When the hostess agency put out the call for attractive, well-dressed women, under the age of 35 and over 1.7 metres (5ft 7in) tall, it was inundated with responses from hundreds of Roman women.

Most seemed to think they would be bringing a little glamour to a gala dinner with the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi. Instead, they found themselves being lectured by him for two hours on the role of women and invited to convert to Islam. "We were at least expecting a snack", grumbled Silvia Figliozzi afterwards.

An engineering graduate, Figliozzi was among more than 100 young Italian women who were today recovering their equilibrium after a characteristically bizarre encounter with the "guide of the first of September great revolution of the socialist people's Libyan Arab jamahiriya".

The women at Sunday's event were promised €50 (£45) and told not to arrive in miniskirts or low-cut tops. They assembled outside a hotel in the centre, where several were rejected because they were either too short or revealingly dressed. The rest – most teetering on stilettos and some wrapped in furs – boarded buses and were driven to the Libyan ambassador's residence.

According to the Italian news agency Ansa, about 200 filed through the heavily protected gates, where a security guard insisted to reporters that they were assembling for a "medical conference".

After a delay of an hour, Gaddafi appeared, in a black uniform with a black beret. As he launched into his address, female members of his entourage distributed embossed copies of the Qu'ran and the colonel's own great work, The Green Book.

Gaddafi, who arrived in Rome on Sunday for a summit of the UN's food and agricultural organisation, also told his audience he had it on good authority Jesus was not crucified. "God in heaven took him. They crucified someone who looked like him," the Libyan leader was quoted as saying by an Ansa reporter who posed as a hostess.

Claiming he was "for and alongside women", Gaddafi criticised the way they were treated in eastern countries. "They are often used like bits of furniture, changed whenever the man wants. And that is an injustice," said Gaddafi.

When it comes to surrounding himself with women, Libya's leader can outshine even Italy's prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi. On his last visit to Rome, in June, he prevailed upon Berlusconi's government to gather several hundred women for a not dissimilar lecture. Further encounters with selected representatives of Italian womanhood are due to take place tonight and tomorrow.

At least one of the women who crammed into the Libyan ambassador's home on Sunday left feeling "offended" by Gaddafi's view of Christianity. But for another, Rea Beko, it turned out to be a life-changing experience. "He convinced me," she said. "I shall be converting to Islam."