Margherita Sarfatti

Margherita Sarfatti (8 April 1880 – 30 October 1961) was an Italian journalist,

Margherita Sarfatti
art critic, patron, collector, socialite, a prominent propaganda adviser of the
National Fascist Party. She was Benito Mussolini's biographer as well as one of
his mistresses.

Contents
Biography
In popular culture
References
Further reading
External links

Biography
Margherita Sarfatti was born Margherita Grassini, in Venice, the daughter of Born Margherita Grassini
Amedeo Grassini and Emma Levi. Amedeo was a wealthy Jewish lawyer and 8 April 1880
businessman. He was a fiscal attorney for the Venetian government and a close Venice, Kingdom of
friend of Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto, later Pope Pius X. He would later be made Italy[1]
a Knight of the Order of the Crown of Italy.[2] Died 30 October 1961
(aged 81)
Sarfatti grew up in a palazzo situated at the Canal Grande in Venice and was Cavallasca, Italy
educated by private tutors. However, she was soon attracted by socialist ideas
Nationality Italian
and escaped her parents' home at age 18 to marry Cesare Sarfatti, a Jewish
lawyer from Padua. He was 13 years her senior, but shared her socialist Occupation Author, journalist, art
beliefs.[1] In 1902, the couple moved to Milan.[2] There, they became prominent critic
in the city's artistic life, hosting weekly Salons that became the centre of the Known for Being the mistress
Futurist and Novecento Italiano artistic movements.[3] They had several of Benito Mussolini
children. Their eldest son, Robert, enlisted in the Italian army during World War Notable work The Life of Benito
I, and was killed in action on Monte Baldo in January 1918, aged 18.[1] Mussolini (1925)

In 1911, Margherita Sarfatti met Benito Mussolini (three years her junior) and Political National Fascist
started a relationship with him. During this time she was working as an art critic party Party
at the newspaper Avanti! [4] After losing her husband in 1924, she wrote a Spouse(s) Cesare Sarfatti
biography of Mussolini. This was first published in 1925 in Britain under the (m. 1898; d. 1924)
title The Life of Benito Mussolini; it was published the following year in Italy
with the title Dux. Because of the fame of Mussolini and the author's familiarity with the dictator, the book was a success.
Seventeen editions were printed and it was translated into 18 languages.

Sarfatti is memorialized in Guido Cadorin frescoes in the (now called) Grand Hotel Palace, Via Veneto No. 70, Rome.
"Fiammetta and I wanted to pass into immortality in the salon's frescoes," she remarked, referring to her daughter, who is
portrayed with her in the frescoes.[5]
Sarfatti had an influence over Mussolini’s policies from 1922 until 1938, when Mussolini bowed to German pressure and after the
Manifesto of Race enacted a racial legislation, the fascist government's politics were not anti-semitic, and the party's membership
rolls were open to Jews.[4] Probably in reaction to the changing circumstances in Italy, Sarfatti left Italy in 1938 for Argentina
and Uruguay; she worked as a journalist for the newspaper El Diario of Montevideo.[6] After the war, in 1947, Sarfatti returned
to her home country and once again became an influential force in Italian art.

In popular culture
Actress Susan Sarandon portrayed Sarfatti in the 1999 movie Cradle Will Rock which was written and directed by Sarandon's
then longtime companion, Tim Robbins. Sarandon discussed her role, saying:

Margherita is someone who is a legitimate historical figure. She really existed. She really was Mussolini's
mistress and was very involved in the cultural shaping of Italy's art movements. She was a patron of new painters
in Italy. She came over to the United States to sell Mussolini to the American people, and she did that by using
Hearst's column. She wrote a column, and that was how they prepared the United States people for the concept of
entering the war on the side of Mussolini, I suppose. And also she was trying to fund the war.

And the complication of this was the fact that she was Jewish, and she in fact was facilitating her own crisis,
which eventually would make her flee the country and live in Argentina, I believe, for a number of years before it
was safe for her to go back. Whether or not she was just in complete denial or she really truly believed that there
was a way to sleep with Mussolini and not be held accountable, I don't know. But she ended up in an awkward
position. She was hobnobbing with all these rich American people. I think in the context of the film, she's
somebody who has a job to do and because she loved art, she sometimes finds herself to be giving all this art
away to people she feels don't really appreciate it.

References
1. Colussi, Paolo. "Margherita Sarfatti e il "Novecento" " (http://www.storiadimilano.it/Personaggi/Ritratti%20femminil
i/sarfatti.htm) (in Italian). Storia di Milano. Retrieved 22 May 2014.
2. Acobas, Patrizia (2010). "Margherita Sarfatti 1880-1961" (http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/sarfatti-margherita).
Jewish women: A comprehensive historical encyclopedia. Retrieved 16 July 2012.
3. Mane, Saviona (6 July 2006). "The Jewish mother of Fascism" (http://www.haaretz.com/the-jewish-mother-of-fas
cism-1.192344). Haaretz. Tel Aviv. Retrieved 23 May 2014.
4. Todd, Allan. History for the IB Diploma. Authoritarian states (20th century) (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/927509
149). Waller, Sally, (Second ed.). Cambridge. ISBN 9781107558892. OCLC 927509149 (https://www.worldcat.or
g/oclc/927509149).
5. Printed manuscript available at hotel desk, accessed 15 May 2017.
6. Gilbert, Isidoro (10 February 2007). "La amante judía de Mussolini que vivió en Montevideo" (http://www.larepubli
ca.com.uy/cultura/245854-la-amante-judia-de-mussolini-que-vivio-en-montevideo) [Mussolini's Jewish mistress
who lived in Montevideo] (in Spanish). LR21.

Further reading
Cannistraro, Philip, and Brian R. Sullivan. Il Duce's Other Woman: The Untold Story of Margherita Sarfatti,
Mussolini's Jewish Mistress, 1993. ISBN 0-688-06299-7
Urso, Simona. Margherita Sarfatti. Dal mito del Dux al mito americano, 2003. ISBN 88-317-8342-4
Wieland, Karin. Die Geliebte des Duce. Das Leben der Margherita Sarfatti und die Erfindung des Faschismus,
2004. ISBN 3-446-20484-9
Sarfatti, Margherita. The Life of Benito Mussolini, 1925; 2004. ISBN 1-4179-3962-1
 Gutman, Daniel. El amor judío de Mussolini, 2006. ISBN 987-603-017-5
Liffran, Françoise. Margherita Sarfatti, L'égérie du duce, Biography, 2009. ISBN 978-2-02-098353-2
Sarfatti, Margherita Grassini, "My Faul: Mussolini as I knew him," New York City: Enigma Books, 2014, (edited
and annotated with commentary by Brian R. Sullivan)

External links
A caricature (http://www.nybooks.com/gallery/2978) by David Levine
Cradle Will Rock (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0150216/) on IMDb
Mussolinis Femme-Fatale, New York Review of Books, 15 July 1993 (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1
993/jul/15/mussolinis-femme-fatale/)

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