In this lecture to celebrate the launch of Unio cum Christo I propose to look at how the Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini approached the life and thinking of John Hus. It is no real surprise to find that someone like Mussolini would appropriate a figure like Hus. If you travel to Europe today, in Germany many statues of Martin Luther are on view, almost all from the nineteenth century.The rise of German nationalism fueled interest in Martin Luther, and in nineteenth-century Europe generally there was a renewal of interest in earlier European figures.