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Cesare Maria De Vecchi (14 November 1884 - 1959) was an Italian soldier, colonial administrator and Fascist politician.

De Vecchi was born in Casale Monferrato on 14 November 1884. After graduating in jurisprudence he became a successful lawyer in Turin. His stance on the First World War was interventionist, and he himself took part in the final events of the conflict. On his return to Italy he gave his support to the National Fascist Party, in which he would consistently represent the monarchical and ‘moderate’ wing. He became president of the Turin war veterans and head of the local Fascist squadre. In 1921 he was elected to the Italian Chamber of Deputies.

He became Commander General of the Milizia (see Blackshirts), was one of the quadrumvirate which organised the March on Rome, and sought to persuade Antonio Salandra to enter into Mussolini’s government. He himself became Undersecretary at the Treasury and then at the Finance Ministry. In December 1922 he inspired the squadre of Brandimarte to the 1922 Turin Massacre (Strage di Torino) and he become known as the most important of the Piedmontese squadristi.

From 1923 to 1928 he was governor of Italian Somaliland, a role which took him away from the centre of the Italian political scene. He was made Count of Val Sismon (in memory of the battles fought by his arditi on Monte Grappa in 1918). He was appointed Senator by King Vittorio Emanuele III. He became the first ambassador to the Vatican after the Concordat of 1929. In 1935–1936 he was national Minister of Education: as such he promoted a historiography which identified the House of Savoy as the link between Imperial Rome and the Rome of Fascism, and also worked for the centralisation of the administration of the school system.

From 1939 to 1940 De Vecchi acted as governor of the Italian Aegean Islands. In the following year he was appointed to the Grand Council of Fascism and on July 25, 1943 he voted in favour of Dino Grandi’s order of the day which deprived Benito Mussolini of his role as Fascist Duce. As a result he was condemned to death in absentia during the Verona trial conducted under the auspices of the Italian Social Republic, but hanks to the support of the Catholic Church he was able to escape to Argentina on a Paraguayan passport.

After returning to Italy in 1949, he supported the neo-fascist Movimento Sociale Italiano together with Rodolfo Graziani; however he refused to accept any political or institutional office within the party.

Cesare Maria De Vecchi died in Rome in 1959.

• This article originated as a translation of its counterpart in the Italian Wikipedia as retrieved on 2007-03-18