With the pen of the great journalist, Mauro reenacts the last days of state fascism, recounting a country poised between a declining regime and a future that has yet to take shape.
 

On July 25, 1943, Mussolini was arrested. In the night, the Grand Council of Fascism was held and challenged the Duce, who is now in a barracks, guarded by carabinieri, overwhelmed by a sudden reversal of fate. 

Italy meanwhile is oblivious. It is an epilogue without witnesses, no one knows what is happening. The country has awakened to the sound of the usual war bulletin: it is clear, despite the top leadership trying to hide the truth, that the situation is desperate. On the military front, with the numerous setbacks, and at home, amid the incessant bombings and the now chronic lack of basic necessities. The population is demoralized, shaken by grief, destruction, and hunger. For some time the Duce's health has also been failing, afflicted by severe abdominal pains, probably of a nervous nature, which have forced him to absent himself frequently from his duties, adding another layer of uncertainty. These are dark months, in which the world appears out of control, "the system now cannot hold, the speed of events shakes it, overtakes it and lays it bare, revealing its real face under the titanic and magniloquent mask." Next came the armistice signed by Badoglio, the republic of Salò, and the partisan war. But at that moment Italians still do not know where the unstoppable current of History will drag them. With the pen of the great journalist, Ezio Mauro reenacts the last days of state fascism, recounting a country poised between a declining regime and a future that has yet to take shape.