The Cardinal's Mistress

by Benito Mussolini, Hiram Motherwell (Translator)

Translated from the Italian by Hiram Motherwell. Introduction by Motherwell. The first English language version of this potboiler anti-clerical historical erotic romance written by Il Duce in 1909 when he was 26. A cornerstone of any collection of novels by Fascist dictators.

Genres: History

232 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 1910

About the author

Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian dictator who founded and led the National Fascist Party (PNF). He was Prime Minister of Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 until his deposition in 1943, as well as Duce of Italian fascism from the establishment of the Italian Fasces of Combat in 1919 until his summary execution in 1945 by Italian partisans. As dictator of Italy and principal founder of fascism, Mussolini inspired and supported the international spread of fascist movements during the inter-war period.

Reviews

[Tristan More · Rating 2 out of 5]

It makes sense that Mussolini only had one published novel - he's not much of an author. Now, he was writing this in serial format for a local paper when he was its editor, 20 years before he was in power in Italy. So this is not much of an example into his life - although my favorite thing about this is that a sympathetic and forgiving supporting character shares the name of his future wife and mother of five of his six children, Rachele (Guidi). The Cardinal in question also shares a name with the king of Italy at the time, Vitorrio Emmanuel II. (Cardinal is Emanuel Madruzzo). I may be looking into this, and everything else I've read about this novel is that Mussolini was heavily anti-clerical and it was more an attack on the Catholic church. However, while reading this I tried to imagine him writing it on a per-issue basis and coming up with small details to fit in the people in his life. I imagine some of the characteristics of the people in the novel share some attributes of people he truly knew, as it is telling that he probably labored to write something at all. The serial prose falters again, as it has for me in previous serial novels (I loathe Count of Monte Cristo's pacing for this, although Hugo at least knows how to write characters).

I think this is an oddity that can be read to pass the time, but by no means search it out to gain insight on Mussolini. It is slightly tepid in its pace and I found myself begging to be on to my next book. There are great moments in the novel, but it's overall not worth it.

[Hobart Frolley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Junk food for the brain. Decent but not great, this book kept my attention. The book is filled with typos and has a terrible print job and the publisher specializes in pulp and incest erotica, and ultimately the only reason that the publisher decided to release this book (especially considering the sensational nature of their other books) seems to be because it was written by Il Duce.....

[Phrodrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Years before becoming the Blessed Little Pigeon Pouter, Dictator of Italy and inventor of Fascism; Benito Mussolini was a Socialist agitator from a poor family with a foreign education. He was also hungry and was paying such of what he could pay by being in the media. He got a contract to write a serialized for print novel. Ala Dickens or Trollope et al. He was writing to contract , to a left wing audience and apparently with encouragement, but no meaningful editorial oversight.

What he wrote was: The Cardinal Mistress. I had hoped to find lurid purple prose and and an unintended laugh riot. Once I got past the almost sycophantic introduction in my 1928 translation I found the makings of a decent novel.
Properly cleaned up the core plot revolves around a well intentioned Cardinal and prince , Carl Emmanuel Trent who faithfully and deeply loves his mistress of 20 years Claudia Particella. The two must face off against a host of people , Including the Cardinal’s Chief of staff who are all what we would now call haters.

Had the 26 year old impecunious author the benefit of a good editor, this plot could have been kept clean and the core problem would have been one of an illegal, or at least impious love and a scheming groups of evil detractors. Unfortunately we do not get a clean plot.

The Cardinal seems well meaning except that early on he uses the combined power of Cardinal and head of a rich family to crush an innocent cousin for the crime of loving a person not suitable to the Cardinal. Carl E. Trent is honest enough to seek a Papal dispensation to allow himself to leave the shovel hat and the clothe so that he is free to marry. He spends lavishly as the papacy is also a house of corruption but in part due to the cabal against the Cardinal his petition is denied. So honest enough to seek an honest out, but it takes him 20 years to get to it. Meantime we are told that the people are suffering for his lack of attention to matters terrestrial or spiritual.

Claudia’s personality is not clear until at least midway into the book, but she will revel a very dark side. So do we like our loving pair or not?

Within the writing there are flashes of good authorship. People may be inconsistent, but descriptions are never empurpled with over lavish adjectives. This is not the fiction of Hemingway, but it has to rank as competitive with contemporary (1906) bodice ripper type romances.

My 1928 edition is the first English edition and may be hard to find or pricey when found. It is also available in on-line translation. I can recommend it as a historical oddity and as a fair to middling read. Had he pursued fiction instead of politics, and had he found a good editor, it is possible that the name Mussolini would be as well known.

[Noah McClintock · Rating 2 out of 5]

Can't decide if Mussolini was a better or worse writer than Hitler.

[Giulia]

This book is anything but groundbreaking. I wouldn't necessarily say it's a fun read, though it's a curious one.


However, I disagree with anyone saying Mussolini is a bad writer. I'm guessing that most of the people saying that have read a translation anyway, rather than the Italian original.


His style is artificially aulic, as it aims to emulate other historical novels, and the references to Dante are plentiful. The dialogues and the way they fit into the text are a bit awkward and disjointed, and his criticisms of the church come off as very transparent, which makes certain passages hard to enjoy. In spite of these shortcomings, I found the linguistic register he used throughout the book to be delightful, especially for an episodic novel.


Not recommended, though it has its charms and merits (as well as its shortcomings).

[cady · Rating 1 out of 5]

everyone knows the famously terrible romance fanfic that benito mussolini wrote before turning his career path to politics…and nothing else note worthy happened in his career after that…

read as a joke in one day just to make jokes about how mussolini wrote TERRIBLE wattpad novel

i’ve read fanfics written by 13 year olds that have better grammar, punctuation, plot, and publishing
also the content is very yucky and offensive but i feel that’s just what the title implies

[Domenico Francesco · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sicuramente non il peggior romanzo he abbia mai letto in vita mia, ma di sicuro tra i peggiori in ogni caso. Resta un oggetto curioso, soprattutto in quanto è impossibile giudicarlo non considerando chi sia l'autore. Un romanzo fortemente critico verso la religione cattolica e la Chiesa riguardante la storia del cardinale Emanuele Madruzzo, di famiglia aristocratica, e della sua relazione scabrosa con la giovanissima Claudia Particella, figlia di un suo consigliere. Il romanzo, come immaginabile, rappresenta il clero e tutto ciò che vi ruota attorno come perverso, malvagio e decadente e il romanzo insiste particolarmente in vicende pruriginose, scabrose e macabre per accentuare ancora di più questa caratterizzazione. La scrittura è artificiosa, pomposa e fasullamente aulica e questo rende la lettura solo più fastidiosa ed estenuante, non risolvono la situazione nemmeno i climax esagerati alla fine dei singoli capitoli: va ricordato infatti che la prima pubblicazione del romanzo avvenne nella prima metà del 1910 a puntate su Il Popolo di Trento, il quotidiano diretto da Cesare Battisti per cui all'epoca scriveva Mussolini. I risibili cliffhanger finali di ogni capitolo servivano quindi ad invitare i lettori ad acquistare il numero successivo.
Ricorda moltissimo il romanzo di un'altra figura politica, ovvero Clelia, il governo dei preti di nientepopodimeno che Giuseppe Garibaldi. Altro romanzo davvero pessimo, seppur un po' più divertente di questo, scritto in maniera molto simile, con le stesse dinamiche e gli stessi intenti dissacratori verso il cattolicesimo. Non sarei sorpreso se Mussolini si fosse apertamente ispirato al romanzo dell'Eroe dei Due Mondi per scrivere il suo.

Affascinante anche come nei paesi anglosassoni il libro sia stato pubblicato dalla Olympia Press, storica casa editrice specializzata in letteratura erotica e fuori dai canoni. Erotico/pornografico non lo è sicuramente, per quanto per l'epoca era indubbiamente molto spinto, ma bizzarro lo è sicuramente.

[Julio The Fox · Rating 4 out of 5]

"There is too much history, and only me and old Muss to take care of it".---Ezra Pound

Benito Mussolini's only novel is a page-turner and potboiler offering as much sex as the laws of the Italian monarchy would allow. THE CARDINAL'S MISTRESS was written when "The Boss", as Pound called him, was still a leading member of the Italian Socialist Party and editor of the Party newspaper, LA LOTTA DI CLASSE. "In those days", Benito later said, "I wore a medallion of Karl Marx around my neck and carried a copy of Nietzsche's THUS SPRACT ZARATHUSTRA everywhere." The novel, published in serial form to keep readers buying week to week, was composed mostly to raise funds to keep the paper afloat. The most telling this about this proto-fascist oeuvre is Mussolini's atheism and hatred for the Catholic Church, which he learned at the knee of his anarchist father. Muss never abandoned the anti-clericalism expounded in these pages, not even when he went to the Vatican and took communion from the Pope himself. I recommend this startling curiosity for the hot sex and insight into the man who made XX century Italy.

[Jade · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this because I couldn't sleep and it was written by Mussolini. I was curious. It's not bad. Very much of its time, and you can tell it was a serial piece, but that's okay. None of the named characters in it are good people, love and the Catholic Church are the evils. It wasn't anything special, but I do enjoy knowing that Mussolini wasn't getting any in his twenties.

[Haytham Mohamed · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wouldn't have thought that the "Duce" would be such a decent writer.
Not the most exquisite romance book you would ever read, but a decent one, simple & predictable, but you read it with your mind searching for the writer's experience among the characters, and who of them is Mussolini.

[Jaer Mertens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprisingly enjoyable. Will publish a more in depth review on my blog next week.

[Guido Baldrati · Rating 2 out of 5]

Una rottura di coglioni non da poco

[Aadil Alkitani · Rating 4 out of 5]

النبذة (من خلف الكتاب):
أصاب سهم كيوبيد قلب الكاردينال فأحبّ.. أحبَّ "كلوديا!" ويوم ذاك نسي ولم يعُد يبالي.. نسي أنه الأسقف والكاردينال.. ولم يأبه لما يقول عنه الناس. سخر بتقاليد الإمارة ولم يحترم عصا الكردينالية… وأسلم نفسه إلى متعة الحب. وعرف الجميع سرّ غرامه.. واستهجنوا فعلته النكراء! إنها الخطيئة أن يعشق الكردينال. فما مصير هذه العلاقة؟ وما هي العواقب التي ستنتج جراء هذا الحب المكروه؟

إقتباس:
"ألا إنّ الحب كقطعة من الحديد.. إذا أهوينا عليها بالمطرقة انبعث منها الشرر واللهيب."

الرأي الشخصي:
كاتب الرواية هو بينيتو موسوليني حاكم إيطاليا ومن مؤسسي الحركة الفاشية الإيطالية ورفيق هتلر. ما يُميز الكتاب أنه يطرح سيرة الكاتب الذاتية في المقدمة ويذكر فيها أدق التفاصيل عن حياته قبيل توليه الحكم وحتى إعدامه. وأما بخصوص الرواية نفسها، فهي رواية عادية جدًا ومتوقعة الأحداث ولكنها في الوقت نفسه مشوقة وتتحدث عن علاقة حُب غير مباحة في الديانة المسيحية، ولكن الكردينال "أمانيويل" أبى أن يهتم بتقاليد وأعراف الديانة وتمرد عليها علنًا. وهذا ما أدى إلى تسلسل أحداث مفجعة في حياته وحياة عشيقته "كلوديا." وأنك عند قراءة الرواية ستتوقع الأحداث بكل سهولة وربما قد تظن أن النهاية ستكون مختلفة ومميزة ولكنها ستصدمك! تُعلمنا الرواية أن الأنانية والتكبر والاعتداد بالنفس المفرط قد يؤدي بحياتك أو بحياة من هم حولك إلى التهلكة. الرواية قصيرة وبسيطة والترجمة جميلة أيضًا ويمكن الانتهاء منها في جلسة واحدة. ويمكنك تخطى المقدمة المطولة عن سيرة الكاتب ولكنها مفيدة لحصيلتك المعرفية العامة.

[Shahrazad]

قراتها ايام الجامعة
للاسف مش متوفرة نسخة الكترونية منها
مشان اقرا نهايتها لاني ما بتذكر
على ايش خلصت