Chapter L’Ateneo durante il regime fascista

Abstract

In 1931, none of the Florentine academics refused to take the oath of allegiance to Fascism, as very few did throughout Italy. Yet, just six years earlier, the signatories of the so-called Croce manifesto from the University of Florence were more numerous than those from Rome and Turin. The leggi fascistissime crushed open dissent; pressures, recommendations, and violence isolated and silenced it. In the specific context of the university community in Florence, this article examines the different behaviors of its members: surrender, responsibility, conformism, resistance that remained in the shadows, social, gender and racist discrimination, voluntary and forcing removal, opportunism. A history of which we still do not know enough, and whose consequences would go beyond the fascist ventennio.