as a real enemy.”
He hid out for months, then sneaked out of the country. He went to South America, as more than a few Axis figures did. Wearing a disguise, and carrying a false passport, he sailed to Argentina. When he got there, he told the press, “I never had any interest in politics. I have less now, and you can be sure I have no intention of mixing in Argentine politics. I am just another Italian immigrant.”
For a decade or so, he traveled back and forth between his adoptive country and his native country, and eventually resettled in Italy. He became a great defender of his father’s legacy, a keeper of the flame. He did this by means of several books, including the one from which I have been quoting—written in 1961 and published in English as Mussolini: The Tragic Women in His Life. Those tragic women were Rachele, Edda, and the final mistress, Claretta Petacci. (Ida Dalser was arguably more tragic than all of them.) Whatever else can be said of Vittorio, he wrote well and interestingly, as his remarks about dying may suggest. He died in bed in 1997, at 80.
Bruno was born two years after Vittorio, in 1918. Like his older brother and his brother-in-law, Ciano, he flew. But more than they, he was a very serious and gifted pilot, something of an ace. He began in the Ethiopian war when he was 17. Then he flew for Franco in Spain. The newsreels show him looking the part: dashing, tough, carefree. An American announcer said, “In the wake of squadrons of Fascist planes lie crumbling skeletons of former homes. Destruction rains from the skies on houses that cave like eggshells. Terror rules the land. And the peace of the world hangs in the balance as the red shadow of war lengthens over Madrid.” Outside the sphere of war, Bruno set speed records. In January 1938, he and two other Italian pilots made a historic flight from Italy to Brazil. Before he left, his mother said to him, “Please, go slowly.” He answered, “Of course, mamma, you know I will. I have snails in my engines.”
Later in 1938, he married Gina Ruberti. “The bride,” reported the Associated Press, “comes from a family of ardent Fascists.” A year and a half later, the couple had a daughter, Marina.
In the course of the war—August 1941—Bruno was test-piloting a plane (a P.108 bomber). It crashed, killing Bruno and others. He was 23. His mother later told Romano about the mourning that resulted—her own and others’: “What hit me hardest was il Duce’s excruciating silence. It was as if he had turned to stone.”
Mussolini, in fact, took time to write a little book, Parlo con Bruno, or “I Speak with Bruno.” As the title indicates, he addressed his dead son personally. He starts by telling him about the funeral procession: There were so many people who wept for him. “Countless people.” Young and old, known and unknown. Thousands of arms rose to salute him. Little country girls knelt down. There was “profound grief, general, spontaneous. Why? Not because you were called Mussolini. They called you, and call you still, Bruno.”
The dictator quotes his older son, Vittorio, on the subject of Bruno’s love for music. Bruno enjoyed discussing the merits of this or that soprano, or this or that tenor, says Vittorio. Most people loved the tenor Beniamino Gigli, and Bruno did, too; but, in a departure from the consensus, he preferred Giacomo Lauri-Volpi. During the recent opera season in Pisa, says Vittorio, Bruno never missed a night. A few days before he died, he bought a recording of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, which he listened to “with joy.”
Mussolini declares that his son was a “fascista nato e vissuto.” That is, he was born a Fascist and lived the life of a Fascist. “All that I have done or will do,” says Mussolini, “is nothing compared with what you have done.” He says that he will one day meet Bruno in the family crypt, to sleep beside him the sleep without end. But first, victory—victory in the war. So that sacrifices of people like him will not be in vain.
This is a highly sentimental, indeed mawkish book—operatic, hyperbolic. Whatever our judgment or taste, however, perhaps a father, even a dictator, can be forgiven his reaction to a child’s death, whatever that reaction is. The book is dedicated to little Marina. She was one and a half when her father died. At six, she would be orphaned. Gina Mussolini drowned in a boating accident on Lake Como. This was in May 1946. She was in the company of British officers—apparently friends of hers—which led to gossip. In any event, Marina was taken in and raised by the countess, Edda Ciano. Romano cites this as proof that his elder sister was not estranged from the Mussolinis. It may well be that Edda had a particular appreciation of Marina’s tragic situation.
Romano is the next child, born in 1927—nine years after his predecessor. He was 17 when his father died. The last time he saw him, he (Romano) was playing the piano. He was picking out melodies from The Merry Widow. As it happens, Hitler loved this operetta. It may well have been his favorite work of art, surpassing even Wagner. Hitler saw it countless times. He bestowed awards on the composer, Lehár, personally. At any rate, Mussolini embraced his son and said, “Ciao, Romano. Keep playing.”
He did, becoming a jazz pianist. For a while, he played under a pseudonym, Romano Full. But he soon discovered that his real name was a draw, not a repellent. He formed the Romano Mussolini Trio, and also the Romano Mussolini All Stars. He played with many of the greats of the day, including Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, and Dizzy Gillespie.
He married Maria Scicolone, the sister of Sophia Loren, Italy’s most famous actress, and one of the most famous actresses of the entire century. They had two daughters. Romano writes, “I admit that I have always been a vagabond, even at the cost of being a terrible husband, or, at the least, a husband deserving of criticism.” He left Maria for an actress named Carla Puccini. They had a daughter, who bears the name of her paternal grandmother, Rachele. Later, Romano and Carla married. Maria Scicolone, long after her divorce from Romano, wrote a book called “At the Duce’s Table: Unknown Recipes and Tales from the House of Mussolini.” (As you may have gathered, the Mussolinis are a book-writing crew. For one thing, Mussolini books are big sellers in Italy.) The book is dedicated “To Donna Rachele, with a daughter’s love.”
In the main, Romano contented himself with music, not politics or history, until his last years. Then he wrote two books. One of them is My Father il Duce. It is from this that I have been quoting. The book is affectionate, meandering, and whitewashing. Romano’s father never wanted the world war, you see, and had a secret plan to end it. “At times he seemed to live more for others than for himself,” Romano writes. More than once, he mentions the men of the Fascist Grand Council who voted against his father on that pivotal day in July 1943. Why, a Hitler or Stalin would have had them killed forthwith. See how benign Mussolini was in simply going to the king’s palace and allowing himself to be arrested?
Romano has a point there, of course. It may be faint praise to call a man better than Hitler or Stalin. But, in the dictator business, as in other businesses, one sometimes grades on a curve. Furthermore, one can learn things from Romano Mussolini, as we have seen. He died in 2006, age 78.
He had a younger sister, Anna Maria, the last Mussolini child. She was born in 1929. And she led what most people describe as a sad life. Anna Maria was the least “public” of the Mussolinis. As a child, she was stricken by polio, and this ailment recurred. Through treatment, Vittorio tells us, she was able to return to “semi-normality.” After the war, she worked as a radio host, using a pseudonym. When her real identity was discovered, there was a controversy, and she left, or was driven out. In 1960, she married. Her husband was Giuseppe Negri, an actor and television personality. Stage name, Nando Pucci Negri. They had two children, a daughter named Silvia and another daughter named after Anna Maria’s sister, Edda. Anna Maria died in 1968, when she was 38 years old.
Both of her daughters ran for office, and won—not grand offices, but offices all the same. Silvia Negri was elected to the city council of Forlì, where the Mussolini family has roots. Edda Negri was elected mayor of Gemmano, not far away. Later, she ran for parliament, unsuccessfully. She said she was quite proud of her grandfather, and to be his granddaughter.
