Costanzo Ciano

Costanzo Ciano is presented as a wartime naval hero who has become a wealthy shipping executive and a consequential intermediary in the political crisis of October 1922. Moving between Rome and Milan, he carries news of negotiations to Benito Mussolini and helps explore a government under Antonio Salandra even as Fascist forces prepare to march on the capital. Later, amid the crisis following Giacomo Matteotti’s killing, Ciano again counsels Mussolini: do not abandon the political vessel in a storm.

Naval Hero and Political Broker

The book introduces Ciano through a striking contrast between his past and present. He is the hero of Buccari and a torpedo-boat raider, but now also a man accumulating wealth by running Giovanni Agnelli’s shipping company. His wartime reputation and commercial position place him at the intersection of military prestige, business influence, and political negotiation. The evidence does not dwell on his earlier life; instead, it brings him into focus through the practical work he performs during the struggle over who will govern Italy.

That work makes him a courier and participant, not simply a spectator. On October 27, 1922, he arrives in Milan on the first morning train after exhausting travel between the capital and the northern city. At Benito Mussolini’s office on Via Lovanio, he sinks into an armchair and reports on the talks he has held with Salandra, his visit to Giovanni Giolitti on behalf of Vittorio Emanuele Orlando, rumors of an imminent government crisis, and the expected return of Vittorio Emanuele III to Rome. He also brings a letter from Luigi Facta, who is still asking Mussolini to come to Rome and negotiate in person. Ciano’s journey condenses the political uncertainty into a series of messages delivered directly to the man whose decision has become indispensable.

Negotiations and the March on Rome

Ciano’s role in these negotiations is double-edged. The narrative identifies him, alongside Cesare Maria De Vecchi and Dino Grandi, as a member of a small Fascist conspiracy still working to prevent the March on Rome. He is therefore not simply carrying Mussolini’s instructions: he belongs to a group trying to shape or redirect the movement’s course. Yet Mussolini lets him speak and listens to the maneuvering. The attempts to avert the march, and the warnings about a possible bloodbath, help make the threat seem more substantial. The march, initially shapeless, acquires force in the political imagination as those seeking to restrain it discuss what it might become.

Ciano’s negotiations also help make a Salandra ministry appear available. Benito Mussolini had already told him that the Fascists were ready to reach an agreement with Salandra in exchange for five ministerial portfolios. During a telephone conversation between Salandra and Mussolini, the former insists that Mussolini must come to Rome because no one else can resolve the crisis. Mussolini winks at Ciano, who is sitting across the desk, and says that Ciano is in the office and that this is precisely why he wanted to hear from Salandra. Salandra then refers him to Ciano for an account of what had been done the previous day. The exchange shows Ciano functioning as a link between rival political centers, while Mussolini uses his presence to signal that he already has access to the relevant negotiations.

The possibility of a Salandra government remains alive through the day’s maneuvering. After an emotional embrace with Ciano, Mussolini spends the afternoon in Milan while political figures continue to urge him to travel to Rome. Later, Ciano joins De Vecchi and Grandi in one last telephone attempt to secure a Salandra government. Mussolini rejects it, arguing that mobilizing the Fascist army and risking deaths would be pointless if the result were Salandra’s return. Ciano’s effort thus belongs to the final stage of a political alternative that Mussolini refuses, rather than to the government ultimately formed.

Counsel in a Later Crisis

Ciano reappears in a different political emergency in late July 1924, when Mussolini is under pressure after Matteotti’s killing. Wiretaps record Margherita Sarfatti urging Mussolini not to leave the table after a losing hand. Ciano offers a parallel argument drawn from his experience at sea: from his first time aboard a vessel, he says, he had been taught not to get off when the sea was stormy. The nautical comparison recasts staying in office as a test of endurance. Where Sarfatti’s image is a gambler persisting through a bad hand, Ciano’s is a sailor remaining aboard in rough weather.

Mussolini does not resign, and no one forces him to leave office. The king has reconfirmed his confidence, opposition attacks remain largely journalistic, and the judicial investigation, manipulated from above, does not reach Mussolini personally. Ciano’s advice forms one part of the support surrounding the prime minister at this moment; the narrative does not present it as the sole cause of Mussolini’s decision. Its significance lies in the counsel’s fit with Ciano’s public identity as a naval raider: he turns a lesson associated with the sea into a political injunction to endure.

Narrative Function

Across these episodes, Ciano’s importance comes from his position between institutions and personalities. In 1922 he carries reports, participates in conversations, and helps negotiate a route toward a Salandra ministry, even as his own circle seeks to avert the march. His presence in Mussolini’s office becomes part of the negotiation itself: a look exchanged across the desk can communicate that information has already passed through trusted channels. Two years later, the same maritime identity supplies a compact metaphor for political survival.

The contrast between these appearances is revealing without making Ciano the crisis’s central decision-maker. In the struggle over the march, he is one member of a group trying to prevent an outcome Mussolini eventually embraces; in the Matteotti crisis, he encourages Mussolini to hold on to power. The connective thread is not a fully narrated change of conviction, but his proximity to the moment’s decisive choices and his ability to offer practical counsel. Ciano’s scenes show how personal access, political brokerage, and the prestige of wartime service operated alongside formal negotiations as Mussolini’s authority expanded and then faced a grave challenge.