My ability to write the book was facilitated in various ways—and certainly made more pleasant—by the hospitality of colleagues and institutions in Italy and France during my 2011–12 sabbatical year. Special thanks to the Foundation for Religious Sciences, John XXIII, in Bologna, and its director, Alberto Melloni; to the Rockefeller Foundation Study Center and its resident director, Pilar Palaciá; to the American Academy in Rome, its director, Chris Celenza, and its president, Adele Chatfield-Taylor; and to Gilles Pécout, at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris.
Many colleagues have been kind enough to answer my questions and provide help in various ways. Among them I would especially like to thank my colleague in Italian studies at Brown, Massimo Riva, for my frequent pestering about questions of Italian literary history, English renderings of various Italian dialect and literary materials, and an assortment of other issues. Among the other friends and colleagues whose help I would like to acknowledge are Alberto Melloni, Emilio Gentile, Evelyn Lincoln, Lesley Riva, Ronald Martinez, Charles Gallagher, S.J., Robert Maryks, John A. Davis, Giovanni Pizzorusso, Matteo San Filippo, Reda Bensmaia, Dagmar Herzog, Lucia Pozzi, and Alberto Guasco.
Special thanks are due to Mauro Canali, one of the world’s foremost experts on the history of the Italian Fascist regime, for his help in the state archives and for our discussions of this period of Italian history. Thanks as well to Bonifacio Pignatti, grandson of the eponymous Italian ambassador to the Holy See of the late 1930s, for allowing me to use a photograph of the ambassador from the family archives.
Wendy Strothman, my friend and literary agent, deserves special credit. Her deep knowledge of books and publishing, her literary judgment, and her strong support have meant much to me. I am also fortunate to have had David Ebershoff, of Random House, as my editor. It is rare to have an editor who is also such a talented and accomplished writer himself, and I feel deeply grateful to have had the benefit of David’s keen literary eye and his belief in the importance of this book. He has made this a much better book. Thanks as well to David’s talented assistant, Caitlin McKenna, for all her editorial efforts. I am grateful as well for all the other support I received at Random House and would like to thank especially Dennis Ambrose, Michelle Jasmine, Susan Kamil, Michael Gentile, and Lani Kaneta for all they have done.
Finally, to my wife, Susan Dana Kertzer, who has lived with this book for many years, sharing in the pleasures of life in Italy. She has never let me forget the goal of writing a book that not only the experts but people who know little of this history will want to read. If I am lucky, one of her book groups may even read it.
NOTES
ARCHIVAL SOURCES AND ABBREVIATIONS
The following abbreviations are used in the endnotes.
ARCHIVAL SOURCES
ACDF: Archivio della Congregazione per la Dottrina della Fede, Vatican S.O. Sant’Offizio
ACS: Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Rome
MCPG Ministero della Cultura Popolare, Gabinetto
MCPR Ministero della Cultura Popolare, Reports
MI Ministero dell’Interno, Direzione Generale della Pubblica Sicurezza
DAGR Direzione Generale Pubblica Sicurezza, Divisione Affari Generali e Riservati
DAGRA Direzione Generale Pubblica Sicurezza, Divisione Affari Generali e Riservati-annuali
FP Direzione Generale della Pubblica Sicurezza, Divisione Polizia Politica, fascicoli personali
PS Direzione Generale della Pubblica Sicurezza
PP Direzione Generale della Pubblica Sicurezza, Divisione Polizia Politica, “materia”
SPD Segreteria Particolare Duce
CO Segreteria Particolare Duce, Carteggio Ordinario
CR Segreteria Particolare Duce, Carteggio Riservato
CV Segreteria Particolare Duce, “carte della valigia”
ARSI: Archivium Romanum Societatis Iesu, Rome
TV Fondo Tacchi Venturi
ASMAE: Archivio Storico, Ministero degli Affari Esteri, Rome
APG Affari Politici, 1931–45, Germania
APIN Affari Politici, 1919–30, Italia
APSS Affari Politici, 1931–45, Santa Sede
APNSS Affari Politici, 1919–30, Santa Sede
AISS Ambasciata Italiana presso la Santa Sede
Gab. Gabinetto
ASV: Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Vatican City
ANI Archivio Nunziatura Italia
AESE Segreteria di Stato, Affari Ecclesiastici Straordinari, Spagna
AESG Segreteria di Stato, Affari Ecclesiastici Straordinari, Germania
AESI Segreteria di Stato, Affari Ecclesiastici Straordinari, Italia
AESS Segreteria di Stato, Affari Ecclesiastici Straordinari Stati Ecclesiastici
AESU Segreteria di Stato, Affari Ecclesiastici Straordinari, Ungaria
MINISTÈRE DES AFFAIRES ÉTRANGÈRES, PARIS
MAEI Ministère des Affaires Étrangères, Direction des Affaires Politiques et Commerciales, Italie
MAESS Ministère des Affaires Étrangères, Direction des Affaires Politiques et Commerciales, Saint-Siège
NARA: U.S. NATIONAL ARCHIVE AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION, COLLEGE PARK, MARYLAND
All are found in the National Archives Microfilm Publications series
LM142 Confidential U.S. State Department Central Files, Italy, Foreign Affairs, 1940–44
LM192 Confidential U.S. State Department Central Files, Germany, Foreign Affairs, 1930–39
M530 Records of the Department of State Relating to Political Relations between Italy and Other States, 1910–29
M561 Records of the Department of State Relating to Internal Affairs of the Papal States, 1910–29
M563 Records of the Department of State Relating to Political Relations between the Papal States and Other States, 1910–29
M1423 Records of the Department of State Relating to Internal Affairs of Italy, 1930–39
PUBLISHED DIPLOMATIC DOCUMENTS
DBFP Documents of British Foreign Policy
DDF Documents Diplomatiques Français
DDI Documenti Diplomatici Italiani
DGFP Documents on German Foreign Policy
FCRSE Further Correspondence Respecting Southern Europe, Great Britain Foreign Office
OTHER ABBREVIATIONS
ADSS Actes et documents du Saint Siège relatives à la seconde guerre mondiale
BG Boston Globe
CC La Civiltà cattolica
CDT Chicago Daily Tribune
LAT Los Angeles Times
NYT New York Times
OR L’Osservatore romano
PNF Partito Nazionale Fascista
PPI Partito Popolare Italiano
WP Washington Post
NOTES
CHAPTER 1: A NEW POPE
1. Salvatorelli 1939, p. 9; Pizzuti 1992, p. 99; Pollard 1999, p. 14.
2. Pollard 1999, p. 16. The American journalist Anne McCormick (1957, p. 17) offered similar observations of Della Chiesa as pope: “Benedict XV seemed one of the negative Popes, dwarfed by his position and overpowered by the events of his time. One saw him at public functions in the Vatican, drooping under his tiara, dwindling within his embroidered state, plainly bored and burdened by his augustness.”
3. ASV, AESS, pos. 515, fasc. 529, ff. 59r–94r.
4. At the first meeting of the new session of parliament on December 1, 1919, as King Victor Emmanuel III stood to give the ceremonial opening, the Socialist deputies rose and walked out, shouting “Long live the socialist republic!” Milza 2000, pp. 284–85.
5. Fornari 1971, p. 50.
6. On the proviso that it be made clear to the public that the Vatican had no authority over the party. For Carlo Sforza’s account of this meeting, see Scoppola 1976, pp. 22–23. See also De Rosa 1958; De Rosa 1959; Molony 1977. For the rest of his long life, Sturzo would say a mass in honor of Benedict XV every year on the anniversary of his death. Pollard 1999, pp. 172–74.
7. The Italian Foreign Ministry archive has a folder filled with encrypted tele
grams from its embassies abroad reporting the voting intentions of cardinals from these countries. They contain several different names. ASMAE, APIN, b. 1268.
8. The latter remarks were made by the Belgian ambassador. Beyens 1934, pp. 102–3. The remarks about the pope’s indifference to dress were made by the British envoy, Sir Alec Randall, quoted in Pollard 1999, p. 70. My description also relies on later British envoy reports found in C. Wingfield, Annual Report 1934. January 12, 1935, R 402/402/22, in Hachey 1972, pp. 285–87, sections 126–36, as well as on Roberti 1960, pp. 6–7; Morgan 1944, pp. 15, 136–37; and De Vecchi 1983, p. 143.
9. Aubert 2000, p. 230 (based on the diary of Cardinal Mercier); Lazzarini 1937, pp. 160–61; Beyens 1934, pp. 83–84.
10. Vavasseur-Desperriers 1996, p. 141.
11. Venini 2004, p. 128.
12. Chiron 2006, pp. 20–25.
13. Puricelli 1996, pp. 28, 36; Durand 2010, p. 4; Aradi 1958, p. 21.
14. Aradi 1958, p. 43. Manzoni, the pope was convinced, would one day be recognized as a writer as great as Dante; Venini 2004, p. 181.
15. Aradi 1958, pp. 65–66.
16. After he was elected pope, the Alpine Club put together a number of Ratti’s own descriptions of his climbs in a little book (Ratti 1923). An English version of the book was published in March 1923, in the form of a three-part series in the daily newspaper Atlantic Constitution under the title “The Mountaineer Priest” (March 4, 11, and 18). Lazzarini (1937, pp. 69–71) provides a long list of his climbs.
17. The French ambassador to the Holy See, François Charles-Roux (1947, pp. 21–22), reported his conversations with Pope Ratti about his Alpine past.
18. Tisserant 1939, pp. 393–94; Chiron 2006, p. 86.
19. Domenico Tardini recounted this misapprehension in a letter to Confalonieri on the publication of his memoirs about Pius XI. Confalonieri 1993, p. 276.
20. Lazzarini 1937, pp. 35–36
21. I tell this story in Kertzer 2001.
22. CC 1880 IV, pp. 108–12.
23. “La rivoluzione mondiale e gli ebrei,” CC 1922 IV, pp. 111–21; “Il socialismo giudeo-massonico tiranneggia l’Austria,” CC 1922 IV, pp. 369–71.
24. Morozzo della Rocca 1996, p. 108; see also Kertzer 2001, pp. 247–49.
25. ASV, ANI, b. 192, ff. 534r–38r, Achille Ratti a Pietro Gasparri, 24 ottobre 1918.
26. Achille Ratti to Pietro Gasparri, January 9, 1919, in Wilk 1997, pp. 3:250–61. For a fuller presentation of Ratti’s views of the Jews while he was in Poland, see Kertzer 2001, pp. 245–62.
27. Pizzuti 1992, p. 110; Chiron 2006, pp. 111–12.
28. As Levillain (1996, p. 8) described it, “Mons. Ratti’s nomination to the see of Saint Ambrosio is a kind of response by Rome to an insurrectional climate.”
29. For a fuller account of the circumstances that led to Ratti’s departure from Poland, see Morozzo della Rocco 1996. Gasparri’s own typescript account of this episode is found at ASV, AESS, pos. 515, fasc. 530, ff. 35r–36r. For a good look at Ratti’s experience in Poland, see Pease 2009, chap. 2.
30. Gasparri’s memoir account of this conversation is found in Spadolini 1972, pp. 259–60. Gasparri writes that it was Pope Ratti himself who told him what had happened.
31. Pizzuti 1992, pp. 12–13.
32. Sources report somewhat different numbers for the various papal ballots. I use the most complete set we have, found in Aradi 1958, p. 127. For an account of Gasparri’s behind-the-scenes role in getting Ratti elected, see Falconi 1967, pp. 152–54. Falconi, along with other sources, also details the passage of zelanti support from Merry del Val to Cardinal Pietro La Fontaine, conservative patriarch of Venice, who on the eleventh ballot reached twenty-three votes, to Ratti’s twenty-four. Also useful is Cardinal Mercier’s diary entries, found in Aubert 2000, as well as Lazzarini 1937, pp. 160–63.
33. Fogarty 1996, p. 549. As a result of this experience, Pius XI would change the rules governing the conclave to give more time for non-European cardinals to participate, as they would on his death in 1939.
34. Aubert 2000, p. 200.
35. News of Benedict XV’s illness had produced a wave of worry around the Catholic world. In New York City, the 96,000 children attending Catholic parochial schools were shepherded into their local churches on January 20 to pray for his health. That they had not been entirely optimistic was evident from the fact that many added to their prayer for a speedy recovery the additional caveat “or the grace of a happy death.” “96,803 Children Pray for the Pope,” NYT, January 21, 1922, p. 1. The next day a premature report of the pope’s demise reached the president of Germany’s Reichstag, resulting in a halt in the proceedings as members rose while the president improvised a eulogy. “Reichstag President Eulogizes the Pope,” NYT, January 22, 1922, p. 2.
36. Among those watching for the smoke in St. Peter’s Square on February 5, the day before Pius XI was chosen, was Benito Mussolini. Gentile 2010, p. 95.
37. Aradi 1958, p. 128.
38. There is some controversy about whether the idea of imparting this initial benediction from the outside loggia was Ratti’s idea or was suggested to him by the worldly Cardinal Gasparri. Cardinal Mario Nasali Rocca, archbishop of Bologna, reported that it was Gasparri’s idea (Chiron 2006, p. 138n), but Confalonieri (1957, p. 24) insists it was Ratti’s own. A description of these events can be found in Aradi 1958, pp. 146–47, and in CC 1922 I, pp. 371–72.
CHAPTER 2: THE MARCH ON ROME
1. E. Mussolini 1957, p. 135.
2. Altogether, the report concluded, somewhat surprisingly, he had a fisionomia simpatico, a friendly face. Baima Bollone 2007, p. 22; see also Ludwig 1933, p. 37.
3. Bosworth 2002, p. 62. An English translation of Mussolini’s first publication, “Dieu n’existe pas,” is found in Seldes 1935, pp. 387–90. The 1908 articles are quoted by Gentile 2010, p. 84.
4. Rhodes 1974, p. 27.
5. Baima Bollone 2007, pp. 23, 27.
6. For this piece in Avanti! he was indicted and later brought to trial for incitement to violence. Cannistraro and Sullivan 1993, pp. 96–97.
7. E. Mussolini 1957, pp. 31–32.
8. Motti 2003, p. 198.
9. Cannistraro and Sullivan 1993, p. 97. This is not one of Mussolini’s better-documented children. At some point, the line between the tales of affairs and children out of wedlock and the reality becomes blurred, although I have no reason to believe Cannistraro and Sullivan fell on the wrong side of that line here. They also discuss a son Mussolini sired in 1918 by yet another woman, Bianca Veneziana, with whom he would sporadically continue an affair for many years (1993, p. 275).
10. Rafanelli 1975.
11. Cannistraro and Sullivan 1993, p. 137. Rachele Mussolini (1974, pp. 74–75) provided her own account of the wedding in her memoir. Later, amid Dalser’s very public calls on Mussolini to recognize her as his wife, and her attempts to let the world know that little Benito was his son, the embarrassment proved too much for him. Once he came to power, he had Irene removed to an insane asylum, where she died in 1937. Little Benito’s fate remains somewhat more obscure. Placed under surveillance from the time his mother was taken away, he eventually became too great a liability for Mussolini. He, too, was placed in an asylum, dying there in 1942, at twenty-six. Ibid.; Festorazzi 2010, p. 49.
12. Much controversy has surrounded the question of how Mussolini found the funds to mount the ambitious paper. Part of the funding appears to have come from Mussolini’s lovers, including Ida Dalser, who apparently sold her beauty salon to come up with cash for it. In addition, while proclaiming his opposition to the money-grubbing bourgeoisie, he was taking money from those who stood to make a profit from Italy’s entrance into the war. He received secret payments from both French and British government sources as well, eager as they were to encourage Italy’s war effort. Bosworth 2002, pp. 105–7.
13. Ibid., pp. 106–7.
14. “Un Appello ai lavoratori d’Italia dei fasci d’azione rivoluzio
naria. Statuto-programma,” Il Popolo d’Italia, 6 gennaio 1916, p. 1.
15. Festorazzi 2010, p. 37; Cannistraro and Sullivan 1993, p. 96.
16. Milza 2000, p. 257. But in February 1918 Margherita suffered a tragedy when her firstborn child, Roberto, who had insisted on enlisting in the army at only seventeen, was killed at the front. As Mussolini was turning away from the Socialists, castigating them for undermining the war effort and disrespecting Italy’s soldiers, Margherita had a deep wound that propelled her along with him. Urso 2003, p. 119. Together they would build a new myth around the sacrifice and heroism of the Italian troops.
17. Cannistraro and Sullivan 1993, p. 178.
18. Margiotta Broglio 1966, pp. 79–81; Gentile 2010, p. 87.
19. In Milan, Mussolini succeeded in convincing two well-known cultural figures to run with him on the Fascist ticket, Arturo Toscanini, famed conductor of La Scala—who would before long regret his choice—and Filippo Marinetti, leading light of the Futurist movement.
20. Cannistraro and Sullivan 1993, pp. 215–16.
21. Galeotti 2000, pp. 20–23.
22. De Felice 1966, pp. 115–16.
23. Lyttleton 1987, p. 53; Ebner 2011, pp. 23, 30–31.
24. De Felice 1966, pp. 87, 92.
25. De Felice 1966, p. 128; Scoppola 1996, p. 186; Kent 1981, pp. 5–6.
26. Gentile 2010, p. 92.
27. Venini 2004, p. 22.
28. CC 1922 I, p. 558; CC 1922 II, pp. 178, 372. Examples in this period of L’Osservatore romano stories of violent attacks on priests, PPI headquarters, and Catholic groups include: “Popolari bastonati dai fascisti,” 29 marzo 1922, p. 4; “Un parroco e un avvocato aggrediti dai fascisti,” 27 aprile 1922, p. 4; “Dopo l’aggressione fascista al sacerdote Gregori,” 6 giugno 1922, p. 4; “Conflitto tra fascisti e popolari,” 21 giugno 1922, p. 4; “Esplosione di odio,” 26 luglio 1922, p. 4; “Circoli cattolici devastati,” 20 agosto 1922, p. 4; “Le aggressioni dei fascisti contro i Parroci,” 22 agosto 1922, p. 2; “Il circolo cattolico di Milzano incendiato dai fascisti,” 2 settembre 1922, p. 4; “Cattolici assaliti dai fascisti a Catania,” 12 settembre 1922, p. 4; “Cattolici aggrediti dai fascisti,” 14 settembre 1922, p. 4; “I fascisti contro i cattolici veronesi,” 23 settembre 1922, p. 4; “Nuove aggressioni fasciste contro cattolici a Verona,” 24 settembre 1922, p. 4; “La sede nel Partito Popolare di Nocera devastata dai fascisti,” 4 ottobre 1922, p. 4; “I fascisti diffidano un parroco a buttare la veste entro 48 ore,” 8 ottobre 1922, p. 4; “Due sacerdoti insultati dai fascisti,” 10 ottobre 1922, p. 4; “L’adunata fascista a Firenze s’inizia con atti ostili contro la G. Diocesana e il Partito Popolare,” 14 ottobre 1922, p. 4; “Una protesta della Federazione Giovanile Diocesana di Firenze,” 17 ottobre 1922, p. 4; “I fascisti contro le associazioni cattoliche,” 18 ottobre 1922, p. 4.
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