[1] It is unclear whether Ida Dalser first met young Benito Mussolini in Trento, where he had found his first job as a journalist in 1909, or in Milan, where he had moved soon afterwards.

Though Fascist agents sought to erase all traces of the relationship, an edict from the city of Milan ordering Mussolini to make maintenance payments to "his wife Ida Dalser" and their child was overlooked.

She said that during his years in Milan, he had accepted a bribe from the French government, in exchange for political campaigning in support of the involvement of neutral Italy in the war on the side of France.

Nevertheless, he persisted in stating that Benito Mussolini was his father and eventually, he was forcibly interned in an asylum in Mombello, Province of Milan, where he died on 26 August 1942 after he was repeatedly given coma-inducing injections, at the age of 26.

In 2005, it was resurrected by the Italian journalist Marco Zeni and it was made public in a documentary which was broadcast on RAI state television as well as in two books (L'ultimo filò and La moglie di Mussolini).