Italian magazine defies palace to publish topless photos of Kate Middleton "What appears on the cover of Chi firstly is a beautiful young girl who is similar to millions of girls around the world who suntan topless," Signorini says in an editorial. Those who are shouting about the scandal today are attached to the idea of a monarchy made up of perfect men and women, who are not human, the product of an imagination that has no connection to reality. Signorini also argues that his magazine's defiance in the face of legal threats is a bid to modernize the monarchy. "No other situation has revived the English monarchy, with its obligations and rigid protocols, more than this," he said. Seeing a future sovereign immortalized in a series of pictures that are neither perverse nor harmful to her dignity, makes her more likable, less anachronistic or distant from us. Many Italians were rushing to their newstands to buy copies of the magazine which normally sells around 350,000 copies. One newspaper seller in central Rome said three customers were waiting for him at 5.45 am so they could buy a copy and business was brisk throughout the morning. One woman who bought the magazine scoffed: "This is not a scandal, for the British maybe. For us no. An elderly woman who left with her morning newspaper was unimpressed. People have become objects, and objects have become something to sell. Chi magazine is published by the Mondadori group which also owns the French magazine Closer which is now facing a possible legal injunction for publishing the photos of the Duchess last week. Mondadori is owned by former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Chi is run by his eldest daughter from his first marriage, Marina. She defended the magazine's right to publish the photos on Monday after the left-leaning daily La Repubblica claimed it was a bid by an embittered Mr Berlusconi to undermine the British royal family. "Mondadori is focused on doing its job, my father is busy with politics and has other things to think about than a photo shoot," Marina Berlusconi said in a letter to the newspaper. Mondadori, of which I am president, is a publisher that is committed in the best way to freedom and autonomy and our shareholders have always recognized that. On this occasion it focused on doing its job. I am not going to comment on the merits of the photos of the duchess.