After my mother died, my father had brought home Signora Anna Guidi as his wife.1 For many years she had been his companion. Now she would tend to the household and the tavern. Her daughter Rachele2 had been working as a domestic servant in the house of the local Carabinieri marshal with a salary of only three lire per month. Once she broke a tray and had to work three months to replace it. “What a devil of a woman!” he exclaimed with an impatient look on his face. “Instead of thanking the Lord for all the good things I have done for her, she keeps on complaining. She poisons my life with her complaints! She claims she would have preferred a man of her same social class who would beat her and then kiss her just like all her girlfriends told her!”
Mussolini then went on with his story:
Shortly after my father brought Rachele home so she could wash the dishes and glasses in the tavern. It makes me laugh to hear that a man should have a secure job before he embarks on having a family! Do you have any idea how much money Rachele and I had in our pockets when we ran away from home? Exactly one lira and five centimes! My father and old Signora became truly furious. He said that Rachele would ruin my future. I really can’t see the reason for his anger. There seemed no serious cause for it. But perhaps the townspeople understood what went on in his head. There were rumors going around that my old man was actually Rachele’s father as well.
This idea—probably pure fantasy—didn’t bother Mussolini.3 On the contrary, it seemed to fill him with tender feelings. On one occasion, while Rachele, was sick I had to tell him: “You have to take care of her more.” Later, when more than once when I heard him complain about her behavior I suggested: “Be patient. After all she is your wife”
“Well yes, I really should show more patience,” replied Donna Rachele’s husband. “She is also my sister, after all.” Deep down inside him lay a kind of primitive mentality. It was similar to that of ancient oriental peoples for whom the blood ties between husband and wife strengthened those of matrimony.
Mussolini passed some time in Trento, which then belonged to Austria He learned and worked with that very generous and noble man from the Trentino, Cesare Battisti. That was more than sufficient to make him loathe and despise everything German. This hatred was one of the reasons why he urged Italy to enter the war against Germany in 1915.
About the time Edda4 was born in 1910, Mussolini was having a well publicized affair with a young Polish or Russian Jewish lady named Ostrovski.5 He told me about her in our intimate moments and even admitted that she had his child. But could that baby actually have been Edda?
Such an incredible lack of basic hygiene and physical cleanliness was typical of Donna Rachele and of the slovenly and incredibly ignorant people she employed. Mussolini had once told me the story of one of Rachele’s sisters who had given birth alone without any help while she was working in a field and how she carried the newborn baby back home by herself in an apron. His voice showed how proud he was in telling that story that in some ways elicited hatred and resentment on his part and in others a kind of admiration; Mussolini could be like that: both primitive and noble, but also brave and stupid.
Donna Rachele had never gone to any kind of school in her life. She and her mother only learned to read and write after Mussolini became editor of Avanti!. One morning in late 1919 or early 1920 he said to me: “I wonder what that old charlatan editor at the Secolo is thinking?” Il Secolo was an influential leftist Milan daily newspaper. It also printed a lot of gossip and ran serialized novels. It was called the “doorman’s daily.” I asked Mussolini what kind of criticism it had printed about him or about Fascism that had displeased him so much.
“That’s not what I mean!” he answered. “It’s far worse. For the last two days, those idiots have not published the most dramatic ending of the novel they’ve been running. So old lady Guidi and Signorina Rachele have made my life unbearable. Rachele is so distracted that she even forgot to buy my razor blades! Do you think it makes sense that I”—he said this shoving out his chest in an unintentionally ridiculous manner—“I, Mussolini should be subjected to such childish behavior? Soon I will be the one going to Frigerio’s6 store to do the shopping for the whole family! And all this just because the old woman and the young lady have suddenly learned how to read!”
In Milan around 1922, contrary to his habit, he arrived late to an appointment with me: “I was delayed by Bruno.” (The youngest of his children then three or four.) “He has a high fever and is having trouble breathing, he seems to be choking.” Mussolini explained. When I expressed the fear that it could be diphtheria and why they hadn’t called a doctor immediately he tried to justify himself:
“Oh but Rachele said it was nothing to worry about. A child with a cold that’s all…”
I told him “Run back home and call a taxi immediately and find a doctor who will bring over the necessary medicine to give him an injection.” Naturally it happened to be precisely that, diphtheria and the doctor said that had we not acted immediately the child wouldn’t have survived. His parents’ lack of care could reach such horrible extremes.
As for Edda Mussolini, who is today the widow of Count Galeazzo Ciano, Doctor Veratti7 in Milan had diagnosed and informed her parents that the little girl suffered from a form of pulmonary tuberculosis. Both the doctor and I unsuccessfully tried everything we could think of to have them adopt preventive measures and ensure their daughter’s good health.
“Edda is in perfect health just like the rest of us; in our family we all enjoy excellent health thanks to our wholesome and robust bodies. There is absolutely no danger whatsoever.” This was how Mussolini would answer, shrugging his shoulders as though he were not worried one bit every time we mentioned young Edda.
The only woman who could be called a close friend of Rachele had once stood trial for assault with a deadly weapon. In the middle of a busy Forlì street, she shot a certain Signor Agosti, her lover and the father of her son. He had not been providing her with adequate financial support. Signorina Guidi went to see Agosti in his hospital room. There he lay in agony and near death. Somehow, Rachele prevailed upon Agosti to agree to marry his assailant, literally “at death’s door.” Next, Mussolini’s companion persuaded the judges to acquit her friend on the basis of this act of reconciliation, so that the new Signora Agosti8 could inherit her victim’s fortune and her son could gain title to his late father’s name. “Once a Romagnol, always a Romagnol!”
Soon, everyone called Mussolini’s common-law wife “Donna Rachele Mussolini.” Everyone, that is, except her so-called husband. Mussolini went on addressing her by her unmarried name: “Signorina Guidi, Rachele” using the military style which he had learned in the army, placing the last name first before the first name. He did so with more than a touch of sarcasm, as if he regretted or resented having given her his family name.
I recall the Signora Agosti story and the way Mussolini addressed Rachele from among many other tales, to show the kind of atmosphere that surrounded Mussolini at home. This continued for as many years as I knew him. For instance, a similar case, both tragic and comical, involved Mussolini himself.
One night in Rome, nearly twenty years after, he appeared at my home in obvious distress. “I’m really scared!” he blurted out. “Rachele has been following me around the house all night, threatening me with a loaded gun. I don’t where she obtained it. You should see her! When she gets mad, she’s capable of anything. I was so frightened that I called one of the police on guard duty. When he arrived, Rachele screamed at me, ‘You know I’m not scared of the police! But you, the Duce, can’t tolerate such scandal. You’re afraid of what the public would think and of your reputation as a father!’”
Comments
Mussolini’s Rise from Obscurity. Mussolini returned home Dovia in September 1907, discouraged and exhausted after his second failure as a teacher. For a time he considered emigration to the United States. In November, however, he took the written and oral examinations to qualify as a teacher of French on the secondary school level. In February 1908, he obtained a teaching post at a technical school in Oneglia, a town on the Italian Riviera at the western edge of the Gulf of Genoa. There he devoted himself more to writing for the small local Socialist newspaper than to his teaching duties. But when the school year ended, he lost any income and was forced to return to Dovia in July 1908. He quickly became involved in the labor unrest of local farm workers. A few days later, after he was accused by a farm machine manager of making physical threats, Mussolini was arrested. For the first time, he was defended by Francesco Bonavita but sentenced to three months imprisonment. However, Bonavita lodged an appeal and, after twelve days in jail, Mussolini was released on payment of a fine to await the decision of a higher court in Bologna.
That same summer, Alessandro Mussolini decided to leave Dovia for Forlì, along with his longtime female companion, Anna Guidi and her younger daughter, the sixteen-year-old Rachele. There, with the money he had received for the sale of some property, Alessandro bought an inn. Anna and her daughter, Alessandro and his son moved in together. Mussolini later told Sarfatti what transpired next, although either he or she confused some of the facts.
Mussolini had sometimes substituted for his mother at her elementary school. Contrary to what Sarfatti wrote, Rachele had attended for about one year in 1898-99. It was then that the adolescent Mussolini first encountered his future wife. The time and circumstances under which Benito Mussolini and Rachele Guidi met as adults in 1907 remain unclear.9
One source indicates that Mussolini first courted the elder daughter of Anna Guidi, Augusta, but received a rebuff. Only then did he turn his attention to Rachele. Rachele later recounted that she met her future husband in February 1909 after leaving church, shortly before his departure for Trento. This appears fiction for she did not practice any religion at the time. Instead, the two appear to have begun a relationship in the autumn of 1908. This did not create any deep attachment on Mussolini’s part. In November, the court of appeal reduced his sentence to time served. The same month, he failed to pass the examinations for certification as a teacher of German on the secondary school level. However, in January 1909, he was offered the post of secretary of the Trento workers’ association and the editorship of its newspaper. Angelica Balabanoff seems to have intervened to initiate the invitation. Mussolini departed in early February for the small Austrian city in the South Tyrol, known to Italians as the Trentino, an area inhabited by several hundred thousand Italian-speaking subjects of the Emperor Franz Josef.10
Mussolini eventually made the acquaintance of Cesare Battisti,11 editor of the Socialist newspaper Popolo and an advocate of autonomy for the Italians in the region. Battisti was engaged in covert anti-Austrian activities and it took some time for Mussolini to penetrate the circle around him. But the two became friends and Mussolini began writing for Battisti’s newspaper. By August, Mussolini had gained Battisti’s trust and became the managing editor of Popolo. But Mussolini had also acquired the hostility of the local authorities.
Mussolini spent little over seven months in Trento. But in addition to his casual affairs with women, two other relationships proved more significant. One, with Fernanda Ostrovski, produced a child born after Mussolini returned to Italy. The other, with Ida Dalser,12 would last for years and end in tragedy. In addition, Angelica Balabanoff joined him in Trento for a while. As usual, however, Mussolini acted as if divorced from any responsibility for his lovers. His associations, political activities and his newspaper articles marked him as an anti-Austrian trouble maker. A bank robbery on August 29 provided the excuse for a police search of Mussolini’s residence and his arrest for possession of subversive materials. In mid-September the government ordered his expulsion from Austrian territory. Despite protests by local and Vienna Socialists, Mussolini was sent across the frontier on September 26. He returned to Forlì.13
Mussolini renewed his acquaintance with Rachele Guidi. But as with the other women in his life, he made no commitment. Instead, Mussolini hoped to gain readmission to Austria and intended to return to Trento. After some time, however, he realized that the Austrian authorities would not allow his return. He then turned his thoughts again to emigration to America. But he had become something of a celebrity among the leftists of Romagna. Mussolini was offered the post of secretary of the Forlì Socialist Party organization and the opportunity to found and edit its newspaper. He accepted. He baptized his paper Lotta di Classe (Class Struggle) and its first issue appeared on January 9, 1910. A week or so later, although without any legal or religious contract, Mussolini pledged union with Rachele Guidi. She became pregnant in February. Mussolini later looked back on those days with great nostalgia. He felt deeply in love with Rachele. Despite their poverty—and the fleas infesting their house—he enjoyed a rare period of inner peace.14
Throughout 1910, in his speeches and in the pages of Lotta di Classe, Mussolini made clear his identification with the revolutionary wing of the PSI and his hostility toward reformists like Turati and Kuliscioff. At the party congress in Milan that October the reformists managed to retain control, although largely through the split among their opponents. Meanwhile, the health of Alessandro Mussolini had deteriorated over previous months and he died on November 19 at age fifty-seven. Twelve days later, Rachele gave birth to a baby girl. She received the name of Edda. She brought Mussolini great happiness.15
The primary stage of syphilis usually lasts weeks and, at most, a few months. The secondary stage which follows can continue for up to several years. After that, one so infected can no longer transmit the disease. Yet male syphilitics remain capable of fathering children. About three years had passed since Mussolini had contracted syphilis when he and Rachele conceived their first child. So mother and unborn child were safe from the disease.
Sarfatti’s erroneous speculation is understandable, given Mussolini’s licentious life, refusal to take responsibility for his growing number of offspring and his vague, dishonest accounts of his sexual escapades.
Over the year between the Milan party congress and the invasion of Libya, Mussolini increased the number of adherents to his intransigent form of socialism and maintained what amounted to an autonomous organization in Romagna. He delivered dozens of speeches and penned well over 200 newspaper articles—most in Lotta di Classe but some thirty in Avanti!. But it seems unlikely he could have sustained his independence from the central party leadership yet remain in the PSI indefinitely. His violent opposition to the Libyan War, five months imprisonment and triumphant reception upon release in March 1912 elevated his reputation among party extremists and sustained his ability to defy the leadership in Milan. Then in July, the party congress met in Reggio Emilia. There he gained ascendancy over the reformists and, four months later, won the editorship of Avanti!.
He arrived in Milan by himself. He left Rachele and the two-year-old Edda back in Forlì with Anna Guidi or “Crazy Nina,” as Mussolini had come to call her. Mussolini paid them a few visits but refused to bring them to live with him in Milan. By early 1913, he had resumed his decade-old liaison with Angelica Balabanoff, now as assistant editor of Avanti!, begun a passionate affair with Sarfatti, and was courting, ardently if unsuccessfully, the exotic Leda Rafanelli.16 Nonetheless, uninvited, unannounced and quite bedraggled, mother and child appeared at the Avanti! office in February or March 1913. Rachele had to sell almost all her furniture to afford the train fare to Milan.
Mussolini took Rachele outside and told her to go back to Forlì. He said he lacked a place suitable for them to live. But Rachele pointed out that, as editor of Avanti!, he was earning 500 lire a month. If he could not find an apartment on that salary, she would. In the meantime, she and Edda would stay with her friend, Signora Agosti. In fact, they had already made such an arrangement. Mention of that name really upset Mussolini and he reluctantly agreed.
Rachele and her friend took some time to locate an affordable dwelling. But eventually they found a flat at 19 Via Castelmorrone. The house lay in a shabby neighborhood on the outskirts of Milan, slightly under half a mile east of the luxurious Sarfatti home on the Corso Venezia. The apartment contained three rooms and a kitchen, and rented for only 1,000 lire a year. The two tough-minded women forced Mussolini to move in and to live something like a normal family life. To make matters worse for the future Duce, Rachele summoned “Crazy Nina” from Forlì to live with them too.17
1. Anna Lombardi Guidi (18??-1926). After she was widowed, Anna Guidi and her five daughters lived for some time in poverty. She eventually became the companion of Alessandro Mussolini. She and her five daughters helped the elderly Alessandro run his Forlì inn. After Alessandro’s death, Anna Guidi lived with her daughter, Rachele and her daughter’s husband, Benito Mussolini. Anna, Rachele and little Edda, moved to Milan in 1913 to live with Mussolini. As mother-in-law of the dictator of Italy, Anna Guidi died thirteen years later in far more comfortable circumstances than she had spent most of her life.
2. Rachele Guidi Mussolini (1892-1979). Mussolini’s companion from 1910 and later his wife, as well as the mother of five of his children.
3. Pini & Susmel, Mussolini, vol. I, p. 20.
4. Edda Mussolini Ciano (1910-95). First of Mussolini’s children. Married Galeazzo Ciano in 1930.
5. Fernanda Ostrovski (1890-1928). A Russian immigrant also known as Fernanda Oss Facchinelli, she was a passionate socialist. Ostrovski bore Mussolini a son, Benito Ribelle, in Trento in late 1909. The child lived only a few months. His mother died of tuberculosis at age thrity-eight.
6. The father of Ugo Frigerio (1901-68). The son was three-time Olympic gold medal winner for speed walking in 1920 and 1924; bronze medal winner, 1932.
7. Luigi Veratti (1876-1942). Physician, Reformist Socialist and deputy mayor of Milan, 1914-20. Adhered to Mussolini’s October 1914 position favoring pro-Allied intervention by Italy in World War I. Despite his leftist politics, Veratti remained a friend and served as physician to Mussolini until 1929. His limited influence with the Duce helped alleviate the conditions of Socialist prisoners and even gain freedom for some anti-Fascists.
8. The editor had been unable to find the first name and other information on this woman. In one of the Sarfatti manuscripts, she coyly refers to the Agosti couple as “Mr. and Mrs. September, a name I use on the understanding that it is not theirs.”
9. Mauro Canali, “Guidi, Rachele” in Dizionario biografici degli italiani, vol. 61, pp. 285-86.
10. Monelli, Mussolini, p. 49; Pini & Susmel, Mussolini, vol. I, pp. 114-21.
11. Cesare Battisti (1875-1916). Secretly dedicated to the separation of the South Tyrol and its union with Italy, Battisti had begun working as an agent for the Italian army. In 1911, he was elected to the Austrian parliament as the representative of his native region. In August 1914, Battisti entered Italy to advocate Italy’s intervention in World War I. After Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary, Battisti served as an officer in the Italian mountain troops, the Alpini. Captured in July 1916, he was quickly sentenced to death for treason and died by the garrote outside Trento.
12. Ida Irene Dalser (1880-1937). Mussolini’s unacknowledged but first legal wife and mother of his child, Benito Albino Mussolini.
13. Giorgio Pini & Duilio Susmel, Mussolini: L’uomo e l’opera, 4 vols. (Florence: La Fenice, 1953-55), vol. I, Dal Socialismo al Fascismo, pp. 121-46.
14. Petacci, Verso il disastro, p. 242.
15. Martin Clark, Mussolini (Harlow UK: Pearson, 2005), p. 15; Petacci, Verso il disastro, pp. 242-43. Presumably this name was chosen by Mussolini, inspired by the heroine of Henrik Ibsen’s 1890 play, Hedda Gabler.
16. Leda Rafanelli, Una donna e Mussolini (Milan: Rizzoli, 1946), pp. 7-20. Rafanelli (1880-1971) converted to Islam while a young woman in Egypt. She returned to Italy to become an anarchist, journalist, feminist, novelist and artist. She had many lovers among the painters, writers and intellectuals of Milan.
17. Pini &Susmel, Mussolini, vol. I, pp. 193-94; Monelli, Mussolini, pp. 60-61; Anita Pensotti, Rachele: settant’anni con Mussolini nel bene e nel male (Milan: Bompiani, 1983) p. 25; Olla, Il Duce and His Women, p. 133; Liffran, Margherita Sarfatti, p. 161.