This study analyzes the position of Italian diplomacy before the possibility that Spain incorporated learning Italian to their curricula in secondary education. We analyze, first, the position of Italian language in this type of education before 1922, date of the March on Rome. Later, we study the cooperation between Mussolini and the dictatorship «primorriverista» and the benefits for Italian language by the adoption of the Plan Callejo in 1926. Subsequently, we explain the negative consequences for fascist purposes derived for the new educational measures adopted during the Second Republic. In the fourth section, we examine the return of Italian language to the curricula in the context of the Civil War and the early years of Franco until the conclusion of the Fascist period in Italy. Received: 04/04/2013 / Accepted: 08/06/2013 How to reference this article Domínguez Méndez, R. (2014). El aprendizaje del italiano en la segunda enseñanza española. Una batalla de la diplomacia fascista (1922-1943). Espacio, Tiempo y Educación, 1(2), pp. 65-87. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.14516/ete.2014.001.002.003