Margherita Sarfatti (née Grassini; 8 April 1880 – 30 October 1961) was an Italian journalist,
art critic
An art critic is a person who is specialized in analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating art. Their written critiques or reviews contribute to art criticism and they are published in newspapers, magazines, books, exhibition brochures, and catalogu ...
, patron, collector, socialite, and prominent propaganda adviser of the
National Fascist Party
The National Fascist Party ( it, Partito Nazionale Fascista, PNF) was a political party in Italy, created by Benito Mussolini as the political expression of Italian Fascism and as a reorganization of the previous Italian Fasces of Combat. The ...
. She was
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (; 29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who founded and led the National Fascist Party. He was Prime Minister of Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 until his deposition in ...
's biographer as well as one of his
mistress
Mistress is the feminine form of the English word "master" (''master'' + ''-ess'') and may refer to:
Romance and relationships
* Mistress (lover), a term for a woman who is in a sexual and romantic relationship with a man who is married to a d ...
es.
Biography
Sarfatti was born in
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
, the daughter of Amedeo Grassini and Emma Levi (whose cousin
Giuseppe Levi
Giuseppe Levi (14 October 1872 – 3 February 1965) was an Italian anatomist and histologist, professor of human anatomy (since 1916) at the universities of Sassari, Palermo and Turin. He was born on 14 October 1872 in Trieste to Jewish parents, ...
was the father of
Natalia Ginzburg
Natalia Ginzburg (, ; ; 14 July 1916 – 7 October 1991) was an Italian author whose work explored family relationships, politics during and after the Fascist years and World War II, and philosophy. She wrote novels, short stories and essays, f ...
). Amedeo was a wealthy
Jew
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""T ...
ish
lawyer
A lawyer is a person who practices law. The role of a lawyer varies greatly across different legal jurisdictions. A lawyer can be classified as an advocate, attorney, barrister, canon lawyer, civil law notary, counsel, counselor, solicit ...
and businessman. He was a fiscal attorney for the Venetian government and a close friend of Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto, later
Pope Pius X
Pope Pius X ( it, Pio X; born Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto; 2 June 1835 – 20 August 1914) was head of the Catholic Church from 4 August 1903 to his death in August 1914. Pius X is known for vigorously opposing modernist interpretations of ...
. He would later be made a Knight of the
Order of the Crown of Italy
The Order of the Crown of Italy ( it, Ordine della Corona d'Italia, italic=no or OCI) was founded as a national order in 1868 by King Vittorio Emanuele II, to commemorate the unification of Italy in 1861. It was awarded in five degrees for civi ...
.
Sarfatti grew up in a ''
palazzo
A palace is a grand residence, especially a royal residence, or the home of a head of state or some other high-ranking dignitary, such as a bishop or archbishop. The word is derived from the Latin name palātium, for Palatine Hill in Rome which ...
'' situated at the
Canal Grande
The Grand Canal ( it, Canal Grande ; vec, Canal Grando, anciently ''Canałasso'' ) is a channel in Venice, Italy. It forms one of the major water-traffic corridors in the city.
One end of the canal leads into the lagoon near the Santa Luc ...
in Venice and was educated by private tutors. However, she was soon attracted by
socialist
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ...
ideas and escaped her parents' home at age 18 to marry Cesare Sarfatti, a Jewish lawyer from
Padua
Padua ( ; it, Padova ; vec, Pàdova) is a city and ''comune'' in Veneto, northern Italy. Padua is on the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice. It is the capital of the province of Padua. It is also the economic and communications hub of the ...
. He was 13 years her senior, but shared her socialist beliefs.
In 1902, the couple moved to
Milan
Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city ...
.
There, they became prominent in the city's artistic life, hosting weekly
Salon
Salon may refer to:
Common meanings
* Beauty salon, a venue for cosmetic treatments
* French term for a drawing room, an architectural space in a home
* Salon (gathering), a meeting for learning or enjoyment
Arts and entertainment
* Salon ( ...
s that became the centre of the Futurist and
Novecento Italiano
Novecento Italiano () was an Italian artistic movement founded in Milan in 1922 to create an art based on the rhetoric of the fascism of Mussolini.
History
Novecento Italiano was founded by Anselmo Bucci (1887–1955), Leonardo Dudreville (1885 ...
artistic movements. The Salons took place at the number 93 of
Corso Venezia
Corso Venezia is a street in Milan, Italy. It is one of the city's most exclusive and elegant avenues, being part of the city's upscale '' Quadrilatero della moda'' shopping district, along with Via Montenapoleone, Via della Spiga, Via Sant'Andr ...
. Present at these gatherings were Mussolini,
Massimo Bontempelli
Massimo Bontempelli (12 May 1878 – 21 July 1960) was an Italian poet, playwright, novelist and composer. He was influential in developing and promoting the literary style known as magical realism.
Life
Massimo Bontempelli was born in Como ...
,
Ada Negri
Ada Negri (3 February 187011 January 1945) was an Italian poet and writer. She was the only woman to be admitted to the Academy of Italy.
Biography
Ada Negri was born in Lodi, Italy, into a humble family: her father was Giuseppe Negri, a co ...
, and a couple of sculptors
Medardo Rosso
Medardo Rosso (; 21 June 1858 – 31 March 1928) was an Italian sculptor. He is considered, like his contemporary and admirer Auguste Rodin, to be an artist working in a post-Impressionist style.
Biography and works
Rosso was born in Turin, whe ...
and
Arturo Martini
Arturo Martini (1889–1947) was a leading Italian sculptor between World War I and II. He moved between a very vigorous (almost ancient Roman) classicism and modernism. He was associated with public sculpture in fascist Italy, but later renou ...
. Margherita Sarfatti and her husband had several children. Their eldest son, Robert, enlisted in the Italian army during World War I, and was killed in action on
Monte Baldo
Monte Baldo (german: Waldberg) is a mountain range in the Italian Alps, located in the provinces of Trento and Verona. Its ridge spans mainly northeast-southwest, and is bounded from south by the highland ending at Caprino Veronese, from west ...
in January 1918, aged 18.
Personal friend and private collector of the right-wing
avanguardist Umberto Boccioni, in 1911 Sarfatti met Benito Mussolini (three years her junior) and started a relationship with him. During this time she was working as an art critic at the newspaper ''Avanti!''
After losing her husband in 1924, she wrote a biography of Mussolini. This was first published in 1925 in Britain under the 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.
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 racial legislation, the fascist government's politics were not
anti-semitic
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
, and the party's membership rolls were open to Jews.
In 1922, the group Novecento was enlarged to
Anselmo Bucci
Anselmo Bucci (25 May 1887 – 19 November 1955) was an Italian painter and printmaker.
Biography
Bucci was born in Fossombrone. Having attended the Brera Academy in Milan from 1904 to 1905, he moved to Paris with Leonardo Dudreville in 1906. ...
,
Leonardo Dudreville
Leonardo Dudreville (4 April 1885 – 13 January 1975) was a Venetian-born Italian painter. He was one of the founders of the ''Nuove tendenze'' as well as of '' Novecento'' Italian art movements.
Biography
His family of Belgian origin moved to M ...
,
Achille Funi
Achille Funi (26 February 1890 – 26 July 1972) was an Italian painter who painted in a neoclassical style.
Biography
Funi was born in Ferrara. He studied at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts from 1906 to 1910 and joined the Nuove Tendenze movemen ...
,
Gian Emilio Malerba
Gian Emilio Malerba (1880–1926) was an Italian painter and illustrator, one of the founders of the Novecento Italiano in Milan. He initially created works in a ''Liberty'' or Art Nouveau style.
Biography
Malerba was born in Milan and studied ...
,
Pietro Marussig,
Ubaldo Oppi
Ubaldo Oppi (25 July 1889 – 1942) was an Italian painter, one of the founders of the Novecento Italiano in Milan. He painted in a neo-quattrocento realist style.
Biography
He was born in Bologna, but by the age of 4 years, his father, a shoe ...
, and
Mario Sironi
Mario Sironi (May 12, 1885 – August 13, 1961) was an Italian modernist artist who was active as a painter, sculptor, illustrator, and designer. His typically somber paintings are characterized by massive, immobile forms.
Biography
He was bor ...
. Probably in reaction to the changing circumstances in Italy, Sarfatti left Italy in 1938 for
Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest ...
and
Uruguay
Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...
; she worked as a journalist for the newspaper ''El Diario'' of
Montevideo
Montevideo () is the capital and largest city of Uruguay. According to the 2011 census, the city proper has a population of 1,319,108 (about one-third of the country's total population) in an area of . Montevideo is situated on the southern co ...
. After the war, in 1947, Sarfatti returned to her home country and once again became an influential force in
Italian art.
She had contacts and personal knowledge of more exponents of the Italian Freemasonry., which Mussolini affirmed to badly tolerate.
In popular culture
Actress
Susan Sarandon
Susan Abigail Sarandon (; née Tomalin; born October 4, 1946) is an American actorMcCabe, Bruce"Susan Sarandon, the 'actor'" ''Boston Globe''. April 17, 1981. Retrieved January 21, 2021. and activist. She is the recipient of various accolades, ...
portrayed Sarfatti in the
1999
File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shoot ...
movie ''
Cradle Will Rock'', written and directed by Sarandon's then longtime companion,
Tim Robbins
Timothy Francis Robbins (born October 16, 1958) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is known for portraying Andy Dufresne in the film '' The Shawshank Redemption ''(1994), and has won an Academy Award and two Golden Globe Awards for his rol ...
. 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 supported thus her own crisis, which eventually would make her flee Italy to Argentina and Uruguay for several years until it was safe for her to return. 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.
Bibliography
* Sarfatti, Margherita (2004)
925
Year 925 ( CMXXV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place
Byzantine Empire
* May 15 – Nicholas I Mystikos, twice the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constanti ...
''The Life of Benito Mussolini''.
* Sarfatti, Margherita. ''My Fault: Mussolini As I Knew Him,'' New York City: Enigma Books, 2014, (edited and annotated with commentary by Brian R. Sullivan)
References
Further reading
* Cannistraro, Philip, and Brian R. Sullivan (1993). ''Il Duce's Other Woman: The Untold Story of Margherita Sarfatti, Mussolini's Jewish Mistress''.
* Gutman, Daniel (2006). ''El amor judío de Mussolini''.
* Liffran, Françoise (2009). ''Margherita Sarfatti, L'égérie du duce'', Biography.
* Urso, Simona (2003). ''Margherita Sarfatti. Dal mito del Dux al mito americano''.
* Wieland, Karin (2004). ''Die Geliebte des Duce. Das Leben der Margherita Sarfatti und die Erfindung des Faschismus''.
External links
A caricatureby
David Levine
David Levine (December 20, 1926 – December 29, 2009) was an American artist and illustrator best known for his caricatures in ''The New York Review of Books''. Jules Feiffer has called him "the greatest caricaturist of the last half of th ...
*
''Mussolinis Femme-Fatale'', New York Review of Books, 15 July 1993
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sarfatti, Margherita
Italian art critics
Italian women art critics
Italian fascists
1880 births
1961 deaths
Mistresses of Benito Mussolini
Italian Sephardi Jews
Venetian Jews
1930s in Italy
20th-century Italian writers
20th-century Italian women writers
Jewish fascists
Italian Freemasons
20th-century Italian journalists
Italian salon-holders