Giuseppe Bottai
Giuseppe Bottai as Minister of Education, 1937
Minister of National Education
In office 15 November 1936 – 5 February 1943
Prime Minister	Benito Mussolini
Preceded by	Cesare Maria De Vecchi
Succeeded by	Carlo Alberto Biggini
Governor of Addis Ababa
In office 5 May 1936 – 27 May 1936
Monarch	Victor Emmanuel III
Preceded by	Office established
Succeeded by	Alfredo Siniscalchi
Governor of Rome
In office 23 January 1935 – 15 November 1936
Preceded by	F. Boncompagni Ludovisi
Succeeded by	Piero Colonna
Minister of Corporations
In office 12 September 1929 – 20 July 1932
Prime Minister	Benito Mussolini
Preceded by	Alessandro Martelli
Succeeded by	Benito Mussolini
Member of the Chamber of Fasces and Corporations
In office 23 March 1939 – 5 August 1943
Appointed by	Benito Mussolini
Member of the Chamber of Deputies
In office 11 June 1921 – 2 March 1939
Constituency	Lazio
Personal details
Born	(1895-09-03)3 September 1895 Rome,Italy
Died	9 January 1959(1959-01-09) (aged 63) Rome, Italy
Political party	FIC (1919–1921) PNF (1921–1943)
Height	1.77 m (5 ft 10 in)
Alma mater	Sapienza University of Rome
Profession	Journalist, soldier
Military service
Allegiance	Kingdom of Italy Free France
Branch/service	Royal Italian Army French Foreign Legion
Years of service	1915–1917; 1935–1936; 1943–1948
Rank	Sergeant Brigadier Major Private
Unit	1st Cavalry Regiment (France)
Battles/wars	First World War Second Italo-Ethiopian War Second World War

Giuseppe Bottai (3 September 1895 – 9 January 1959) was an Italian journalist and member of theNational Fascist Party ofBenito Mussolini.

Born in Rome, Bottai was son of Luigi Bottai, a wine dealer with republican sympathies, and Elena Cortesia. He graduated atLiceo Torquato Tasso and attended theSapienza University of Rome until the 1915, when Italy declared war to theCentral Powers. The same year, he left his studies to enlist himself in theItalian Royal Army. Wounded in battle, he obtained aMedal of Military Valor afterWorld War I.^[1]

In 1919, Bottai metBenito Mussolini during aFuturist meeting,^[2] and contributed to establish theFasci Italiani di Combattimento (Italian Fasces of Combat). In 1921, Bottai ended his studies at law faculty and became afreemason, member of theGran Loggia d'Italia.^[3] At the same time, he also started a journalist career in theIl Popolo d'Italia, the newspaper of the recently foundedNational Fascist Party. During theMarch on Rome, Bottai was along with Ulisse Igliori and Gino Calza-Bini the head of the Romansquadrismo, supporting theBlackshirts' political violence.

After the1921 Italian general election, Bottai was elected in theChamber of Deputies for theNational Blocs. In 1923, he became leader of the intransigentnational syndicalist and revolutionary faction of fascism. To support his ideas, Bottai foundedCritica fascista (Fascist Critic), a cultural periodical, co-operating with other left-leaning fascists likeFilippo De Pisis,Renato Guttuso, andMario Mafai.^[4] Starting in 1930, he contributed to the political and finance magazineLo Stato.^[5]

Bottai worked to theMinistry of Corporations, introducing theLabour Charter and planning a Corporative Academic Pole inPisa, from 1926 to 1932, when he was excluded by Mussolini from the Ministry.^[6] In 1933, Bottai established and chaired the National Institute of the Social Security (Italian:Istituto nazionale della previdenza sociale, INPS). He was appointedgovernor of Rome (1935–1936) but resigned to fight in theSecond Italo-Ethiopian War with the rank of major. On 5 May 1936, Bottai andPietro Badoglio entered inAddis Abeba, and Bottai was appointed as vice governor. After the war, Bottai returned in Rome to beEducation Minister. During his ministry, Bottai proclaimed a law (the Bottai Law) on safeguarding public and cultural heritage and the preservation of natural beauties.^[7] He also co-worked with art criticsGiulio Carlo Argan andCesare Brandi to improve the Italian cultural life.

In the late 1930s, Bottai became more radical and aGermanophile. In 1938, he expressed support toracial laws againstItalian Jews, and in 1940 foundedPrimato (Primacy), a magazine that supported theAryan race's supremacy andinterventionism in the war.^[8][9] Bottai thought that the "Fascist Revolution" was incomplete and that what was needed was a return to the original and more "pure" fascism.

TheItalian intervention in World War II resulted in disaster. TheCampaign on the Eastern Front caused the death or the injury of approximately 77,000 soldiers, with more than 39,000 injured. Bottai voted for Mussolini's arrest, which had been proposed byDino Grandi, on25 July 1943 after Italy's defeat had become evident. In 1944, theItalian Social Republic condemned Bottai to death, during theVerona trial, but Bottai hid in a Roman convent.^[10] In 1944, Bottai enlisted in theFrench Foreign Legion with the pseudonymAndrea Battaglia. He fought inProvence duringOperation Dragoon and then in theWestern Allied invasion of Germany.

After the war, Bottai remained in France and continued to serve in theForeign Legion until 1948, when he was discharged. For his role in the final stages ofWorld War II, he got an amnesty for his role in fascism. Returning in Italy in 1953, Bottai founded the periodicalABC (not to be confused with themagazine with the same name) andIl Popolo di Roma, which was financed by ex-fascistVittorio Cini, who supported centrist and conservative views. Bottai died in Rome in 1959. At his funeral wasAldo Moro who, like Moro's father, had been 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 asVent'anni e un giorno (24 luglio 1943) (1977).
• Legione è il mio nome (1950). Republished asLegione 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 byRenzo 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 byMario 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 asGiuseppe 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 byPhilip Rees (1990)

• Newspaper clippings about Giuseppe Bottai in the20th Century Press Archives of theZBW

• 1895 births
• 1959 deaths
• Writers from Rome
• Italian male journalists
• 20th-century Italian journalists
• Italian magazine founders
• Italian economists
• Italian Freemasons
• National syndicalists
• Antisemitism in Italy
• Members of the Grand Council of Fascism
• Deputies of Legislature XXVI of the Kingdom of Italy
• Deputies of Legislature XXVII of the Kingdom of Italy
• Deputies of Legislature XXVIII of the Kingdom of Italy
• Deputies of Legislature XXIX of the Kingdom of Italy
• Members of the Chamber of Fasces and Corporations
• Education ministers of Italy
• Mussolini Cabinet
• Mayors of Rome
• People of former Italian colonies
• Members of the Lincean Academy
• Italian military personnel of the Second Italo-Ethiopian War
• Italian military personnel of World War I
• Royal Italian Army personnel of World War II
• French military personnel of World War II
• Soldiers of the French Foreign Legion
• Exiled Italian politicians
• People sentenced to death in absentia at the Verona trial

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