Clara Petacci, known as Claretta Petacci (; 28 February 1912 – 28 April 1945), was a mistress of the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.
She was killed during Mussolini's execution by Italian partisans, allegedly throwing herself on him in a vain attempt to protect him from the bullets.Pierluigi Baima Bollone, Le ultime ore di Mussolini, Milano, Mondadori, 2005, ., pagg.
89 e succ.ve Early life
Daughter of Giuseppina Persichetti (1888–1962) and the physician Francesco Saverio Petacci (1883–1970), Clara Petacci was born into a privileged and religious family in Rome in 1912.
Her father, a physician of the Holy Apostolic Palaces,De Felice (1981) p. 278 became a supporter of fascism.
A child when Mussolini rose to power in the 1920s, Clara Petacci idolised him from an early age.
After Violet Gibson attempted to assassinate the dictator in April 1926, the 14-year-old Petacci wrote to him commenting "O, Duce, why was I not with you? ...
Could I not have strangled that murderous woman?"
Relationship with Mussolini
Petacci had a long-standing relationship with Mussolini while he was married to Rachele Mussolini.
Petacci was 28 years younger than Mussolini.
Giuseppina Persichetti, La enamorada de Mussolini, Madrid, Ediciones Caballero Audaz, 1947.
They met for the first time in 1933; in 1934 Petacci married Italian Air Force officer Riccardo Federici, but she parted ways with her husband when he was sent as Air Attaché to Tokyo in 1936.
Part of Petacci and Mussolini's correspondence has not been released on the grounds of privacy.
Giampiero Buonomo, , in Diritto e giustizia, 16 luglio 2005.
Death
On 27 April 1945, Mussolini and Petacci were captured by partisans while traveling with a convoy of Italian Social Republic members.Gunther Langes, Auf Wiedersehen Claretta.
Il diario dell'uomo che poteva salvare Mussolini e la Petacci, a cura di Nico Pirozzi, Villaricca, Edizioni Cento Autori, 2012. .
On 28 April, she and Mussolini were taken to Mezzegra and executed.
On the following day, the bodies of Mussolini and Petacci were taken to Piazzale Loreto in Milan and hung upside down in front of an Esso petrol station.
The bodies were photographed as a crowd vented their rage upon them.
In popular culture
Caesar and Claretta, a 1975 episode of the BBC-TV program Private Affairs, starring Helen Mirren
Claretta, 1984 film starring Claudia Cardinale
Mussolini: The Untold Story, 1985 TV-miniseries featured Virginia Madsen as Petacci
Mussolini and I, in which she is played by Barbara De Rossi
See also
Margherita Sarfatti, one of Mussolini's earlier mistresses
Eva Braun, Adolf Hitler's mistress
References
Sources
Further reading
Bosworth, R.J.B. (2017).
Claretta: Mussolini's Last Lover, Yale University Press
Farrell, Nicholas (2003).
Mussolini: A New Life, Phoenix Press: London
Garibaldi, Luciano (2004).
Mussolini: The Secrets of His Death, Enigma Books, New York
Moseley, Ray (2004).
Mussolini: The Last 600 Days of Il Duce, Taylor Trade Publishing, Dallas
