ABSTRACT
This chapter examines Benito Mussolini's approach to politics as an ultimate example of the degrading process aesthetics underwent at the turn of the twentieth century, a most perniciously successful implementation of the aestheticization of politics. The chapter will first discuss the relationship between politics and aesthetics in modernity by focusing on the genealogy and consequences of what can be defined as the entanglement of the two value spheres. It will then focus on the case of Mussolini in fascist Italy and examine the several ways in which aesthetics affected both Mussolini's conception of politics and the way he exercised power. Fascism was one of the first movements to take advantage of aesthetics radical political impulse while also simplifying its moral reach. Also, if fascism was identical with Mussolini, as the Duce a leader claimed, the logical conclusion was that fascism after Mussolini did not have a future.
