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TURIN - The descendants of Benito Mussolini, Italy's dictator for 20 disastrous years, were yesterday locked in tense meetings as a controversy over the fate of Il Duce's corpse broke over them.
They were said to be bitterly divided over whether the body should remain in the family tomb in the Adriatic Sea town of Predappio, or moved to a grander location in Rome.
The woman behind the initiative to move Mussolini is Carla Puccini, the widow of Romano Mussolini, a jazz pianist. She told Corriere della Sere: "It's hard to know which way the decision will go, because members of the family have opposing views. For me Benito deserves to rest in Rome, in a suitable setting."
In two weeks they will assemble in a notary's office to try to resolve the issue.
One nostalgic Mussolini fan close to the family favours the Altar of the Nation, the vast marble monument to Italy in the centre of the capital.
It is a choice that would rouse furious opposition in a nation still deeply split between Fascism's apologists and its sworn enemies.
If it is decided that Mussolini should leave the family crypt where he lies alongside the wife he routinely betrayed, Rachele Guidi, and their four children for a grander tomb, it will be considered grave for Predappio.
Last weekend, the 84th anniversary of Mussolini's "March on Rome" in 1922 which heralded his ascent to absolute power, some 6000 black-shirted Fascist sympathisers descended on the town to pay their respects to their hero and fill up on souvenirs.
Shops in the town have a flourishing business selling the sort of items that most European countries banned long ago: flags, cigarette lighters, beer tankards, bottles of wine, caps and many other items emblazoned with Fascist, Nazi and SS symbols, as well as busts of Mussolini and Hitler.
The biggest seller of such souvenirs, Pierluigi Pompignoli, says: "This was where he declared in his will that he wanted to be buried, close to his parents. Mussolini was the greatest man who ever walked the earth. Hitler was a criminal, but Mussolini was great. This talk about moving him is the chatter of a few imbeciles."
- INDEPENDENT
