This article seeks to explore a crucial and controversial period in the history of Italy—the country's transition from Fascism to democracy—focusing on the life and work of Uguccione Ranieri di Sorbello.Sorbello's experience provides an interesting case study in what has been called “il lungo viaggio,” the long journey away from the myths and illusions of Fascist propaganda. At the same time, it sheds light on the construction and development of cultural and political relations between Italy and the United States both before and after World War II.Uguccione Sorbello came to the US in 1931 at the age of twenty-five. He had been born in 1906 into an illustrious aristocratic family: His father was Ruggero Ranieri Bourbon del Monte, Marchese di Sorbello, and his mother Romeyne Robert of New York and Morristown, New Jersey (Ranieri 2006b; Ranieri 2015; Dundovich and Ranieri 2004; Ranieri and Valoroso 2019).The Ranieri di Sorbellos were one of the prominent families of the old Umbrian aristocracy, with their vast estates, some of them belonging to the family since the early Middle Ages, and with a rich cultural background, well displayed in their lavish family library and archives.1 Uguccione's father Ruggero was an influential figure: member of the landowning Umbrian élite, well cultivated and energetic, he was also extremely authoritarian, especially with his sons from whom he expected no less than total submission, hard work, and a degree of success in their education and career (Barberi 1943; Guarino 2002).Romeyne Robert, Uguccione's mother, was a talented woman with literary interests and artistic inclinations. By birth she belonged to an exclusive circle of old East Coast American families; the Roberts were French Huguenots from La Rochelle in France, the judge Daniel Robert having emigrated to America in 1686. The family grew rich during the nineteenth century, particularly thanks to Christopher Rhineland Robert, a successful businessperson, who, among other things, founded the Robert & Williams trading company for the import of sugar, tea, and cotton (Dictionary of American Biography1935). Romeyne, who had first come to Italy as part of her first tour of Europe, spent her married life striving to update and refine the customs and traditions of the aristocratic family into which she had married. She soon found herself in the forefront of the movement for the promotion of women's emancipation in Italy. Working in the tradition of artistic philanthropy, she was inspired to create innovative patterns of embroidery culminating in the creation of the successful design named Punto Umbro, or Sorbello. She then organized a school of embroidery, training the peasant women of the family estate near Perugia into the skilled workforce of a workshop, which, at its peak around 1910, employed more than a hundred women (Buseghin 1996; Buseghin 2005; Pazzini 2021; Ranieri 2021).Uguccione's early education took place at home and was entrusted to a series of governesses and tutors, most of whom were British (although there was also an Italian priest, Don Mariano, who appears to have had a considerable influence). When he started to attend primary school in the fourth year, Uguccione says he was singled out for his “British” accent (Pazzini 2021, 7–62).Uguccione graduated in law at Rome University in 1929 and also studied political science at the University of Florence and Perugia. Politically, Uguccione drew heavily on the climate predominant in his generation of exalted nationalism and anti-socialism of the late 1920s. Fascism was seen as a movement destined to restore Italy's standing among the great European nations and Benito Mussolini as the self-made man able to impose his will on a weak and ineffective elite that had proved incapable of restoring political and economic order to a country shattered by social unrest and economic decline (Ranieri and Valoroso 2019, 27–29).Despite studying law, his interests were mostly literary and, like many of his generation, he was influenced by Gabriele D'Annunzio in ideas and style. Another poet he studied in depth and from whom he absorbed patriotic and nationalist sentiments was Giosuè Carducci. Between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four, Uguccione read extensively in Italian, English, and French, forming for himself a vast background in literature and history. He also started to publish literary reviews in small university journals. In fact, one of the reasons he moved to the US was to escape the career in law and administration his father had planned for him. There was never a question of his feeling or being an exile, since he had been brought up in an English-speaking environment and had many close relatives in the US.As the first section of this article—written by Roberto Dolci—illustrates, during the 1930s, Sorbello enrolled at Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and worked as a young lecturer and instructor in the US, a country where, since the 1920s, the teaching of Italian as a second language had been steadily increasing, partly because of the active involvement of the Fascist government in its promotion, and partly because of the work of a community of Italian American and Italian intellectuals such as Leonard Covello, Angelo Patri, and Giuseppe Prezzolini.The second section—authored by Ruggero Ranieri—presents and discusses in more depth the personality of Uguccione Sorbello, focusing on his activities in the US during the 1930s as well as on the key moments and circumstances that shaped his political transformation in the 1940s, when he returned to Italy and started working for the MinCulPop. It is in those crucial years for the history of Italy (1940 to 1943) that Sorbello moved away from the enthusiastic nationalism that had characterized the first part of his life by renouncing his Fascist past and choosing to become an active participant in the Resistance. His rejection of Fascism is examined via his troubled and yet intimate and ultimately crucial relationship with the writer, academic, and federalist constitutionalist Giuseppe Antonio Borgese.In the third and last section of the article, Antonella Valoroso explains how, during the 1950s, Sorbello was back in the US as cultural attaché to the Italian embassy in Washington and tasked with managing the cultural office at the Consulate General of Italy in New York City. For almost five years that office, located at 690 Park Avenue, became a hotbed of activities and initiatives aiming at a common goal: fostering the new image of a reborn democratic Italy, which, according to Sorbello, was primarily a country with roots firmly planted in the past yet able to look forward, to renovate and reinvent itself thanks to the unquestionable genius of its people: Italy is a vast country, not in size, but in depth.Three thousand years of recorded history, many superimposed civilizations, a continued brimming over and renewal of vitality, the presence on its soil of an uninterrupted stream of great men, have kept Italy constantly in the limelight of our planet's life and of the progress of Man upon it.Nor can any written page hope to capture that undefinable something which men have always felt when coming into actual contact with Italy, and which made one of them write: No one who has known that land can ever again be totally unhappy. (Ollebros 1954, 39)Uguccione Ranieri di Sorbello is one of the many Italian intellectuals who, in the period between the two world wars, spent part of their lives in the United States. Some of them, such as Gaetano Salvemini, Michele Cantarella, Giuseppe Antonio Borgese, Max Ascoli, just to name a few, did so to escape Fascism. Others moved to the US to serve a more institutional role and were somehow linked to the regime; that is the case with Giuseppe Prezzolini, who directed the Casa Italiana at Columbia University for ten years. However, Sorbello's choice to move to the US in 1930 does not fall into either category. He was rather part of the so-called “elite migrants” (Gabaccia 2003, 141–143) since he had left Italy for personal reasons, to distance himself from his father's authority and possibly to start a career as a teacher and journalist. Although these writers and thinkers moved from different perspectives, in the United States they all had the opportunity to discuss and collaborate with the first generation of Italian American intellectuals who spoke for their community.Between 1920 and 1940, the teaching of Italian in the United States increased rapidly. While in 1919 one could read in the Modern Language Journal that “Italian is regarded at its best as a tail for the French kite” (Moore 1919, 238), in 1939 the Italian Teachers Association bulletin reported that Italian was among the most widely taught foreign languages. In 1939 the president of the ITA, Leonard Covello, proudly commented: “Over a period of 17 years, there has been a steady increase in registration for Italian. We have gone from 11 High Schools in 1 state and a total yearly registration of only 2400, approximately, to 240 schools in 17 states, with a total yearly registration of more than 75,000 students in the school year 1938–1939” (Cordasco 1975, 127). Many reasons lay behind such a success: a significant improvement in the economic well-being of the community of Americans of Italian origin and the consequent rise up the social and educational ladder; the greater importance of Italy in the international economic, political, and scientific landscape; and the image of Italy as the cradle of Western civilization. Such a dramatic change could not, however, have been possible without the efforts of local Italian American communities, the Italian government, the many Italian intellectuals who emigrated to the US to escape Fascism, and, to a lesser extent, Americans interested in the Italian language and culture.Driven by the interests of the Italian American community and the Fascist government, the teaching of Italian grew steadily until the beginning of World War II, even though it was largely concentrated in those states where Americans of Italian descent were most represented. The reasons for promoting the teaching of the Italian language can be reduced to three main ones: to strengthen the bond with the motherland; to strengthen the sense of community among Italian Americans; and to promote Italy as the cradle of Western civilization. The main differences between these have to do with their particular roles in relation to Fascism and Fascist propaganda.For the Fascist government, the success of Italian-language teaching in the US served as a demonstration that Italy, thanks to Mussolini, had become a great power. It was also important to show the new Italian progress—its economic, political, and social achievements as well as its growing prestige. The regime's effort to promote the teaching of Italian was chiefly focused on the community of Americans of Italian origin and particularly the second generation, whose ties with Italy were weakening, partly due to the loss of the Italian language.2 They were perfectly integrated, they all possessed US citizenship and were consequently capable of influencing US policy in favor of Italy and Fascism. It was therefore necessary to ensure that the link with the motherland was restored or strengthened. A knowledge of the Italian language was a key requirement for conveying the new values, and the new image of the regime could have been effectively promoted through schools, teachers, and textbooks.3 It was therefore essential to encourage the spread of Italian-language teaching in schools. Mussolini himself told a group of US university students of Italian descent during their visit to Rome: “Prove the worth of the Italian race by being loyal and true citizens of the great American Republic” (Sammartino and Scaramelli 1933, 217). The phrase Mussolini used recalls a slogan used by Prezzolini (1935, 1) in those years: “buon americano perché buon italiano” (a good American because a good Italian). Americans of Italian origin should maintain their emotional and cultural identity and spiritual bond with their motherland; this would make it possible for the regime to “use” them as a lobby in favor of Italy and its policies by influencing, by means of their elected representatives, the US relationship with Italy.For Italian Americans, the link with Italy served to build and reinforce the Italian American community concept: finding roots and a common ground that could facilitate encounters between groups that were often very divided due to different geographic origins, dialects, and even cultures. At the same time, the Italian language could help avert a clash between the second generation of Italian Americans, who wanted to assimilate, and the generation of their fathers, still tied to Italian traditions and culture. That was the position of the Italian American intellectuals who promoted this perspective. The Italian language thus became a crucial identity feature, a link between the different components of the community. The relationship with and praise for the Fascist government were also subordinate to this unifying purpose. Italian American intellectuals active in the educational field, such as Angelo Patri and Leonard Covello, were the most influential advocates of this perspective. Learning Italian allowed second-generation Italian Americans to integrate into their “new” homeland while maintaining a strong sense of cultural identity.Angelo Patri for example, states emphatically, “You will be a better American citizen, a better son or daughter, a more sympathetic and understanding human being when you can speak, not only your own English, but the language of your ancestors” (Patri 1934, 1). While Leonard Covello says, “These students [i.e., second-generation Italian Americans], once grown into manhood, will bring the genius and faith of their fathers in American life. Their Italian descent is a promise” (Iacovella 1933, 161).The notion of italianità used by Fascism to bind Italian Americans to itself differs from its definition according to Patri, Covello, and other like-minded Italian American intellectuals; for them, italianità is linked to the effort to create a local community that is harmoniously integrated precisely because it is aware of its own values. The emphasis is on Italy, its language, and its traditions more than on Fascism.The stances of Patri and Covello, although they were very influential figures in the field of education, did not, however, represent the whole range of attitudes of Italian American intellectuals toward Fascism. Both celebration and rejection of the Fascist ideology were in fact present among the leading political and economic figures and in the community at large.As mentioned above, in the period between the two world wars, intellectuals had left Italy for a variety of reasons and stayed in the US for different lengths of time. Some had been sent by the Fascist government to hold a series of conferences that would also include propaganda in favor of the regime. Others held more or less institutional roles, such as representatives of the Italian government, and some others had left Italy to escape Fascism.Giuseppe Prezzolini, as director of the Casa Italiana at Columbia University, was one of the most influential among all these intellectuals. Prezzolini attempted to mediate between the perspective of the Fascist government and the community. He agreed with both the philosophy of Patri, whom he admired, and the initiatives of Covello, with whom he collaborated. He also backed the Fascist government's attitude regarding the need for second-generation Italians to maintain close ties with the motherland and to support and defend it. At the same time, like many other educators, he realized that the teaching of Italian could not only serve as a means of ethnic recognition, limited to the Italian American community, but had to be extended to a wider audience of learners.According to Prezzolini, the Italian language possessed a unique functional value because it was spoken by a nation that was rapidly progressing and gaining importance worldwide, while at the same time it represented one of the pillars of Western culture, and therefore also of US culture.This position is best summarized in Prezzolini's definition of Italian as a modern classical language (Prezzolini 1939). A modern language should be studied primarily for its lasting human values and only incidentally for its practical applications. Modern civilization cannot be thoroughly appreciated without a study of its lasting spiritual qualities, and the study of Italian, heir to the humanistic cultures of ancient Greece and Rome, should be given primary consideration because of Italy's achievements in art, letters, music, science, and human thought (Prezzolini 1939).During the 1920s and 1930s, the teaching of Italian language and culture was also an area of fierce political conflict. Patri and Covello maintained a position as neutral as possible, while many college and high-school teachers, to different degrees, openly touted Fascism. Prezzolini, both in his ideas and on account of his institutional position, did not oppose Fascism, even if he criticized it. Others used their influential positions to support the fight against Fascism and its propaganda. The most important representative of this standpoint is perhaps Salvemini, who sharply criticized the way in which the Fascist government overtly utilized the promotion of the teaching of Italian as a propaganda tool. He also unleashed a tough attack on Prezzolini and the Casa Italiana. Salvemini's example was followed by other anti-Fascist Italian teachers, including Cantarella, who wrote to Prezzolini accusing him of making Fascist propaganda through Casa Italiana's publications, calling them errore molto grave secondo me, che potrebbe causare una reazione a danno della nostra cultura all'estero da parte delle autorità scolastiche e politiche, oltre a quella di quei professori italiani la cui schiena si mantiene dritta e solida malgrado i colpi di manganello. (Cantarella 1934)(a very serious error in my opinion, which could cause a reaction to the detriment of our culture abroad by the educational and political authorities, in addition to that of those Italian teachers whose backs remain straight and solid despite the blows of the truncheon.)Salvemini also strongly condemned the propaganda machine of Fascism, which used scholarships and prize trips to Italy where, according to him, students and teachers of Italian were “held in an artificial atmosphere of nationalistic exaltation” (Salvemini 1969, 27). Salvemini also denounced the conflicts Fascism caused within the Italian American community, since many of its members, especially the younger ones, had been heavily influenced by propaganda and now “non gliene importa nulla dell'America” (they don't care about America anymore; Salvemini 1969, 30): a result contrary to Patri and Covello's hopes. Nevertheless, Salvemini was also convinced that “far dimenticare agli americani di origine italiana la terra dei loro avi e la sua lingua” (to make Americans of Italian origin forget the land of their ancestors and its language) is a mistake and that the teaching of the Italian language should rather focus on “la voce dell'eterna Italia, che esisteva prima che nascesse Mussolini e continuerà ad esistere molto tempo dopo” (the voice of the eternal Italy, which existed before Mussolini was born and will continue to exist long after; Salvemini 1969, 34–35).Sorbello, as mentioned above, was driven to the United States mostly by personal reasons rather than by ideological motivations. He taught at Yale and at the summer school of Middlebury College; delivered talks on various aspects of the Italian language, mostly in the New England area; and wrote in newspapers and magazines about Italy and Italian culture.In a short biographical essay, Antonio Varsori states that Sorbello aligned himself with nationalist and pro-regime positions, and he also reports that Sorbello argued with Salvemini (Varsori 1984, 39). However, Sorbello's statements never seem overly propagandistic or a simple parroting of the regime's line. In his writings we do not notice propaganda like that present in that of many other intellectuals and teachers of Italian language, including, for example, Francesco Boselli, A. Marinoni, and L. A. Passarelli.His stance was closer to Prezzolini's, and he actively collaborated with him by writing in magazines and publications sponsored by or related to Casa Italiana. However, Sorbello had also developed a strong position in regard to the peculiar attitude toward Fascism shown by the Italian American diasporic community, as one can see from what he wrote in the Corriere del Connecticut in 1933: L'italiano d'America è fascista perché di quel che avviene in Italia—pur avendo tutte le buone ragioni di sospettare che le cose vi procedono meglio che negli altri paesi—se ne infischia altamente. Troppi e più gravi problemi lo assillano nella sua nuova vita che spesso purtroppo non è quella vigna di salsicce che aveva sognato.D'altra parte l'italiano d'America si è accorto di una cosa: che 10, che 15 anni fa c'era in America l'italiano che cambiava il proprio nome per mascherare la sua origine. Che invece oggi l'italiano, qua, dice “I am Italian” e involontariamente alza un poco il mento abbandonandosi a quel brutto peccato che è la superbia.Perché? Perché dietro di lui, lontano, al di là di tanto mare, c'è l'Italia Fascista. Egli lo sa, questo, per istinto, prima ancora che gli altri americani glielo vengano a raccontare con i loro giornali e con le [sic] film. . . . Egli sa che nel gioco delle forze mondiali c'è una nuova forza oggi che in cento modi diversi, magari col solo prestigio, giova anche a lui povero emigrato lontano, e che questa forza si chiama Italia Fascista (una forza che, come tutte le forze, è cementata 50 per cento con l'ammirazione e 50 per cento con un salutare timore). Egli sa che non si muove pietra nel mondo oggi che la voce del suo Popolo non sia consultata. Egli legge nei giornali—e non se ne meraviglia—che i primi Ministri degli altri paesi si muovono svelti, magari in aeroplano, per venire a Roma a domandar pareri. Egli sa . . . e ricorda quando non era così; quando . . . ma perché seguitare? Ripeto: anche l'italo-americano che si atteggia ad anti-fascista, purché abbia assaggiato una sola volta quello che significa essere sprezzati per la razza a cui si appartiene—oggi—giù, giù in fondo al cuore—è fascista (Ranieri 1933;4 emphasis in the original)(The Italian American is a fascist because of what is happening in Italy—despite having every good reason to suspect that things are progressing better there than in other countries—he doesn't give a damn. Too many and more serious problems haunt him in his new life, which unfortunately is often not the bowl of cherries he had dreamed of.On the other hand, the Italian of America noticed one thing: that ten, that fifteen years ago in America there were Italians who changed their names to disguise their origin. Instead today the Italian, here, says, “I am Italian” and involuntarily raises his chin a little, abandoning himself to that ugly sin that is pride.Why? Because behind him, far away, beyond many seas, there is Fascist Italy. He knows this by instinct, even before other Americans come to tell him with their newspapers and films. . . . He knows that today in the game of world forces there is a new force that in a hundred different ways, perhaps only by prestige, also benefits poor faraway migrants, and that this force is called Fascist Italy [a force which, like every force, is cemented by 50 percent admiration and 50 percent necessary fear]. He knows that no stone moves in the world today without consulting the voice of his people. He reads in the newspapers—and he is not surprised—that the prime ministers of other countries are moving quickly, perhaps by plane, to come to Rome to ask for opinions. He knows . . . and remembers when it wasn't like that; when . . . but why continue? I repeat: Even the Italian American who poses as an anti-Fascist, as long as he has tasted only once what it means to be despised for the race to which he belongs—today—in the depths of his heart—is a fascist.)For both Prezzolini and Sorbello, the reasons for promoting the study of the Italian language were not simply propaganda, but rather institutional motivations aiming at enhancing and supporting the prestige of Italy. Perhaps their position can be summarized in the English expression “My country, right or wrong.” Prezzolini himself states it quite clearly: Non facciamo propaganda, ma riteniamo che bisogna presentare sotto la luce più favorevole gli sforzi che i due paesi fanno per riorganizzarsi in nuova forma.Personalmente io sono un vecchio amico ed ammiratore di Mussolini. Non ho partecipato al movimento fascista perché ho uno spirito critico, e non politico. Ma all'esterno mi pare che Fascismo ed Italia oggi combacino, e che il buon senso, il rispetto per il nostro paese, il senso storico ci diano il consiglio di accettare il Fascismo, di collaborare con esso, e di far tacere i dissensi che possano esservi su punti particolari. (Prezzolini 1934)(We do not make propaganda, but we believe that the efforts that the two countries are making to reorganize themselves in a new form must be presented in the most favorable light.Personally, I am an old friend and admirer of Mussolini. I did not participate in the Fascist movement because I have a critical, and not a political, spirit. But from the outside it seems to me that Fascism and Italy today match, and that common sense, respect for our country, and historical sense advise us to accept Fascism, to collaborate with it, and to silence the disagreements that may exist on specific points.)It is very likely that an important and prestigious figure such as Prezzolini could have influenced the young Uguccione. When teaching at the Middlebury College summer school, even if he did not agree with Borgese, he nevertheless worked side by side with him and with Cantarella, whose anti-Fascist positions were well known. Sorbello's closeness to Prezzolini's thought is also expressed in a brief article published in 1934 in the Corriere del Connecticut, where he criticized the College Board for suspending the Italian Language SAT exam. According to the board, not enough students had been taking the exam to warrant offering it. On that occasion, Sorbello quotes the same words used by Prezzolini to justify the importance of studying Italian: Noi ci occupiamo della formazione spirituale dell’”homo americanus”. . . . tra [le culture occidentali] l'italiano è la primogenita e del mondo classico la universale erede. . . . Oggi essa riparla un suo universale linguaggio. Non dovrebbe il Board preoccuparsi che l'uomo colto d'America possa ascoltarla? (Sorbello 1934)(We are concerned with the spiritual education of the “homo americanus.” . . . Among [Western cultures] Italian culture is the firstborn and the universal heir of the classical world. . . . Today it speaks again a universal language of its own. Shouldn't the Board take care that the educated man of America will be able to hear it?)It is interesting to observe how Sorbello, even though he had no specific training as a teacher, adopted approaches and teaching methods that were in the vanguard for those years, methods that he learned at Middlebury and from Giuseppe Prezzolini and the group of teachers who worked with him as well as teaching strategies focused on the practical, motivating, and communicative aspects of language learning.Significant in this regard is an article written by Sorbello in 1935 and published in the journal Atlantica where he declares that “to learn a language, you have to speak it!”, thus breaking away from the traditional model based on grammar and reading. For him it is necessary to “live the language,” to experience it. And he brings as an example the use of idiomatic phrases that come to life, precisely, only in an authentic, complex, and nonliteral context (Sorbello 1935, 44). The Middlebury summer school, where he taught from 1934 to 1936, was built on these very ideas. Prezzolini himself was an advocate of a communicative and practical approach in language learning. This is also an indicator of his adhesion to the progressivist ideas of Patri.Another sign of the ideological and pedagogical stance that Sorbello derived from Prezzolini's ideas can be found in the comedy Con le Signore c'è più gusto, written in 1934 to be represented by Yale's undergraduates and published two years later by Italian Publishers in New York. In the comedy, as Laura Zazzerini describes it, Agli occhi dell'autore che respira il clima più libero dell'America degli anni Trenta, gli espedienti e le manie della borghesia fascista appaiono meschine e sono irrise nel gioco dell'equivoco. In pieno regime, risultano notevoli le raffigurazioni caricaturali del console Fausto Onofri e del suo attendente Quaglia Italo, prototipo del modesto militare, sempre introdotto prima con il cognome e poi con il nome. (Zazzerini 2004, 170)(In the eyes of the author, who breathes the freer atmosphere of the US in the 1930s, the expedients and manias of the Fascist bourgeoisie appear petty and are derided in the game of misunderstanding. At a time when the Fascist regime was in full force, the caricatured representations of the consul Fausto Onofri and his attendant Quaglia Italo, prototype of the modest military man, always presented first with the surname and then with the name, are noteworthy.)The young Sorbello, certainly full of nationalist fervor, proves once again to be an acute and critical spirit who does not reduce himself to predefined positions but who knows how to make an au