Her funeral is due to take place on Tuesday in Acquapendente, near Viterbo, where she lived for the last two decades, according to Italian media.

Born on October 19, 1922, Curti was Mussolini’s last surviving natural child.

However, she was never recognised officially by ll Duce as his daughter; she was born from an affair between Mussolini and Milan seamstress Angela Cucciati, the wife of a jailed fascist militia squad leader, Bruno Curti.

They met when 21-year-old Cucciati asked Mussolini to request the release of her husband from prison.

Mussolini agreed but not before the pair became lovers and Cucciati became pregnant.

At the time of the affair in 1921, Mussolini was the 38-year-old editor of the newspaper Il Popolo d’Italia; however, by Curti’s birth he had been appointed prime minister by King Victor Emmanuel III, ushering in Italy’s fascist regime.

Cucciati – who died in 1978 – did not reveal the truth to her daughter until she was 20 years old, reports Corriere della Sera.

Curti first saw Mussolini as a child, in 1929, at an inauguration ceremony in Milan, reports news agency Adnkronos.

“Mussolini passed between two sections of a cheering crowd,” she recalled in an interview.

“He stopped abruptly, looked at my mother for a moment, then bowed his head towards me, smiled and stroked my hair.

“I had the feeling of being chosen.”

The first official meeting between Mussolini and Curti took place on April 13, 1941, at his offices in Palazzo Venezia.

She said he gave her books for her studies, often with banknotes slipped inside.

When Mussolini retreated to Salò at Lake Garda in 1943, Curti followed him and was employed as a secretary in one of the Nazi puppet state’s ministries headed by fascist minister, Alessandro Pavolini.

Mussolini’s longtime mistress, Claretta Petacci, thought the blonde girl was another of her lover’s many flings and vainly asked him to send her away.

When Mussolini was arrested in Dongo on April 27, 1945, Curti was among the entourage fleeing towards the Swiss border.

She was the “blonde girl” found in the armoured vehicle with Il Duce, according to news agency ANSA, with Petacci travelling in another car.

The next day, Mussolini and Petacci were both summarily shot, along with most of the members of their 15-man train, primarily ministers and officials of the Italian Social Republic. 

After being kicked and spat upon, the bodies were hung upside down from a roof in Milan.

Arrested by the partisans, Curti was transferred to Como and remained in prison for five months, reports Adnkronos, before emigrating to Spain to build a new life.

After resuming her studies in post-war Rome, Curti married Colonel Enrico Miranda, a pilot decorated by Mussolini for his role in the Battle of Pantelleria.

The couple moved to Barcelona and lived there for more than 40 years.

In 2000 Curti returned to Italy, settling in the hometown of her husband, who died in 2008, giving numerous interviews recounting her past and the dramatic events of Dongo.