The application, called iMussolini, is available on Apple’s online store for 79 euro cents ($1.1). It has been downloaded more than a video game based on the blockbuster film Avatar, according to Apple Inc.’s Italian iTunes store. A wallpaper application is the most downloaded item. The Mussolini application makes 100 of the so-called Duce’s speeches available on the iPhone. Mussolini ruled Italy from 1922 until his death in 1945 at the end of World War II. His granddaughter, Alessandra Mussolini, is a politician and ally of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government.
“It’s a delicate page in our history that should never be forgotten,” Luigi Marino, the 25-year-old creator of the application, told Bloomberg News in an e-mail. “I’m stunned by the success of the application. I’ve had complaints, but also lots of positive feedback asking me to keep updating.”
Marino, a native of Naples, gets to keep 70 percent of the proceeds from the application, which has jumped to about 1,000 downloads a day from 55 on Jan. 21, when it first went online.
A Milan-based spokeswoman for Apple declined to comment.
