In the 1970s the house of Gucci could do no wrong. The brand started by Guccio Gucci in Florence, Italy, in 1921 was going strong, helmed by Gucci’s sons Aldo, Rodolfo and Vasco.

But behind the scenes of the glamorous Italian luxury brand was a Shakespearean tale of greed, family feuds and revenge that, through the machinations of third-generation Guccis, ended with Aldo sent to prison for tax evasion, the company sold to outside investors and the murder of Rodolfo’s son, Maurizio.

To anyone who followed the sensational news, it was just another titillating cautionary tale of a dynasty’s rise and fall from grace, its supporting cast forgotten with the next National Enquirer headlines.

Patricia Gucci, daughter of Aldo Gucci, couldn’t let her father’s story end on such an ugly note. Through her new book, “In the Name of Gucci: A Memoir” (Crown Archetype, $28), released Tuesday, she tells a warm, personal and loving story that brings the larger-than-life characters and their foibles back to a human level, allowing readers to fully grasp the family tragedy behind the sensational headlines.

Unexpectedly, writing the story allowed Patricia Gucci’s mother, Bruna Palombo — Aldo Gucci’s longtime mistress — to open up to her in a way she never had before.

“It’s been a long journey that originally started as a tribute to my father,” said Gucci, 53, by phone from Kauai, where she was recently vacationing. “During the process, I had a revelation about my mother and all these individuals who gave a whole different energy to the book. It helped me to understand more about my own life.”

Palombo had always been a mystery to her. Aldo Gucci flitted in and out of their lives, and, raised by nannies and sent to boarding schools, Patricia Gucci saw her mother come to life only when he was around. Otherwise, Palombo’s life was shrouded in darkness, sadness and loneliness.

“She was very depressed, and I was never able to understand why she was that way, why she was so negative and why she never had time for me. I’d think, ‘What’s her problem? Why can’t she be more like my father?’”

After coaxing Palombo to share her story, Gucci said her mother finally “gave me these love letters that blew my socks off. They showed a side of my father even I hadn’t known before, and at that stage it was very therapeutic for me.”

What she found was an epic love story. As the love child of Palombo and Aldo Gucci, Patricia was secreted away, born and raised in London by her mother. She never questioned her father’s long absences.

In Italy, Aldo Gucci had a wife, three sons and a daughter, and Patricia said her parents’ affair, started in 1958 when Palombo was 21 and Gucci was 53, “was a huge risk to my father’s business. He could have gone to jail for adultery.” (Divorce was not legalized in Italy until 1971.)

Even so, Patricia’s existence was no secret to his other family, and Palombo told her the truth of her circumstances when she was 9.

“After that I saw life very differently. It was a real awakening,” she said. “I was thrilled to know I had extended family, but my mother was cynical and told me, ‘You know, they don’t really love you.’ But I was very optimistic. Then I grew up and understood the dynamics. They were much older than me and perceived that maybe I was a threat.”

Up until then she knew little about her father’s business, but at 10 Gucci began taking her to parties around the globe, shaping her to become the more youthful face of the family brand. He later appointed her to Gucci’s board of directors, the first female family member to hold such a position.

“Barely in my midteens, I was already quite sophisticated for my age, but my eyes opened up,” Patricia said. “Gucci was becoming a global phenomenon. You could walk into any airport lounge and everybody had a Gucci, even in a little village in Africa.

“I met so many interesting people, movie stars like Gregory Peck, Cary Grant, Rita Hayworth. My father was good friends with Luciano Pavarotti.”

All that came to an abrupt end in 1989, when secret dealings by Gucci’s sons and nephew Maurizio, using personal shares Aldo had given them, forced the elder Gucci to sign away his last shares in the company. Patricia Gucci also signed a contract to maintain her silence for a decade.

When Gucci died in 1990 at the age of 85, he left a will declaring Patricia his sole heir. He had also penned his own obituary stating he was leaving behind “wife” Bruna Palombo, whom he had married in 1981 in Palm Springs, Calif., and “companion” Olwen Price, his English-born wife whom he had never officially divorced. Having married Price in England and not registered with the Catholic Church, he believed the union was not official. (His sons by Price, upon hearing about his new marriage, rushed to register documents with the church.)

“The betrayal had been too much for him to endure. He saw that everything he had built for his family had been taken away,” Patricia Gucci said.

In the aftermath of his death, she said she has watched her mother blossom.

“She’s actually really funny, and I was finally able to see a side of her that my father knew.”

And in true epic style, the two grandsons who had done the most damage to the Gucci name met ignominious ends just months apart in 1995. Paolo died after serving a prison sentence for missed alimony payments, and Maurizio was shot by two gunmen hired by his ex-wife Patrizia, who was dubbed “the Black Widow” by the international press.