118 J.-A. PEMBERTON
The conversation in Paris in 1937 on the future destiny of letters was
held between July 20 and 24 at the Palais Royal. The meeting inaugurat-
ing it was presided over by the French under-secretary of state, François
de Tessan. Among the other dignitaries present at this meeting were
Herriot, Paul Léon, the deputy general commissioner of the 1937 expo-
sition, Murray and Massimo Pilotti, this last being deputy secretary gen-
eral (secrétaire général adjoint) of the LON in function of which he had
responsibility for the International Bureaux and Intellectual Cooperation
sections of the secretariat.^117
One other dignitary present was Marchese Balbino Giuliano. An hon-
orary professor of theoretical philosophy at the University of Rome,
Giuliano had succeeded Alfredo Rocco the former Italian justice minister
and Fascist theoretician, as the Italian member of the ICIC following the
latter’s death in 1935. Giuliano had also succeeded Rocco in the role of
president of the International Institute of Educational Cinematography
(IIEC) in Rome. This institute had been placed at the disposal of the
LON by the Italian government in 1928 in the same way that the French
government had earlier placed the IIIC in Paris at the LON’s disposal
and its statute, as agreed to by the LON, provided that the president of
the IIEC was always to be the Italian member of the ICIC. At the inau-
gural meeting Giuliano delivered what Valéry described as a charming
speech in which he thanked the French government and the ICIC for
making possible the ‘intellectuelle et platonicienne’ event which was the
conversation on the future destiny of letters.^118
(^117) Société des Nations, Institut International de la Coopération Intellectuelle, Entretiens:
Le destin prochain des lettres (Paris: Institut International de la Coopération Intellectuelle,
1938), 7–8, 207. See also Elisabetta Tollardo, Fascist Italy and the League of Nations,
1922 – 1935 (London: Palgrave Macmillan 2016), 81–2. Elisabetta Tollardo notes that
Massimo Pilotti’s legal expertise had seen him participate in Italian delegations to a number
of important international conferences. She adds that although Pilotti approached his role
as a ‘legal expert’ rather that as a politician, ‘he was asked to put into practice his expertise
when the crisis between Italy and the institution peaked as a result of the Italo-Ethiopian
conflict’ and that he ‘played a key role in presenting the Italian case during the Ethiopian
crisis.’ Tollardo further observes that Pilotti’s ‘approach to the [League] organization and
to internationalism was opportunistic and his relationship with Fascism ambiguous’ (ibid.,
82–3).
(^118) Société des Nations, Institut International de la Coopération Intellectuelle, Entretiens:
Le destin prochain des lettres, 213, 216.