The last living son of World War II dictator Benito Mussolini died today aged 78.
Romano Mussolini, a jazz musician and painter, had been hospitalised more than two weeks ago for kidney and gall bladder problems and died today, according to the website of his daughter's political party.
The daughter, Alessandra Mussolini, leads a small right-wing political movement.
Romano Mussolini, one of the dictator's three sons and two daughters, was 17 when he last saw his father in April 1945, 11 days before the dictator was killed.
Jazz music was censored in Italy during the fascist regime, but the ban didn't reach the sheltered lives of Benito Mussolini's family. Romano developed a love for jazz and became one of Italy's early connoisseurs, writing reviews in magazines and teaching himself to play the piano.
After the war, Romano Mussolini shied away from his father's tainted legacy and earned a living playing under assumed names with a band in the Naples area. In the 1960s, he became one of Italy's foremost jazz musicians, using his own name in the "Romano Mussolini All Stars" band.
His 1963 Jazz Allo Studio 7record was acclaimed by critics and international tours brought him in contact with Chet Baker, Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton.
He was "a personality that has contributed, in far away and difficult years, to spread and popularise in Italy the extraordinary artistic strength of jazz," Rome mayor Walter Veltroni said.
Mussolini refrained from discussing his father's legacy until 2004, when he published a book titled My Father Il Duce, depicting him as a caring father who loved music and cried at the wedding of his first-born daughter.
AP