Claretta: Mussolini's Last Lover

by R. J. B. Bosworth

Overview

A master historian illuminates the tumultuous relationship of Il Duce and his young lover Claretta, whose extraordinarily intimate diaries only recently have become available

Few deaths are as gruesome and infamous as those of Benito Mussolini, Italy’s fascist dictator, and Claretta (or Clara) Petacci, his much-younger lover. Shot dead by Italian partisans after attempting to flee the country in 1945, the couple’s bodies were then hanged upside down in Milan’s main square in ignominious public display. This provocative book is the first to mine Clara’s extensive diaries, family correspondence, and other sources to discover how the last in Mussolini’s long line of lovers became his intimate and how she came to her violent fate at his side.
 
R. J. B. Bosworth explores the social climbing of Claretta’s family, her naïve and self-interested commitment to fascism, her diary’s graphically detailed accounts of sexual life with Mussolini, and much more. Brimful of new and arresting information, the book sheds intimate light not only on an ordinary-extraordinary woman living at the heart of Italy’s totalitarian fascist state but also on Mussolini himself.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780300226263
Publisher:	Yale University Press
Publication date:	02/21/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	336
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

R. J. B. Bosworth is senior research fellow in history, Jesus College, Oxford.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Ghosts, diaries and a dictator's lover 1

1 Sex and the coming dictator 29

2 A dictator's distractions: His Muse and other bedfellows 56

3 And so … pause … to bed: Predatory Dictator meets Catholic Girl 84

4 Sex, love and jealousy: Politics and the family 111

5 Warring in public and private life 141

6 The winter of a patriarch and his Ducessa 172

7 Death in the afternoon 204

Conclusion: A diarist's tale 235

Acknowledgements 247

Endnotes 250

Bibliography 283

Index 301

Illustration credits 312

Editorial Reviews

Bosworth ably demonstrates how histories of amorous adventurism can be used to explore central themes of modern political history to great effect.”—Neil Gregor, THES

THES - Neil Gregor

Claretta: Mussolini’s Last Lover is a book that casts a new light on Mussolini as a failed leader. For readers interested in World War II and the path upon which its leaders trod, this is informative and interesting.”—New York Journal of Books

New York Journal of Books

Readers are fortunate that the Australian-­born historian is the first English-­language specialist to make extensive use of this material… He writes with erudition, perceptiveness and humour about Claretta and Mussolini — she called him Ben, and he called her Clara —and about the light cast by their affair on the dictator’s personality, his style of rule and Italian social conditions during his 1922­-43 spell as national leader.”—Tony Barber, Financial Times

Financial Times - Tony Barber

Most of the world – as Richard Bosworth points out at the start of this scrupulously forensic examination of a woman for whom his own sympathy is discreetly scant – has forgotten about Claretta Petacci… Xenophobic, anti-Semitic, ruthless, amoral and idle, she is fortunate to have fallen into the hands of a calm, kind and fair-minded biographer, one who balances Petacci’s vices against the fact that her life ended with humiliation, hardship and a shameful death.”—Miranda Seymour, Daily Telegraph

Daily Telegraph - Miranda Seymour

That fateful first encounter and the passionate, but doomed affair that followed between Claretta and her ‘Ben’ is detailed in a riveting new biography of Petacci by historian Richard Bosworth.”—Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

Daily Mail - Christopher Stevens

What makes R.J.B Bosworth’s new book so captivating is not just the picture he paints of their affair, based on diaries, letters and police reports, but also the light he throws on the corrupt, greedy, scheming world of the Fascist leadership… Bosworth, the author of some twenty books on the Mussolini years, is one of the finest historians of modern Italy, and his deep knowledge and understanding, as well as his formidable research, inform every page of this enjoyable biography.”—Caroline Moorhead, Literary Review, 10th February 2017.

Literary Review - Caroline Moorhead

Gripping and scholarly”—Bee Wilson, London Review of Books, 16 March 2017.

London Review of Books - Bee Willson

A worthy companion to Bosworth’s previous biography of Mussolini, this study is more Borgia than bunga bunga, an illuminating history of a folie a deux which could have been sub-titled ‘Fifty Shades of Fascism’.”—Robert Carver, The Tablet

The Tablet - Robert Carver

RJB Bosworth draws on rarely consulted papers that Petacci kept of their nine-year relationship. One of the finest historians of modern Italy, Bosworth has written both a love story, full of passion and jealousy, and a vivid portrait of Italy under a man who dreamt of recreating the Roman empire . . . Claretta is an extremely enjoyable read.”—Caroline Moorehead, Financial Times

A TIMES BEST HISTORY BOOK FOR 2017.

“A brilliant insight into Mussolini’s relationship with his most persistent and devoted lover.”—David Laven, author of Venice and Venetia under the Habsburgs

‘Picking his way between myths, half-truths and downright lies Richard Bosworth has brilliantly documented the realities of the sordid and sometimes turbulent relationship between Benito Mussolini and Clara Petacci.’ - John Pollard, University of Cambridge, author of The Papacy in the Age of Totalitarianism, 1914-1958



'By taking us deep into this private world, this important book illuminates the inner workings of the fascist regime and gives a better insight into Mussolini than any other political biography ever could.' – Stephen Gundle, author of Mussolini's Dream Factory: Film Stardom in Fascist Italy

'In his magisterial biography of Mussolini, Richard Bosworth showed how the Fascist dictator ruled by interview. Between meetings, he rang his lover, Claretta Petacci, often every half an hour, a display of devotion and distraction in equal measure. Claretta's life with the dictator is an extraordinary tale and Bosworth is the perfect historical narrator for it. A must.' - Nicholas Stargardt, author of The German War: A Nation Under Arms, 1939-1945

From the Publisher