Rachele Mussolini

Rachele Guidi Mussolini
Born	Rachele Guidi 11 April 1890 Predappio Alta, Italy
Died	30 October 1979 (aged 89) Forlì, Italy
Nationality	Italian
Known for	wife of Benito Mussolini
Spouse(s)	Benito Mussolini (m. 1915–45)
Children	various children (see text)

Donna Rachele Mussolini (née Guidi 11 April 1890 – 30 October 1979) was the wife of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.

Biography

Rachele Mussolini was born Rachele Guidi in Predappio, Romagna, Kingdom of Italy (Regno d'Italia). She was born into a peasant family and was the daughter of Agostino Guidi and wife Anna Lombardi. After the death of her father, her mother became the lover of the widowed Alessandro Mussolini.

In 1910, Rachele Guidi moved in with Alessandro's son Benito Mussolini. In 1914, Mussolini married his first wife Ida Dalser. Though the records of this marriage were destroyed by Mussolini's government, an edict from the city of Milan ordering Mussolini to make maintenance payments to “his wife Ida Dalser” and their child was overlooked.^[1] Shortly before his son Benito Albino Mussolini was born to Ida Dalser, Rachele Guidi and Benito Mussolini were married in a civil ceremony in Treviglio, Lombardy, 17 December 1915. In 1925, they renewed their vows in a religious service (after Mussolini's rise to power).

Rachele Mussolini bore five children by Benito Mussolini and she was willing to ignore his various mistresses. Rachele and Benito Mussolini had two daughters, Edda (1910–1995) and Anna Maria (1929–1968), and three sons Vittorio (1916–1997), Bruno (1918–1941), and Romano (1927–2006).

During the reign of Mussolini's Fascist regime, Rachele Mussolini was portrayed as the model Fascist housewife and mother. She remained loyal to Mussolini until the end. But, on 28 April 1945, she was not with Mussolini when he and his mistress, Claretta Petacci, were captured and executed by Italian partisans. Rachele Mussolini did try to flee from Italy after World War II but, in April 1945, she was arrested in Como, close to Switzerland by Italian partisans. She was turned over to the United States Army and kept on Ischia Island, but was released after several months.

In her later life, Rachele Mussolini ran a restaurant in her native village of Predappio, where she served pasta dishes herself. She eventually received a pension from the Italian Republic in 1975. It turned out that Mussolini had not received a salary from the state, and therefore she couldn't receive a pension. After her husband's execution, she begged to have his body for private burial.

Publications

With Albert Zarca she wrote a biography of her husband, translated into English as Mussolini: An Intimate Biography.^[2]

See also

• Ida Dalser
• Claretta Petacci

References

1. Owen, Richard (January 13, 2005). "Power-mad Mussolini sacrificed wife and son". The Times. Archived from the original on June 29, 2011.
2. Mussolini, Rachele; Zarca, Albert (1974). Mussolini: an intimate biography. Morrow. ISBN 978-0-688-00266-4.