The dispute over Machiavelli between fascists and anti-fascists intelectuals during the 'ventennio': Between national myth and historiographical reality.

Abstract

In this study we will analyze the historiographical and cultual conflict over Maquiavelo throughout the centuries. Next, we will examine the modernist and authoritarian updating of the figure of Machiavelli carried out by Mussolini and other renowned fascist intellectuals (Francesco Ercole, Gioacchino Volpe, Alfredo Rocco, Giovanni Gentile, and others). next, we will study the version of the “democratic and republican Machiavelli”, of the liberal Croce, the liberal-radical Gobetti, the socialist-democratic Matteotti, and the communist Gramsci, antithesis of the “fascist Machiavelli. Finally, we will conclude with the dichotomy between the “monolithic Machiavelli” of fascism and the “tragic Machiavelli” outlined by Viroli, Berlin and Althusser.