Rethinking <i>Campanilismo</i> : Community and Conflict in Fascist Arezzo, 1922–1928

This article looks at the everyday experiences of rural communities in the province of Arezzo, Tuscany, during the first years of Italian fascism. Following an approach that borrows from Alltagsgeschichte and microstoria , the article uses diaries, memoirs, local newspapers, and fascist reports to analyse the phenomenon of village parochialism, or campanilismo , in the context of fascist paramilitary violence. Firstly, it reassesses the role of campanilismo in provincial society, showing that parochialism was a function of community expression that contributed to the making of webs of ‘thin trust’ across rural communities. Secondly, the paper distinguishes the types of parochial conflict inherent to campanilismo from the violent conflicts generated by the fascist movement. Ultimately, the paper claims that fascist violence destroyed the functional mechanisms of campanilismo , replacing these with dysfunctional and terroristic violence that made the successful implementation of the fascist programme impossible in the provincial space.