"It was Italian students who studied in France who took the game back with them to Italy in 1909. Rugby first became organized in the northern cities of Milan and Turin, with strong early links to France. In Italy, as Bonini shows, rugby has 'long been appreciated for its pedagogical value as a "'maker of men"'. Unlike France, Italy rugby remained an elite game tied to class-based concepts of masculinity. Rugby expanded further in the Fascist era as a propaganda tool for cbnditioning the masses to Fascist aims. Such conditioning combined the physical with the ideological in the making of men to serve the state and its aims. Bonini, in citing Aldo Cerchiari's 1928 translation of a French introductory rugby text, states that for the Fascists rugby was 'the game that proves the athletic and moral potential of the individual'. Furthmore, rugby was 'the most complete and rational team game, a game that "makes men"'. The fascists initially liked rugby because it was a physical game that allowed players to use their whole bodies and developed a sense of co-operation, self-discipline and the subjugation of the individual to the needs of the group. Indeed, these factors would combine to resurrect the ancient traditions thought to have existed in imperial Rome and that sucha resurrection would help Italy emerge as a leading world power. As with football in the USA, a new Italian game called volata appeared that, in drawing on local traditions, could be cast as a uniquely Italian sport. Rugby thus lost favour with the Facists by 1929 as it was thought to be too British and not Italian."