Claretta: Mussolini's Last Lover

Claretta Petacci first met Benito Mussolini in 1932, when the dictator had been in power for ten years.

- R.L.B. Bosworth

He was 49 and she was 20, but she had long been a fervent admirer of Il Duce. Motoring to the seaside resort of Ostia, Claretta, the daughter of Pope Pius XI’s physician, spotted Mussolini in his Alfa Romeo, and ordered her chauffeur to follow him. Within days, she was visiting his headquarters and reading him her poems. The couple’s affair – which lasted until their deaths in 1945 – was conducted with the full connivance of Claretta’s parents, who were eager to exploit the benefits it conferred. Her mother, in particular, was a “ruthless and avid seeker” of preferment, said Caroline Moorehead in Literary Review. Just like her daughter, Signora Petacci went out of her way to accommodate Mussolini, even installing huge mirrors on the wal