Quoting Michele Sarfatti in The Jews in Italy under Fascist and Nazi Rule, 1922–1945, pages 77–8:

Anti‐Jewish laws met with consent from many — far too many — quarters of Italian society. King Victor Emmanuel III of Savoy signed each and every law.

Pope Pius XI protested publicly — by means of an article in the Osservatore Romano — only against the rule forbidding the “trascrizione” (that is, the recording in the marriage registers by Italian state authorities) of racially mixed marriages celebrated with Roman Catholic rites. His successor, Pius XII, never made any public protest whatsoever. The great majority and sometimes the totality of the noblemen and high‐ranking army officers who sat in the Senate voted in favor of the anti‐Jewish laws.

Students and young Fascist intellectuals zealously supported and publicized them. Older intellectuals decided to remain members of the aryanized academies. Low‐ and high‐level officials of the National Fascist Party applauded the new laws and acted as propagandists. The newspapers belonging to the Fascist party cheered while the so‐called independent press joined the chorus.

The laws were applied equally to Fascist, anti‐Fascist, and non‐Fascist Jews; to those belonging to the Jewish faith, the Roman Catholic faith, or to no faith at all; to Zionists and anti‐Zionists; to high‐ranking army officers and to peddlers; to Jews in Rome and in Trieste; to children, adults, and the elderly.

Undoubtedly, persecution was made possible by the fact that Italy was ruled by a dictatorship, which, by the way, some Jews had helped to set up. But the implementation of the anti‐Jewish laws was in itself proof that the Fascist dictatorship was no joke and that it had succeeded in compelling an ample consent among the Italian population.

I know that this is not the most tragic history that I have shared here, so I feel strange saying this, but I have to admit that I cried slightly as I read this.

Annalisa Capristo, pages 84, 86–8:

The RDL of September 1938 decreed that all Jewish members had to be expelled from academies by October 16, 1938 — that is, before the reopening of the academic year and the resumption of cultural activities.²³ To enforce the expulsion, Jewish members had to be identified. To this end, Minister Bottai — “anticipating with circulars the laws still at the drafting stage”²⁴ — had already instructed the competent ministry directorate to organize a thorough census at institutions involved in “Aryanization.”

[…]

Both academies and non‐Jewish scholars played an important rôle in the completion of the census. On the one hand, institutions were active — and in many cases even zealous — in collecting and transmitting personal data on their members. On the other hand, the large majority of non‐Jewish scholars did not oppose the survey and completed the ministerial form.

In addition to the identification of Jewish members for the purpose of expulsion, the racial survey thus achieved a second remarkable objective: it served to verify how widespread the support was within the Italian intellectual élite for the Fascist régime’s anti‐Semitic policies. Indeed, the census carried out at academies was even more significant in that regard than the similar one conducted on the public administration personnel (which included school teachers, university professors, and libraries staff).

In the latter case, fear of dismissal from employment strongly conditioned people in their replies, although the highest risk for the academy members refusing to comply with the ministerial circular was expulsion, namely loss of a purely honorary appointment which was usually not remunerated (the Accademia d’Italia was an outstanding exception to this rule). Moreover, many academy members were not (or no longer, as for retirees) public employees and their economic and social standing would have allowed them to disagree with the survey.

[…]

The extraordinarily long list of those who answered the call of the régime includes many prominent personalities in the Italian culture and society of that time. These included, as well, young scholars who were destined for a brilliant scientific career.

Among those who returned their completed forms, some held public offices (ministers, senators, rectors, bankers, executives) and others were intellectuals openly aligned with the Fascist régime (such as the philosopher Giovanni Gentile) or scientists and journalists who supported the racial campaign. There were even clergymen.

Noticeably, the questionnaire was also compiled by exponents of the former liberal régime, people who later held outstanding positions (such as the president‐to‐be of the Italian Republic, Luigi Einaudi) or declared themselves opponents of Fascism.

Notwithstanding the substantial consensus in favor of racial discrimination, responses demonstrate a rather large range of attitudes, spanning from formal compliance with ministerial regulations, to denial of any Jewish “contamination” in one’s genealogy (many punctiliously claimed their aristocratic descent, their Catholicism, or other Christian denominations), to strong adhesion to the racist policy.

Many people added anti‐Semitic remarks quite superfluously, as for instance “absolute Aryan,” “nothing of Jewish descent,” “Aryan family without any contamination,” “one hundred per cent Aryan and Catholic,” “pure Aryan race,” and so on. Senator Antonio Taramelli shouted that he was returning the questionnaire “with profound joy, as for a national memorable event. We might be faced with hard times, but these will be overcome by the usual courage of us Italians if we will free ourselves from this Jewish intrusion which was about to stifle us.”³⁹

However, a figure like Marquis Aldobrandino Malvezzi de Medici refused to fill out the questionnaire and polemically resigned from all institutions to which he belonged. His attitude, however, was not driven by solidarity with Jewish members; it was instead determined by a feeling of outrage for having been requested to state the obvious, that is, that he was not Jewish.

Criticism of anti‐Semitic persecution was very limited. Provided that instances of “silent dissent” cannot be excluded, on the basis of extant documents the only two scholars who refused to fill out the form were the philosopher Benedetto Croce and the historian Gaetano De Sanctis.

(Emphasis added in all cases.)

Somewhat off‐topic, but I find it notable how Fascist Italy had a senate even after 1925, when the liberal pseudodemocracy had completely vanished. It’s notable because people rarely think of senates when they think of fascism, despite the evidence that the two phenomena were always compatible.