even though some think that all his arguments were in favor of the emperor and he was less more than a court slave. History Origins The Flacco finds its origins in the Regio Liceo delle Puglie, a scholastic institution founded in 1774 at the time of the Bourbon domination in Bari. In 1865, however, after the reunification of Italy into a kingdom and after the approval of a law that secularized education, the school changed name into Regio Liceo-Convitto “Domenico Cirillo”, a physician and a patriot during the revolution happened in Naples in 1799. From 1885 until 1933 the liceo was located on the first floor of the building which hosts today the Ateneo (the University of Bari), with the exception of the years of World War I, when the building was used as hospital and the school moved to the Provincial Deputation in Via Melo da Bari. Fascist Era and World War II In 1933 the building that hosts today the liceo was built according to the project of architect Concezio Petrucci. A particular characteristic of this building is that it is shaped as an M, which was a direct reference to Benito Mussolini, dictator of fascist Italy. In fact, he financed the construction of brand new buildings on the Lungomare (Italian for “water front”) of Bari, including the Flacco, which has its monumental main entrance on Corso Vittorio Veneto, a street that runs along the coastline. The first floor was occupied by the offices of secretariat, the presidency, the aula magna decorated with valuable bas-reliefs by sculptors Francesco Nagni and Amedeo Vecchi, the teacher’s library, the departments of physics, chemistry and natural sciences and a little amphitheater. The second floor instead hosted the classrooms and the students’ library. This composition is conserved nowadays, but a third floor was built during the 60s, along with a new wing which hides a little bit the original attempt of giving the building the shape of an M. In 1935, after the reunion of the school’s board of directors, the name of the institution was changed from Domenico Cirillo to Quinto Orazio Flacco, the most famous Latin poet of Apulia. From 1943 until 1945, the original building was occupied by the Allied troops because of its strategic position with a view over the sea, and the school population was obligated to gather in spaces luckily found and available to the usage as