Steve Bannon’s plans to create a “gladiator school” for populists in an 800-year-old monastery in Italy appear to be dead in the water after the culture ministry announced that it will revoke the lease on the historic property.

Donald Trump’s former chief strategist had plans to turn the Trisulti monastery, in the mountains east of Rome, into a boot camp for the alt-Right.

Activists from around the world were to attend courses at the 13th century charterhouse, where they would be taught conservative Catholic values and schooled in defending the West’s Judaeo-Christian roots.

It was touted as “the spiritual home of Bannonism”, an academy for cultural warriors from the nationalist, populist Right.