This Italian town once welcomed migrants. Now, it’s a symbol for right-wing politics

Macerata’s new bishop, handpicked by Pope Francis, observed recently that “all the tensions rising in the country are now visible in this city.”

In the university, founded in 1290, left-wing students warned that a group of hard-right students in the humanities department were espousing the works of Julius Evola, the spiritual and intellectual godfather of Italian Fascists and Italy’s post-Fascist terrorists.

They said students were attempting to form chapters for hard-right groups such as CasaPound, which is doing better in municipal elections around the country, and Forza Nuova, which in October attempted to re-enact Mussolini’s 1922 March on Rome.