In September 1943, Susanna Agnelli paid a visit to Count Galeazzo Ciano, son-in-law of Mussolini and a former foreign minister in Il Duce's regime. At the time, Ciano was living under virtual house arrest in his apartment in fashionable Parioli in Rome.
Susanna Agnelli, of course, was not just anybody. Then 18, as the granddaughter of the man who founded Fiat, she lived and moved in a privileged world. When she had first met the foreign minister, at the time one of the most powerful figures in the Fascist regime, she had been distinctly unimpressed by his appearance.
At the September 1943 meeting, however, Count Ciano was a worried man. Two months earlier, he had voted against his father-in-law at the celebrated Gran Consiglio meeting which saw Mussolini ousted from power.
As Italy stood on the verge of changing sides in the war, deserting Nazi Germany and throwing its lot in with the Allies, Ciano could sense that time was running out.
"Tell me," he asked Susanna, "you who always tells the truth, do you think they will kill me?" "I think so, Galeazzo," she replied.
"And who do you think will kill me, the Germans or the Allies?" he asked again. "I'm afraid it could be one or the other," she replied.
In fact, it was neither. Four months later Ciano was shot in the back in Verona after a farcical trial on the orders of his father-in-law.
The story is told by Susanna Agnelli in a book of early memoirs called Vestivamo Alla Marinara (We Dressed Like Sailors). It is just one of a number of fascinating vignettes that emerge from a book of memories whose narrative course stops in 1946 but whose author went on to become not only a well-known gossip magazine columnist but also foreign minister in the technocrat government led by Lamberto Dini between January 1995 and May 1996.
Vestivamo Alla Marinara is not easily found these days. Your correspondent came across it, gathering dust and seemingly not much wanted in a secondhand book-stall in a small Rome market. The book captures the confusion, chaos and uncertainty of the July-September 1943 period, when Italy "changed sides", moving de facto into a grisly two-year period of civil war.
Susanna Agnelli recalls watching carabinieri climb over the wall of their barracks close to her Rome residence. As soon as they were out over the wall, they began undressing, throwing away their uniforms and appealing to residents in nearby houses for civilian clothing. The carabinieri, of course, were frightened that they would be shot by Nazi soldiers because of Italy's "betrayal".
In the summer of 1943, all manner of friends, soldiers, diplomats and others found their way into the temporary Agnelli residence on the Gianicolo hill above Rome. One of the unexpected "house guests" was a certain Gen Carboni. He arrived in a great state of agitation on September 8th and immediately ordered another house guest to go looking for Marshal Badoglio, the man appointed head of government by King Vittorio Emanuele after the ousting of Mussolini.
The emissary discovered that Marshal Badoglio (and the King and Queen), believing Rome to be surrounded and themselves in danger, had made a headlong dash to Pescara on the Adriatic. On catching up with Badoglio and seeking instructions for the general, he was told: "Tell him to do the best he can, to sort himself out as best he can."
Vestivamo Alla Marinara may not be a literary classic but, for those of us interested in modern Italy, it provides an intriguing, idiosyncratic first-hand account of one of the most dramatic Italian moments in the last century. I shall be looking through second-hand book stalls all the more carefully in future.