Marie José of Belgium Claretta Petacci, claimed in her diary that in 1937 the then princess and wife of the heir to the throne tried and failed to seduce the dictator at a beach resort near Rome. However, Mussolini's son, Romano, claims that the princess and dictator entered into a sexual relationship. In 1943, the Crown Princess involved herself in vain attempts to arrange a separate peace treaty between Italy and the United States; her interlocutor from the Vatican was Monsignor Giovanni Battista Montini, a senior diplomat who later became Pope Paul VI. Her attempts were not sponsored by the king and Umberto was
The Mistress of the Copper Mountain (fairy tale) Book of Masters", a 2009 Russian language fantasy film, is loosely based on Bazhov's tales, mostly "The Mistress of the Copper Mountain" and "The Stone Flower". The 2012 opera "The Malachite Casket", based on "The Mistress of the Copper Mountain" and "The Malachite Casket", was created by Dmitry Batin. The Mistress of the Copper Mountain (fairy tale) "The Mistress of the Copper Mountain" (), also known as "The Queen of the Copper Mountain" or "The Mistress of the Copper Mine", is a folk tale (the so-called "skaz") of the Ural region of Russia collected and reworked by Pavel Bazhov. It