Wheeling and dealing. The multiple networks of Umberto Zanotti-Bianco (1889-1963), social activist and dissident archeologist in fascist Italy

Umberto Zanotti-Bianco (1889-1963) was een Italiaans sociaal activist, antifascist, selfmade-archeoloog, en van 1952 tot aan zijn dood senatore a vita. Vanaf jonge leeftijd was hij actief in Zuid-Italie, met verbetering van de leefomstandigheden en verheffing van zijn landgenoten aldaar als doel. Hij was de medeoprichter en drijvende kracht van ANIMI en van een archeologisch genootschap dat het Griekse verleden van de Mezzogiorno centraal stelde, de Societa Magna Grecia. Rode draad in zijn vele activiteiten vormen het belang van onderwijs, democratie en zelfbeschikkingsrecht, en aandacht voor archeologie, geschiedenis en erfgoed. Zijn openlijke antifascisme bracht hem in de jaren 1920 en 1930 steeds meer in conflict met het regime van Mussolini, maar ondanks herhaalde periodes van ballingschap binnen Italie (confino), het feit dat hij constant werd gevolgd door de politie en actieve obstructie van zijn activiteiten, slaagde hij er toch in, mede dankzij zijn omvangrijke netwerken, om enige speelruimte voor zichzelf en zijn werk te behouden.


1941
, the year of his imprisonment in Rome (February) followed by prolonged periods of internal exile (confino) to the malarial region of Paestum.
Thousands of letters from and to over a thousand of correspondents are the tangible remains of Zanotti's extended networks. Moreover, the agendas and diaries that he kept during parts of his life (although, alas, not in a consequent manner) testify his active social life, that was always interconnected with his social and cultural activities. 2 Despite the wide variety of his projects and activities, it is not difficult to bring them to a few common denominators: education (as a prerequisite for development and social justice), democratic rights and the protection of minorities and refugees, and the value of archaeological research, history, and the protection of heritage, including the preservation of natural landscapes. Yet another pattern becomes clear as well: his deep love for literature and music, often intertwined with other activities and one of the reasons for his many contacts with Italian and foreign writers, such as Antonio Fogazzaro, Sibilla Aleramo, Hrand Nazariantz, Romain Rolland, Maxim Gorky, Corrado Alvaro and Giorgio Bassani.
The questions I would like to address here are how Zanotti-Bianco built, managed and used his networks to reach his goals and to what extent his networks and contacts provided him with some room to operate, despite the obstruction of the authorities during the ventennio fascista. Analysing the role of his networks, we will see how these often overlapped and how they inspired, fostered, and sometimes even protected the numerous social and cultural initiatives taken by Zanotti-Bianco. Moreover, their international composition had a strong impact. Still, because of his anti-fascist position, his personal and professional life became increasingly complicated. And as for his networks: with a number of people he shared his liberal, democratic views, but certainly not all these persons were openly anti-fascist. Other persons, with whom he had worked for years before and shortly after the First World War, chose another path, supporting the regime. As a result, Zanotti-Bianco's own anti-fascist stance created new bonds of working relations and friendships, but would also distance him from some old friends. This not only reflects the dichotomy within Italian society in the 1920s and 1930s, but reveals the complexity and some paradoxes as well. As for Zanotti-Bianco: from 1928 until his imprisonment and his last internal exile in Italy (confino) in 1941 he was shadowed day and night by the military police. 3

Family background
A short overview of his background and life is indispensable for a better understanding of the paths in life he chose and the role of his networks for the many initiatives and activities unfolded during the course of his life. 4 Umberto Zanotti-Bianco was born in Chania on the island of Crete in 1889 as the third child of an Italian father, count Gustavo Zanotti-Bianco, a diplomat, and a Scottish-Swedish mother, Henriette (Enrichetta) Tulin. His father and two brothers (Mario and Massimo) were diplomats, a third brother (Ermanno) died at a young age on the battlefield in 1917. The bond with his older sister Hilda was a strong one. Umberto's mother died when he was only fourteen years old, after years of illness.
At that time he was a pupil of a prestigious private boarding school near Turin, the Reale Collegio Carlo Alberto at Moncalieri. Piedmont was the home region of his paternal family. The Reale Collegio had been founded in 1837 by Carlo Alberto di Savoia, with the explicit aim to have the sons of blue-blooded Piedmontese families raised in loyalty to the crown. 5 Indeed many sons of aristocratic birth received their education in Moncalieri; during Umberto's schooldays, 22% of his peers stemmed from noble families, just like himself. 6 Umberto di Savoia-Aosta (1889-1918), who was a member of the royal family, was one of Zanotti-Bianco's schoolmates. 7 The school was run by the Barnabite order and offered a solid education, especially in the humanities. Umberto was a serious student: he won the prize for the year's best pupil ('principe degli studi') in 1906, his penultimate schoolyear. He studied law in Turin (1907Turin ( -1911 with good results but apparently with little enthusiasm; he only makes some mentions of exams passed in his letters, but never refers to any course he took or subjects he studied. Young Umberto seems to have been much more interested in Italian and Eastern European literature and religion. These interests came together in the deep appreciation for the novels written by Antonio Fogazzaro. He started writing letters to the venerated writer in April 1906, expressing his gratitude and admiration for Il Santo, a novel that had been put on the Index shortly before. 8 As a matter of fact, Fogazzaro belonged to the circles of critical Catholics adhering to the modernist movement of the early twentieth century, pleading for the reconciliation of Christian belief and modernity. Soon after the start of their correspondence, Zanotti-Bianco was introduced in the circle around Fogazzaro in the writer's home in Vicenza and met Tommaso Gallarati Scotti and Giovanni Malvezzi who both would become close friends. Gallarati Scotti, stemming from a wealthy Milanese noble family, was a writer himself and one of the founding editors of the modernist periodical Il Rinnovamento, soon suppressed by the Church (1909). 9 Giovanni Malvezzi was a student of law at that time and worked for Il Rinnovamento as well.
Calabria and the founding of ANIMI It was Fogazzaro who encouraged Gallarati Scotti, Malvezzi and Zanotti-Bianco to head south in January 1909, as members of the Vicenza committee for help and support after the devastating earthquake that had struck large parts of Eastern Sicily and Calabria on December 28, 1908. 10 Zanotti-Bianco had not been in the South before and this first stay in the utterly poor region made a deep impression. Moreover, in hindsight 5  this first visit meant a turning point in his life. First of all, working in Calabria provided him with objectives for his future life and put an end to the interior crisis he had suffered from in the years before, struggling with his faith, his opinions about the Church and the need for social justice. 11 Doing something (azione) to fight the widespread misery in the backwaters of the Mezzogiorno became his lifetime project. This was very much in line with the intellectual and political legacy of Giuseppe Mazzini, a man Zanotti greatly admired, and the Mazzinian motto 'Pensiero ed Azione' ('Thinking and Action'). 12 Moreover, he met various persons who would become of great importance to him in the years to come, because of their shared ideas and civic commitment.
Following the footsteps of meridionalisti such as Sidney Sonnino and Leopoldo Franchetti, who had carried out surveys in Sicily in the 1870s, Zanotti and Malvezzi went back to Calabria in September 1909 for a survey (inchiesta) in Aspromonte, Calabria. They interviewed people and collected data about the economic and social circumstances of the region, resulting in a detailed report on issues such as (the lack of) resources, housing, education, healthcare and hygiene. 13 The weeks in January 1909 and the survey of the same year marked the start of his commitment to the South. In March 1910 Zanotti founded, together with Malvezzi and Gallarati Scotti, the National Association for the Interests of the Mezzogiorno in Italy (ANIMI). 14 The main focus of ANIMI was education. This was a logic strategy given the fact that at the start of the twentieth century nearly 80% of the population of Calabria was illiterate. 15 In the first years of ANIMI's existence, Zanotti-Bianco spent most of his time in Reggio Calabria, where he directed the local office from 1912 onward. He worked with great passion, travelling to remote parts of Calabria, organising the first adult literacy campaigns, founding infant schools and providing small local libraries with books. Moreover, Zanotti-Bianco took the initiative for a number of lecture series since in his view cultural education was an important tool for the emancipation of the people.
In the same period, the early years of ANIMI, Zanotti became a prolific writer and editor. He took the initiative for a new book series, La Giovine Europa (named after Mazzini's movement La Giovine Italia, founded in 1831). 16 Most of Zanotti's 11 Carincini, Carteggio 1906-1918 15 Pescosolido, 'ANIMI cento anni', cit., p. 40. 16 Cfr. Carincini, Carteggio 1906-1918, cit., pp. 263-265. The first volume, La questione polacca, was published in 1916 (Catania, Francesco Battiato). It was written by Zanotti-Bianco who used a pseudonym, Giorgio d'Acandia, an allusion to his place of birth, Crete, known as the Kingdom of Candia when the island was part of the Republic of Venice during the Middle Ages and Early Modern period. In the same writings were indeed dedicated to the value of democracy and the rights of oppressed people. 17 He went as a volunteer to the front in 1916 and hardly survived: he got severely wounded, underwent a number of surgeries and was hospitalised for almost a year. On his sick-bed, however, he started working on new publishing projects, calling attention for the fate of the oppressed peoples in the Balkans and founding a new political magazine, La Voce dei Popoli. 18 After recovering (more or less), he soon became the director of ANIMI, a more than full time job, but he was working on other projects as well. For example, he made a trip to Russia as a member of an Italian relief committee in 1922, he founded a village for Armenian refugees, Nor Arax near Bari (1925), and took part in international meetings of governmental and non-governmental organisations. 19 Last but not least, he founded together with the renowned archaeologist Paolo Orsi the Società Magna Grecia (1920), a society that collected private money in order to pay for archaeological research and the restoration of Greek and Byzantine monuments in Southern Italy. 20 As an outspoken opponent of the fascist regime from the start, his work became more and more difficult. He decided to resign as director of ANIMI in order to protect the Association after signals that dissolution dreaded because of his political views. 21 From the late 1920s onward, Zanotti-Bianco, who always had been very interested in the history and archaeology of the South, now fully concentrated on excavations and publications and kept on doing so, despite major obstructions by the regime.
In 1941 he was put in jail, then sent to Campania (confino again), and turned back to Rome in 1943, organising help in the difficult period of war. 22 He was appointed president of the Italian Red Cross in 1944, and senatore a vita in 1952. Until his death in 1963 he was active for ANIMI again, and as a senator he worked hard to protect cultural and natural heritage. It was no coincidence that he responded positively to the request of becoming the first president of Italia Nostra, founded in 1955 for the protection of Italy's cultural and natural heritage. 23 He died at the age of 74 in a Roman hospital, on 28 August 1963.
year the Armenian poet Hrand Nazariantz published another volume of the series, entitled Armenia, introduced by Zanotti (again using his penname Giorgio d'Acandia). A volume on Dalmatia, equally written by Zanotti, was blocked by the censors, cfr. a letter to Zanotti by his publisher Battiato of 2 May 1916, published in Carincini, Carteggio 1906-1918

A spider spinning the web: expanding networks
Zanotti-Bianco and his friends were far from the only persons to travel to the South in the aftermath of the devastating Messina earthquake of 28 December 1908. From all parts of Italy local and regional committees, at the initiative of both civilians and religious institutions, collected money and goods for support and relief and sent people for the distribution of these. Zanotti and his friends were representatives of the Vicenza committee. In Reggio Calabria they met many other volunteers, men and women, most of them from the North of the country. The earthquake and the chaotic, slow, and insufficient responses by the local and national authorities evoked first of all strong emotions among Italians: indignation and anger towards the government, incapable of organising the much needed assistance, and empathy for the victims. Moreover, the disaster was soon framed in both the Italian and foreign presses as a problem typical for the South of Italy. 24 Zanotti met a couple of persons with whom he would work for many years, e.g. Giuseppina Le Maire. 25 Le Maire was a friend of Sofia Cammarota, an elderly lady who would nurse Zanotti-Bianco a few years later in a hospital in the North during the Great War. 26 Other important encounters include those with Giovanni Cena, the journalist and editor of Nuova Antologia, novelist and poetess Sibilla Aleramo, and the Russian writer Maxim Gorky, who came over from Capri where he lived in exile. Zanotti-Bianco, who had a great personal interest in Eastern European culture and Russian literature in particular, would meet him several times in the years to follow, until Gorky returned from exile to Russia in 1928. 27 Cena and Zanotti-Bianco would meet again in January 1915, when both went to the Marsica area (Abruzzo) in order to offer help after the region had been struck by a heavy earthquake.
Crucial, finally, was the meeting of Zanotti and Gaetano Salvemini, who was an historian and university professor in Messina at that time. He was a prominent socialist, and later on an outspoken anti-fascist who fled to the United States. Salvemini lived in Messina and had lost his wife, his five young children and his sister in the catastrophic earthquake that had struck the city in the early morning of December 28. but agreed a fusion of their activities given the fact that the objectives (education) were the same. 30 Some days later Zanotti-Bianco, Malvezzi and Gallarati Scotti met in Fogazzaro's villa in Oria di Valsolda near Como to plan further steps for the founding of ANIMI. It is obvious that Zanotti-Bianco, Malvezzi, and Gallarati Scotti, despite their young age, had great organisational abilities. All three of them were talented in mobilising others for their ideals and project. In the months October-December they spoke to a number of prominent men and key figures of the Italian society with the request to become consigliere and act as member of the board (consiglio direttivo). These persons were sometimes asked directly, sometimes indirectly via Salvemini, who kept his promise to collaborate with his three younger friends. 31 The well-known senator Leopoldo Franchetti, for example, was willing to act as president, while Pasquale Villari, another renowned politician and meridionalista acted as honorary president. Francesco Saverio Nitti, the future prime minister (1919) was involved as well, just as the renowned philosopher Benedetto Croce, who had become senator in 1910. These influential men opened doors in ministries in Rome and helped the Association to survive in the first difficult years of its existence − especially during the Great War. Deputy and senator Giustino Fortunati, who originated from Basilicata, was a personal friend of Salvemini and became member of the board as well. 'Dearest Fortunato', wrote Salvemini in a letter of December 1909, 'a group of young people and of elderly men are planning to found an Association […]. The influential men give direction, the young ones slog'. 32 Until his death in 1932 Giustino Fortunato would continue to be an important person in Zanotti's life, because of his authoritative advices and friendship. 33 Moreover, the financial support of industrialists such as Ettore Ponti, bankers and businessmen from Milan (Ettore Rusconi, Giuseppe Toeplitz), Rome (Bonaldo Stringher, President of the Banca d'Italia), and Naples (Nicola Pavoncelli) was essential for the Association's survival and provided the possibility to expand its activities. Moreover, some of these persons were member of the Italian senate and therefore co-responsible for legislation. Furthermore, these authoritative men may have influenced decisionmaking in informal ways as well.
It is important to stress that from the start ANIMI worked with volunteers and people that actively supported its projects stemmed from both the North and the South. Moreover, it becomes clear from this small sample of names already that the networks of politics, finance, industry and culture in a broad sense were to a large extent overlapping. Most members of the executive board of ANIMI were also members of other committees, associations and institutions for social and cultural projects. Moreover, some of these early supporters of ANIMI would not shy away from gaining political influence whenever they could, for idealistic or more opportunistic reasons. Giuseppe (Jósef) Toeplitz offers a clear example: he supported ANIMI in the early 1920s with substantial amounts of money, but he also financed the rising fascist movement in those years and he was involved in financial matters connected to various ministries in 1910 ('La rinascita nei paesi devastati. Note e impressioni', in: Nuova Antologia, 45 (January 1910)). Cena, Aleramo and Le Maire, who had worked together in educational projects in the agro romano, had accompanied Salvemini. 30 Carincini, Carteggio 1906-1918 both legally and illegally, up to 1933, when he fell into disgrace and was removed from his position.
The diaries of Zanotti-Bianco reveal how he operated. As for Toeplitz, who had Polish roots, Zanotti-Bianco cultivated the contact with his wife, socialising and talking about Poland and the arts, hoping to get financial support from her husband's bank: Le pratiche per l'Associazione lente... lente... a disperarne! Ho veduto una quantità di gente: parole e parole: ma è forse la mia fretta che mi fa vedere tutto nero... e questo cielo senza sorriso. All'una vado a colazione dal Comm. Toeplitz. Ho già visto due volte la moglie con la quale ho parlato di Polonia e d'arte e per mezza di essa mi sono lavorato l'animo del marito. 34 Two months later this strategy proved to have been successful: 'Ho ricevuto, o meglio abbiamo ricevuto 200.000 lire dalla Banca Commerciale: il mio Toeplitz!!'. 35 It seems that Zanotti hardly ever hesitated to strategically employ his contacts for more than one of his projects. For example, in the difficult start-up phase of La Giovine Europa, he tried to convince Cena and Salvemini − both were editors of magazines − to make some publicity for the series. 36 Various strategies were needed when Mussolini established his regime and attempts were made to turn ANIMI into a fascist organisation. In the early 1920s Zanotti-Bianco, who had become managing director of ANIMI by then, and members of his staff and board, were equally strategic in the choice for new board members. In January 1923, Giovanni Gentile, the philosopher of fascism, who would remain loyal to Mussolini till the very end, was chosen member of the board of ANIMI and would play an important role. In fact, his commitment to ANIMI prevented its dissolution in the late 1920s when tensions with the regime had increased. Zanotti's anti-fascist feelings were no secret. In 1924 already he published an article in an English journal, The Contemporary Review, 37 criticizing the common misconception in Europe that Mussolini and his black shirts had at least brought back law and order in Italy after social upheaval, protracted strikes and violence by both left wing and right wing extremist groups. But the nuovo ordine of fascism would not restore liberal pre-War society; on the contrary: it would destroy its very last remains, according to Zanotti-Bianco.
It took Zanotti-Bianco much effort to keep ANIMI out of the hands of the fascist regime and he was successful in doing so only until 1928. That year Zanotti-Bianco published the results of his survey in Africo, a distant village in Calabria. 38 The publication of this anonymous report was a public outcry about the enormous poverty he had seen there. For the regime this official ANIMI report was the last straw, after several critical reports on social circumstances in Southern Italy in the years before. Attempts to incorporate ANIMI in fascist organisations and programs had not been successful, particularly because of Zanotti-Bianco's objections. After the publication of Africo Zanotti-Bianco was shadowed day and night by the military police. Giovanni Gentile tried to persuade the Minister of Internal Affairs, who was responsible, to stop this continuous surveillance by the police, but Zanotti's response was not exactly grateful. He wrote a letter to Gentile stating that he would prefer the dignity of an Italian jail to being forced to leave Italy. 39 In June 1930, however, he stepped back as director of ANIMI and concentrated fully on archaeological research in Southern Italy, under the aegis of the Società Magna Grecia that he had founded with the renowned archaeologist Paolo Orsi back in 1920, and of which he had been the director from the start. 40 The work of the Società, funding archaeological research, depended financially on private parties. It is hardly surprising that the networks of ANIMI and the Società largely overlapped.
A brochure from 1925 used for fundraising, lists all names of the members of the founding committee (the soci fondatori). 41 Zanotti-Bianco and Paolo Orsi were the driving forces. The committee, however, was important because it showed the Society's broader basis and was instrumental in fundraising. All of these members held influential positions in Italian society, formally or informally. Politicians, government officials, scholars, and persons with close ties or careers in the cultural world took place in the committee, for example the famous actress Eleonora Duse. Aristocracy was well represented, for example duchess Aurelia Gallarati Scotti, wife of Tommaso, and countess Carolina Maraini, the spouse of an immensely rich factory owner and business man. All honorary members were scholars, working as archaeologists and classicists in Italian universities and antiquity services.
The name of the Società Magna Grecia revealed already its focus. To be studied was the Greek past of Southern Italy, a region called, from Antiquity onward, Magna Graecia (Greater Greece) because of the presence of Greek colonies from the eighth century BC onward. The Società was independent of ANIMI, even though it was housed in its offices in Palazzo Taverna in Rome. As the executive director Zanotti-Bianco acted as fundraiser and dealt with the archaeologists responsible for the various state run antiquity services (the soprintendenze) in Southern Italy. The money raised by the Società Magna Grecia from individuals, companies and institutions was spent by the soprintendenze in various excavation projects selected by the Società. The soprintendenze were responsible for the excavations carried out by their own archaeologists and workmen.
In the first ten years of its existence, the Società Magna Grecia paid for the projects of the soprintendenze of Naples, Calabria, Apulia and Sicily, at a dozen of Greek sites. Moreover, the restoration of several Byzantine churches was financed by the Società. Via Sofia Cammarota, the money was provided by the Queen Mother. Again, Zanotti-Bianco proved to be a skillful fundraiser using his own contacts and the acquaintances or relatives of people he knew. Private persons or institutions, for example libraries, could take a subscription to the publications published by the Società. Of vital importance were the Atti e Memorie della Società Magna Grecia, a scholarly journal with high standards. And it is important to stress that by selecting projects the Società claimed an important role in the archaeological research agenda of Southern Italy.
A number of benefactors donated a large sum of money at once. The list of members of the year 1931 reveals the involvement of the royal family, of many aristocrats, of banking and financial institutions, of cultural institutions, scholars and cultivated individuals from both Italy and abroad. To give just a few examples: King Vittorio Emanuele III was socio benemerito, as were some banks, such as the Banca Commerciale Italiana (Toeplitz) and the Banca Monte de' Paschi di Siena. Among members were the Biblioteca Hertziana and various other foreign Schools and Academies in Rome, and renowned individual scholars, both Italians and foreigners. Even fascist trade organisations were involved: the Confederazione Nazionale Fascista del Commercio at Rome was member for life (socio perpetuo), just as a branch of it based in Naples. This seems a clear sign that Zanotti-Bianco was not averse to some pragmatism if it served his own objectives. Apparently, despite his public anti-fascist statements, he was able and willing to cooperate with individuals that were working for fascist organisations or state departments that were controlled by the regime.
In this period, the late 1920s and early 1930s, Zanotti-Bianco participated in several excavation seasons directed by archaeologists Pirro Marconi (Himera, Sicily) and Paolo Orsi (Sant'Angelo Muxara, Sicily), thus training himself as a field archaeologist. Furthermore, during a brief stay in Calabria in April-May 1932, he was able to locate the ancient site of the Greek city of Sybaris. Soon after, however, the prefect of Calabria forced him to leave the site: he was no longer allowed to stay in Calabria. The discovery was published in the same year by superintendent Edoardo Galli without, however, any mention of Zanotti's name. 42 In April 1934 Zanotti-Bianco, together with Paola Zancani Montuoro, discovered an important sanctuary of Hera at the Sele River near Paestum. The campaign had been Zancani Montuoro's initiative. She had studied Classical Archaeology at the University of Naples, where she had graduated magna cum laude. She had been directing the Naples Section of the Società Magna Grecia. She came from a rich family as well and shared the anti-fascist ideas of Zanotti-Bianco. 43 Despite the annoying obstruction of policemen, who had to follow Zanotti-Bianco, the two uncovered at Foce del Sele an ancient sanctuary, from the archaic period. It turned out to be a truly spectacular discovery, especially when archaic metopes, sculpted reliefs dating to the sixth century BC of outstanding quality, came to light. But soon after, in August 1934, the Società Magna Grecia was dissolved by decree of the Prefect of Rome. The principal motive given was that the financial resources provided by the State were sufficient for all archaeological activities. Of course, this was not the real reason. A year later high official Pietro Tricario would state in a note to the Minister of Education: 'This Società was dissolved for political reasons, because one of its main collaborators and supporters, Umberto Zanotti-Bianco, does not follow the orders of the regime'. 44 The discovery of the Heraion had rapidly been reported to a wide audience in various newspapers and Italian magazines. Zanotti knew many journalists and publishers personally and he successfully convinced them to write about the project. Because of the attention paid to the spectacular discoveries at Foce del Sele in Italy and abroad, the project became a threat to the large-scale excavations paid for by the regime in Pompeii, Herculaneum, Rome, and Ostia.
Moreover, in a letter (July 1934) sent by the superintendent of Campania, Amedeo Maiuri suggested to the Minister that it would be better to place the Foce del Sele project under the direct control and responsibility of his own soprintendenza. 45 Ten days later the decision to dissolve the Società was signed. But under a new name, the Società Paolo Orsi (founded a year later, in 1935), Zanotti-Bianco and Zancani Montuoro continued the Foce del Sele project until 1941. This shows that the regime was never a monolithic block and did not always react in a coherent way. In other words, there was some room for wheeling and dealing. Their excavation campaigns were paid for by the excavators themselves, and partly with the financial support of friends. Thanks to their networks, the contacts with aristocrats, even members of the royal family, they tenaciously continued their research as long as they could. Aerial photographs, for example, were provided through Prince Amedeo di Savoia, Duke of Aosta, who was a commander in the Royal Italian Air Force. Crown princess Marie José, who had become a personal friend of Zanotti-Bianco in the years before, gave her support as well. Moreover, at least to some extent, support of the authorities was necessary, for permits and for workmen that were hired via the soprintendenza of Campania. This demonstrates that competition or lack of communication between the various ministries and services sometimes created more room for individuals than the regime would have liked to admit. Anyhow, in 1941 Zanotti-Bianco was put in jail in Rome and the Foce del Sele project stopped because of the war. Zancani Montuoro and Zanotti-Bianco resumed working together only after the Second World War and published their results in the 1950s. 46 Wheeling and dealing As a networker pur sang, Zanotti was able to successfully employ a great variety of activities with the help of influential and/or rich persons. First of all, he was an indefatigable man with an iron will. Despite his rather poor health resulting from the war injuries that bothered him for the rest of his life, his drive for the accomplishment of his projects was enormous, even to the point of causing irritation among his relatives. 47 But his own hard work would often convince people to support his plans and activities. Moreover, his family background of Piedmontese nobility mixed with dedication to the still young kingdom of Italy, the fact that he was fluent in more languages and his solid education in Moncalieri provided him as a young man with opportunities to meet people that other persons would never be able to talk to. The enormous amount of letters Zanotti wrote during his lifetime clearly shows that he spent a lot of time and energy in maintaining and expanding his networks. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, he had a sharp eye for opportunities and never hesitated to explore new possibilities. Moreover, since his manifold initiatives were all somehow interconnected, it was relatively easy to ask the same people to either support more of his projects or to mobilise their respective networks for Zanotti's new initiatives. Thus, the intellectual (scholarly), cultural and political networks partly overlapped, and developed in other cases as concentric circles that were ever expanding with the expansion of ANIMI's programs and the projects financed by the Società Magna Grecia. But whereas ANIMI was first and foremost an internal Italian affair, the Società Magna Grecia increased Zanotti's international network in the scholarly and cultural world dramatically. The city of Rome with its many libraries, foreign academies and research institutions was of course a focal point of international scholarship in the humanities. Zanotti's diaries of 1935 and 1936 show how much he cultivated his contacts with archaeologists, art-historians and journalists of European countries and the United States, as the many lunch meetings, visits and lectures unequivocally make clear. 48 The same is true for the relatively short period (1918)(1919)(1920)(1921)(1922) in which Zanotti was an activist for democratic rights in various Eastern European countries in the aftermath of the First World War and the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, even if his interest in this issue and his network with Yugoslavian, Romanian, Hungarian, and Czech activists and dissidents date to earlier years. 49 As for archaeology it is important to stress that history and archaeology were in many ways just as instrumental for Zanotti-Bianco as they were instrumental for the fascist regime in the 1920s and 1930s. The regeneration of the South was his ultimate objective, and education, culture, history, and heritage were instrumental to that. The end justified the means and this explains the fact that Zanotti-Bianco collaborated with persons within fascist institutions as well. But there were limits and it is also important to underline the fact that his intimate friends and co-workers were opponents of Mussolini's regime just like himself. Moreover, with some of his old friends who expressed sympathy for fascism or who belonged to the fascist party the contact was cut off if they were not of indispensable help or use anymore. The journalist and art critic Ugo Ojetti is a case in point.
Zanotti's own dislike of the regime and its protagonists was clear enough, as was his response to archaeologist and Senator Antonio Taramelli in 1936, who had suggested him to write a letter to Mussolini in order to stress his patriotism. Of course, he would never take such a humiliating step: Mi consigliava di scrivere una lettera al Capo (!) − non per chiedere nulla, ma per affermare il mio patriottismo: egli sarebbe riuscito a farmi avere da lui una udienza. Rispondo che il mio patriottismo risultava dalle opere mie e che non avevo bisogno affatto di fare un gesto che sarebbe stato interpretato come una resa a Canossa. La mia concezione civica d'altro lato mi impedisce di abbassarmi verso un dittatore. 50 But despite the obstruction of his activities by the regime it is my impression that his extensive Italian and international networks protected Zanotti for a long time, until his imprisonment in 1941, when due to the war in Europe repression by the regime reached its peak with less room for dissidents and opponents as a consequence. The various internal exiles imposed on him were first and foremost an attempt to isolate him from his networks. The continuous surveillance to which he was subjected was intended to prevent him from fleeing from Italy (which he never considered himself, as we saw before), since the regime feared that he would efficiently organise the opposition from outside Italy. 51 His working relation with Giovanni Gentile, who acted as president of ANIMI until 1943, plus his contacts with a number of senators and members of the royal family (princess Marie José and Amedeo Duke of Aosta), probably protected him to a certain extent, but this is hard to prove since any documentation is lacking. But in this particular case, arguably, absence of evidence is not evidence for absence.