Claretta
Page 33
2.Nino D’Aroma, Mussolini segreto (Rocca San Casciano: Cappelli, 1958), p. 134.
3.Claretta Petacci, Mussolini segreto, pp. 127–8; 319. Number two on the list was Margherita Sarfatti, with whom he elsewhere claimed to have ended sexual congress.
4.Ibid., p. 397. For Sarfatti and Ceccato, see below, and note that, by then, there is quite a bit of evidence that their sexual dealings with Mussolini were over.
5.Quinto Navarra, Memorie del cameriere, p. 200.
6.Denis Mack Smith, Mussolini (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1981), p. 115.
7.Indro Montanelli, L’Italia in camicia nera (1919–3 gennaio 1925) (Milan: Rizzoli, 1976), p. 17.
8.Roberto Olla, Il Duce and his women, p. 3.
9.Carlo Emilio Gadda, Eros e Priapo (da furore a cenere) (Milan: Garzanti, 1967), pp. 13; 42.
10.Alexander C.T. Geppert, ‘“Dear Adolf!” Locating love in Nazi Germany’, in Luisa Passerini, Liliana Ellena and Alexander C.T. Geppert (eds.), New dangerous liaisons: discourses on Europe and love in the twentieth century (New York: Berghahn Books, 2010), pp. 169–70.
11.Giorgio Boatti (ed.), Caro Duce: lettere di donne italiane a Mussolini 1922–1943 (Milan: Rizzoli, 1989), p. 61.
12.For the best account, see Paul Corner, The Fascist Party and popular opinion in Mussolini’s Italy (Oxford University Press, 2012).
13.For a selection, see Giorgio Boatti (ed.), Caro Duce, and Teresa Maria Mazzatosta and Claudio Volpi, L’Italietta fascista (lettere al potere 1936–1943) (Bologna: Cappelli, 1980).
14.Annich Cojean, Gaddafi’s harem (New York: Grove Press, 2013), p. 9.
15.Brian Titley, Dark Age: the political odyssey of Emperor Bokassa (Liverpool University Press, 1997), pp. 51; 57.
16.Christopher Hibbert, Napoleon: his women and wives (London: HarperCollins, 2002), p. 48.
17.R.J.B. Bosworth, Mussolini, pp. 154–7.
18.Claretta Petacci, Mussolini segreto, pp. 73; 125; 129; 386.
19.For the English-language version, published in the year of formal accommodation between church and Fascist state, see Benito Mussolini, The Cardinal’s mistress (London: Cassell, 1929). In Italian, another edition of the work appeared during the era of Berlusconian revisionism. See Benito Mussolini, L’amante del Cardinale. Claudia Particella. Romanzo storico (ed. Paolo Orvieto) (Roma: Salerno, 2009).
20.Paul Ginsborg, Family politics, p. 142. Patriarchy remained a key Futurist theme. For an early statement, see Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Come si seducono le donne (Rome: R.S. Casciano, 1918).
21.Filippo T. Marinetti, Let’s murder the moonshine: selected writings (ed. Robert W. Flint) (Los Angeles: Sun and Moon Classics, 1991), p. 84.
22.Lucy Hughes-Hallett, The pike.
23.Doris Duranti, Il romanzo della mia vita (ed. Gian Franco Venè) (Milan: Mondadori, 1987), p. 9. Among her post-Fascist tally, she listed the dictators Fidel Castro and Rafael Trujillo.
24.Segreteria particolare del Duce, Carteggio Riservato, report of 25 March 1942.
25.Giordano Bruno Guerri, Italo Balbo (Milan: Garzanti, 2013), pp. 391; 502.
26.For popular account, see Anon (ed.), Playdux: storia erotica del Fascismo (Rome: Tattilo Editore, 1973).
27.For some description, see R.J.B. Bosworth, ‘Per necessità famigliare: hypocrisy and corruption in Fascist Italy’, European History Quarterly, 30, 2000.
28.Robert Dallek, John F. Kennedy: an unfinished life 1917–1963 (London: Penguin, 2013), p. 476.
29.Laurence Leamer, The Kennedy women: the triumph and tragedy of America’s first family (London: Bantam Press, 1994), pp. 332; 583. Leamer adds wisely that Kennedy almost certainly did not have sex with this many women.
30.Robert Dallek, John F. Kennedy, p. 480.
31.For an introduction, see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13405268 (accessed 3 February 2016).
32.For a wry account of the American reading of Berlusconi’s character and policies, see Mimmo Franzinelli and Alessandro Giacone, La Provincia e l’Impero: il giudizio Americano sull’Italia di Berlusconi (Milan: Feltrinelli, 2011).
33.Lucy Riall, ‘The sex life of Italian patriots’ in Valeria Babini, Chiara Beccalossi and Lucy Riall (eds), Italian sexualities uncovered, 1789–1914 (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), pp. 42–4.
34.Victoria De Grazia, How Fascism ruled women: Italy, 1922–1945 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), p. 1.
35.Emil Ludwig, Talks with Mussolini (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1932), pp. 115; 168.
36.For background, see Carl Ipsen, Dictating demography: the problem of population in Fascist Italy (Cambridge University Press, 1996).
37.Paul Ginsborg, Family politics, pp. 167; 171; 193.
38.Claretta Petacci, Mussolini segreto, p. 236.
39.Ibid., p. 99.
40.Antonio Spinosa, I figli del Duce: il destino di chiamarsi Mussolini (Milan: Rizzoli, 1983), p. 10.
41.See, for example, Claretta Petacci, Mussolini segreto, p. 141.
42.See R.J.B. Bosworth, Mussolini, pp. 56–7.
43.Amedeo La Mattina, Mai sono stato tranquilla: la vita di Angelica Balabanoff, la donna che ruppe con Mussolini e Lenin (Turin: Einaudi, 2011), pp. 78–9.
44.Angela Balabanoff, Il traditore: Mussolini e la conquista del potere (Rome: Universale Napoleone, 1973), pp. 75; 142.
45.Yvon De Begnac, Taccuini mussoliniani (ed. Francesco Perfetti) (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1990), p. 5.
46.Claretta Petacci, Mussolini segreto, p. 81.
47.Nicholas Farrell, Mussolini: a new life, p. 40.
48.Angelo Colleoni, Claretta Petacci: rivelazioni sulla vita, gli amori, la morte (Milan: Tipografia Editoriale Lucchi, 1945), p. 3. In his diary, Joseph Goebbels, no friend of the Cianos, surmised that Edda’s own unconfined sexuality showed that, from Balabanoff, she had inherited ‘Jewish blood’. See Arrigo Petacco, La storia ci ha mentito, pp. 133–4.
49.Maria José Cereghino and Giovanni Fasanella, Le carte segrete del Duce: tutte le rivelazioni su Mussolini conservate negli archivi inglesi (Milan: Mondadori, 2014), p. 222.
50.Benito Mussolini, Opera omnia, vol. XXXIII, p. 268.
51.He then did contact Rachele, as the woman who should receive such news. See Benito Mussolini, Giornale di guerra 1915–1917: Alto Isonzo – Carnia – Carso (ed. Mimmo Franzinelli) (Gorizia: Edizioni Srl, 2016), p. 159.
52.Myriam Petacci, Chi ama è perduto, p. 20.
53.For the Roman background, see R.J.B. Bosworth, Whispering city.
54.Benito Mussolini, Opera omnia, vol. III, p. 190.
55.Ibid., vol. XXXVIII, p. 30. For a more developed account of the affair, see R.J.B. Bosworth, Mussolini, pp. 77–80.
56.Benito Mussolini, Opera omnia, vol. XXXVIII, p. 40.
57.Leda Rafanelli, La ‘castità’ clericale (Rome: ‘La Rivolta’, [1946]).
58.Leda Rafanelli, Una donna e Mussolini (ed. Pier Carlo Masini) (Milan: Rizzoli, 1975).
59.Philip V. Cannistraro and Brian R. Sullivan, Il Duce’s other woman (New York: William Morrow, 1993).
60.R.J.B. Bosworth, Mussolini, p. 65.
61.Karen Wieland, Margherita Sarfatti: l’amante del Duce (Trafarello: UTET, 2010), pp. 97–8.
62.Philip V. Cannistraro and Brian R. Sullivan, Il Duce’s other woman, p. 61.
63.Simona Urso, Margherita Sarfatti: dal mito del Dux al mito americano (Venice: Marsilio, 2003), p. 9.
64.R.J.B. Bosworth, Mussolini, p. 57.
65.Rachele Mussolini, The real Mussolini, p. 66.
66.Claretta Petacci, Mussolini segreto, p. 99.
67.Margherita Grassini Sarfatti, My fault: Mussolini as I knew him (ed. Brian A. Sullivan) (New York: Enigma Books, 2014).
68.Paul O’Brien, Mussolini in the First World War: the journalist, the soldier, the Fascist (Oxford: Berg, 2005).
69.Georg Zachariae, Mussolini si confessa (rev. edn; Milan: BUR, 2004).
70.See R.J.B. Bosworth, Mussolini, pp. 328–9; 334. For the bathetic story of the eventual return of Mussolini’s purloine
d parts, see Anita Pensotti, La restituzione dei resti di Mussolini nel drammatico racconto della vedova (Rome: Dino Editore, 1972).
71.Pierluigi Baima Bollone, Le ultime ore di Mussolini (Milan: Mondadori, 2005), pp. 91–100.
72.Ibid., p. 15.
73.Ibid., p. 46.
74.Mimmo Franzinelli, Il Duce e le donne: avventure e passioni extraconiugiali di Mussolini (Milan: Mondadori, 2013), pp. 13–14.
75.Ibid., pp. 14–15, using material from Marco Zeni, La moglie di Mussolini, photographic additions after p. 160.
76.Alfredo Pieroni, Il figlio segreto del Duce: la storia di Benito Albino Mussolini e di sua madre Ida Dalser (Milan: Garzanti, 2006), p. 17.
77.R.J.B. Bosworth, Mussolini, pp. 89–90.
78.Marco Zeni, La moglie di Mussolini (Trento: Edizioni Effe e Erre, 2005), p. 57.
79.Mimmo Franzinelli, Il Duce e le donne, p. 15.
80.See, for example, http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/vincere (accessed 28 October 2015).
81.Mimmo Franzinelli, Il Duce e le donne, p. 30.
82.Claretta Petacci, Mussolini segreto, p. 110.
83.Alfredo Pieroni, Il figlio segreto del Duce, p. 38.
84.Cesare Rossi, Mussolini com’era (Rome: Ruffolo Editore, 1947), pp. 202–3.
85.Ibid., pp. 205–6.
86.Claretta Petacci, Mussolini segreto, p. 475.
87.For a favourable account of their dealings, see Marcello Staglieno, Arnaldo e Benito: due fratelli (Milan: Mondadori, 2003). See p. 343, for Arnaldo’s semi-paternal role in making over 100,000 lire to Benito Albino in 1925 as a patrimony.
88.Alfredo Pieroni, Il figlio segreto del Duce, pp. 61–7.
89.See, for example, Daniele Baratieri, ‘“Wrapped in passionless impartiality?” Italian psychiatry during the Fascist regime’ in Daniele Baratieri, Mark Edele and Giuseppe Finaldi (eds), Totalitarian dictatorship: new histories. Essays in honour of R.J.B. Bosworth (London: Routledge, 2014), pp. 147–8; ‘Sanity from a lunatic asylum: Ida Dalser a threat to Mussolini’s image’ in Stephen Gundle, Christopher Duggan and Giuliana Pieri (eds), The cult of the Duce: Mussolini and the Italians (Manchester University Press, 2013), pp. 57–71.
90.Alfredo Pieroni, Il figlio segreto del Duce, pp. 99–103.
91.For a visual history of the place, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q5nLQAz_9U (accessed 28 October 2015).
92.Alfredo Pieroni, Il figlio segreto del Duce, p. 124; Mimmo Franzinelli, Il Duce e le donne, pp. 56–64.
93.For the background, see Renzo De Felice, Mussolini il rivoluzionario 1883–1920 (Turin: Einaudi, 1965), pp. 333–80.
94.R.J.B. Bosworth, Mussolini, p. 106.
95.Bianca Veneziana, Storia italiana d’amore (Milan: Garzanti, 1977), p. 27.
96.Ibid., pp. 35–6.
97.Ibid., p. 36.
98.Ibid., p. 37.
99.Ibid., pp. 38–9.
100.Ibid., p. 40.
101.Ibid., p. 41.
102.Ibid., pp. 49–50.
103.Ibid., p. 53.
104.Ibid., pp. 82–3.
105.Ibid., p. 138.
106.Claretta Petacci, Mussolini segreto, pp. 66; 121–2.
107.Elena Curti, Il chiodo a tre punte: schegge di memoria della figlia segreta del Duce (Pavia: Gianni Iuculano Editore, 2003). Some sources put the birthdate in 1923. See, for example, Myriam Petacci, Chi ama è perduto, p. 185.
108.Roberto Festorazzi, Claretta Petacci, p. 78; Elena Curti, Il chiodo a tre punte, p. 8. See also http://cinquantamila.corriere.it/storyTellerThread.php?threadId=CURTI+Elena (accessed 30 October 2015); http://www.liberoquotidiano.it/news/politica/11782561/La-figlia-di-Benito-Mussolini-.html (accessed 30 October 2015); http://www.dagospia.com/rubrica-3/politica/parla-elena-curti-ultima-figlia-duce-classe-1923-ricordo-che-99277.htm (accessed 3 February 2016).
109.Roberto Festorazzi, Claretta Petacci, p. 71.
110.Elena Curti, Il chiodo a tre punte, p. 20.
111.Segretaria particolare del Duce, Carteggio Riservato, 117, 10 March 1933, Chiavolini to Angela Curti; 28 June 1933, report.
112.Ibid., 22 July 1933, F. Morelli note.
113.Elena Curti, Il chiodo a tre punte, pp. 19; 31–2.
114.Ibid., p. 32.
115.Segreteria particolare del Duce, Carteggio Riservato, 117, 15 July 1941, Elena Curti to Mussolini.
116.Elena Curti, Il chiodo a tre punte, p. 191.
117.For a recent evocation of this primacy of violence, see Matteo Millan, Squadrismo e squadristi nella dittatura fascista (Rome: Viella, 2014).
118.R.J.B. Bosworth, Mussolini, p. 170.
Chapter 2 A dictator’s distractions
1.For a biography of the attempted assassin, see Frances Stonor Saunders, The woman who shot Mussolini (London: Faber and Faber, 2010).
2.It is still open. See http://www.standrewshealthcare.co.uk/ (accessed 2 November 2015).
3.Francesco Saverio Petacci, ‘Prefazione’ to Marcello Petacci, Raccolta di alcuni lavori scientifici (Rome: Italgraf, 1961), p. 7.
4.Ibid.
5.Ibid.
6.Roberto Festorazzi, Claretta Petacci, p. 5.
7.Enrico Sturani, Otto milioni di cartoline per il Duce (Turin: Centro Scientifico Editore, 1995), p. 39.
8.Franco Bandini, Claretta, pp. 16–17; Roberto Gervaso, Claretta, la donna che morì per Mussolini, pp. 16–17.
9.Claretta Petacci, Mussolini segreto, p. 103.
10.Margherita Sarfatti, The life of Benito Mussolini (London: Thornton Butterworth, 1925); Dux (Milan: Mondadori, 1926).
11.Luisa Passerini, Mussolini immaginario: storia di una biografia, 1915–1939 (Bari: Laterza, 1991), p. 79.
12.Philip V. Cannistraro and Brian R. Sullivan, Il Duce’s other woman, p. 301.
13.Ibid., p. 303.
14.Ibid.
15.Ibid., p. 306.
16.For an example, see Claretta Petacci, Mussolini segreto, p. 96, where Rachele had called her ‘that whore’. In her later tract, Sarfatti defined Rachele derisively as ‘formed from the same raw elements that made up the power strata of Mussolini’s personality’. Margherita Grassini Sarfatti, My fault, p. 126.
17.Margherita Sarfatti, Dux, p. 103.
18.Philip V. Cannistraro and Brian R. Sullivan, Il Duce’s other woman, pp. 306–7.
19.Margherita Sarfatti, Dux, p. 308.
20.For a recent endorsement of this role, see Françoise Liffran, Margherita Sarfatti: l’égérie di Duce: biografie (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 2009).
21.Margherita Sarfatti, Dux, p. 311.
22.Philip V. Cannistraro and Brian R. Sullivan, Il Duce’s other woman, pp. 265–85.
23.Roberto Festorazzi, Margherita Sarfatti: la donna che inventò Mussolini (Vicenza: Angelo Colla Editore, 2010), pp. 110–11.
24.Sergio Marzorati, Margherita Sarfatti: saggio biografico (Como: Nodo Libri, 1990), p. 186.
25.For its functioning and the gifts sent there to the Mussolinis – for example, in 1931, a cow donated by peasants from Livorno province – see Segreteria particolare del Duce, Carteggio Riservato, 121, 29 July 1931, note. Cf. 10 August 1928, note, with its record of Mussolini donating beds to peasants who worked on the estate.
26.For background, see R.J.B. Bosworth, Mussolini, pp. 194–5.
27.Roberto Festorazzi, Margherita Sarfatti, pp. 72–3.
28.For a biography, see Gianni Scipione Rossi, Cesira e Benito: storia segreta della governante di Mussolini (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2007).
29.See Segreteria particolare del Duce, Carteggio Riservato, 116, 6 June 1944, note; cf. 27 July 1934, Barella to Carocci.
30.Mimmo Franzinelli, Il Duce e le donne, pp. 104–13.
31.Ercole Boratto, A spasso col Duce: le memorie dell’autista di Benito Mussolini (Rome: Castelvecchi, 2014), p. 69. He makes the unlikely claim that sex between the two began in 1934.
32.For romantic biography, see Anna Volpe, ‘La contessa Brambilla’, Ventaglio 90, 44, 2012.
33.For an account, see http://www.liberoquotidiano.it/news/sfoglio/11690725/Ben
ito-Mussolini-e-quella-notte-bollente.html (accessed 3 November 2015).
34.Gustavo Bocchini Padiglione, L’harem del Duce (Milan: Mursia, 2006), p. 172.
35.See, for example, Claretta Petacci, Mussolini segreto, p. 170.
36.Ibid., pp. 254–5.
37.Gustavo Bocchini Padiglione, L’harem del Duce, p. 172.
38.Claretta Petacci, Mussolini segreto, pp. 190–1; 237.
39.Ibid., pp. 242; 249.
40.Ibid., pp. 279; 297; 374.
41.Segreteria particolare del Duce, Carteggio Riservato, 116, 24 December 1944, Mussolini to Brambilla. The Rovigo police also kept Mussolini informed of various charges against Count Brambilla, involving disloyalty in July 1943 and corruption. See letter, June 1944.
42.See http://archiviostorico.corriere.it/1996/novembre/25/ROMA_LIBERATA_Giustizia_all_italiana_co_0_96112510670.shtml (accessed 4 November 2015).
43.Ugo Guspini, L’orecchio del regime: le intercettazioni telefoniche al tempo del fascismo (Milan: Mursia, 1973), p. 122; Angelo Colleoni, Claretta Petacci, p. 7.
44.Carte Petacci, 9/130, entry for 21 January 1938.
45.Claretta Petacci, Mussolini segreto, pp. 129–30.
46.Ugo Guspini, L’orecchio del regime, p. 122, noting the 1934 tap where Tanzi had read the auspices from a set of cards to complain that Mussolini was having yet another woman.
47.Claretta Petacci, Mussolini segreto, pp. 402–3.
48.Claretta Petacci, Verso il disastro, pp. 206–7.
49.Claretta Petacci, Mussolini segreto, p. 208
50.Benito Mussolini, A Clara, p. 115.
51.Claretta Petacci, Verso il disastro, pp. 113–14.
52.Ibid., p. 116.
53.Margherita Grassini Sarfatti, My fault, pp. 123; 289.
54.Ibid., p. 253.
55.Claretta Petacci, Mussolini segreto, pp. 99–100.
56.For background in English, see Renzo De Felice, The Jews in Fascist Italy: a history (New York: Enigma Books, 2001); Aaron Gillette, Racial theories in Fascist Italy (London: Routledge, 2002); Michael A. Livingston, The Fascists and the Jews of Italy: Mussolini’s race laws, 1938–1945 (Cambridge University Press, 2014).
57.Claretta Petacci, Mussolini segreto, pp. 229; 268.