Santa Marinella was designated as one of three assembly points for the Fascist forces mobilized in October 1922. Its role in the plan placed it within the countryside staging ground for the march on Rome, where troops gathered as the uprising faltered.

Role in the Mobilization

Under the plan explained by Benito Mussolini, the operation’s military command was to pass to the Quadrumvirate, based in Perugia, while forces assembled at Santa Marinella, Mentana, and Tivoli. Squadrists from across Italy were to gather at those locations on the night of October 27, before the coordinated mobilization and occupation of key provincial sites. The intended political outcome was a government containing at least six Fascists in important ministries.

Gathering and Failure

On the morning of October 28, Santa Marinella appeared alongside Monterotondo and Tivoli as one of the operation’s staging locations. The proclamation of a state of siege was being posted in Rome, but the uprising in the Lazio countryside had already failed. The camps were nevertheless crowded with arrivals: units from Siena, Ancona, the Sabine area, Florence, Arezzo, and Valdarno were among those reported assembling across the three sites. The account does not assign particular contingents to Santa Marinella alone.

Narrative Significance

Santa Marinella’s significance is logistical rather than local: it is named as one point in a coordinated plan to concentrate forces near Rome. The juxtaposition of the crowded bivouacs with the failed uprising gives the location a double function in the episode—as a site of intended mobilization and as part of a campaign whose military action had lost its purpose before the gathering was complete.