Fano, 25 April 2024 – There is a page of the history of Italy which still moves feelings, passions and contrasting reactions: the capture and death of Benito Mussolini. A page of history full of mysteries, background, heroes and unexpected protagonists that the Raffaele Di Placido from Fano he decided to tell his literary debut after many years of TV in a book.
Is titled “The man who killed Mussolini”this first work, a story that between history and fiction, like in a detective story contemporary whose murderer is already known, narrates one of the most decisive episodes of the entire Italian twentieth century because from these events a new, free and anti-fascist Italy will be born.
Raffaele Di Placido is 47 years old and has a career already full of goals achieved. Marine biologist, director, author and television broadcaster, he has worked on numerous television programs including: And if Tomorrow, Italy of Trains, Italy of Ships, Niagara, Some Like Green. Since 2022 he has been a reporter for the broadcast A Special Day hosted by Aldo Cazzullo (who signed the preface of his book) on La7.
And it is here that the idea for this volume was born, which was released in bookstores yesterday and already purchased by numerous people from Fano: written like a novel, with a frenetic pace and an ability to always keep the reader on edge. “We are shooting the third edition of the program of historical disclosure with Aldo Cazzullo broadcast on La 7 – reveals Di Placido, reached by phone, returning to Fano for April 25th -. In one episode we also talked about last days of the Duceof Mussolini’s escape from Milan and of his own capture in Dongo on Lake Como. A story that really struck and fascinated me, because I didn’t know many aspects of it. Absurd and daring aspects of fine, anything but glorious, of the Duce. To think that a man like that… finds himself forced, convinced by his bodyguard, to disguise yourself as a German soldier And hide in a truck hoping that the partisans don’t find him. Among other things, with a uniform larger than his physique.”
After the episode was broadcast “Mondadori Piemme contacted me – continues Di Placido – proposing to recount these events from the partisan’s point of view which, according to the most accepted story, he shot Mussolini”. And so the book recounts the last days of the Duce, the dictator who was about to lose everything, and the days of the limelight of the partisan who killed him, Walter Audisio, battle name Valerio, the one who was about to enter history through the front door.
Raffaele Di Placido takes the reader by the hand and takes him to the places of Benito Mussolini’s capture, following the excited phases of the arrest and execution, up to Piazzale Loreto, in Milan and to the places where Audisio moves until the meeting with the bitter enemy.
