Fascist Order Castle

In Italy, the Fascist Order Castle is the elite School developed for elite Fascist echelons. There are strict requirements for admission to the School. Candidates have to be aged between 25 and 30 years old, belong to either the Fascist Party, the Italian Youth of the Lictor or the M.V.S.N., be physically completely healthy, and be pure-blooded with no hereditary defects.

These schools are intended to turn out future Party elite leaders, trained in technical and Fascist ideological purity. Because the students are so isolated and their education is so specialized in these schools, the pupils that came out of these institutions are known to be both arrogant and conceited.

The school is located in Castel del Monte, Apulia, with other neearby and modern structures with extensive facilities.

Courses

The Fascist Order Castle is a School organized into three years:

• 1st Year: Fascist Doctrine, geopolitics and intensive sportive education (especially equitation). Another emphasis is pilot training.
• 2nd Year: Law, right, Fascist Legal and Insititutional philosophy, General Legal Theory, Political economy, Economic policy.
• 3rd Year: Philosophy, politics, world history, administrative and military tasks and diplomacy; military drills, battle tactics, sports and equestrian techniques.

Among other things, in the Castle court proceedings they are sometimes revert, with Cadets who follow the trial as public; The selected trials are processes where honor and other ethical values play a considerable part, in order to test, in subsequent discussions, the moral sensitivity and capacity of judgment of individuals.

Castel del Monte

Castel del Monte is the see of the Fascist Order Castle. Castel del Monte is a 13th-century citadel and castle situated on a hill in Andria in the Apulia region of southeast Italy. It was built during the 1240s by the Emperor Frederick II, who had inherited the lands from his mother Constance of Sicily. In the 18th century, the castle's interior marbles and remaining furnishings were removed. It has neither a moat nor a drawbridge and some considered it never to have been intended as a defensive fortress; however, archaeological work has suggested that it originally had a curtain wall.

Castel del Monte is situated on a small hill close to the monastery of Santa Maria del Monte, at an altitude of 540 m. When the castle was built, the region was famously fertile with a plentiful supply of water and lush vegetation. It lies in the comune of Andria, occupying the site of an earlier fortress of which no structural remains exist.

Description

Because of its relatively small size, Castel del Monte was once considered to be no more than a "hunting lodge"; Frederick II is held as responsible for the construction of many castles in Apulia, but Castel del Monte's geometric design is unique: The fortress is a two-floors octagonal prism with an octagonal tower at each corner. The towers include a third floor. Both floors have eight rooms and an eight-sided courtyard occupies the castle's centre. Each of the main rooms has vaulted ceilings. Three of the corner towers contain staircases. The castle has two entrances, an unobtrusive service entrance and an ornate main entrance. Frederick's main entrance featured elements from classical design, and may have been influenced by Frederick's interest in Greco-Roman architecture.

Historians have debated the purpose of the building and it has been suggested that it was intended as a hunting lodge. Another theory is that the octagon is an intermediate symbol between a square (representing the earth) and a circle (representing the sky). Occasionally used as a hunting lodge under Manfred of Sicily, the castle become a state prison under the latter's victor, Charles I of Anjou: here Manfred's sons Henry, Azzo and Enzo were kept as prisoner after 1266, as well as other Hohenstaufen supporters.

In 1951 the Fascist Order Castle was established and Castel del Monte became its see.

The main wall is 25 m high and the eight bastions each 26 m. The sides of the main octagon are 16.5 m long and those of the octagonal towers each 3.1 m. The castle has a diameter of 56 m. Its main entrance faces east.