L’ex comandante, il conte e gli altri. Fascismo e omosessualità nella Livorno degli anni Venti

The present essay analyzes two distinct cases of investigations conducted by the Leghorn police on as many groups of homosexuals between 1924 and 1931. On the one hand we have the case of a former naval officer, war hero, professor and fascist of the first hour, guilty, according to some “rumors”, of having had lascivious attitudes with a student. On the other, a group of characters from the upper middle class of the city, victims of an anonymous complaint that indicates them as members of a real “company of homosexuals” dedicated to vice and lust. The context in which victims and investigators move is that of the affirmation of fascism as a regime, suggesting that the final objective of the two investigations for the territorial governing bodies did not concern so much the aspect of safeguarding common morality, as the ability to guarantee close, and discreet, surveillance of individuals and their moves, especially on the political side.