This is a summary of the main theses regarding the assassination of Giovanni Gentile that I wrote at the request of an English-speaking reader. You can find the sources on the Italian Wikipedia page dedicated to the subject (well-edited, even though the Italian version of the encyclopedia is very politicized) and in my review of Luciano Mecacci’s book (unfortunately not translated into English).

The assassination of Giovanni Gentile on April 15, 1944, has long been controversial, and the official version of his death has been challenged by legions of historians. While it is widely believed that Gentile was killed by partisans in Florence in retaliation for his support of the Fascist regime, a number of theories have emerged regarding the real circumstances of his assassination. Some reports suggest that his death might have been the result of a wider conspiracy by external forces, including British intelligence and anti-Fascist dissidents operating in the so-called “anglophile network.”

The most widely accepted hypothesis attributes Gentile’s death to the Gruppi di Azione Patriottica (GAP), the Italian Communist Party’s (PCI) armed branch in Florence. According to various sources, the decision to murder Gentile was approved by Giuseppe Rossi, leader of the underground PCI in Florence, and the archaeologist Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli, without consulting the national leadership of the party or the other members of the Tuscan Liberation Committee.

Gentile was murdered by Bruno Fanciullacci and Antonio Ignesti, who had closely monitored Gentile’s movements before attacking. It is widely accepted that Fanciullacci fired the fatal shots. The Communist Party, via leaders like Palmiro Togliatti, openly celebrated the assassination, portraying it as a patriotic act of justice against a traitor. Togliatti himself described Gentile as a “scoundrel,” a “corrupter,” and a “traitor to the nation.”

The ideological rationale for the assassination was provided by intellectuals sympathetic to the PCI, including Concetto Marchesi, whose writings were seen as tacit endorsement of the assassination. His article denouncing Gentile was said to have been defined by Togliatti as a “death sentence.”

Yet other theories suggest a more complex nexus of motives and actors. Some historians, like Luciano Canfora, have argued that Gentile was a “convenient martyr” and that his killing was the result of diverse interests converging in the context of Italy’s civil war. Others, like Marcello Veneziani, emphasize the role of the “Collective Intellectual”—a term borrowed from Antonio Gramsci to describe the Communist Party and its affiliated intellectuals—arguing that their ideological influence played a significant role in creating a justification for Gentile’s killing.

A particularly controversial hypothesis points to the involvement of the so-called “anglophile network,” composed of British intelligence agents and Italian anti-Fascist dissidents dedicated to undermining Mussolini’s regime. Some sources claim that members of this network approached Gentile, urging him to break ties with Fascism and join their efforts to shape post-war Italy. When Gentile refused, he may have been marked for assassination. The extent of British involvement remains disputed, but it was believed by some to be part of a broader campaign to influence the direction of the war in Italy by removing key personnel dedicated to the Fascist cause.

Other sources indicate that Fascist elements themselves may have been implicated in Gentile’s assassination, possibly viewing him as a liability. The fact that Gentile was unguarded when he was killed has prompted speculation that he was deliberately left exposed by the Fascist regime.

Additionally, post-war reports placed Gentile’s assassination in various contexts. Socialist exiles, such as Paolo Treves through Radio Londra, framed the assassination as the “severe justice of a betrayed nation,” while media under Allied occupation, such as “La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno,” presented it as a “just punishment” carried out by students.

Gentile’s removal was also part of a broader settling of scores with figures associated with the Fascist regime. Concetto Marchesi, as early as August 1943, had called for the dissolution of the Accademia d’Italia as a necessary purge, reflecting the broader sentiment against those who had supported Mussolini’s government. Gentile, as a key ideological architect of Fascism and a promoter of cultural policies aligned with the regime, became a prime target in this environment of political and ideological upheaval.

Irrespective of the true conditions of Gentile’s assassination, his death is a significant event in Italian and European history. Not only did it mark the demise of an intellectual generation, but it also reflected the intricacy of wartime politics. The competing explanations for his killing are reflective of the shadowy nature of political violence during civil war times and raise broader questions regarding the role of intelligence agencies, ideological formations, and foreign powers in historical events.

In a recently published book, La Ghirlanda Fiorentina e la morte di Giovanni Gentile, which has sparked a heated debate among Italian historians, Luciano Mecacci examines the intricate circumstances surrounding the assassination, explaining the potential involvement of British intelligence services.

At the core of Mecacci’s study is the “Ghirlanda Fiorentina” [The Florentine garland], a notebook compiled in 1938 by Scottish Italianist John Purves. Purves, working for British intelligence, recorded the names of Italian cultural figures who could be approached for collaboration in the event of an impending war. Included on this list were prominent intellectuals of the Florentine group, suggesting a pre-existing network that could have influenced wartime developments.

Mecacci examines relations between British secret services, the clandestine Radio CORA (close to the Partito d’Azione), and a circle of Florentine intellectuals: these connections indicate that the British intelligence services were perhaps in touch with local anti-Fascist groups and thus could have been implicated in the choice to assassinate Gentile.

The British complicity theory in Gentile’s assassination is not a novel one. In 1951, Benedetto Gentile, the philosopher’s son, entertained the possibility under Curzio Malaparte’s influence. Subsequent scholars such as Luigi Villari in 1956 and Luciano Canfora in 1985 have also spoken of the role of British intelligence in the event. Mecacci’s book follows a lead from these theories, offering a more subtle reconstruction of the complex relation between foreign intelligence and domestic resistance movements.