Giuseppe Bottai nella storia della scuola e dell’educazione in Italia (1922-1943)

The most recent and renowned interpretations of history credit Giuseppe Bottai (1895-1959) as one of the most prominent figures in the history of Fascism as a political movement first and a regime. Bottai was a patient, methodical mediator between the different facets and souls of Fascism and the meticulous weaver of a cultural-political hegemony that consolidated between the 1930s and 1940s, driven and inspired by the idea of building a totalitarian state. This paper underlines the need to reconsider and further research the work of Bottai as head of the Ministry of National Education (1936-1943) and his programme of reform to the Education system, summarised in the School Charter (Carta della Scuola), which he drafted and submitted to the Grand Council of Fascism on February 15, 1939. All of his work shall be viewed today in a different light, considering in particular his utmost commitment to the definition and implementation of the Corporativist structure of economy and production which were the cornerstones, in his ideology, of the new fascist State and society and were deeply connected with a new concept of “labour” and of its relationships with “culture” and the “modern humanism”.