Italiana Littorio, the youth movement of the National Fascist Party of Italy. During the Fascist period, the Stadio and complex became the nation's center for athleticism and increasingly renowned until Italy joined the war in 1940. According to the historian Eden K. McLean, "the Mussolini Forum was designed to forge educators and political leaders united by an Italian-Fascist sensibility about the past, present, and future of the race." Sculptures and architecture The sixty towering Carrara marble athletic statues ringing the stadium were gifted by the Italian provinces and embodied the ancient cardinal Roman values: virilitas, fortitudo, disciplina, and gravitas (virility, fortitude, discipline, and dignity). They were designed and produced by twenty-four sculptors, who were chosen form a contest, and included artists like Nicola D'Antino, Aldo Buttini, Silvio Canevari, Carlo de Veroli, Publio Morbiducci, Eugenio Baroni, Arnolfo Bellini, Francesco Messina, and Romano Romanelli. The sculptors adhered to classical forms and elements, when they used Greek and Roman statues as models, such as Doryphoros of Polykleitos and Discobolus of Myron, which stood out against the plain white marble architecture of the stadium. The statues, monuments, and architecture produced under the Fascist regime were a fusion of ancient Roman and modern elements. According to the architect Enrico Del Debbio, the sports complex was designed as an "architectonic complex of severe monumentality ... the result is the emergence of a monumental group, which can be traced back to the greatest monuments of ancient Rome." The impressive statues of the Stadio dei Marmi resemble the ancient Roman Foro Imperiale. These statues, which incorporated classical elements, served to glorify Mussolini, in order to equate him to Augustus, the Roman emperor, and memorialize Fascism. "The obvious references to Rome, claimed Fascist propagandists, made the Foro Mussolini the living embodiment of the 'Mediterranean spirit and the Latin world at its best.'" Renato Ricci, chief of the Opera Nazionale Balilla (O.N.B), the Fascist youth organization, oversaw the design and sculpting process of the statues encircling the Stadio dei Marmi, aiming to ensure stylistic standardization and visual consistency between the sculptures carved by the various artists. The statues represented the most esteemed Fascist sports and were intended to evoke heroism by displaying monumental and imposing athletes in static, powerful, and valiant poses with a focus on gestures and proportions, rather than in arbitrary motion or action. Many of the statues are shown at rest, in vigorous stances. In Aroldo Bellini's