The opening in 2006 of the Vatican archives for the pontificate of Pius xi (1922–39) has led to a number of important new studies on the relations of the Fascist regime with the Church. For the most part, though, these have focused on the later 1930s and the inability of the pope to offer serious public opposition either to the Ethiopian war or to the racial laws. Alberto Guasco's richly documented account of the period between 1919 and 1925 is accordingly very welcome in tracing in detail the Vatican's response to the rise of Fascism and the first two years of Mussolini's government (which culminated in the establishment of a dictatorship at the beginning of 1925). It underlines the extent to which Pius xi was convinced that the evils of the modern world that had led to the Great War and the Bolshevik revolution needed to be countered in a resolute Tridentine spirit. Given the providential role assigned to Rome he saw Italy as central to the mission to re-Christianise Europe; and this, Guasco says, helps to explain the ‘fundamental fault’ of the Church in the interwar years, namely its ‘fearsomely exclusive’ outlook that led it to view anything in Italy that was ‘a-Catholic or worse anti-Catholic as unworthy of salvation’. In line with recent studies by Lucia Ceci and others, Guasco shows how from this perspective Mussolini's government was seen not as a neo-pagan rival to the Church's own totalitarian aspirations but as a potential ally in the fight against liberalism, Freemasonry and Socialism (and increasingly in the 1930s Protestantism and Judaism). In supporting Mussolini, the Vatican consistently distinguished between ‘good Fascism’ – the Fascism that paid to repair war-damaged churches, restored crucifixes to public buildings and, with the Gentile education reform of 1923, made Catholic instruction compulsory in primary schools – and ‘bad Fascism’, the Fascism of the unruly local squads that attacked priests and Catholic associations (and whose vices were commonly attributed to their Socialist backgrounds). Nor was ‘good Fascism’ regarded as virtuous simply because it promoted the interests of the Church (which in the circumstances of 1923–4 might easily have been construed as mere electoral opportunism). More fundamental was Pius’ recognition from the outset that there was a close convergence between Catholicism and Fascism on a broad array of issues including authority, order, obedience, discipline, duties, faith and anti-materialism: a convergence that could work to the mutual reinforcement of both sides (and this was undoubtedly the experience and perception of the great majority of Italians after 1925). It was a belief in a basic affinity between Catholicism and Fascism that led Pius (and many other Catholics) to downplay indications to the contrary and to work assiduously during the crucial months of the Matteotti crisis in the second half of 1924 to support Mussolini and prevent the opposition (the Catholic Popular Party included) from taking power.