Giuseppe Bottai

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

Fascism

Born in Rome, he served as a volunteer in World War I, and met Mussolini in 1919, helping him establish the Fasci in Rome, and later becoming editor of "Il Popolo d'Italia"'s Roman edition. A law graduate, he sat in the Italian Chamber of Deputies after 1921. Bottai was active in the October 1922 March on Rome that brought the fascists to power, being responsible for the violent actions of the Blackshirts under his command (who killed several persons as the March met with protests).

In 1923, Bottai founded the "Critica fascista" magazine, and in 1926-1929 was deputy secretary of the Corporations (the reshaped Chamber of Deputies under Mussolini's command), issuing the "Carta del Lavoro" legislation.

After the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, Bottai was also the first Italian Governor of Addis Ababa for twenty-two days (between May 5 and 27 1936). He was Italy's minister of Education 1936-1943, the editor of several journals, and the Mayor of Rome, initiating a number of anti-democratic and anti-semitic measures. Bottai also ordered Jewish teachers and students removed from Italy's schools and universities.

Opposition to Mussolini

Together with other 19 members of the Grand Council of Fascism, Bottai voted in favor of Dino Grandi's July 1943 move to oust Mussolini and side Italy with the Allies, and for that reason he was sentenced to death by Mussolini's revived Italian Social Republic in the Verona trial (held in Verona on January 8 1944, and lasting two days). In the meantime, he had entered the French Foreign Legion, where he remained up to 1948, taking part in Allied campaigns in France and Nazi Germany.

He later returned to Italy after being subject to an amnesty in 1947, and edited the political journal "A.B.C." in Rome, where he died in 1959. In 1995, the proposal to name a street in Rome after him caused controversies, and was later abandoned.

Works

* "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).

References

*"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)