Romano Mussolini - jazz musician and painter

Dictator’s son forged successful career in music

At his peak, Romano Mussolini played around the
world alongside some of jazz's greatest icons

Romano Mussolini, the youngest son of Benito Mussolini, who grew up to enjoy success as a jazz musician and a painter, was born on this day in 1927 at the family home in Carpena, a hamlet outside Forlì in the Emilia-Romagna region.

Although he began his career with the anonymity of an assumed name, in time he became a central figure in Italy's post-war contemporary jazz scene under his true identity.

His peak achievement came in 1963, when his band, the Romano Mussolini All Stars, recorded the album Jazz allo Studio 7, winning the prestigious Italian Critics Award, raising his profile enough to play on tour alongside such jazz icons as Chet Baker, Duke Ellington, and Dizzy Gillespie.

Yet despite his musical fame, Romano considered painting to be his true creative passion and his expressive, figurative style achieved national and international recognition. 

Villa Carpena, the Mussolini family home and today open to the public as a museum, was a beautiful, Liberty-style country house in a pleasant rural setting. Between there and his father’s official residence in Rome, the neoclassical mansion, Villa Torlonia, Romano’s early years were somewhat idyllic. 

He studied music as a child, playing classical pieces on the piano and accompanying his father, who played the violin.  He first encountered jazz listening to records belonging to his older brother, Vittorio.  Largely self-taught as a musician, he began experimenting with playing jazz on the piano in around 1943. He also played accordion and alto saxophone.

Italy’s defeat in World War Two changed everything, of course. Having failed to escape to Switzerland, who rejected an application by his mother, Rachele, for asylum, Romano, his mother and sister, Anna-Maria, hid in a  house near Como, where he learned that his father, who had made a separate escape attempt in the company of his mistress Clara Petacci, had been executed by partisans.

Themselves captured by partisans, they were handed over to the British, who moved them to an internment camp near Terni in Umbria. From there they were transferred to Ischia, the island off the coast near Naples, where they remained in state-imposed exile until the Italian government announced an amnesty in 1947.

Romano Mussolini as a young child, pictured with
his father on a beach holiday at Riccione

Thanks to the family whom he lived with on Ischia, Romano had been able to keep up his piano playing and painting. After the amnesty, he stayed on the island, where he met Ugo Calise, a guitarist and composer, who invited him to play accordion in his group.

In the early 1950s, he returned to the mainland, moving into an apartment on the northern outskirts of Rome. He began to play jazz piano professionally, under the name of Romano Full or Raymond Full.

By 1955, after forming a partnership with a trumpeter, Nunzio Rotondo, he performed for the first time under his real name.

He modelled himself on his idol, the Canadian pianist Oscar Peterson, and his popularity grew, reaching a high point in 1963 when he was becoming a regular at the Santa Tecla club in Milan, which was something of a temple of jazz in the city.

His trio, the Romano Mussolini All Stars, recorded an album, Jazz allo Studio 7 - named after a famous Milan recording studio - that won that year's Italian critics award.  The award opened numerous doors, including regular invitations to tour abroad.

The irony is that, had his father’s regime survived, Romano would have probably had to choose a different career. Jazz, with its roots in black culture, was severely restricted by the Fascist government.  

Romano Mussolini explored various ways to earn extra money to support his music career, some more successful than others. He attempted to launch himself as a film producer but achieved poor results, making more from writing soundtracks for films. One of his more profitable ventures was a chicken and pig farm he acquired in Romagna.

Mussolini (left) pictured on an album sleeve with
singer Lilian Terry and trumpeter Nunzio Rotondo

In 1962, he married Maria Scicolone, the younger sister of actress Sophia Loren. They had two daughters, Alessandra and Elisabetta.  Alessandra went on to lead a small political party on the Italian far-right and was often described as a neofascist. Romano Mussolini composed the party's official anthem.

As he became older, Romano devoted himself more and more to painting. His subjects ranged from landscapes to still life, abstract dreams, beautiful women, clowns, gypsy scenes and the carnivals of Venice. His style has been described as Post-War Italian Figurative Expressionism.

Although there are none on display in the famous galleries, many of his paintings survive in collections around the world, occasionally changing hands at auction.

His musical career continued, including an appearance at the Lake Maggiore Jazz Festival in 2002, although his later years were most notable for writing a book of memoirs under the title, Il Duce, mio padre. 

In the book, Romano condemned his father’s part in the deportation to Nazi death camps of some 7,000 Italian Jews, yet his appraisal of the dictator’s political career was largely sympathetic. 

He died in Rome from heart problems in February, 2006 and was buried in the family crypt in the cemetery of San Cassiano in Predappio, the town south of Forlì where both his parents were born.

The Villa Carpena, where Romano Mussolini
grew up, is now open to the public

Travel tip:

The Villa Carpena museum, located about 10km (6 miles) southeast of  Forlì, is the historic former country residence of Benito Mussolini and his family. Known officially as the Casa dei ricordi di Mussolini (The House of Memories of Mussolini), the estate was the family home from 1924 onwards. His widow, Rachele, lived there long after his death. It eventually became neglected but in 2001 was bought by an Italian businessman  from the Mussolini estate and painstakingly restored, before being opened to the public as the first private museum dedicated to the dictator's personal life. Visitors today can explore the largely unchanged rooms, which are filled with original family belongings, furniture, and private photographs. Key highlights include Mussolini’s study, his uniform, personal letters, and the cradle of his children. The surrounding grounds feature a large garden, a vineyard, and the remains of a defensive bunker built during World War II. 

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The Maronti Beach in Ischia is one of the many
beautiful beaches for which Ischia is noted

Travel tip:

Ischia is a beautiful volcanic island notable for its many beautiful beaches located in the Tyrrhenian Sea at the northern tip of the Gulf of Naples. It has an area of some 47 square  kilometres, rising to a height of 789 m (2,589 ft) at the peak of Monte Epomeo. The vineyards surrounding Monte Epomeo produce excellent wine that is served in the island’s restaurants. The hot mineral springs on the island have been used since Roman times as a cure for ailments and are still recommended for people suffering from rheumatism and arthritis today. An entire circuit of the island’s 34km (21 miles) of coastline on one of the local buses will take about two and a half hours. Ischia is also the name of the island’s main town, the other municipalities being Barano d'Ischia, Casamicciola Terme, Forio, Lacco Ameno and Serrara Fontana. Notable sights include the Aragonese Castle (Castello Aragonese), which was built on a rock near the island in 474 BC, by Hiero I of Syracuse. Nowadays, it is connected to the town of Ischia by a stone causeway.  The island, which has a population of around 62,000, is accessible by hydrofoil and car ferries from Naples and Sorrento. Typical journey times are 50-60 minutes by hydrofoil from either starting point, with the ferry from Naples taking about one hour and a half.

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More reading:

Rachele Mussolini, the dictator’s long-suffering wife

How Mussolini and his mistress were captured and killed

The controversial career of Alessandra Mussolini

Also on this day:

1927: The birth of World Cup-winning football coach Enzo Bearzot

1973: The death of Oscar-winning actress Anna Magnani

1997: Earthquake damages Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi

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Luchino Visconti – director and writer

The aristocrat of Italian cinema

Luchino Visconti came from a family
that once ruled Milan

Luchino Visconti, who most aficionados of Italian cinema would place among the top five directors of all time, was born in Milan on this day in 1906.

Visconti’s movies include Ossessione, Rocco and His Brothers, The Leopard, Death in Venice and The Innocent.

One of the pioneers of neorealism – arguably the first to make a movie that could be so defined – Visconti was also known as the aristocrat of Italian cinema, figuratively but also literally. 

He was born Count don Luchino Visconti di Modrone, the seventh child of a family descendant from a branch of the House of Visconti, the family that ruled Milan from the late 13^th century until the early Renaissance.

Paradoxically, although he maintained a lavish lifestyle, Visconti’s politics were of the left. During the First World War he joined the Italian Communist Party, and many of his films reflected his political leanings, featuring poor or working class people struggling for their rights.

He enraged Mussolini with his grim portrayal of Italy's poverty in Ossessione (1943), based on James M Cain’s novel The Postman Always Rings Twice. His first movie as a director, and the film that spawned the neorealist genre that would be the hallmark of post-War Italian cinema, depicted Fascist Italy as a destitute, windblown country, robbed of its dignity. Visconti found himself for several months hounded by the Fascist regime.

The movie poster for the Visconti classic
Rocco and His Brothers

Visconti, who had not helped himself by allowing Communist agitators to hold clandestine meetings in the family palazzo in Milan, was arrested more than once and believed he would have been executed as a subversive had the Allied invasion not driven Mussolini from power.

He continued to explore neorealism in his 1948 movie La Terra Trema – The Earth Trembles – set in the post-War poverty of Sicily, and to an extent in Rocco and His Brothers (1960), a story of the brutal life of Southern Italians trying to better themselves in Milan, said to have influenced Martin Scorsese in his making of Mean Streets and Raging Bull and Francis Ford Coppola’s interpretation of Mario Puzo’s narrative in The Godfather.

Other Visconti films looked at social change as it affected the wealthy, but with a sense of empathy. The Leopard (1963), based on Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s novel of the same name, was about the decline of the Sicilian aristocracy at the time of the Renaissance, while The Damned (1969) focussed on a wealthy German industrialist, whose lavish and decadent lifestyle collapses as the Nazis consolidate their grip on power in the 1930s.

Death in Venice (1971), the film for which he is most well known along with as Rocco and His Brothers and The Leopard, was largely concerned with the homosexual obsession of Dirk Bogarde’s character with a teenage boy, played by Bjorn Andresen.

Visconti with the actors Sergio Garfagnoli and Bjorn
Andresen (right) on the set of Death in Venice

Visconti himself was openly gay and had relationships with the Austrian actor Helmut Berger, who appeared in a number of his films, and his fellow Italian director Franco Zeffirelli, who worked with Visconti in the theatre.

Away from the big screen, Visconti was a huge fan of opera and directed productions at La Scala in Milan, several of which featured the great soprano Maria Callas, the Royal Opera House in London and the Vienna State Opera.

A heavy smoker, said to have worked his way through up to 120 cigarettes a day, he suffered a stroke in 1972 but continued to smoke and died in Rome from complications following another stroke on 1976.

From the 1950s, Visconti would frequently retreat to his villa on the island of Ischia, La Colombaia, built to have the look of a French medieval castle, which he had purchased from a baron and renovated to an impeccably high standard.

The villa now houses a foundation in his name and a museum dedicated to his life.

Visconti's villa on the island of Ischia

Travel tip:

Ischia is a volcanic island in the Bay of Naples, less famous than its neighbour, Capri, but some would argue to be more beautiful. Famous for its thermal springs and its mineral-rich mud, Ischia has been used as the backdrop for many films.  It has an impressive Aragonese castle, built on a rock near the island in 474 and accessed by a stone bridge.

The Visconti palace in Via Cina del Duca in Milan

Travel tip:

Visconti grew up in the Palazzo Visconti di Modrone, a 16^th century palace that can be found in Via Cino del Duca, about one kilometre from the centre of Milan.  It came into the possession of the modern Visconti family in the 19^th century, when it changed hands for 750,000 lire Milanese.  The building, spread over three floors, is one of the richest examples of Milanese rococo.

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Daniela Riccardi - leading Italian businesswoman

Head of luxury glassware company trained as a ballet dancer

Daniela Riccardi

Born on this day in 1960, Daniela Riccardi in 2013 became chief executive of Baccarat, the luxury glass and crystal manufacturer that originated in the town of the same name in the Lorraine region of France in the 18th century.

Formerly CEO of the Italian clothing company Diesel, she is one of Italy's most successful businesswomen, yet might easily have forged alternative careers as a dancer or a diplomat.

Born in Rome, she began dancing when she was five and studied ballet for 12 years at the National Dance Academy in Rome, with the aim of becoming a professional dancer.

When it became clear that she would not quite be good enough to grace the world's great stages, she remained determined to have a career that would satisfy her desire to experience many countries and cultures and went to Rome University to study political science and international studies, with the aim of working in diplomacy.

However, during a postgraduate year at Yale University in the United States, she spent a brief period as an intern at Pepsi, where she was so impressed by the energy and leadership of the company's management she realised that this was the career she really wanted.

Back in Italy, she applied to number of multinational companies and was hired by Procter & Gamble, where she stayed for 25 years.  She worked in senior management positions in Europe, South America, Russia and Asia, eventually becoming president of P&G Greater China.  The Financial Times named her as one of the top 50 emerging female managers in the world.

Palazzo della Sapienza, near Piazza Navona,
used to be the home of Rome University

Riccardi left Procter & Gamble in 2010 after turning 50, deciding it was an appropriate moment to make a change.  She considered returning to ballet and putting her money into an international dance academy, or perhaps running an institution such as the New York City Ballet.

Then came an invitation to become CEO at Diesel, the company based just outside Vicenza that founder and president Renzo Rosso began by stitching jeans on his mother's sewing machine. She remained there for three years until the appeal of taking an historic brand and equipping it to survive in the modern world attracted her to Baccarat.

The company, with its headquarters now in Paris, has a 250-year history.  Its products are unashamedly at the luxury end of the market and the precision of the craftsmanship that goes into each piece appealed to Riccardi's tastes.  Her father was a jeweller in Rome and she developed an eye for quality at a young age.

She retains a love of dance, giving private lessons in her spare time, often to employees of the company.

Fluent in French, Spanish and English as well as Italian, Riccardi is married to Juan Pablo, a Colombian she met in Brussels. They have two children, Matteo and Cecilia, and share five homes - apartments in Florida, New York and Rome, a farmhouse in Colombia and a house they are renovating on the island of Ischia in the Bay of Naples.

UPDATE: In 2020, Riccardi became chief executive of Moleskine, the Italian company that specialises in high-end stationery products and travel accessories. 

Travel tip:

Rome University, often known simply as La Sapienza - the wisdom - is one of the oldest in the world, its origins traceable to 1303, when it was opened by Pope Boniface VIII as the first pontifical university.  It was intended to be a place of ecclesiastical studies, a status it retained until 1870, when it broadened its outlook and was adopted as the university of the Italian capital.  A new campus was built near the Termini railway station in 1935 and now caters for more than 112,000 students. Previously, it had been housed in much smaller buildings close to Piazza Navona in Rome's historic centre.

The Castello Aragonese is one of
Ischia's most popular sights

Travel tip:

Ischia is a volcanic island at the northern end of the Bay of Naples, less well known than its neighbour, Capri, but equally beautiful and with a population of around 60,000.  It is famous for its thermal spas, around which much tourism is based.  Among the most popular attractions is the Castello Aragonese, a castle built on rock near the island in 474 BC, to defend the island against pirates.  On the south side of the island, the long sandy beach of Maronti and the picturesque fishing village of Sant'Angelo are well worth visiting.

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