Una parentesi di ‘dittatura monarchica’? La formazione del primo Governo Badoglio

The essay deals with the institutional events that follow the crucial session of the Fascist Grand Council on the night of the 25 of July 1943: Victor Emmanuel’s actions after the dismissal of Mussolini, indeed, look far from those of a so-called “constitutional king” and present interesting contradictions with the legislation then in force – introduced by Mussolini and approved by the King himself in the previous twenty years. Moreover, the almost simultaneous installation of the new government headed by Badoglio opens up a series of questions which undoubtedly deserve the historians’ attention. In the institutional vacuum after the formal end of the regime – with a legislature abruptly ended, a Parliament on hold, some Fascist organs abolished and a difficult coexistence with the Allies in the South – Victor Emmanuel III tries to regain control of the royal prerogatives apparently lost during the dictatorship and thus determines the fate of his House.