Una esecuzione memorabile. Giovanni Gentile. Il fascismo e la memoria della guerra civile

The political and historiographical debate about the murder of Giovanni Gentile—which took place on April 15, 1944—has focused primarily on the question of who carried out the killing and who ordered it. Who was part of the commando unit that assassinated the philosopher? Who were the instigators and masterminds behind the attack? In this volume, the author approaches the “Gentile case” from a different perspective. On the one hand, he examines the complex web of motivations and reasons—ideological, circumstantial, historical-cultural, and personal—that, after September 8, led Gentile to join the Italian Social Republic: a choice that would lead him to a conscious and, in many ways, inevitable martyrdom. On the other hand, he examines the implications and meanings—on the political-symbolic and historical-philosophical levels—of his death. A death that was in many ways “necessary,” expected, and inevitable in the context of the civil war that was tearing Italy apart at the time. Gentile’s murder marked a turning point in Italian history, including on the political and cultural front: “a memorable execution,” to borrow a phrase from Machiavelli’s Discourses, the blood tribute that had to be paid in the transition—liberating yet not without contradictory and paradoxical aspects—from Fascist Italy, in which Gentile, despite being a man of the Risorgimento with a national-liberal background, had believed and played a leading role, to anti-Fascist Italy, many of whose figures had been shaped precisely by Gentile’s teachings. The violent death of the philosopher of actualism, in other words, rather than an enigma or a detective-style mystery—that is, one of the many more or less unsolved mysteries with which the history of 20th-century Italy is replete—represents an episode that tragically reveals the complexity of the political, cultural, and human events that have characterized its development up to the present day. This is why, more than eighty years after his death, the name of Giovanni Gentile continues to resonate deep within the nation’s collective memory.