initial wishes, to become involved in politics. In 1910, he was appointed to the Italian Senate, a lifelong position (Ryn, 2000:xi). He was an open critic of Italy's participation in World War I, feeling that it was a suicidal trade war. Although this made him initially unpopular, his reputation was restored after the war. In 1919, he supported the government of Francesco Saverio Nitti while also expressing his admiration for the nascent Weimar Republic and the German Social Democrats. He was Minister of Public Education between 1920 and 1921 for the 5th and last government headed by Giovanni Giolitti. Benito Mussolini assumed power slightly more than a year after Croce's exit from the government; Mussolini's first Minister of Public Education was Giovanni Gentile, an independent who later became a fascist and with whom Croce had earlier cooperated in a philosophical polemic against positivism. Gentile remained minister for only a year but managed to begin a comprehensive reform of Italian education that was based partly on Croce's earlier suggestions. Gentile's reform remained in force well beyond the Fascist regime, and was only partly abolished in 1962. Croce was instrumental in the relocation of the Biblioteca Nazionale Vittorio Emanuele III to Naples' Palazzo Reale in 1923. Relations with Italian Fascism Croce initially supported Mussolini's Fascist government that took power in 1922. However, the assassination by Fascists of the socialist politician Giacomo Matteotti in June 1924 shook Croce's support for Mussolini. In May 1925 Croce was one of the signatories to the Manifesto of the Anti-Fascist Intellectuals which had been written by Croce himself; however, in June of the previous year, he had voted in the Senate in support of the Mussolini government. He later explained that he had hoped that the support for Mussolini in parliament would weaken the more extreme Fascists who, he believed, were responsible for Matteotti's murder. Croce later became one of the firmest opponents of fascism. In 1928, Croce voted against the law which effectively abolished free elections in Italy by requiring electors to vote for a list of candidates approved by the Grand Council of Fascism. He became increasingly dismayed by the number of ex-democrats who had abandoned their former principles. Croce frequently provided financial assistance to anti-Fascist writers and dissidents such as Giorgio Amendola, Ivanoe Bonomi, and Meuccio Ruini, as well as those who wanted to maintain intellectual and political independence from the regime, and covertly