Alessandro Pavolini - Early life and career, Prominence

Italian politician, born in Florence, Tuscany, NC Italy. He joined the Fascist movement at a young age and became an organizer of the Fascist squads. A member of the national directorate, he served as minister for popular culture (1939–43), and after 8 September he set up the ‘black brigades’ to pursue the partisans. He was caught with Mussolini while trying to escape, and executed.

Alessandro Pavolini (September 27, 1903—April 28, 1945) was an Italian politician, journalist, and essayist, notable for his involvement in the Fascist government in during World War II.

Early life and career

A native of Florence, Pavolini was the son of Paolo Emilio Pavolini - a major scholar of Sanskrit and other Indo-European languages.

After joining Benito Mussolini's movement in Florence, he took part in several actions of the Blackshirts, and led a squad during the 1922 March on Rome - the moment when Fascism took over in Italy. Pavolini was assigned tasks in the cultural field (including youth programs launched by the fascists), while contributing to fascist publications such as Battaglie fasciste, Rivoluzione fascista, and Critica fascista. From 1929 to 1934, he was local leader of the National Fascist Party (PNF) in Florence, as well as editor of the fascist publication Bargello (named after a military rank of the Middle Ages), which urged all intellectuals to contribute; Pavolini aimed for an image of Fascism as cultural and aristocratic - he initiated a series of cultural events that survived both Fascism and his death, including the yearly costumed re-enactment of the Italian Renaissance-era sport Calcio Fiorentino, the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and the Ponte Vecchio Artisans' Exhibit.

Prominence

After becoming a member of the national PNF leadership in 1932, he moved on from local politics to become the president of the Fascist Confederation of Professionals and Artists, which propelled him to a leadership position in the Council of Corporations.

The troubled events caused by the Allied invasion of Sicily and the ousting of Mussolini in Rome brought Nazi intervention and the proclamation of a new fascist puppet state, the northern Italian Social Republic. Pavolini was integrated to the Republic's administration under Mussolini, and was immediately promoted head of the reformed PNF, the Republican Fascist Party (the first and only person to occupy that post);