Soldier

The obverse shows a soldier breaking the chains of a kneeling female nude; the reverse depicts the Roman shewolf standing on a fasces and suckling the twins Remus and Romulus, with flags and standards in the background. This medal was minted by the firm of Stefano Johnson in Milan. It commemorates the Italian invasion of Ethiopia by Mussolini’s Fascist forces between October 1935 and May 1936. The year XIII (1935) refers to the Fascist chronology. The medalist Emilio Monti was born in Milan and trained at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera under Giannino Castiglioni, Giuseppe Graziosi, and the painter Ambrogio Alciati. As a sculptor and medal maker, he collaborated for about forty years with the Stefano Johnson company. This unrecorded medal belongs to a series of eight or nine, all designed by Monti in 1936 to memorialize various battles during the Italian invasion in Ethiopia.1 Among Monti’s best-known works are a medal dedicated to Enrico Forlanini (1937), one commemorating the Holocaust in Italy (1946), and the 1950 jubilee medal with the portrait of Pope Pius XII. In 1969 Monti designed a series of medals illustrating scenes from the Bible issued by the Franklin Mint.