Original Pre World War Two 1930’s Italian Opera Nazionale Balilla (ONB) Print in its original period frame.
The Opera Nazionale Balilla (ONB) was an Italian Fascist paramilitary youth organization active from 1926 to 1937, when it merged into the Gioventù Italiana del Littorio (GIL), the youth division of the National Fascist Party. It was named after Balilla, the alias of Giovan Battista Perasso, a Genoese youth who, according to tradition, initiated the 1746 uprising against Habsburg forces occupying the city during the War of the Austrian Succession. Perasso was selected as a symbol due to his youth and revolutionary role, while his involvement in the conflict against Austria exemplified the irredentist ideology of early Fascism and Italy’s military successes in World War I.
The Balilla creed echoed the Nicene Creed: "I believe in Rome the eternal, the mother of my country, and in Italy, her eldest daughter, who was born in her virginal bosom by the grace of God; who suffered through the barbarian invasions, was crucified and buried, who descended to the grave, and was raised from the dead in the nineteenth century, who ascended into heaven in her glory in 1918 and 1922 and who is seated on the right hand of her mother Rome; who for this reason shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the genius of Mussolini, in our Holy Father Fascism, in the communion of the martyrs, in the conversion of Italians and in the resurrection of the Empire."
The overall frame measures 10” x 13”
