Abstract

The essay deals with the institutional events that follow the crucial session of the Fascist Grand Council on the night of the 25 of July 1943: Victor Emmanuel's actions after the dismissal of Mussolini, indeed, look far from those of a so-called "constitutional king" and present interesting contradictions with the legislation then in force - introduced by Mussolini and approved by the King himself in the previous twenty years. Moreover, the almost simultaneous installation of the new government headed by Badoglio opens up a series of questions which undoubtedly deserve the historians' attention. In the institutional vacuum after the formal end of the regime - with a legislature abruptly ended, a Parliament on hold, some Fascist organs abolished and a difficult coexistence with the Allies in the South - Victor Emmanuel III tries to regain control of the royal prerogatives apparently lost during the dictatorship and thus determines the fate of his House.