Mediterraneanism
He defined it as "the finest brunet race which has appeared in North Africa…derived neither from the black nor white peoples, but constitut[ing] an autonomous stock in the human family.".
[2]: 24–27 Sergi responded to typical Nordicist claims of superiority of Nordics over Mediterraneans, by saying that the reason for the perceived lack of wealth or progress in Romance-speaking countries as compared with countries of Northern Europe was because the Aryans of the North, living in frigid climates had developed close-knit groups that allowed them to survive in that environment, as such they became more disciplined, productive civic-minded than southern Europeans.
[2]: 24–27 Sergi claimed the Nordics had made no substantial contribution to pre-modern civilization, noting that "in the epoch of Tacitus, the Germans ... remained barbarians as in prehistoric times".
[4] Braudel had entered his doctrinal studies in the 1920s at the precise time when the issue of Mediterranean unity was being fiercely debated.
[5][6] In a 1921 speech in Bologna, Benito Mussolini stated that "Fascism was born... out of a profound, perennial need of this our Aryan and Mediterranean race".
[7] In 1929, Mussolini asserted that Jewish culture was Mediterranean and that Jews were native to Italy, after living there for a long time.
[8][9] Italian Fascism strongly rejected the Nordicist and Nazi conception of the Aryan race that idealized "pure" Aryans as having certain physical traits that were defined as Nordic such as fair skin, or blond hair, traits uncommon among Mediterranean and Italian people and the often olive-skinned members of the so-called "Mediterranean race.
"[2]: 188 The antipathy by Mussolini and other Italian Fascists to Nordicism was over the existence of such theories by German and Anglo-Saxon Nordicists who viewed Mediterranean peoples as racially degenerate.
[5] In a speech given in Bari in 1934, Mussolini reiterated his attitude toward Nordicism: "Thirty centuries of history allow us to look with supreme pity on certain doctrines which are preached beyond the Alps by the descendants of those who were illiterate when Rome had Caesar, Virgil and Augustus".
[13] In 1941, the PNF's Mediterraneanists, through the influence of Giacomo Acerbo, put forward a comprehensive definition of the Italian race.
[2]: 146 Acerbo and the Mediterraneanists in his High Council on Demography and Race sought to bring the regime back to supporting Mediterraneanism by thoroughly denouncing the pro-Nordicist Manifesto of the Racial Scientists.
