SOURCE: “How Mussolini Fell,” in The Political Quarterly, Vol. XVII, No. 4, October-December, 1946, pp. 320-9.

In the following essay, Saporiti details Mussolini's last days of power.

Twenty-fifth July, 1943, started in Rome like any other Sunday. Under the burning sun, the rare passers-by who crossed the Piazza Venezia looked furtively towards the famous balcony from which, for many years, a meglomaniac had given them his orders. In front of the Palazzo Venezia, two sentries paced up and down. Everything looked normal enough, yet since the night before vague unquiet seemed to linger everywhere in the capital.

Twenty-six men were sitting in their homes, waiting for news. They were the actors in the drama which had come to a climax the night before and they knew that a turning-point had been reached in the history of Italy. Their vote of the night before had for ever closed a period of tyranny...