Renzo De Felice (8 April 1929 – 25 May 1996) was an Italian historian, who specialized in the Fascist era, writing, among other works, a 6000-page biography of Mussolini (4 volumes, 1965–1997).

[2] De Felice was born in Rieti and studied under Federico Chabod and Delio Cantimori at the Sapienza University of Rome.

De Felice, a liberal Jew,[3] also wrote a well-regarded history of Jewish life under the Fascist government and articles on Italian Jacobinism.

De Felice saw Fascism, especially in the "movement" stage, as a revolutionary middle-class ideology that had deep roots in the Age of Enlightenment.

However, Italian communist leader and intellectual activist Giorgio Amendola came to De Felice's defence and rejected many of the criticisms of Giovanni Ferrara in 1975, calling for more civil dialogue on Fascism and Antifascism.