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
Roman dictator there was already a dictator in the field. Like the dictator, the magister equitum was a curule magistrate, entitled to the "toga praetexta" and the "sella curulis". His "imperium" was equivalent to that of a praetor (in the later use of the term), in that he was accompanied by six lictors, half the number accorded to the consuls. But like the dictator, he could summon the Senate, and probably also the popular assemblies. His authority was not subject to recall, although if the dictator were compelled to resign due to a fault in the auspices, the magister equitum was also