Meggie Macdonald

The Body of Il Duce:  Mussolini’s Corpse and the Fortunes of Italy
By Sergio Luzzatto, Giulio Einaudi editore s.p.a. Torino, 1998; translated (from the Italian) by Frederika Randall, Metropolitan Books, an imprint of Henry Holt and Co LLC, New York, 2005

Sergio Luzzatto, professor of modern history at the University of Milan, has produced a truly excellent book that examines Italy’s very unique experiences during the Second World War.  Unlike Germany today, surviving the guilt of a generation past and renewing faith in their role as a contributing European partner, Italy has been caught between the guilt of allowing Mussolini to act as an ally of Nazi Germany and the frustrations and anxieties of a conquered state despite their contributions to the victory in Europe.  Mr Luzzatto addresses this paradox quite literally through the body of the man who was the focal point of this internal conflict.

From the opening quote describing the massacre of partisans in the Piazza Loreto in 1920, so similar in the emotions harboured in that same place after 1945, Luzzatto draws attention to both the continuity between pre- and post-war Italy and also to the gradual developments leading to the rise and fall of Benito Mussolini and the Fascists.

The layout of the book is quite simple and is composed of seven chapters as follows:

1) Tough to Eradicate
2) The Ox of the Nation
3) An Unquiet Grave
4) Mussolini, Dear Departed
5) The Executioner
6) The Quality of Mercy
7) The Return of the Remains

It begins with the various assassination attempts against Mussolini during his rise to power and his time as the head of state, continuing on to his death and the defacement of his body in 1945, to the theft of his body and subsequently the state’s decision to put it into hiding rather than publicly bury it, to the Italian people’s gradual analysis of their sentiments towards Mussolini and the Fascists and how, over time, they were able to come to terms with their history and bury their guilt and their rage along with the body of Il Duce himself.

As an ancient historian myself, who must be so careful with the primary sources used when analysing historical events, I found Luzzatto’s use of tabloid newspapers and magazines refreshingly new.  His clear understanding of their value was what kept me reading the book, since it was this informal and unedited poll of public opinion that shows how the ripples of war affected Italy long after 1945.  This is something that does not exist on anything approaching the same level of continuous publication from the ancient world.

It is this recognition in no uncertain terms of the complex nature of Italy in the twentieth century that is brought to light so effectively by the author and with such flowing language by the translator.  The text does feel repetitive at times when the author is, for example, drawing attention to all the insults heaped on the body of Il Duce in the press.

However, it is the simple structure that mirrors the progression of acceptance by the Italian people of both their history and their future that is most profound.  Professor Luzzatto has made a profound contribution to the future of Italy by mapping it out, chapter by chapter.