Note 29 — II Significance of this Movement—Nature of Political Passions

For example, in words like the following, uttered at Venice on the 11th December, 1926, by the Italian Minister of Education and Fine Arts: ‘Artists must prepare themselves for the new imperialist function which must be carried out by our art. Above everything, we must categorically impose a principle of Italianita. Whoever copies a foreigner is guilty of lèse-nation (an insult to the nation) like a spy who admits an enemy by a secret doorway.’ These words have to be approved by every adept of ‘integral nationalism’. Moreover, we hear much the same thing in France from certain adversaries of Romanticism.