Eighty years ago this year, on 29 April 1945, the body of Benito Mussolini was hung upside down in Piazzale Loreto, Milan. Having been shot dead the day before by Italian partisans near Lake Como, he would not have been alert to his surroundings. But had he been, he would have heard the bells of the Chiesa del Santissimo Redentore in Milan, the Church of the Most Holy Redeemer, ringing out just a few hundred metres from the square, calling the residents of the city to Holy Mass.
Given the option, whether Mussolini would have attended church that day is difficult to know for certain. The Nazi controlled north of Italy had fallen, with the Allied controlled south victorious. Perhaps the former dictator would have finally felt inclined to repent for a rule that plunged Italy into civil war, or perhaps to offer prayers of thanksgiving that he was still alive to tell the tale despite being on the losing side. In any case, no such option was afforded to him. He did not receive a Church funeral, instead being buried in an unmarked grave in Milan’s Musocco cemetery.
