Really, the Faculties of Political Sciences although coming into being in coincidence with the advent of the Fascist regime, represent the crowning achievement of a project aimed at during all the second half of the nineteenth century: namely, the idea of a faculty of political studies distinct from the one of law.

The Faculty of Pavia and the one of the Catholic University of Milan are among the most important Italian Faculties of Political Sciences. The events of these two Faculties, from their origin in 1926 till 1943, testify that Fascism never quite converted into a fact the objective of merging politics and university culture. On examining curricula, professors’ scientific activity and subjects of theses, it comes out, in fact, that in both Faculties the effort was made to maintain the autonomy of political studies.

This autonomy, defended above all by the recourse to the positivistic rule of the "pure" scientific method, explains why there is a growing divergence between political studies and "State culture" of Fascism, also in connection with the theme – central in the Fascist ideology – of the corporative system. In this sense, the history of the two Faculties of Political Sciences does not only point out the crisis of the Fascist ideology, but also clarifies its most profound causes.

In the Appendix a list is drawn up of the principal disciplines taught in the two Faculties and the names of the respective professors.