Is Mussolini popular in Italy?

A friend of mine is a Italian living abroad. He moved out of Italy to make more money.

He showed me his room, and his picture of Mussolini hanging on his wall, and he told me how proud he was of his country. He example his nuanced view of fascism and Mussolini.

It threw me for a loop. My first impression is that it is like a German hanging up a picture of Hitler. We're in Canada, we've got a bad view of Mussolini

He was very quick to distance his views from Nazism and he denounced Mussolini for his actions during ww2.

What the deal with Mussolini in Italy?