During the Fascist rule in Italy, a ''gerarca'' ( it, member of a hierarchy, plural: ''gerarchi'') was a higher officer of the

National Fascist Party The National Fascist Party ( it, Partito Nazionale Fascista, PNF) was a political party in Italy, created by Benito Mussolini as the political expression of Italian Fascism and as a reorganization of the previous Italian Fasces of Combat. The ...

(PNF). The highest ''gerarchi'', up to the Federal Secretary, were members of the National Council of the PNF and of the

Chamber of Fasces and Corporations Chamber of Fasces and Corporations ( it, Camera dei Fasci e delle Corporazioni) was the lower house of the legislature of the Kingdom of Italy from 23 March 1939 to 5 August 1943, during the height of the regime of Benito Mussolini's National Fas ...

. The secretary and members of the National Directorate of the PNF were members of the Grand Council of Fascism. A ''Ras'' (from the homonymous Ethiopian title) was a gerarca dominating in one province. So, for example,

Italo Balbo Italo Balbo (6 June 1896 – 28 June 1940) was an Italian fascist politician and Blackshirts' leader who served as Italy's Marshal of the Air Force, Governor-General of Libya and Commander-in-Chief of Italian North Africa. Due to his young a ...

was the ''Ras'' of Ferrara, and

Roberto Farinacci Roberto Farinacci (; 16 October 1892 – 28 April 1945) was a leading Italian Fascist politician and important member of the National Fascist Party before and during World War II as well as one of its ardent antisemitic proponents. English histo ...

the ''Ras'' of Cremona.

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{{Fascism Italian Fascism Italian words and phrases