Olga Medici del Vascello

Last updated November 01, 2023

Olga Medici del Vascello (1882-1966), was an Italian politician of the National Fascist Party (PNF).^[1]

She was born to the rich merchant Carlo Giovanni Napoleone Leumann and Amalia Cerutti. She married the nobleman Marquess Giacomo Medici del Vascello, Mussolini's chief of cabinet.

In 1930, the national leadership of the Fascist women's organization, the Fasci Femminili, was left vacant after Angiola Moretti. There were only leaders of the local branches until the national oversight committee was established in 1937, in which Clara Franceschini and Giuditta Stelluti Scala Frascara were appointed as inspectors by Achille Starace in a shared leadership position, followed in 1938 by an additional four: Wanda Bruschi Gorjux, Laura Marani Argnani, Teresita Menzinger Ruata and Olga Medici del Vascello.^[2] To be a member of the Fasci Femminili, or the women's groups under its umbrella, was the only way for a woman to be a part of the Fascist Party, which otherwise excluded women from all formal positions within the party.

In 1939, she received Gertrud Scholtz-Klink in Italy. Eugen Dollmann described her during this occasion:

"The Marchesa Olga Medici del Vascello was a leading member of the aristocracy and the wife of a Secretary of State. It was my impression that she only took part in the Party's womanly high jinks (which Italian males leered at with their habitual sense of the habitual sense of the erotic) because her activities brought her, at least occasionally, into contact with her idol. This idol was not Starace, whom she regarded as a buffoon, but Benito Mussolini, whom she admired with passionate fervour. [...] She was a witty and sharp-tongued belle laide who resembled an Italian version of Princess Pauline Metternich, once the queen of the Viennese drawing-rooms. She was also a woman of sternly monarchistic views-yet another of the anomalis which the Duce permitted under his regime".^[3]

In 1941, she attended the International Fascist women's conferense in Nazi Germany with the German and Spanish right wing women. In April 1942, she received the General Secretary of the Spanish Francoist women's organization to facilitate a closer collaboration between the organizations across borders.

Related Research Articles

Fascio is an Italian word literally meaning "a bundle" or "a sheaf", and figuratively "league", and which was used in the late 19th century to refer to political groups of many different orientations. A number of nationalist fasci later evolved into the 20th century Fasci movement, which became known as fascism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Achille Starace</span> Italian Fascist leader (1889–1945)

Achille Starace was a prominent leader of Fascist Italy before and during World War II.

Gioventù Fascista was a magazine designed for youth in Italy under Benito Mussolini's Fascist state. Its features included stories and cartoons praising the regime and inculcating the tenets of Fascism.

Opera Nazionale Balilla (ONB) was an Italian Fascist youth organization functioning between 1926 and 1937, when it was absorbed into the Gioventù Italiana del Littorio (GIL), a youth section of the National Fascist Party.

The National Fascist Party was a political party in Italy, created by Benito Mussolini as the political expression of Italian fascism and as a reorganisation of the previous Italian Fasces of Combat. The party ruled the Kingdom of Italy from 1922 when Fascists took power with the March on Rome until the fall of the Fascist regime in 1943, when Mussolini was deposed by the Grand Council of Fascism. It was succeeded, in the territories under the control of the Italian Social Republic, by the Republican Fascist Party, ultimately dissolved at the end of World War II.

Women in Italy refers to females who are from Italy. The legal and social status of Italian women has undergone rapid transformations and changes during the past decades. This includes family laws, the enactment of anti-discrimination measures, and reforms to the penal code.

This is a list of words, terms, concepts, and slogans in the Italian language and Latin language which were specifically used in Fascist Italian monarchy and Italian Social Republic.

Ines Donati was a political activist and a supporter of the first wave of Italy's Fascist movement.

Feminism in Italy originated during the Italian renaissance period, beginning in the late 13th century. Italian writers such as Moderata Fonte, Lucrezia Marinella, and others developed the theoretical ideas behind gender equality. In contrast to feminist movements in France and United Kingdom, early women's rights advocates in Italy emphasized women's education and improvement in social conditions.

Piera Fondelli Gatteschi was the commander of the Female Auxiliary Service of the Italian Social Republic, a member of the National Fascist Party and a participant in the March on Rome.

Fasci Femminili (FF) ("Female Groups") was the women's section of the Italian Fascist Party (PNF). The FF was founded in 1919 and disbanded in 1945. It incorporated all the other Fascist organizations for women and girls, which were all formally sections of the FF.

Giacomo Medici, marquess of Vascello was an Italian Fascist politician who served as Undersecretary to the Presidency of the Council of the Kingdom of Italy from 1935 to 1939. He was the grandson of Risorgimento general Giacomo Medici.

Angiola Moretti, was an Italian politician of the National Fascist Party (PNF).

Elisa Majer Rizzioli (1880-1930), was an Italian politician of the National Fascist Party (PNF).

Laura Marani Argnani (1865-1955), was an Italian politician of the National Fascist Party (PNF).

Giuditta "Itta" Stelluti Scala Frascara was an Italian politician of the National Fascist Party (PNF).

Clara Franceschini, was an Italian politician of the National Fascist Party (PNF).

Baroness Teresita Menzinger Ruata, was an Italian politician of the National Fascist Party (PNF).

Wanda Bruschi Gorjux (1889-1976), was an Italian politician of the National Fascist Party (PNF).

References

↑ WILLSON, P. (2018). GROUP PORTRAIT: THE ISPETTRICI NAZIONALI OF THE ITALIAN FASCIST PARTY, 1937–1943. The Historical Journal, 61(2), 431-451. doi:10.1017/S0018246X17000206
↑ de Grazia, V. (1992). How Fascism Ruled Women: Italy, 1922–1945. USA: University of California Press.
↑ Dollmann, E. (2017). With Hitler and Mussolini: Memoirs of a Nazi Interpreter. USA: Skyhorse Publishing.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[1] WILLSON, P. (2018). GROUP PORTRAIT: THE ISPETTRICI NAZIONALI OF THE ITALIAN FASCIST PARTY, 1937–1943. The Historical Journal, 61(2), 431-451. doi:10.1017/S0018246X17000206

[2] Grazia, V. (1992). How Fascism Ruled Women: Italy, 1922–1945. USA: University of California Press.

[3] Dollmann, E. (2017). With Hitler and Mussolini: Memoirs of a Nazi Interpreter. USA: Skyhorse Publishing.

[1]

[2]

[3]