Before the Unification of Italy (1861), homosexuality was legal in some pre-unitary states (e.g., Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, Grand Duchy of Tuscany) and illegal in others (e.g. Kingdom of Sardinia). It was in 1889, with the Zanardelli Code, that homosexuality was officially decriminalized in the entire peninsula. Forty years later, however, Mussolini's fascist regime promulgated a new penal code, the Rocco Code (1930), which originally included an article that dictated imprisonment for homosexual acts. The article was eventually discarded in order to avoid any public mention of homosexuality altogether. At the time, the fascist Commission justified the decision with these words: "It is unnecessary to even anticipate the occurrence of such a crime [i.e., homosexual acts] because, fortunately, the unspeakable vice is not as widespread in Italy as to justify the intervention of the legislator." The existence of homosexuality, in fact, could not even be contemplated in the violently patriarchal society of fascism, the pillars of which were the so-called Fascist New Men—authoritative, athletic, intrepid, manly men who abhorred any type of behavior deemed "effeminate" and whose core values were encompassed by the slogan "Dio, Patria e Famiglia" ('God, Fatherland, and Family'). Therefore, while homosexuality was still legal in theory, homosexuals and their otherness posed a threat not only to the fascist ideal of man and nuclear family, but also to the fatherland itself. As a result, homosexuals were labelled enemies of the state and were targeted, punished and excluded from public life by the fascist authorities (much to the approval of the Catholic Church) through admonition, confinement, or internment. A considerable number of homosexuals were relegated to the San Domino island in the Tremiti Islands archipelago. In the later years of the regime and in the Republic of Salò (1943—1945), the repressive measures became harsher and harsher and, even after the fall of fascism, the fascist anti-homosexual doctrine lived on for decades in Italian institutions and society: confinement measures were still occasionally employed by the newborn Italian Republic and homosexuals were still routinely excluded from public life (Pier Paolo Pasolini, for instance, was expelled from the Italian Communist Party in 1949).
Una giornata particolare ('A Special Day', 1977), film directed by Ettore Scola—an unfulfilled housewife (Sophia Loren) and a homosexual man (Marcello Mastroianni) meet in fascist Rome and develop an interesting relationship;
Gli occhiali d'oro ('The Gold Rimmed Spectacles', 1958), book by Giorgio Bassani—a young jewish man (probably based on Bassani himself) narrates the doomed love story of a doctor from Ferrara and a young and rebellious university student;
Gli occhiali d'oro ('The Gold Rimmed Glasses', 1987) adaptation of the aforementioned novel, directed by Giuliano Montaldo and starring Philippe Noiret and Rupert Everett.
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