The Perfect Fascist: A Story of Love, Power, and Morality in Mussolini’s Italy

Columbia University history professor de Grazia (Irresistible Empire) delivers a fascinating exploration of Italian fascism through the career and intimate relationships of Attilio Teruzzi (1882–1950), one of Benito Mussolini’s closest allies. A career soldier, Teruzzi took part in the 1922 March on Rome that brought Mussolini to power and served under him as a colonial administrator in Africa, where he betrayed native allies and slaughtered insurgents. De Grazia uses Teruzzi’s relationships with women, particularly his marriage to Jewish-American opera singer Lilliana Weinman, to explore fascism’s international appeal in the 1920s, as well as the movement’s use of romantic tropes to normalize and humanize its leaders. The dissolution of the marriage over hypocritical allegations of Lilliana’s infidelity, and Teruzzi’s quest for annulment, reveal the complex dynamic between the Catholic Church, fascism, and the Italian public. De Grazia also examines the stakes of Teruzzi’s relationship with another Jewish woman (who bore him a much beloved daughter) as Mussolini forged a closer alliance with the Nazis in the 1930s, and assails the myth that Italian fascism was somehow a “more humane and lenient totalitarianism.” Her laser-focused account offers both incisive scholarship and juicy biographical details, though generalists may be overwhelmed by unfamiliar names and events. Those with a background in the subject will be deeply rewarded, however. (Aug.)