Mussolini: An Intimate Biography by His Widow, Rachele Mussolini

by Rachele Mussolini

Dust jacket "Now eighty-four, Rachele Mussolini has lost none of the good sense and sharp insight and blunt speech that first recommended this farmer's daughter to the young political agitator destined to rule Italy. Her portrait evokes their impoverished youth together in Forli, Italy, the precarious fortunes of the empire he ruled, the adulation of those who loved him, and the politics which led to his death. Skillfully weaving her personal reminiscenses through the more objective biographical material, she describes Benito's early career as a Socialist agitator and newspaper editor, his falling out with the Socialists over the issue of Italy's stand in World War I, his founding of the Fascist movement, his triumphant March on Rome, and the subsequent maneuvers whereby Mussolini wrenched power from the monarchy and ascended first to the prime ministry of Italy, then to dictatorship. An intensely personal work, these memoirs offer extraordinary glimpses behind the scenes of the dictatorship, including observations of men and events - Mussolini's assessment of Roosevelt, Hitler, and other world leaders, for example - not elsewhere to be found. And out of a seemingly boundless store of recollections about the Duce's life at home, she reveals such piquant moments as Benito's ritual morning rubdown with eau de cologne, the uproarious night on the town that inspired his later, legendary temperance, Gandhi's visit to the Mussolini home with a goat in tow, and many others only his wife could have shared. In a fascinating and moving chapter Signora Mussolini admits that she had no monopoly on her husband's love, and with impressive candor discusses her feelings toward the other women in his life...."

Genres: Biography

291 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1974

Reviews

[A.E. Chandler]

This book is a great example of bias in historical sources, even from eye witnesses to events. At the beginning, Rachele says that in her narrative she will be objective about her husband, yet right from the start she is anything but. Her account of how she became Mussolini's wife demonstrates clear emotional and physical abuse (he isolates and imprisons her, threatens to kill her, and points a gun at her objecting mother who suddenly "changes her mind"), and Rachele's interpretation is that that is when she realized how much he loved her, and that she must have been in love with him since she was a child and he was the substitute teacher who hit her and dominated her. Not so much an intimate biography as an insight into the mind of a woman who was psychologically abused for decades by a controlling dictator.