Foundation of the Institute and the early 1930s

In response to the legislation of 1926, the Regio Istituto Luso-Italiano (‘Royal Portuguese-Italian Institute’, as the Italian Cultural Institute was first known) opened in the summer of 1928, at Largo do Carmo 18, Lisbon, in rooms within the Casa d'Italia (Corriere della Sera 1928), which had itself been founded two years earlier and already hosted the Italian consulate and the Lisbon ‘Fulcieri Paolucci de Calboli’ Fascio. The ceremony, presided over by the Secretary of the Italian Legation Antonio Bucevich, was attended by various figures from nationalist and conservative circles within the Portuguese government: the army's Commander-in-Chief Aires da Sousa, Minister for the Navy Anibal de Mesquita Guimarães, Minister for Education Duarte Pacheco, and Foreign Minister Antonio Maria de Bettencourt Rodrigues.Footnote ¹

The first director of the Institute was Guido Vitaletti, a university professor and prolifically productive Dante scholar, who had been appointed as a cultural attaché to the Italian Legation in Lisbon in 1926. The author of various works on Portuguese literature, including a study of the influence of Dante on Luís de Camões (Vitaletti Reference Vitaletti1925), he became one of the key figures in the Italo-Portuguese intellectual network of the late 1920s. After his arrival Vitaletti quickly started, on his own initiative, to seek appropriate avenues for cultural penetration. In 1927, he asked the director of the University of Coimbra's Faculty of Letters for suitable space in which to establish a centre for Italian studies. Rooms were granted, and at Vitaletti's suggestion all the relevant volumes were transferred from the faculty library to the new ‘Sala Italiana’ (Pais de Sousa Reference Pais de Sousa2007, 17). This was formally opened on 26 July 1928 (Gazeta de Coimbra 1928) and was to become an outlying section of Lisbon's Portuguese-Italian Institute, which itself had opened just a few weeks earlier. Bucevich, from the Italian Legation, presided over this ceremony too, using his speech to emphasise the ‘strong ties of blood, languages and culture’ between the two peoples. Vitaletti delivered the inaugural lecture, in which he discussed the Italian contribution to the development of Portuguese studies in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Vitaletti Reference Vitaletti1928).

The new Institute started to operate along the lines of the legislation of 1926. Its principal activities under the management of Vitaletti, who was also the Professor of Italian in the Faculty of Letters at the University of Lisbon, were language courses and seminars on Italian literature.

The Institute's single event aimed at a wider public was an exhibition on ‘Portuguese memories in Italy’ staged in the headquarters of Lisbon's Naval League, featuring photographs of works of art with links to Portugal (Vitaletti Reference Vitaletti1929). This event generated considerable interest in Portuguese circles: its opening was attended by both the Portuguese president António Óscar Carmona and head of the government António de Oliveira Salazar, as well as various ministers, members of the diplomatic corps, and senior officers in the armed forces (Corriere della Sera 1929).

From early on, constraints were apparent in terms of finance and resources; right up until the fall of Italy's Fascist regime, these limitations were to compromise the effectiveness and extent of attempts to export the idea of Italian Fascism to Portugal. According to Mario Ivani, ‘the cultural diplomacy that Fascism attempted to exercise in Portugal with an extreme frugality of means was at risk of having the opposite effect from that desired by the bureaucrats in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs; this issue … was all but a constant in relation to Fascism's strategy for cultural penetration’ (Reference Costa Pinto and Palomanes Martinho2008, 159).

Propaganda and attention to political events were more or less absent in the first five years, perhaps because of Vitaletti's limited ambitions in this respect. His lack of interest was in fact lamented by Piero Parini, head of the General Office for Italians Abroad. Writing from Rome to the Italian Legation in Lisbon, he ordered them to exercise greater control over Vitaletti and ‘in this regard, to refer to his valour and his incisive cultural and political effectiveness’.Footnote ²

In any case, Vitaletti requested and obtained a transfer to São Paulo, Brazil, and when he left before completing his anticipated five-year term the Institute found itself without a director. The role was briefly covered by Ippolito Galante, a cultural attaché at the Legation and a university lecturer, and the reins were then taken by Giuseppe Valentini, who had initially been drafted in to replace Vitaletti as Professor of Italian at the University of Lisbon. Valentini first ran the Institute on behalf of Galante, who was taken up with teaching university courses in Coimbra, before being actually appointed director because of Galante's transfer to Sweden, first, and then to Peru (Durston Reference Durston2014).

From 1933 onwards, thanks to Valentini as the new director, there was a greater commitment to the organisation of seasons of conferences on literary and political themes, which drew in some of Lisbon's prominent academic and intellectual figures either as speakers or as guests.Footnote ³

What brought about this change? The Italian delegation in Portugal clearly now found themselves in a political and cultural environment that seemed more amenable.Footnote ⁴ It had finally been acknowledged that it was impossible to make an impact on Portuguese public opinion by starting with the insubstantial Italian community.Footnote ⁵ It was therefore necessary to interact more directly with the capital's intellectuals and its press, aiming for a synergy that would lead the Institute towards greater visibility and status in Lisbon's cultural world. The main drive was towards creating and fostering a discussion about Italian Fascism and its shared ground with Portugal's conservative and nationalist Estado Novo. The 1930s were a period of institutional consolidation for the Salazar regime, which took a more authoritarian direction. Portugal's new constitution and its National Labour Statute were enacted in 1933, both with a strong corporatist framework (Costa Pinto and Palomanes Martinho Reference Costa Pinto and Palomanes Martinho2008, Reference Costa Pinto and Palomanes Martinho2016; Pasetti Reference Pasetti, Bauerkämper and Rossoliński-Liebe2017). A political police force was created, as was the National Propaganda Bureau, and the web of control was tightened up by the systematic use of censorship and political repression (Rosas Reference Rosas1996; Adinolfi Reference Adinolfi2007, Reference Adinolfi2012).

With the Portuguese environment now more receptive to Italian propaganda, Italy's diplomatic corps and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs decided that the space occupied by the Royal Portuguese-Italian Institute was inadequate for its intended aims. In 1934, the Casa d'Italia and, within it, the Institute moved from the central Largo do Carmo to Avenida da Liberdade 189, on the major arterial road, modelled on the Champs-Élysées in Paris, running down the city's central valley. In this new location, the Institute's conferences had an increasingly marked political content. They were organised within a network of Italy's cultural presence in Lisbon that included an Italian room in the Instituto Superior de Ciências Económicas e Financeiras, set aside for this purpose in 1933 on the initiative of the economist and academic Moses Amzalak, the leader of Lisbon's Jewish community and a regular attender of events at the Royal Portuguese-Italian Institute (Pignatelli Reference Pignatelli2000, Reference Pignatelli2008).

The time was now ripe for constructing a definitive and detailed plan for political propaganda, but this process had to reckon with an unexpected hiatus. The approach of the Ethiopian War (1935–6) marked a sudden freeze in Fascist propaganda operations abroad, with Portugal no exception (Ivani Reference Ivani2008, 173); the actual outbreak of conflict triggered heated international debate, with questions asked anew about how the colonial system had been consolidated in the wake of the First World War. Salazar, as various studies have illustrated, was afraid of new arrangements in Africa and had little faith in the political capabilities of the League of Nations to extinguish any fresh conflict (Salazar Reference Salazar1937, 114–18; Collotti Reference Collotti2000, 275–78; Labanca Reference Labanca2015; Rochat Reference Rochat2005, 15–31).

Although the Portuguese press was initially critical of Italy's venture, during 1936 it became more favourable towards the conclusion of the conflict and proclamation of the Italian Empire (Serapiglia Reference Serapiglia2016). There was no shortage in Lisbon of pro-Italian expression, whose intention was to emphasise the increasing closeness of the two regimes, not least through the colonial question: while the Portuguese Foreign Minister Armindo Monteiro was congratulating the First Secretary of the Italian Legation Pietro de Paolis (Del Boca Reference Del Boca2010, 47), a large group of nationalist students was celebrating the declaration of Italy's Fascist Empire in the halls of the University of Lisbon (Diário de Notícias 1936).

The Italian Cultural Institute in the late 1930s

The second half of 1936 was an important period of transition in the history of the Institute. It was decided that it should be relaunched, in line with similar developments recently under way in other Italian cultural institutions operating abroad (Cavarocchi Reference Cavarocchi, Pena-Rodríguez and Paulo2016, 250). First of all, the name was changed, in uniformity with similar institutes elsewhere: the ‘Regio Istituto Luso-Italiano’ became the ‘Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Lisbona’. Subsequently, arrangements were made for transfer to a more spacious base: the Avenida da Libertade was abandoned for the Rua do Salitre, 600 metres to the east, where an Art Nouveau building was to be purchased. Here, all the Italian institutions and delegations could be brought together. As well as the Institute, there was the Casa d'Italia; the Lisbon Fascio; the Chamber of Commerce and the offices of the commercial attaché's delegation; the Consulate; and the only Italian elementary state school in Portugal (Ministero degli affari esteri 1928, 177).

Count Mario di Carrobio, the secretary of the Fascio, wrote to the Secretary for Fasci Abroad about the implementation of ‘a financial plan that permits the immediate purchase of a plot of about 1,300 square metres of land, 1,000 of which are garden’. The funders included the Italian Church in Lisbon, which had agreed to make a loan of 175,000 escudos. A further 155,000 escudos were made available by Carrobio in person, thereby avoiding the involvement of a Portuguese bank and the resulting mortgage on the property. In the same letter, Carrobio was careful to specify ‘most explicitly, that, far from any ostentatious intention, the only reason that I have taken the place of the Portuguese Bank in personally making the loan, which is essential for purchase of the building, has been to fulfil, within the limits of my capacity, … my obligations as an Italian and a Fascist’.Footnote ⁶

The new premises demanded an opening ceremony that reflected the investment made. The Institute's director Giuseppe Valentini, who had temporarily left the post to enlist as a volunteer in Ethiopia, returned in time for the start of the activities planned for the 1936–7 season. In December 1936, the president of the Fascist Confederation of Artists Alessandro Pavolini, certainly the most important guest in the Institute's eight years of activity up to that point, was invited for the ceremony launching the new courses (Corriere della Sera 1936).

Between the end of the Ethiopian War and Italy's entry into the Second World War, the Institute engaged in massive propaganda efforts. Alongside the themes that related directly to cultural promotion, such as the Renaissance, classical literature and Dante, Fascism and the Fascist regime were the subjects of increasing amounts of promotional material and events, in line with the government directives arriving from Rome. A circular of 1937 from the General Office for Italians Abroad, directed at the Cultural Institutes and university lecturers, set out the expectations:

The reports periodically sent to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs reveal the increase in the Italian Cultural Institute's activities during 1937. An Italo-Portuguese cultural agreement was drawn up for the exchange and loan of books selected by the Institute, and there was a marked increase in the number of people registering for courses.Footnote ⁸ However, the longstanding problem of the scarcity of financial resources available remained a limiting factor, highlighting the imbalance between the politics of power promoted by the Mussolini government and the operational capacity for penetrating Portugal by propaganda. This capacity was also meagre when compared with the cultural diplomacy practised by other powers: in 1936–7, the financial resources allocated to the French Cultural Institute were about twenty times greater than the Italian budget (Ivani Reference Ivani2008, 189). However, there were some important changes in the management of the Institute and its staff: the lectureships at the three Portuguese universities were allocated to different academics, and a new director, Aldo Bizzarri, was appointed. Professor in the History of Political Thought at the University of Rome, Bizzarri had been an energetic figure in Italy's literary world of the early twentieth century. In 1928 he and Gian Gaspare Napolitano had founded I Lupi, a journal of ‘novecentismo fascista’ (‘Fascist twentieth-centuryism’), whose contributors had included Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (Vander Reference Vander2001, 87). He had then had extensive experience leading different Italian Cultural Institutes, first in South America (Santiago, Chile) and then in France (Rennes) (Ronconi Reference Ronconi1973, 133). Under Bizzarri's management the Institute increased the number of conferences on political themes, in an attempt to align itself with the political and cultural circles that recognised a ‘spiritual continuity’ between Italian Fascism and the Salazar regime (Gori and Carvalho Reference Gori and de Carvalho2015).

The bolder approach taken by Italian cultural diplomacy led the Institute to move once again, detaching itself from the Casa d'Italia and the headquarters of the Fascio in the quest for more space. In the autumn of 1939, its base was relocated to a building just a stone's throw away, at Rua de Salitre 136, while the Casa d'Italia remained in the premises acquired only three years earlier, at Rua de Salitre 145.Footnote ⁹ At much the same time, Bizzarri decided to consolidate the Italian presence in Lisbon's intellectual panorama by publishing the Institute's own journal, Estudos Italianos em Portugal, which would appear twice a year.

The genesis and aims of the new journal were set out in Bizzarri's opening note:

It was clear from the Director's brief introduction that the intentions of the journal were to capture on paper the papers presented at the conferences and, especially, to disseminate them to a wider public than the immediate audience.

For the first issue of the Institute's new publication, Bizzarri drew on the university circles in Lisbon in which Italian culture in Portugal had had its maximum impact, penetration and success during the 1930s. The ‘contents’ page featured intellectuals who had been a regular presence at the Institute in Rua de Salitre: Paulo Cunha, a lecturer in public law at the University of Lisbon (later, from 1962 to 1965, its chancellor) and future foreign minister, from 1950 to 1956; Viera de Almeida and Hernani Cidade, lecturers in literature at the same university; Vicente Ferreira, a lecturer in engineering at the Technical University of Lisbon, formerly a minister during the First Portuguese Republic and subsequently the holder of prominent posts in Salazar's colonial government; and Júlio Dantas, a poet and writer, also a minister under the Republic and then a diplomat, who was one of the major figures enlivening the Portuguese intellectual landscape and longstanding president of the Academy of Sciences. Last but not least, there was Augusto de Castro, a figure of great importance within the Estado Novo: editor for several stretches of the Diário de Notícias, Portugal's most important newspaper, he also served as a diplomat in various European cities, especially in Fascist Italy, both as head of the diplomatic mission to the Vatican (1924–9) and as the Portuguese Ambassador to Italy (1931–5).

The presidency of Luigi Federzoni and his visit to Portugal in 1940

The arrival of the 1940s marked a downward shift in gear, for reasons that can be related to changes in the international context and the Second World War.

Federzoni was president of the Royal Academy of Italy, editor of Nuova antologia, president of the Fascist Institute of Italian Africa, and president of the Institute of the Enciclopedia italiana (Vittoria Reference Vittoria1995); his many responsibilities gave him the ideal profile to heighten the Institute's prestige in Portugal's governmental circles. The second issue of Estudos Italianos em Portugal published Federzoni's greeting message to the world of Portuguese high culture:

Federzoni's approach to Portugal's ruling elites was further strengthened by, not least, his visit to the country in late February and early March 1940. The Portuguese press, and the Diário de Lisboa in particular, gave ample coverage to his crowded timetable of official engagements; the most eagerly awaited event was a speech of greeting to be delivered at a formal session of Lisbon's Academy of Sciences (Diário de Lisboa 1940a, 1940b). Two years earlier, Federzoni (Reference Federzoni1938) had despatched a message to this important Portuguese cultural institution ahead of the dual celebrations marking 800 years since the country's foundation and 300 years since the restoration of its independence from Spain, culminating in the Portuguese World Exhibition opened in June 1940; the chief organiser was Augusto de Castro, mentioned earlier as a contributor to the first issue of the Institute's journal (Gori Reference Gori2018). Directing his missive to the Academy's president Júlio Dantas (another of the journal's future contributors), Federzoni had extolled the ‘heroic deeds of Portuguese nationalism’ and the nation's virtues:

This sort of rhetoric clearly found validation in the growing approval that Italian Fascism was experiencing in Portugal's cultural circles, in the wake of the proclamation of the Italian Empire after the Ethiopian War. The ‘Portuguese people faithful to the tradition of Rome’ could thus look at the example offered by ‘Mussolini's providential genius’. The Portuguese, Federzoni had observed, ‘have already essayed, and now happily realised, in such a brief passage of years, a profound reconstruction of the state and national society, which places Portugal among the most politically evolved nations’ (Reference Federzoni1938). However, this message had also been responsible for a degree of tension. Implicit in the rhetoric that traced Portuguese origins back to romanità was the spiritual supremacy of Rome over Portugal, which could be related both to the historical explanations of ‘civilisation’ and to the primacy of the Mussolinian model when compared with the Estado Novo. It is hardly surprising that Federzoni's discourse about the centrality of Rome in ‘Latin civilisation’, which he referred to several times during his visit in early 1940, met with a lukewarm reception among Portugal's intellectual and political circles, whose members were scarcely inclined to regard themselves as Italy's ideological subordinates (Colaço Reference Colaço1940).

Federzoni's formal and private appointments concluded on 7 March, a week after his arrival. In the two years that followed, he seems not to have undertaken any further activity on behalf of the Institute.

War and defascistisation (1940–5)

The outbreak of the Second World War signalled the beginning of a decline in Italian propaganda activity and cultural diplomacy in Portugal. Italy's attention was directed more towards the areas judged to be of greater strategic importance to its war effort, such as eastern Europe and the Balkans (Santoro Reference Santoro2005, 318–35). In 1941 Aldo Bizzarri, who as director of the Institute in Lisbon had been inventive, enterprising and capable, was transferred to Budapest and at the same time Gino Saviotti was appointed in his stead. A theatre critic, novelist and playwright, Saviotti had been responsible for the first publication in Italy, in the 1920s, of works by Ezra Pound (Redman Reference Redman1991; Bacigalupo Reference Bacigalupo and Nadel2010). In 1920, he had founded the literary review Pagine Critiche, published quarterly, whose contributors included Luigi Salvatorelli, Massimo Mila, Luigi Russo and Gaetano Salvemini (Strulato Reference Strulato1987). Saviotti had left Italy in 1937 due to personal difficulties, going first to Budapest; in response to the first rumblings of a forthcoming war in Europe, he then opted for ‘calm and outlying’ Portugal, arriving in 1939.Footnote ¹¹ Having worked with the Italian Cultural Institute as a teacher for the outlying Porto branch, he was hastily appointed as Bizzarri's replacement to manage the organisation as a whole.Footnote ¹²

As a representative organ of a country at war, the Institute was forbidden to engage in any activity involving political propaganda. The only viable course of action was a compromise: continuing to operate while renouncing any direct reference to the war, in a city that was taking on a central role in the ‘shadow war’ of propaganda and espionage between the countries involved in the conflict (Telo Reference Telo1990; Rosas Reference Rosas1990; Lochery Reference Lochery2011).

Regular publication of Estudos Italianos em Portugal continued during the war years, although without strict adherence to its intended schedule of appearances every six months. Between 1941 and 1943, six issues came out: three in 1941, one in 1942, and the last two in 1943. Saviotti's professional training in the world of literary reviews, like that of Bizzarri before him, must surely have assisted in confirming the Institute's journal as the principal vehicle for Italian cultural diplomacy in Portugal. Writing in 1941 to Giulio Bertoni, an important philologist and member of the Italian Academy, Saviotti described the attempt to keep faith with the programme disseminating Italian language and culture, ‘despite the current international difficulties, and thanks especially to the sympathy and moral support of those in this country who take an interest in the historical and spiritual relationships between Italy and Portugal’.Footnote ¹³

From the third issue of 1941 onwards, the journal's critical essays were accompanied by a weighty section of book reviews and arts coverage. The contributing authors continued to include, first and foremost, figures from Lisbon's academic world and the holders of Italian lectureships in Portugal (Brustoloni Reference Brustoloni1986). The final issue of the journal under the aegis of Fascism came out in January 1943. The preparation of articles for future numbers may well have already started, but editorial work was indefinitely postponed in response to events in Italy in the period between 25 July and 8 September.Footnote ¹⁴

With the production of political propaganda banned, conferences at the Italian Cultural Institute in the early 1940s focused on artistic and literary themes, which were actually more in harmony with Saviotti's own intellectual interests. Important contributors continued to arrive from Italy; among these, Camillo Pellizzi, the president of the National Institute for Fascist Culture, stands out as the most significant visitor from the regime's hierarchy.Footnote ¹⁵ Otherwise, activities were largely limited to language courses both at the Institute's headquarters and in secondary schools.

Paradoxically, the Fascist regime collapsed at the point when the Italian Cultural Institute and its branches had extended their reach further than at any time since the year it was founded. Gradual depoliticisation of the activities overseen by Saviotti, more from necessity than choice, had meant that a substantial part of the Institute's resources could be dedicated to schools and language teaching, with a marked increase in the number of teachers it employed in Portugal. By the spring of 1943, Italian classes were being held in 57 venues spread out over 17 different Portuguese cities, with total student numbers topping three thousand (Ivani Reference Ivani2008, 266).

Inevitably, the fall of Fascism and the dramatic reduction in funds available gave rise to a contraction. The outlying bases were closed, the Porto and Coimbra branches were decommissioned, and responsibility for their activities was returned to, respectively, the Casa d'Italia in Porto and the Institute for Italian Studies within the University of Coimbra's Faculty of Letters.

A difficult transition period ensued. The Italian Cultural Institute, as a body within the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, now found itself under the control of the Badoglio government. The issue becomes more complex when we look at the biographical trajectories of the staff employed and other contributors. Both the Italian Legation and the Institute had to reckon with those who remained faithful to Fascism, which had now found reincarnation in the Italian Social Republic (RSI) of Salò (Grassi Orsini Reference Grassi Orsini, Del Boca, Legnani and Rossi1995). In Portugal there were a number of these people, who were only dismissed by the Ministry in 1944 and then sought remuneration as part of the RSI's patchy foreign network.Footnote ¹⁶

The activities of the Institute in Lisbon – cut back to the bone – were jointly subsidised by the British and American embassies until mid 1944.Footnote ¹⁷ For the Allies, the fear that its complete dismantling might encourage the creation of similar institutions by the Republic of Salò prevailed over the analysis that saw it as a body created by Fascism for propaganda purposes, and as such destined to cease operation once the regime had collapsed.

For the 1943–4 season, the Institute's more formal events in Lisbon ceased but language and culture courses went ahead. The focus of the programmes returned to literary topics, particularly concentrating on the classics: Dante, Manzoni, Petrarch and the Renaissance. At the beginning of 1945, with no funding, the Institute left the premises that had separated it from the Casa d'Italia and returned to the building that the Legation had purchased in 1936, where the Casa d'Italia and the Fascio had meanwhile been broken up.