Il Duce and His Women
Page 53
It was thought that any potential impact could be dealt with by making sure the choice of studio guests reflected a political balance. The necessary background to the film was not explained – the fact that, on 10th August 1944, nine months before the display of Mussolini’s corpse in Piazzale Loreto, and in exactly the same location, fifteen men had been shot by the Fascists as a reprisal for attacking Nazi troops and their bodies left on the ground for days on end. Milanese workers would stop in silence to gaze at the dead bodies and secretly vow to take revenge; some women ran the risk of placing flowers near them. The entire city was stunned by the massacre. At one point in the film, among the crowds who have come to see Mussolini’s strung-up corpse one sees an individual holding up a photograph of a relative who had been one of the men shot in the previous year – but there was no one in the studio when the programme was broadcast to explain this detail, and the people who could have explained were never asked.
And so it went on – no one explained why the firemen let off the water cannons, why the bodies had been hung upside down, why the Partisans reacted in the way they did and what Allied soldiers were doing in the middle of the crowd. Left to speak for itself, the footage made its impact on public and critics alike. But even the way the film was presented was wrong. The editors of the programme were aware of the violent nature of the scenes shown, with the frenzied crowd spitting and kicking at Mussolini’s head as his body lay on the ground, and none of the guests was able to give an adequate analysis or explanation of what was seen. A few hours before the recorded programme went out, the people responsible for the transmission decided to try to soften its emotional impact by literally distancing it from the viewers, in other words, replacing some full-screen close-up shots of Piazzale Loreto with others where the cameraman, still in the square, was filming from farther away. In addition they decided to show the film on the screen in the studio behind the row of seated guests. The effect was reminiscent of the famous scene in Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus, when the gladiator slave, played by Kirk Douglas, is locked in desperate combat with his towering black opponent, Draba, played by Woody Strode. At a certain point Kubrick shifts the camera position to behind the patrician Crassus, sitting with his friend Gabro, as they watch the fight from their VIP seats; in this way the actual cinema audience in front of the screen is forced to “stretch forward”, so to speak, to try to see what’s going on behind the two spectators. The gladiators’ fight is taking place in the background and is made that much more dramatic and involving by being framed by Kubrick within the shot of the two Roman aristocrats and their trivial chatter. In the same way the audience watching the Piazzale Loreto film on the television screen at home had to “stretch forward” to see what was actually happening in the square.
Appendix 2
Key Figures
GIACOMO ACERBO (1888–1969)
Born to a noble family, Acerbo was a volunteer during the First World War. Affiliated with the Freemasons, he became undersecretary to Mussolini during the latter’s first government and subsequently Vice President of the Chamber of Deputies and a minister. A member of the Grand Council of Fascism, he voted for the motion to strip Mussolini of his powers at the meeting of 25th July 1943. He managed to escape from the Fascists of the Italian Social Republic and was in hiding until he was captured by the Allies in 1945. After the war he was sentenced to death, although this was then commuted to forty-eight years’ imprisonment, subsequently reduced to thirty. The sentence was finally annulled by the court of appeal in 1951, and Acerbo was reinstated as a university professor. His name is still remembered for the “Acerbo law”, passed in 1923, which created a majoritarian electoral system designed to guarantee the Fascist Party two thirds of all parliamentary seats.
LUIGI ALBERTINI (1871–1941)
Albertini was the editor of Corriere della Sera from 1900 to 1925. Under his editorship the Corriere grew and became the most important and widely read newspaper in Italy. In 1921 he appointed his brother Alberto as co-editor, entrusting him with an executive role in the management of the newspaper, although retaining the title of editor for himself. Albertini was a senator from 1914 and was outspoken in his opposition to Fascism. He was ousted from the Corriere in 1925.
RINO ALESSI (1885–1970)
Alessi was a journalist and contributor to Avanti! and other socialist newspapers. A volunteer during the First World War and a friend of Mussolini since their youth in Romagna, he followed the Duce when he moved from socialism to Fascism. Alessi wrote a number of plays and novels and was the editor of the Trieste newspaper Il piccolo.
GIOVANNI AMENDOLA (1882–1926)
Amendola was Professor of Theoretical Philosophy at the University of Pisa, a journalist for Il Resto del Carlino and Corriere della Sera and one of the founding members of Il mondo. An artillery officer during the First World War and a deputy who sided with the liberal faction in the Chamber, he became Minister for the Colonies and one of the major figures of anti-Fascism. In 1926 he was attacked by Blackshirts, later dying from his injuries.
GIORGIO ASSUMMA (1935–)
Assumma, a former president of the Italian Society of Authors and Publishers, is a professor of copyright law at the Università Statale di Roma III and the president of the Fondazione Internazionale Perseus.
WALTER AUDISIO (1909–73)
An accountant by profession, Audisio was an active member of the clandestine Italian Communist Party during the Fascist period. He was arrested and confined to the island of Ponza in 1934, later joining the Resistance following Italy’s surrender to the Allies on 8th September 1943 and adopting the code name “Colonel Valerio”. According to his testimony, it was he who killed Mussolini and Claretta Petacci at Giulino di Mezzegra. After the war he became a deputy and later a senator.
MIKHAIL BAKUNIN (1814–76)
A revolutionary Russian philosopher and one of the major proponents of anarchism, Bakunin was born to a noble family of landowners. Condemned to death in Russia, he was pardoned by the Tsar and his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in Siberia. He managed to escape and in 1865 he moved to Italy.
ANGELICA BALABANOFF (1869–1965)
Balabanoff was born to a noble Ukrainian family. After receiving a degree in literature in Brussels, she became a socialist activist and relocated to Rome in 1900. She joined the Italian Socialist Party, and met Lenin in Switzerland. In 1917 she joined the Bolshevik Communist Party and became secretary of the Third International. After a disagreement with Lenin and other Bolshevik leaders, she moved back to Italy in 1922 and took shelter in Switzerland and the United States during the Fascist period. After the Second World War, she joined the Partito Socialista Democratico Italiano (Italian Democratic Socialist Party) under the leadership of Giuseppe Saragat.
ITALO BALBO (1896–1940)
Early in his life Balbo was a member of the Mazzinian republican faction and fought in the First World War, receiving many decorations and various promotions up to the rank of captain. He joined the Fascists and became the party’s secretary in Ferrara. He was one of the quadrumviri during the March on Rome and the leader of many Fascist terror squads. He became Minister of the Air Force and piloted two transatlantic flights in formation. He was the Viceroy of Libya and died when his plane was hit by what the Italian government insisted was “friendly fire” from Italian anti-aircraft artillery in Tobruk.
NICOLA BARBATO (1856–1923)
Barbato was a psychiatrist and one of the major Sicilian socialist leaders. During the uprising of the Sicilian Workers’ Leagues, he was arrested and condemned to twelve years in prison. He was elected as a deputy and became a member of the executive of the Socialist Party. He came into conflict with the Mafia and was seriously wounded by one of their hit men. He spent the last years of his life in Milan.
SALVATORE BARZILAI (1860–1939)
A lawyer by profession, Barzilai was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1890 and was among the founding members of the Italian Republican P
arty in 1895. During the First World War he became a minister, responsible for the Austro-Hungarian territories annexed by Italian forces after 1915, and in 1920 was made a senator. He was a high-ranking member of the Masonic organization Grande Oriente d’Italia (Grand Orient of Italy).
GIUSEPPE BASTIANINI (1899–1961)
Bastianini was a second lieutenant in the Arditi during the First World War and became Vice Secretary of the Fascist Party in 1921. A member of the Grand Council until 1927, he later embarked on a diplomatic career, becoming ambassador in Warsaw in 1932 and in London at the beginning of the Second World War (ending when Italy joined the war in 1940). In 1943 he became Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs. During the Grand Council meeting of 25th July 1943 he voted against Mussolini. Sentenced to death by the Italian Social Republic, he managed to escape to Switzerland.
CESARE BATTISTI (1875–1916)
Battisti was a journalist and a socialist leader of the Trentino region during Austrian rule. Founder and editor of the Socialist newspaper Il popolo, during the First World War he fought as a volunteer in a battalion of the Alpini, the division of the Italian army specializing in mountain warfare. Captured by the Austrians, he was hanged as a traitor. In Italy he is regarded as a national hero.
FIORENZO BAVA BECCARIS (1831–1924)
Bava Beccaris was a general during the Crimean War. When, in 1898, there were violent riots in Milan, he ordered the use of cannon on the crowd, causing a massacre. He was honoured by King Umberto I with a Great Cross of the Savoy Military Order and was appointed senator. Gaetano Bresci, the man who killed King Umberto I on 29th July 1900, claimed that his act was meant to avenge the massacre caused by Bava Beccaris.
LEONIDA BISSOLATI (1857–1920)
A lawyer by training, Bissolati was among the most important Socialist leaders between the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries. He became the editor of the official Socialist Party newspaper Avanti! in 1896 and was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1897. Having failed to oppose the colonial war in Libya, he was dismissed from the Socialist Party in 1912. He founded the Partito Socialista Riformista Italiano (Italian Socialist-Reformist Party). He retired from politics in 1918.
BORIS III OF SAXE-COBURG-GOTHA (1894–1943)
Boris III, tsar of the Kingdom of Bulgaria, married Princess Giovanna of Savoy, the daughter of Victor Emmanuel III, the King of Italy, in Assisi in 1930. A reluctant ally of Nazi Germany, Boris was nonetheless opposed to the deportation of Bulgaria’s Jews to Nazioccupied Poland. He died, possibly poisoned by the Nazis, on his return from a stormy meeting with Hitler.
GIUSEPPE BOTTAI (1895–1959)
Bottai was a lawyer, a journalist and among the leaders of the Fascist Party in Rome. Between 1926 and 1932 he was Undersecretary and then Minister of the Corporations, going on to become Governor of Addis Ababa for a brief period in May 1936 and subsequently Minister for National Education. He was among the subscribers to the Racial Manifesto and voted against Mussolini in the July 1943 meeting of the Grand Council. Sentenced to death by the Italian Socialist Republic, he managed to escape and joined the Foreign Legion, remaining engaged in battles against the Germans. After being amnestied, he returned to Italy, founded the current-affairs magazine ABC and became the editor of the newspaper Il popolo di Roma (The People of Rome).
GAETANO BRESCI (1869–1901)
Bresci, an anarchist, emigrated to the United States, where he was employed as a textile-factory worker. He returned to Italy with a plan to avenge the 1898 massacre of striking workers in Milan. He shot and killed King Umberto I on 29th July 1900. He died in prison under mysterious circumstances, perhaps following an attack by the prison warders.
BRUNO BRIVONESI (1886–1970)
Brivonesi was a commander of the Italian Navy and headed the 5th Naval Division at the beginning of the Second World War. He was tried (and later exonerated) for the loss of seven vessels and two warships from the Duisberg convoy, attacked by the British on 8th November 1941. He was responsible for keeping Mussolini under surveillance during the latter’s imprisonment on the island of La Maddalena from 7th to 28th August 1943.
GUIDO BUFFARINI GUIDI (1895–1945)
A lawyer by profession and a volunteer during the First World War, Buffarini Guidi went on to become a Fascist leader in Pisa. He was Mayor of Pisa in 1923, later becoming undersecretary at the Ministry of Internal Affairs, a post he held from 1933 to 1943. He was one of the subscribers to the Racial Manifesto in 1938 and voted against the motion to depose Mussolini in July 1943, for which he was rewarded by being made Minister for Internal Affairs for the Italian Social Republic. Captured by the Partisans, he was executed in Milan soon after the end of the war, on 10th July 1945.
FILIPPO BUONARROTI (1761–1837)
Buonarroti was an Italian revolutionary who became a French citizen and an active supporter of the Revolution. One of the organizers, with Gracchus Babeuf, of the planned armed uprising known as the “Conspiracy of the Equals” in 1796, he was arrested and banished when the plot was uncovered. Napoleon subsequently pardoned him, and Buonarroti became the leader of a secret society called Adelfia, which then became the Società dei Sublimi Maestri Perfetti (Society of Sublime and Perfect Masters).
BRUNO BUOZZI (1881–1944)
Buozzi was a syndicalist, a reformist socialist and a Socialist Party deputy from 1920 to 1926. In 1926 he escaped to France, where he re-established the General Confederation of Labour, which had been banned by Mussolini. He was captured by the Germans and handed over to the Italian Fascist regime. Freed after the Armistice on 8th September 1943, he joined the Resistance. Captured once again, he was executed by the retreating Nazis, together with thirteen other prisoners, on the Via Cassia in Rome.
GELASIO CAETANI (1877–1934)
Caetani was a mining engineer and became the first Fascist ambassador to Washington in 1922.
CARLO CAFIERO (1846–92)
Born to a wealthy landowning family, Cafiero became one of the foremost figures of revolutionary anarchism. He was influenced by Marx’s theories and wrote the Digest of the First Volume of Das Kapital. He was arrested several times and, while in prison, attempted suicide. Because of a nervous disorder, in 1891 he was sent to an asylum, where he later died.
EMILIO CALDARA (1868–1942)
Caldara was the Socialist Mayor of Milan between 1914 and 1920.
GIOSUÈ CARDUCCI (1835–1907)
One of the leading Italian poets, writers and critics of the twentieth century, Giosuè Carducci took an active role among the Masonic organizations and was elevated to the 33rd rank of the Rito Scozzese Antico e Accettato (Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry). He became a senator in 1890 and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1906.
PRIMO CARNERA (1906–67)
A famous boxer and the world heavyweight champion from June 1933 to June 1934. Renowned for his powerful physique (he was six feet eight inches tall and weighed twenty stone) and for his strength, he ended his career as a wrestling champion.
FELICE CAVALLOTTI (1842–68)
One of Garibaldi’s “redshirts”, as well as a poet and playwright, Cavallotti was elected as a far-left radical deputy in 1873. He fought thirty-three duels, before the fatal one with Count Ferruccio Macola.
ADRIANO CELENTANO (1938–)
One of the most famous Italian songwriters of the twentieth century. Celentano has also enjoyed a successful career as an actor, film director and TV presenter.