ONB Academy of Orvieto, forge of the revolutionary new woman The female Academy was an imposing complex of old and new buildings,

whose restorations and works were completed by the middle of the Thirties.

In these buildings, surrounded by a big garden, there were dormitory, dining-room, kitchen, swimming pool, library, theatre, infirmary, a number of gymnasia, laboratories and classrooms, and church and stadium outside.

The Academy was located on a green hill near the small and quiet town of Orvieto, really an ideal place for keeping young female brightness and morality fully controlled by service and teaching staffs, and headmastership.

These people, according to strict norms, were qualified women of elevated morality and fascist faith, to whom parents had to entrust their daughters for a number of months.

Girls were selected among unmarried 17-23 year old applicants from all over Italy. They had to have a secondary school diploma, a healthy and robust physical constitution, and obviously ONB membership. Applicants admitted into the Academy realised a dream, as they really enjoyed physical activities to be practised in a beautiful and modern sporting university, and were proud to be an elite admired by the rest of Italian girls. In opposition to the current narrow-minded outlook, they left their families for an exciting experience far away, similarly to female students attending colleges in the USA, whose sentimental adventures and independent spirits were shown by popular movies of that time.

All former students who had been interviewed some years ago, declared that they had spent unforgettable years in the Academy of Orvieto.¹²¹ During that period they had met very important people, enriched their knowledge in very different fields and, what is more, developed a strongest esprit de corps.

The Academy was rather expensive. Only food and accommodation were free, whereas the rest - fees (5,000 It. Lire per annum), insurance (150 It.

Lire), books, travelling expenses and elegant uniforms - where paid for by the families, although with harsh financial sacrifices. Especially their mothers - the former students affirmed - had willingly agreed on that choice, in view of the fact that, once they obtained the diploma after a biannual course, their daughters could become independent and teach at school.

What is more, after a special training course and a regular competition, these girls could be employed in the ONB managing staff.

Ricci helped the best students of lower social standing not only by annually instituting special grants of 3,000 It. Lire in each provincial committee of ONB, but also by reducing the fees to half in a selected number of cases, i.e. to two sisters attending the Academy contemporarily, or daughters of ONB staff.¹²² As a consequence, students from different social classes and regions lived together, and were educated to dignified manners just like the wealthiest girls of Italian society.

They were served by a number of maids, supported by tutors, and had to stress their privileged rank also outside the Academy. For instance, students had to wear white leather gloves, travel only in first class carriages, and were not allowed to carry suitcases personally.

In the Academy of Orvieto, a student's life was perfectly organised, and girls were strictly controlled during the classes and their spare-time.

Teachers and inspectors enforced a rigorous discipline and all roles and norms had to be respected precisely. Students could not move freely in Orvieto, nor leave Orvieto and visit, for instance, the family, without previous approval and detailed information about the railway timetable, which was communicated to the family in advance.

In brief, one could say that the female Academy was organised like an aristocratic college, hard barracks and solitary convent all together. Within a smart and worldly framework, these women were educated to strength and camaraderie by following a non-conformist and alternative model, freed from any romantic and weak spirit, but inspired to futurist values such as revolution, dynamism and modernity. In addition, a moral and religious education was given to these students so as to please His Holiness the Pope.¹²³

According to a female educator of the time, girls from the Academy of Orvieto "enjoyed motor and physical exercise, and hated idleness and crystallisation. ... They constituted a revolutionary power against any hidden seclusion at home, physical and mental laziness."¹²⁴ Both male and female Academies had the highest reputation, being considered the most relevant result of the revolutionary politics of 'modernization' in the country.

Disciplines taught there were about the same, apart from the 'military training' for men, and 'feminine works' for women.

If one looks at the programme of 1932, concerning the very first course held at the Academy of Orvieto, one can see that all subjects were divided into scientific, literary and technical groups.

In the scientific group there were classes on: a) human anatomy; b) general and applied physiology; c) anthropometry and traumatology. In the literary group were taught: a) general and applied pedagogy; b) history of physical and juvenile education; c) fascist laws and dispositions; d) one foreign language. In the technical group there were the following subjects: a) general theory, technology, training and command; b) formative and corrective exercises; b) pre-sporting and sporting exercises and games; c) dance, music and singing; d) feminine works; e) organisation techniques.

According to official medical advice (Chapter 5.1), not all sporting activities were practised by students of the female Academy, but there were swimming and diving, gymnastics, fencing, roller-skating, skiing, athletics, archery, tennis, and basketball.¹²⁵

Teachers for scientific and literary groups were recruited from the university world, while experts in physical education and sports came from secondary schools. They were 9 all together, 8 women and 1 man. This latter taught pedagogy.

In their spare-time, students collected material for the annual review - such as drawings, poems, romances, interviews - wrote sketches and comedies to be played on special occasions, and created new choreographies and costumes for their performances.

Living on a sort of 'happy island', these girls had only a few personal contacts with their families during the academic year. Sometimes their parents could reach Orvieto for a weekend visit, but in general their links were made via mail or telephone.

Students lived secluded from the local population as well. It was said that every Sunday these beautiful students - walking and singing, elegantly dressed in well ordered lines to the Dome for Holy Mass - were looked at by people with a lot of respect and admiration.¹²⁶

Further contacts with local citizens were made for the annual exhibition organised by the Academy on different themes, or when these students assisted poor children and learned to teach by training primary school local pupils. Then people observed beautiful female legs emerging from comfortable shorts or light skirts, frankly with astonishment.

On the other hand, these students had social and cultural opportunities at a national and even international level. They were invited abroad or were visited by foreign delegations, for whom they exhibited in choreographic essays, and often went to Rome for political ceremonies and sporting displays.

On those occasions, students proudly marched in parade and/or performed in perfect synchrony, also together with male students of the Roman Academy, surrounded by general admiration. Sometimes female students went to the capital to visit exhibitions of culture and art, or to the most famous Italian resorts for skiing, just like the luckiest members of worldly society.

The Academy of Orvieto was firmly led by unmarried women, whose undoubted capacity left a positive memory in the students of that time. The first female Rector was Ismene Robecchi from Turin, a smart physical education teacher who directed the Academy from its foundation in 1932.

She had to give up because of marriage. The second Rector, Maria Costa, led the Academy from 1933 to February 1937; she was depicted by her students as a very talented, human and beautiful person.¹²⁷ Third and last leader of the Academy, up to its end in 1943 will be mentioned later.

We cite here part of a hagiographic and rhetorical article written in 1936 by Angelo Cammarata, whose title "Fucine della Rivoluzione: Le accademie dell'ONB" [Forges of Revolution: the academies of ONB] gives an idea of people's great expectations of the female Academy, as a consequence of the current political propaganda.¹²⁸

Cammarata affirmed: "In the propagandistic booklet (...) for the Fascist female Academy of Orvieto the Head [Mussolini] wrote: 'Feminine Fascism

is destined to write a splendid history, leave memorable signs, give a deeper and deeper passion and working contribution to Italian Fascism'. (...) Soon the Revolution had to found these Academies, which are an inspiration of its spirit, so as so to rouse enthusiasm, discipline, strength, harmony and values that the new education should diffuse among Italians continuously.

(...) Also the Academy of Orvieto, in its vast rooms, facilities, programmes, in the framework of its peaceful landscape, has faced a very important problem: that of the totalitarian preparation of fascist female Educators, i. e.

grace and strength, kindness and vigour, smile and severity, splendour of spirituality in a firm physical harmony, maternity and future. In the whole of Italy, whoever has seen how much has been done for the physical and moral improvement of Children of the She-Wolf, Small and Young Italians, in only a few years, he can measure the value of the Academy in Orvieto, where the youth has been launched to new achievements, which directly or indirectly (by affecting female educators and mothers resolutely) concern the delicate flower of our race. (...) Also in the feminine Fascist Academy life is various and preparation is fruitful. Female academic students achieve habits and virtues which will benefit the feminine female youth, i. e. the sex by which the new education has eliminated the attributive adjective 'weak'."

A final comment on this article should be made. It mentioned subjects which were not included in the cited first course of 1932, such as eugenics, hygiene, demography, child-welfare and first-aid for the scientific group;

fascist pedagogy, fascist culture and two foreign languages - English and French - for the literary group. About these two languages it was written that they "had the propagandis tic task to spread the universal fascist ideology all over the world."¹²⁹

Indeed, in the year 1936 the atmosphere had changed considerably in Italy.

The new Empire needed new soldiers for further expansionist plans, and women were asked for numerous children, stronger social support, and wider fascist indoctrination. These needs were nationally diffused among ONB female members by any and every diploma'd student of the Academy, who was really the most convincing ambassadress of the regime.¹³⁰ But the progressive political engagement of Italian women at school and in society has already been described in detail. (Chapters 4.3 and 5.2)

5.3.2 GIL Academy of Orvieto, forge of the militarised fascist woman