Attraverso il fascismo: le lingue a Ca’ Foscari da Sezione a Facoltà

Across the inter-war period and particularly during the Fascist regime, the linguistic and literary disciplines at Ca’ Foscari developed from being one of the four sections which formed the Institute of Economic and Commercial Sciences, to being the most highly attended degree course. They eventually established themselves as an autonomous Faculty in 1954. The stages of a progressive consolidation are outlined through the cultural policy of the Fascist regime, which was not, in the first instance, inclined to support them (it favoured, rather, political sciences, classical studies, architecture, economy and law). Nevertheless, ‘Languages’ – as the budding faculty was called – succeeded in emancipating itself from its traditional ancillary functions: the training of commercial professionals, and the qualification of teachers. With the institution of the faculty, it acquired not only a formal autonomy but also a well-defined cultural profile. From the point of view of cultural history and cultural institutions, this transition achieved during the Fascist regime is, in itself, an issue worth investigating. The working hypothesis from which I set off is that linguistic and literary disciplines, precisely because they remained (in part) on the margins of the massive action of intervention and remodeling that the regime had intended to implement in the cultural field, managed to develop following their own course, while also taking advantage of different factors – from legislative measures to historical circumstances – that existed at that time.