Violet Gibson’s pistol shot that grazed Mussolini’s nose

A matter of very few millimetres, and thehistoryhe would have taken another address. For some it was the sign of Providence that had extended its hand of salvation to the fate of Italy, for others it was a disaster. The7 April 1926a hitherto anonymous womanAnglo-Irishwith white hair who looked over 50 in the registry office was pulling out a woman from a black veilpistoland opened fire onBenito Mussoliniwho proceeded among the Roman crowd in an open car that took him back to the Capitoline Hill. As luck would have it, at the precise moment in whichViolet Albina Gibsonpulled the trigger and the song “Giovinezza” was sung by the students: theprime ministerhe turned towards the side from which the melody came and that sudden movement meant that the bullet, instead of hitting him in the face, barely grazed hisnaso.

It all happens in seconds. ThereGibsonis disarmed (in any case the gun jammed) and saved from the wrath of the crowd, andMussolinibrought to safety. Shortly afterwards, the man who had just given a speech on medical progress at the opening of the international surgery conference will have a large plaster placed on his nose and a photo will be released which will testify to his good health on the eve of his scheduled departure for Libya. He will talk aboutmiracleand will return to this theme during the troubled1926.

Excellent family and signs of imbalance

L’Mussolini’s attackershe is a woman from an excellent familyAnglo-Irish(his father Edward, baron, is Lord Chancellor of Ireland) and by a life marked by several shadows which suggest seriouspsychiatric disorders. In 1902, at the age of 26, she converted toCatholicismwith family scandal and environment of origin: she made her debut in society at the court ofQueen Victoria. During thegreat warshe retired to a Jesuit convent. Then she returned to Switzerland, where she joined thepacifist movementsand for this reason it is listed byScotland Yard.

In London she goes to live in a classy neighborhood for seven years, but suddenly tries to stab her maid in the street and then a patient admitted to hospital and is diagnosed withhomicidal mania. After six months he moved to1924 in Romealternating hospitalizations inhospitals and nursing homesand stays in a nunnery in via delle Isolette, and spends his days playing and praying, until in1925tries to take his own life by shooting himself, declaring that he wants to die for the glory of God.

In Chieti for the Matteotti trial

For a week, as will later be reconstructed by the investigators of theItalian policeand supported by the testimonies of some judicial reporters, between 16 and 24 March1926 è a Chietito attend the hearings oftrial of the murderers of Giacomo Matteotti. Several times she asks for the help of journalists to have the passages translated into Italian that escape her. In some letters she had put on paper that she was emotionally shocked by themurder of the socialist deputy. With the return toRomathe plan must have matured in herkill Mussoliniand she had to do it before her relatives in London could get her repatriated. That he instead had a precisepolitical planas will be said, everything remains to be demonstrated.

The international conspiracy and the diagnosis of paranoia

Ma quel April 7fate decides differently from his plans, and also from those of thePolicewhich also investigates thepolitical motive(a lead not overlooked by Commissioner Epifanio Pennetta who is dealing with the thorny case) of which she would be the executive terminal. In the confession of 16 June he names the former Postal Minister of the Mussolini government, Giovanni Antonio Colonna di Cesarò, as his accomplice, but he later recants. They subject it topsychiatric assessmentand the specialists Sante De Sanctis and Augusto Giannelli conclude that she is suffering from “chronic paranoia with hallucinations”, as they also insisted during the trial before the newly established courtSpecial Court for the defense of the Statethe lawyers appointed by the family and chosen from authentic principles of the bar.

Il 12 maggio 1927the judges, not insensitive to pressure from above and on the basis of expertise, declaredViolet Gibson innocentefrom the cause of his deathmental infirmityordering their expulsion from Italian territory. Even if they had any residual doubts, she herself had thought of clearing out the camp by attacking a warder in prison with blows with a chamber pot. It has become a problem in every sense and alregimeit doesn’t seem true that we can get rid of it in the1927returning it to the family who requests its repatriation, as a gesture of magnanimity and respect towards theUnited Kingdomwith whom at that stage the relations are very good. Very probably the counterpart is that he will never leave thepsychiatric hospital. La Italian presshe continually defines her as crazy and deranged. Accompanied by her sister, assisted by nurses and under police escort,Violet Gibsonis made to rise toRomaon a train with a one-way ticket toLondon.

The letters never sent and the license plate in Dublin

For her the doors ofSt. Andrew’s Mental Hospital, Northampton. He will spend the rest of his life there writing long letters addressed to ministers and members of theroyal family (tra cui Winston Churchill e la Princess Elizabethfuture queen) where he illustrates science fiction projectssocial justiceand well-being of the population, proclaims herself to be sane and claims to have wantedkill Mussolinito prevent it from becoming atyrant. Not a single one of those letters was sent and they resurfaced from the St. Andrew Hospital archive long after his death on2 maggio 1956eleven years after that of Mussolini who he wanted to kill in1926. Il Dublin City Councilunanimously will long after approve a motion by independent councilor Mannix Flynn to dedicate one to hertargain which it is defined as “convinced anti-fascist”, in the belief that thepolitical motivewas the authentic one and that making her consider her crazy was convenient for everyone but not true. The plaque was officially displayed inOctober 2022at number 12 Merrion Square, inIrish capital.

The attacks and the authoritarian turn

Nel 1926occurred in total wellthree attacks against Mussoliniwhich with that foiled of theNovember 4, 1925 di Tito Zanibonibring the attempts to eliminate the to fourleader of fascism. L’September 11th l’individualist anarchistoriginally from Carrara,Gino Lucettithrew a bomb at the Lancia Lambda of the head of government near Porta Pia, without succeeding in killing him but injuring eight passers-by. TheOctober 31stthe third attempt of the year also failed in Bologna, which saw the angry crowd lynch the sixteen-year-oldAnteo Zambonistabbed to death byblack shirtsbecause he was held responsible for that gesture. Thefascismtook advantage of this to accelerate the establishment of thetotalitarian regimewith a burst ofexceptional measures: dissolution of parties and associations deemed adverse, establishment ofpolice confinementsuppression of opposition press organs, reintroduction ofdeath penaltyfor certain crimes, disqualification from office of parliamentarians who had abandoned the chamber in protest and retreated to the Aventine. And the establishment ofSpecial courtwhich he acquitsViolet Gibsonas everyone wanted and sentenced to thirty years of imprisonmentGino Lucettiinaugurating a series of processes in which the law will be bent to the needs of the regime. WithMussolinibecomeDuceuntil the most nefarious epilogue.