Enrico Catellani never abided Fascism.

His name appears in the list of anti-fascist school and university personnel, a document destined to the duce's private Secretariat (Italo Birocchi, Il giurista intellettuale e il regime. In I giuristi e il fascino del regime (1918-1925). A cura di Italo Birocchi e Luca Loschiavo. Roma, Roma Tre-Press, 2015, p. 9-61).

Immediately following retirement, in the academic world, he suffered the consequences of his political stance.

In 1932, the Ministero dell'Educazione Nazionale did not approve the proposal of 15 June 1931 by the Academic Council of the Regia Scuola Superiore di Commercio di Venezia (now Cà Foscari University) to name him Chair of the teaching of International Law.

In Padua, he was also denied appointment as professor emeritus. The nomination was submitted on 17 December 1932 by the University Rettore, Carlo Anti, to the same Ministry which sent its refusal on 25 March 1933, as the professor was openly opposed to the fascist regime.

.

Courtesy of the University of Padova - Ufficio gestione documentale.
Settore Archivio di Ateneo, archivio riservato Anti, fascicolo C/2.

Courtesy of the University of Padova - Ufficio gestione documentale.
Settore Archivio di Ateneo, archivio riservato Anti, fascicolo C/2.

Enrico Catellani’s bitterness following this is clear in a letter from 1936 addressed to the rettore, which reads: “…I believed, after failing to be nominated as professor emeritus and no longer receiving the University Yearbook, that I was no longer a part of the university and that I was just another pensioner like a tax agent or postal clerk. …””

Courtesy of the University of Padova - Ufficio gestione documentale.
Settore Archivio di Ateneo, archivio riservato Anti, fascicolo C/2.

As a result of the racial laws he was expelled from the Istituto Veneto di Scienze Lettere ed Arti with a special royal decree signed by Vittorio Emanuele on 1 December 1938. A copy of the decree is in Carlo Urbani’s contribution, Tra scienza e coscienza. L'Istituto Veneto di fronte alle leggi razziali, published in  Giuseppe Jona, by Gian Antonio Danieli, Venezia, 2015.

It was against 9 Jewish Senators of the Kingdom that Mussolini had ordered this "discriminazione" in 1939, as per article 14 of the art. 14 del Regio Decreto-Legge 17 novembre 1938, n. 1728, repealed in 1944 (for the meaning of the term “discriminazione” in the application of the racial laws, see what Angelo Ventura in Padova, Laterza 1989, p. 336).
In December 1943, he was not ordered to be sent to a concentration camp due to his age and health.
His possessions were confiscated and handed over to his wife, declared to be of “Aryan race”. He was granted permission to stay in his house.
His death occurred while Giuseppe Gola, was rettore, a few months before liberation.

The University of Padova arranged his funeral, for which it requested permission of the Comunità ebraica to allow burial in the Cimitero Maggiore. This gesture can be interpreted as a sign of esteem and affection for Enrico Catellani, but also as a courageous act of defiance against the military and political authorities of the time, to emphasise the Universa Universis Patavina Libertas which has characterised the University of Padova for centuries.