Giuseppe Bottai

Giuseppe Bottai (3 September 1895 – 9 January 1959) was an Italian journalist, and member of the National Fascist Party of Benito Mussolini.

Giuseppe Bottai
Bottai 37
Giuseppe Bottai as Minister of Education, 1937
Minister of National Education
In office
15 November 1936 – 5 February 1943
Prime MinisterBenito Mussolini
Preceded byCesare Maria De Vecchi
Succeeded byCarlo Alberto Biggini
Governor of Addis Ababa
In office
5 May 1936 – 27 May 1936
MonarchVictor Emmanuel III
Preceded byOffice created
Succeeded byAlfredo Siniscalchi
Governor of Rome
In office
23 January 1935 – 15 November 1936
Preceded byFrancesco Boncompagni Ludovisi
Succeeded byPiero Colonna
Member of the Chamber of Fasci and Corporations
In office
20 April 1929 – 5 August 1943
Personal details
Born3 September 1895
Rome, Italy
Died9 January 1959 (aged 63)
Rome, Italy
Political partyItalian Fasci of Combat
National Fascist Party
Alma materSapienza University of Rome
ProfessionJournalist, soldier
Military service
Allegiance Kingdom of Italy
 Free France
Branch/service Royal Italian Army
Flag of legion.svg French Foreign Legion
Years of service1915–1917; 1935–1936; 1943–1948
Unit1st Cavalry Regiment (France)


Early life

Born in Rome, Giuseppe was son of Luigi, a wine dealer with republican sympathies, and Elena Cortesia. He was graduated at Liceo Torquato Tasso, and attended to the Sapienza University of Rome until the 1915, when Italy declared war to the Central Powers: in the same year he left his studies to enlist himself in the Italian Royal Army. Wounded in battle, he obtained a Medal of Military Valor after the World War I.[1]

In 1919, Bottai met Benito Mussolini during a Futurist meeting,[2] and contributed to establish the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento ("Italian Fasci of Combat"). In 1921, Bottai ended his studies at law faculty and became a freemason, member of the Gran Loggia d'Italia.[3] At the same time he also started a journalist career in the Il Popolo d'Italia, newspaper of the recently-founded National Fascist Party. During the March on Rome, Bottai was along with Ulisse Igliori and Gino Calza-Bini, the head of the Roman squadrismo, supporting Blackshirts' political violence.

Political career

Giuseppe Bottai 1943
Bottai serving in the French Foreign Legion

After 1921 election, Bottai was elected in the Chamber of Deputies for the National Blocs, but was removed for his young age. He returned to the Chamber in 1924, maintaining the office until 1943. In 1923, he became leader of the intransigent, national syndicalist and revolutionary faction of the Fascism. To support his ideas, Bottai founded Critica fascista ("Fascist Critic"), a cultural periodical, co-operating with other left-leaning fascists like Filippo De Pisis, Renato Guttuso and Mario Mafai.[4] Bottai worked to the Ministry of Corporations, introducing the Labour Charter and planning a "Corporative Academic Pole" in Pisa, from 1926 to 1932, when he was excluded by Mussolini from the Ministry.[5] In 1933, Bottai established and chaired the National Institute of the Social Security (Italian: Istituto nazionale della previdenza sociale, INPS). After, he was appointed Fascist Governor of Rome (1935–1936) but resigned to fight in the Second Italo-Ethiopian War with the rank of major. In 5 May 1936, Bottai and Pietro Badoglio entered in Addis Abeba, and Bottai was appointed as City Governor. After the war, Bottai returned in Rome to be Education Minister. During his ministry, Bottai proclaimed a law (the so-called "Bottai Law") on safeguarding public and cultural heritage and the preservation of natural beauties .[6] He also co-worked with art critics Giulio Carlo Argan and Cesare Brandi to improve the Italian cultural life.

In the late 1930s, Bottai became more radical and a Germanophile. In 1938 he expressed support to Radical Laws against the Italian Jews and in 1940 he founded Primato ("Record"), a magazine that supported the Aryan race's supremacy and war interventionism.[7] Bottai thought that the "Fascist Revolution" was incomplete, and that what was needed was a return to the original, "pure" fascism.

Ideology and Early Fascism

For him--given his historical political stance and ideas in the early days of the movement--this would have been ideologically to the left of the Nationalist "right fascist" faction (the controlling faction within the Fascist regime known for its conservative social-economic thinking). The notion of "revolutionary" for Bottai, then, was more a measure of radical political dynamism--a fascism in action so to speak-- as well as political purity for it should be understood that the original fascists had at one time been an autonomous movement with little for the most part to do with the radical right (the Nationalists). And yet the state heavy, technocratic, and managerial exigencies that this very much pragmatic ex-syndicalist supported did much to dilute original fascism's foundational syndicalism, which put him to the right of--or a moderate representative within--original "ideological fascism." The "first fascism" it should be remembered was anti-party, anti-clerical, republican (anti-monarchist), anti-parliamentarian, Jacobin, "Third Way" (neither "international socialist" nor "plutocratic capitalist", neither Marxist/left-wing nor right-wing/bourgeois capitalist)...but representative of a new paradigm that fused the national and social threads. It came from the Left making it appropriate to classify it as a (if not formally the first) national Left, a new kind of socialism, a national socialism. The ideological, doctrinal core of fascism in its movement phase--that is, from the time of San Sepolcro in 1919 to about 1923-24--was known as "national syndicalism". It was a socially radical, pro-worker, and deeply anti-bourgeois doctrine elaborated by "national"-turned Sorelian "revolutionary syndicalists" like the theorist Sergio Panunzio and Edmondo Rossoni, the prominent Fascist labor leader.[8][9]

However, the Italian intervention in World War II resulted in disaster. The Campaign on the Eastern Front caused the death or dispersion of approximately 77,000 soldiers, with more than 39,000 injured. Bottai voted for Mussolini's arrest proposed by Dino Grandi on 25 July 1943, when Italy's defeat became evident. In 1944, the Italian Social Republic condemned Bottai to death, during the Verona trial, but Bottai was hiding in a Roman convent.[10]

World War II and final years

In 1944, Bottai enlisted in the French Foreign Legion, with the pseudodyn Andrea Battaglia. He fought in Provence during the Operation Dragoon and then in the Western Allied invasion of Germany. At the war's end, Bottai remained in France, and continued to serve in Foreign Legion until 1948, when he was discharged. For his role in the final stages of World War II, he got an amnesty for his role in Fascism.

Returned in Italy in 1953, Bottai founded the periodical ABC (not to be confused with the same-name magazine) and Il Popolo di Roma, financed by ex-fascist Vittorio Cini, who supported centrist and conservative views. He died in Rome in 1959. At his funeral participated also Aldo Moro, like his father was a Bottai's friend and assistant during his career.[11]


  • Trade organisation in Italy under the act and regulations on collective relations in connection with employment
  • Economia fascista (1930)
  • Grundprinzipien des korporativen Aufbaus in Italien (1933)
  • Esperienza corporativa (1929–1935) (1935)
  • Corporazioni (1935)
  • Scritti giuridici in onore di Santi Romano ... (1940)
  • Funzione di Roma nella vita culturale e scientifica della nazione (1940)
  • Pagine di critica fascista (1915–1926) (1941, edited by F. M. Pacces)
  • Romanità e germanesimo: letture tenute per il Lyceum di Firenze (1941, edited by Jolanda de Blasi)
  • Von der römischen zur faschistischen Korporation (1942)
  • Köpfe des risorgimento (1943)
  • Contributi all'elaborazione delle scienze corporative (1939-XVIII—1942-XX) (1943)
  • Vent 'anni e un giorno, 24 luglio 1943 (1949). Republished as Vent'anni e un giorno (24 luglio 1943) (1977).
  • Legione è il mio nome (1950). Republished as Legione è il mio nome: il coraggioso epilogo di un gerarca del fascismo (I memoriali) (1999, edited by Marcello Staglieno)
  • Scritti (1965, edited by Roberto Bartolozzi and Riccardo Del Giudice)
  • Diario, 1935–1944 (1982, edited by Giordano Bruno Guerri)
  • Carteggio 1940–1957, correspondence between Bottai and Don Giuseppe De Luca; edited by Renzo De Felice and Renato Moro (1989)
  • La politica delle arti: Scritti, 1918–1943 (1992, edited by Alessandro Masi).
  • Quaderni giovanili: 1915–1920 (Atti testimonianze convegni) (1996).


  • Incontro con Bottai by Mario Carli and Bruno D'Agostini (1938)
  • Giuseppe Bottai, un fascista critico : ideologia e azione del gerarca che avrebbe voluto portare l'intelligenza nel fascismo e il fascismo alla liberalizzazione by Giordano Bruno Guerri (1976 – Republished as Giuseppe Bottai, fascista, 1996).
  • Bottai : il fascismo come rivoluzione del capitale (1978, edited by Anna Panicali)
  • Scuola e la pedagogia del fascismo by Maria Bellucci and Michele Ciliberto (1978).
  • Giuseppe Bottai e la riforma fascista della scuola by Rino Gentili. (1979)
  • Bottai tra capitale e lavoro by Amleto Di Marcantonio (1980)
  • Biographical Dictionary of the Extreme Right Since 1890 by Philip Rees (1990)


  1. ^ Sabino Cassese (1971). Bottai, Giuseppe – Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani. Treccani.
  2. ^ Maddalena, Carli (2010). "Un movimento artistico crea un partito politico : il futurismo italiano tra avanguardismo e normalizzazione". Memoria e ricerca.
  3. ^ Michele Terzaghi (1950). Fascismo e massoneria. Arnaldo Forni Editore. p. 171.
  4. ^ Berto Ricci (1984). Lo Scrittore Italiano. Ciarrapico.
  5. ^ Paolo Passaniti (2007). Storia del diritto del lavoro. FrancoAngeli. pp. 573–574.
  6. ^ Vittorio Emiliani (2011). Tutela del paesaggio ed Unità nazionale. Alinea Editrice.
  7. ^ Roberto Finzi (2008). La cultura italiana e le leggi antiebraiche del 1938. Carocci. p. 915.
  8. ^ Roberts, David D. (2016). Fascist Interactions: Proposals for a New Approach to Fascism and Its Era, 1919-1945. New York, Oxford: Berghahn. p. 79, 135-136. |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  9. ^ Roberts, David D. (1979). The Syndicalist Tradition and Italian Fascism. Chapel Hill: UNC Press. pp. 257–260. |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  10. ^ Enzo Forcella (1999). La resistenza in convento. Einaudi.
  11. ^ Aldo Moro (2009). Lettere dalla prigionia. Einaudi.

External links

Blueshirts (Falange)

The Blueshirts (Spanish: Camisas Azules) was the Falangist paramilitary militia in Spain. The name refers to the blue uniform worn by members of the militia. The colour blue was chosen for the uniforms in 1934 by the FE de las JONS because it was, according to José Antonio Primo de Rivera, "clear, whole, and proletarian," and is the colour typically worn by mechanics, as the Falange sought to gain support among the Spanish working class. In Francoist Spain the Blueshirts were officially reorganized and officially renamed the Falange Militia of the FET y de las JONS in 1940.

Brit HaBirionim

Brit HaBirionim (Hebrew: ברית הבריונים, The Strongmen Alliance (Alliance of Thugs)) was a clandestine, self-declared fascist faction of the Revisionist Zionist Movement (ZRM) in Mandatory Palestine, active between 1930 and 1933. It was founded by the trio of Abba Ahimeir, Uri Zvi Greenberg and Yehoshua Yeivin.

Carlo Costamagna

Carlo Costamagna (born 21 September 1881 in Quiliano – died 1 March 1965 in Pietra Ligure) was an Italian lawyer and academic noted as a theorist of corporatism. He worked closely with Benito Mussolini and his fascist movement.


Crypto-fascism is the secret support for, or admiration of, fascism. The term is used to imply that an individual or group keeps this support or admiration hidden to avoid political persecution or political suicide. The common usage is "crypto-fascist", one who practices this support.


Fascio (pronounced [ˈfaʃʃo]; plural fasci) is an Italian word literally meaning "a bundle" or "a sheaf", and figuratively "league", and which was used in the late 19th century to refer to political groups of many different (and sometimes opposing) orientations. A number of nationalist fasci later evolved into the 20th century Fasci movement, which became known as fascism.

Fascist mysticism

Fascist mysticism (Italian: Mistica fascista) was a current of political and religious thought in Fascist Italy, based on Fideism, a belief that faith existed without reason, and that Fascism should be based on a mythology and spiritual mysticism. A School of Fascist Mysticism was founded in Milan on April 10, 1930 and active until 1943, and its main objective was the training of future Fascist leaders, indoctrinated in the study of various Fascist intellectuals who tried to abandon the purely political to create a spiritual understanding of Fascism. Fascist mysticism in Italy developed through the work of Niccolò Giani with the decisive support of Arnaldo Mussolini.

Felice Chilanti

Felice Chilanti (10 December 1914 in Ceneselli – 26 February 1982 in Rome) was an Italian anti-fascist and journalist who was born to a Rovigo peasant family soon before Italy entered World War I. Chilanti moved to Rome as a teenager to study agronomy and from 1934 took up employment as a writer for the farming union’s in-house journal. He was soon drawn to the Fascist Left by Giuseppe Bottai and Edmondo Rossoni who were syndicalists who viewed Fascism as a social revolution against capitalism.Chilanti wrote an October 1939 article in Benito Mussolini's Gerarchia welcoming the Hitler-Stalin pact as heralding the future collaboration of the Soviet and Fascist régimes. During the war Chilanti became increasingly disillusioned with his government's failure to live up to its purported anti-capitalist objectives. While seeking to advance such radical policies he formed a group around the newspaper Ventuno Domani, whose collaborators included novelist Vasco Pratolini.

This 'anarcho-Fascist' circle drew the attentions of philo-Nazi American poet Ezra Pound. Chilanti and his ally, Vittorio Ambrosini, mounted one of the most militant of all Left-Fascist projects when they attempted to eliminate the foreign minister Galeazzo Ciano, whom the plotters saw as a conservative brake on the regime. Chilanti was quickly arrested and sent into internal exile [confino]. Chilanti then adopted communist politics from his Croatian cellmates.

During the Italian Resistance Chilanti was co-editor of the dissident-communist newspaper Bandiera Rossa, organ of the Movimento Comunista d'Italia, an idiosyncratic force that Chilanti labelled 'the party of Stalin who fought for Bordiga'. After liberation Chilanti joined the Italian Communist Party. He later grew disillusioned and signed up to the extra-parliamentary Avanguardia Operaia. As a result of throat cancer Chilanti was unable to speak in his final years.

Chilanti wrote numerous novels of which many were of a semi-autobiographical bent.

Giordano Bruno Guerri

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Gioventù Fascista

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Most of the magazine covers feature the fasces, and sometimes other Roman imagery; the style of its illustrations was heavily influenced by art deco.

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Grand Council of Fascism

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This list has been divided into four sections for reasons of length:

List of fascist movements by country A–F

List of fascist movements by country G–M

List of fascist movements by country N–T

List of fascist movements by country U–Z

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Head of government and duce of Fascism
Minister of the Air Force
(since 1925)
Minister of Foreign Affairs
Minister of agriculture
(abolished in 1923)
Minister of Agriculture and Forestry
(since 1929)
Minister of the Colonies
(abolished in 1937)
Minister of Italian Africa
(since 1937)
Minister of Communications
(since 1924)
Minister of Corporations
(since 1926)
Ministry of People's Culture
(since 1937)
Minister of the Interior
Minister of domestic economy
Minister of domestic education
Minister of Finance
Minister of Justice and Affairs of Religion
Minister of Industry and Commerce
Minister of Public Works
Minister of War
Minister of Labour and Social Security
Minister of Posts and Telegraphs
Minister of War Production
(since 6 February 1943)
Minister of Public Education
Minister of Trades and Currencies
Minister of Press and Propaganda
Minster of Freed Territories from enemies
(abolished on 5 February 1923)
Minister of Treasure
(merged into Ministry of Finance on 31 December 1922)

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