
title ‘corpus separatum’ —was assigned to the crown of Hungary, but
offering it as a free alternative to any of those communities of the
Adriatic which desire to break through all hindrances and rise to
freedom in the name of a new Italy.
Thus, in the name of a new Italy, the
people of Fiume, taking their stand on justice and on Iiberty, swear
that they will fight to the utmost with their whole strength against any
attempt to separate their land from the mother-country and that they
will defend for ever the mountain boundary of their country assigned to
it by God and by Rome.
The Basis
1. The sovereign people of Fiume, in the
strength of their unassailable sovereignty, take as the centre of their
free State the “corpus separatum”, with all its railways and its
harbour.
But, as on the west they are determined
to maintain contact with the mother-country, so, on the east, they are
not prepared to renounce their claim to a frontier more just and more
secure than might be assigned to them by the next happening in the
give-and-take of politics or by any future treaties which they might be
able to conclude with the rural and maritime communes after the
proclamation of an open port and of generous statutes.
2. The Italian province of Carnaro is made up of
the district of Fiume, of the islands, traditionally Venetian, which have
declared by vote that they will share her fortunes; and of any neighbouring
communities, which, after making a genuine application for admission, have becn
welcomed fraternally and in due legal form.
3, The Italian province of Carnaro is a State
chosen by the people which has for basis the power of productive labour and for
constitution the widest and most varied forms of autonomy such as were in use
during the four centuries of our glorious communal period.
4. The province recognizes and confirms the
sovereignty of all citizens without distinction of sex, race, language, class,
or religion.
But above and beyond every other right
she maintains the right of the producer; abolishes or reduces excessive
centralization and coinstitutional powers, and subdivides offices and
powers: so that by their harmonic, interplay communal life may grow more
vigorous and abundant.
5. The province protects, defends, preserves, all
popular rights and liberties; insuring international order by justice and
discipline, seeks to bring back a time of well—ordered happiness which should
bring new life to a people delivered at last from Government of lies and
oppression; her constant aim is to raise the status of her citizens and to
increase their prosperity; so that the citizenship shall be recognized by
foreigners as a title of high honour as as it was in former days under the law
of Rome.
6. All citizens of the State, of both sexes are
equal, and feel themselves equal in the eve of the law.
The exercise of their constitutional
rights can be neither diminished nor suppressed except by public trial
and solemn condemnation.
7. Fundamental liberties, freedom of thought and
of the Press, the right to hold meetings and to form associations are guaranteed
to all citizens by the Constitution.
Every form of religion is permitted and
respected, and allowed to erect its own places of worship; but no
citizen may allege his creed or the rites of his religion as a reason
for withdrawing from the fulfilment of duties prescribed by the law.
Misuse of statutory liberty, when its
purpose is illegal and when it disturbs the public peace may be
punished, as provided by the law; but the law must in no way transgress
the principle of liberty.
8. The Constitution guarantees to all citizens of
both sexes: primary instruction in well-lighted and healthy schools; physical
training in open-air gymnasiums, well-equipped; paid work with a fair minimum
living wage; assistance in sickness, infirmity, and involuntary unemployment;
old age pensions; the enjoyment of property legitimately obtained; inviolability
of the home; ‘habeas corpus’; compensation for injuries in case of judicial
errors or abuse of power.
9. The State does not recognize the ownership of
property as an absolute and personal right, but regards it as one of the most
useful and responsible of social functions.
No property can be reserved to anyone in
unrestricted ownership; nor can it be permitted that an indolent owner
should leave his property unused or should dispose of it badly, to the
exclusion of anyone else.
The only legitimate title to the
possession of the means of production and exchange is labour. Labour
alone is the custodian of that which is by far the most fruitful and
profitable to the general well-being.
10. The harbour, station, railway lines comprised
in the territory of Fiume are the inalienable and incontestable property of the
State in perpetuity.
By a statute of the Free Port, the full
and free use of the harbour for commerce, industry, and navigation is
guaranteed to foreigners as to natives, in perfect equality of good
treatment and immunity from exorbitant harbour dues and from any injury
to person or goods.
11. A National Bank of Carnaro under State
supervision, is entrusted with the issue of paper money and with all operations
concerning credit.
A law for this purpose will decide
methods and regulations to be followed and will point out the rights,
functions, and responsibilities of the banks already in operation in the
territory and of those that may be hereafter founded there.
12. All the citizens of both sexes have the full
right to choose and carry on any industry, profession, art, or craft.
Industries started or supported by
foreign capital and all concessions to foreigners will be regulated by
liberal legislation.
13. Three elements unite to inspire and control
the regulation, progress, and growth of the Community: the Citizens; the
Corporations; the Communes.
14. There are three articles of belief which take
precedence of all others in the Province and the federated communes:
Life is a good thing, it is fit and right
that man, reborn to freedom, should lead a life that is noble and
serious; a true man is he who, day by day, renews the dedication of his
manhood to his fellowmen; labour, however humble and obscure, if well
done adds to the beauty of the world.
The
Citizens
15. The following persons have the rank
of citizens of Carnaro: all citizens now on the register of the free
city of Fiume; all citizens of the federated communes; all persons who
have made application for citizenship and who have obtained it by legal
decree.
16. Citizens are invested with all civil and
political rights as soon as they reach the age of twenty.
Without distinction of sex they become
electors and eligible for all careers.
17. Those citizens shall he deprived of political
rights by formal sentence, who are: condemned by the law; defaulters with regard
to military service for the defence of the territory; defaulters in the payment
of taxes; incorrigible parasites on the community if they are not incapacitated
from labour by age or sickness.
The
Corporations
18. The State represents the aspiration
and effort of the people, as a community, towards material and spiritual
advancement.
Those only are full citizens who give their best endeavour to add to the
wealth and strength of the State; these truly are one with her in her
growth and development.
Whatever be the kind of work a man does,
whether of hand or brain, art or industry, design or execution, he must
he a member of one of the ten Corporations who receive from the commune
a general direction as to the scope of their activities, hut are free to
develop them in their own way and to decide among themselves as to their
mutual duties and responsibilities.
9. The first Corporation comprises the
wage-earners of industry, agriculture and commerce, small artisans, and small
landholders who work their own farms, employing little other labour and that
only occasionally.
The second Corporation includes all
members of the technical or managerial staff in any private business,
industrial or rural, with the exception of the proprietors or partners
in the business.
In the third, are united all persons
employed in commercial undertakings who are not actually operatives.
Here again proprietors are excluded.
In the fourth, are associated together all employers engaged in
industrial, agricultural, or commercial undertakings, so long as they
are not merely owners of the business but — according to the spirit of
the new constitution —prudent and sagacious masters of industry.
The fifth comprises all public servants,
State and Communal employees of every rank. In the sixth are to be found
the intellectual section of the people; studious youth and its leaders;
teachers in the public schools and students in colleges and
polytechnics; sculptors, painters, decorators, architects, musicians,
all those who practise the Arts, scenic or ornamental.
The seventh includes all persons
belonging to the liberal professions who are not included in the former
categories.
The eighth is made up of the Co-operative
Societies of production and consumption, industrial and agricultural,
and can only he represented by the self-chosen administrators of the
Societies.
The ninth comprises all workers on the
sea.
The tenth has no special trade or
register or title. It is reserved for the mysterious forces of progress
and adventure. It is a sort of votive offering to the genius of the
unknown, to the man of the future, to the hoped-for idealization of
daily work, to the liberation of the spirit of man beyond the panting
effort and bloody sweat of to-day.
It is represented in the civic sanctuary
by a kindled lamp bearing an ancient Tuscan inscription of the epoch of
the communes, that calls up an ideal vision of human labour:
‘Fatica senza fatica.’
20. Each Corporation is a legal entity and is so
recognized by the State.
Chooses its own consuls; makes known its
decisions in an assembly of its own; dictates its own terms, its own
decrees and rules; exercises autonomy under the guidance of its own
wisdom and experience; provides for its own needs and for the management
of its own funds, collecting from its members a contribution in
proportion o their wages, salary business profits, or professional
income; defends in every way its own special interest and strives to
improve its status; aims at bringing to perfection the technique of its
own art or calling; seeks to improve the quality of the work carried out
and to raise the standard of excellence and beauty; enrols the humblest
workers, endeavoring to encourage them to do the best work; recognizes
the duty of mutual help; decides as to pensions for sick and infirm
members; chooses for itself symbols, emblems music, songs, and prayers;
founds its own rules and ceremonies; assists, as handsomely as it can,
in providing enjoyment for the commune for us anniversary fetes, and
sports by land and sea; venerates its dead, honours its elders, and
celebrates its heroes.
21. The relations between the Government of the
province and the corporations and between the different Corporations are
regulated by the methods defined in the statutes which regulate the relations
between the central province and the affiliated communes and between the several
communes.
The members of each Corporation form a
free electoral body for choosing representatives on the Council of
Governors (Provvisori).
The first place in public ceremonies is
assigned to the consuls of the Corporations and their banners.
The
Communes
22. The ancient ‘potere normativo’ will
be re-established for all communes —the right of making laws subject to
the Common Law.
They exercise all powers not specially
assigned by the Constitution to the judicial, legislative and executive
departments of the province.
23. Each commune has full sanction to draw up its
own code of municipal laws, derived from its own special customs, character, and
inherited energy and from its new national life.
But each commune must apply to the province for ratification of its statutes
which the commune will give.
When these statutes have been approved,
accepted, and voted on by the people they can be amended only by the
will of a real majority of the citizens.
24. The communes have the acknowledged right to
make settlements, agreements, and treaties between themselves, administrative
and legislative.
But they are required to submit them to
be examined by the Central Executive Power.
If the Central Power considers that such
settlements, agreements, or treaties controvert the spirit of the
Constitution, it sends them up for final decision to the Court of
Administration.
If the Court declares them to be illegal
and invalid, the Central Executive of the province makes provision for
their cancellation.
25. If order, within a commune, should be
disturbed by faction, rebellion, or plot, or by any other form of craft or
violence, if the dignity or integrity of a commune should be injured or menaced
by the transgression of another, the Executive of the province would intervene
as mediator or peace maker, if the communal authorities agreed in requesting it
to do so, if a third of the citizens exercising political rights in the commune
itself should make the request.
26. The following functions belong especially to
the communes: to provide for primary instruction, according to the regulations
laid down by the Central Education Authority; to nominate the communal judges;
to appoint and maintain the communal police; to levy taxes; to contract loans
within the territory of the province, or even outside it, provided that the
sanction of the Central Government shall have been obtained, but this will not
be granted except in case of absolute necessity.
Legislation
27. Two elected bodies will exercise
legislative power: the Council of Senators; the Council of ‘Provvisori’.
28. The Senate is elected by means of direct and
secret universal suffrage, by all citizens throughout the province, who have
attained the age of twenty-one years and have been invested with political
rights.
Any citizen who has a vote is eligible as
a member of the Senate.
29. Senators remain in office ten years.
They are elected in the proportion of one
to every thousand electors, but in no case can their number be under
thirty.
All electors form a single constituency.
The election is to be by universal
suffrage and proportional representation,
30. The Senate has authority to make ordinances
and laws with reference to the penal and civil code the police, national
defence, public secondary instruction, art, relations between the communes and
the State.
The Senate meets, as a rule, only once a
year, in the month of October, for a short definite sitting.
31 The Council of the Provvisori is composed of
sixty delegates, elected by universal secret suffrage and proportional
representation. Ten provvisori are elected by industrial workers and
agricultural labourers; ten by seamen of all kinds; ten by employers; five by
rural and industrial technicians; five by the managerial staffs in private
firms; five by the teachers in the public schools, by the students in the higher
schools, and by other members of the sixth Corporation; five by the liberal
professions; five by public servants; five by Co-operative Societies of
production, of labor and of consumption.
32. The provvisori remain in office two years.
They are not eligible unless they belong
to the Corporation represented.
33. The Council of the Provvisori meets usually
twice in the year, in the months of May and November, and uses the laconic
method of debate.
It has authority to make ordinances and
laws with reference to the commercial and Maritime code; to the control
of labour; to transport; to public works; to treaties of commerce,
customs, tariffs, and similar matters; to technical and professional
instruction; to industry and banking; to arts and crafts.
34. The Senate and the Council of Provvisori
unite together once a year as a single body on the first of December, as a Grand
National Council under the title of Arengo del Carnaro.
The Arengo discusses and deliberates on
relations with other States; on finance and the Treasury; on the higher
studies; on reforms of the constitution; on extensions of liberty.
The
Executive
35, Executive power in the province is
exercised by seven ministers elected jointly by the National Assembly,
the Senate, and the Council of Provvisori, The Minister for Foreign
Affairs, the Minister for Finance and the Treasury, and the Minister of
Public Instruction are elected by the National Assembly.
The Minister of the Interior and of
Justice, the Minister of National Defence are elected by the Senate. The
Council of Provvisori elects the Minister of Public Economy and the
Minister of Labour.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs takes
the title Prime Minister and represents the Province in intercourse with
other States ‘primus inter pares’.
36. The seven ministers, once elected, remain in
office for their allotted time.
They decide everything that does not
interfere with current administration.
The Prime Minister presides over the
discussions and has the deciding vote when the votes are equally
balanced.
The ministers are elected for a year, and
are not re-eligible except once.
But, after the interval of one year, they
may be nominated again.
Judiciary
Power
The Judiciary Power will be held by
magistrates. Labour judges, judges of the High Court, judges of the
Criminal Court, the Court of Administration.
38. The magistrates, elected to inspire public
confidence, by all the electors of the various communes in proportion to their
number, decide all civil and commercial casts under the value of five thousand
lire and questions of crime where the penalty of imprisonment does not last more
than one year.
39. The Labour judges decide eases of controversy
between employers and workers, whether wage-earners or salaried staff.
The Labour judges are grouped in
‘colleges’, the members of each ‘college’ being nominated by one of
those Corporations’ which elect the Council of the Provvisori.
According to the following scale: two by
industrial workers and agricultural labourers; two by all workers
connected with the sea; two by employers; one by technical workers,
industrial or agricultural; one by the liberal professions; one by
members of the administrative staff in private firms; one by public
employees; one by teachers, by students of the higher institutes, and by
other members of the sixth Corporation; one by the Co-operative
Societies of production, of labour and of consumption.
The Labour judges have power to divide
their colleges into branches in order to render their proceedings more
rapid, they are to dispense justice with promptitude, clearness, and
expedition.
A joint assembly of the branches
constitutes a Court of Appeal.
40. The judges of the High Court adjudicate on
all questions civil, commercial, and penal which are not dealt with by the
magistrates and the Labour judges except those which are dealt with by the
judges of the Criminal Court.
The judges of the High Court constitute
the Court of Appeal for sentences of magistrates.
The judges of the High Court are chosen
by the Court of Administration from citizens holding the title of Doctor
of Law (LL. D.).
41. Seven sworn citizens, assisted by two
deputies and presided over by a judge of the High Court compose the Criminal
Court which tries all crimes of a political nature and all those misdemeanours
which would he punished by imprisonment for more than three years.
42. Elected by the National Council, the Court of
Administration is composed of five acting members and two supplementary.
Of the acting members, at least three,
and of the supplementary members, at least one shall be chosen from
Doctors of Law.
The Court of Administration deals with:
acts and decrees issued by the legislative and executive authorities to
ascertain that they are in conformity with the Constitution; any
statutory conflict between the legislative and executive authorities,
between the province and the communes, between one commune and another,
between the province and the Corporations, between the province and
private persons, between the communes and the Corporations, between the
communes and private individuals; cases of high treason against the
province on the part of citizens who hold legislative or executive
power; attacks on the rights of the people; civil contests between the
province and the communes or between commune and commune; questions
regarding the rights of citizenship and naturalization; questions
referring to the competence (function) of the various magistrates and
judges.
The Court of Administration has the
ultimate revision of sentences and nominates by vote the judges of the
High Court.
Citizens who are members of the Court of
Administration are forbidden to hold any other office either in that
commune or any other.
Nor may they carry on any trade or
profession during the whole period that they are in office.
The
Commandant
43. When the province is in extreme peril
and sees that her safety depends on the will and devotion of one man who
is capable of rousing and of leading all the forces of the people in a
united and victorious effort, the National Council in solemn conclave in
the Arengo may, voting by word of mouth, nominate a Commandant and
transmit to him supreme authority without appeal.
The Council decides the period, long or
short, during which he is to rule not forgetting that in the Roman
Republic the dictatorship lasted six months.
44, During the period of his rule, the Commandant
holds all powers —political and military, legislative and executive.
The holders of executive power assume the
office of commissaries and secretaries under him.
45. On the expiration of the period of rule, the
National Council again assembles and decides: to confirm the Commandant in his
office, or else to substitute another citizen in his place, or else to depose
him, or even to banish him.
46. Any citizen holding political rights, whether
he have any office in the province or not, may be elected to the supreme office.
National
Defense
47. In the province of Carnaro, all the
citizens of both sexes, from seventeen to fifty-five years of age, are
liable for military service for the defence of the country.
After selection has been made, men in
sound health will serve in the forces of land and sea, men who are not
so b and women will serve in ambulances, hospitals, in administration,
in ammunition factories, and in any other auxiliary work according to
the capacity and skill of each.
48. State assistance on an ample scale is granted
to all citizens who, during military service, have contracted any incurable
infirmity, and to their families, if in need.
The State adopts the children of all
citizens who are killed in defence of their country, assists their
families in distress, and commends to the memory of future generations
the names of the fallen.
49. In time of peace and security, the State will
not maintain a standing army; but all the nation will remain armed, as
prescribed by law, and its forces by land and sea well and duly trained.
Strict military service is confined to
the period of instruction or to periods when war is either actually
being waged or when there is immediate danger of war.
During periods of instruction or of war,
the citizen will lose none of his civil and political rights; and will
be able to exercise them whenever the necessities of active service
permit.
Public
Instruction
50. For any race of noble origin, culture
is the best of all weapons.
For the Adriatic race, harassed for
centuries by a ceaseless struggle with an unlettered usurper, culture is
more than a weapon; like faith and justice, it is an unconquerable
force.
For the people of Fiume at the moment of
her rebirth to liberty, it becomes the instrument more helpful than any
other against the insidious plots that have encircled her for centuries.
Culture is the preservative against
corruption; the buttress against ruin.
In Dante’s Carnaro the culture of the
language of Dante is the custodian of that which has ever been reckoned
as the most precious treasure of the people, the highest testimony to
the nobility of their origin, the chief sign of their moral right of
rule.
That moral right is what the new State
must fight for. On its will to victory is founded the exaltation of the
human ideal.
The new State, with unity completed,
liberty achieved, justice enthroned, must make it her first duty to
defend, preserve, and fight for unity, liberty, justice in the spirit of
man.
The culture of Rome must be here in our
midst and the culture of Italy.
For this cause the Italian province of
Carnaro makes education — the culture of her people — the crown and
summit of her Constitution, esteems the treasure of Latin culture as the
foundation of her welfare.
51. The city of Fiume will have a free
University, housed in a spacious building, capable of accommodating a great
number of students and ruled by its own special ordinances.
There will be in the city of Fiume, a
School of Painting, a School of Decorative Art, a School of Music free
from any legal interference, conducted in a candid and open spirit under
the guidance of a judgment acute enough to get rid of the incumbrance of
the inefficient, to choose the best students from among the good and to
assist the best in the discovery of new possibilities in the rendering
of human sentiment.
52. The secondary schools will be under the
supervision of the Senate; the technical and professional schools under that of
the Council of the Provvisori; higher education, under that of the National
Council.
In every school and in every commune the
Italian language will have the first place.
In secondary schools the teaching of the
various dialects spoken in the Italian province of Carnaro will be
obligatory.
Primary instruction will be given in the
language spoken by the majority of the inhabitants of each commune and
also in parallel classes in that spoken by the minority.
If any commune tries to evade the
obligation of providing those double courses of instruction the Central
Government of the province reserves its right to provide them at the
cost of the commune.
53. An Educational Council decides upon the
nature and method of primary instruction which is compulsory in the schools of
all communes.
The teaching of choral singing based on
the genuine poetry of the people (folk songs) and the teaching of
decorative art based on examples of indigenous popular art will hold a
first place.
The Council will consist of: a
representative of each commune two representatives of secondary schools;
two, of technical and professional schools; two, of institutions of
higher education (to he elected by professors and students); two, by the
Schools of Music two, by the School of Decorative Art.
54. Schools, well lighted and ventilated, must
not have on their walls any emblems of religion or of political parties.
The public schools welcome the followers
of every religious profession, the believers in every creed and those,
too, who are able to live without an altar and without a God.
Liberty of conscience receives entire
respect. Each one may offer up his silent prayers.
But there will be inscribed on the walls
inspiring words that, like an heroic symphony, will never lose their
power to raise and animate the soul.
And there will be representations of
those masterpieces of the painter’s art which interpret most nobly the
endless longings and aspirations of mankind.
Reforms
of the Constitutions
55. Every seven years the Great National
Council will meet in a special conference to consider constitutional
reforms.
But the Constitution can be altered at
anytime, when a third of the citizens electors make a request for the
alteration.
The following bodies have the right to
propose amendments of the Constitution: the members of the National
Council; the representatives of the communes; the Court of
Administration; the Corporations.
The Right
of Initiative
56. All citizens belonging to electoral
bodies have the right of initiating legislative proposals with regard to
questions which fall within the sphere of action of one or other
Council; but the initiative will not take effect unless at least
one-fourth of the electors of the Council in question are unanimous
moving and supporting it.
'The Power of Appeal
57. All laws that have received the
sanction of the two legislative bodies may be subjected to public
reconsideration with the possibility of repeal provided that such
reconsideration be asked for by a number of electors equal to at least a
fourth of the enfranchised citizens,
The Right
of Petition
58. All citizens have the right of
petition towards those bodies which they have helped to elect.
Reduplication of Offices
59. No citizen may fill more than one
official post nor take part in two legislative bodies at the same time.
Recall
60. Any official appointment may be
revoked: when the official in question loses his political rights
through a sentence confirmed by the Court of Law; when the decree of
revocation is voted for by more than half of the members of the
electoral body.
Responsibility
61. All holders of power and all public
officials of the province are legally responsible for any injury caused
to State, commune, Corporation, or single citizen by any transgression
of theirs, whether through misdoing, carelessness, cowardice, or
inaccuracy.
Remuneration
62. All public officials, enumerated in
the Statutes and appointed in the new Constitution, will receive
suitable remuneration, in accordance with the decision of the National
Council annually revised.
The
Aediles
63. There will be in the province a
College of Aediles, wisely selected from men of taste, skill, and a
liberal education.
This ‘College’ will be a revival not so
much of the Roman Aediles, as of the Office for the adornment of the
City’ which, in our fourteenth century, arranged a new road or a new
piazza with the same sense of rhythm and proportion which guided them in
the conduct of a Republican triumph or a carnival display.
It will provide for the decorum of life;
secure the safety, decency, sanitation of public edifices, and private
dwellings; prevent the disfigurement of roads by awkward or ill-placed
buildings; enliven civic festivals by sea and land with graceful
ornament, recalling our forefathers for whom the glory of the sunshine
and a few fair garlands of flowers with human beauty of pageant and
motion sufficed to frame a miracle of joy; convince the workers that to
add beauty, some sign of joy in the building, to the humblest habitation
is an act of piety, that a sense of religion, of human mystery, of the
profundity of Nature may be passed on from generation to generation in
the simplest symbol carved or painted on the kneading trough or the
cradle, on the loom or the distaff, on the linen chest or the cottage
beam; it will try to reawaken in our people the love of beautiful line
and colour in the things that are used in their daily life, showing them
how much, in the old days, could be achieved be achieved by a slight
geometrical design, by a star, a flower, a heart, a serpent or a dove on
a pitcher or oil jar or jug, on a bench or chest or platter; it will
serve to show our people how the ancient spirit of communal liberty
manifested itself even in the utensils that received the imprint of
man’s life; finally, convinced that a people cannot attain to strength
and nobility without noble architecture it will endeavour to make modern
architects realize that the new materials — iron and glass and concrete
— must be raised to the level of harmonious life by the invention of a
new architecture.
Music
64. In the Italian province of Carnaro,
music is a social and religious institution. Once in a thousand or two
thousand years music springs from the soul of a people and flows on for
ever.
A noble race is not one that creates a
God in its own image but one that creates also the song wherewith to do
Him homage.
Every rebirth of a noble race is a lyric
force, every sentiment that is common to the whole race, a potential
lyric; music, the language of ritual, has power, above all else, to
exalt the achievement and the life of man.
Does it not seem that great music has
power to bring spiritual peace to the strained and anxious multitude?
The reign of the human spirit is not yet.
‘When matter acting on matter shall be
able to replace man’s physical strength, then will the spirit of man
begin to see the dawn of libertv’: so said a man of Dalmatia of our own
Adriatic, the blind seer of Sebenico.
As cock-crow heralds the dawn, so music
is the herald of the soul’s awakening.
Meanwhile, in the instruments of labour,
of profit, and of sport, in the noisy machines which, even they, fall
into a poetical rhythm, music can find her motives and her harmonies.
In the pauses of music is heard the
silence of the tenth corporation.
65. In every commune of the province there will
be a choral society and an orchestra subsidized by the State.
In the city of Fiume, the College of
Aediles will be commissioned to erect a great concert hall,
accommodating an audience of at least ten thousand with tiers of seats
and ample space for choir and orchestra.
The great orchestral and choral
celebrations will be entirely free — in the language of the Church — a
gift of God.
SATUTUM ET ORDINATUM EST.
JURO EGO.
Reference
- By courtesy and permission of Noël O'Sullivan,
Fascism, J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd., London, 1983. pp 193-206
Source:
- https://www.karr.net/Constitution_of_Fiume/etexts.htm
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