REST IN POWER
Licia Pinelli (1928-2024)
On the morning of November 11, 2024, Licia Rognini Pinelli left us. We will surely remember her great determination and extraordinary commitment throughout her life in the struggle for truth and justice – not only regarding the fate of her husband Pino Pinelli – that made her an outstanding figure in the history of twentieth-century Italy.
For fifty years this determination also manifested itself in the painstaking collection of all the newspaper articles that spoke of that story “almost only hers,” of Pino’s murder, bombs, plots and State mystifications; we want to thank her again for allowing us to collect and digitally preserve the fruit of her efforts.
We will do everything we can to continue to preserve and tell the story of Pino and Licia, a founding part of our archive. A story not only ours, but everyone’s. Our thoughts are with their daughters Claudia and Silvia and their families, to whom we send a big hug.
From the Centro Studi Libertari / Archivio G. Pinelli di Milano, https://centrostudilibertari.it/
Archivio Licia Rognini Pinelli
A very important collection of the project “Pinelli: a history” is represented by the Licia Rognini Pinelli Archive (1969-2024), widow of Giuseppe (Pino) Pinelli. The archive consists of two series: “Correspondence” (1969-2024) and “Press Clippings” (1969-2015).
The “Correspondence” series includes the correspondence held by Licia during the same time frame with different subjects, including a good part of the letters she herself sent. The latter is not currently available for consultation for privacy reasons.
The “Press Clippings” series, which has been digitized and published online, includes thousands of articles pertaining to the investigations into the Piazza Fontana massacre, the trials, the inquiries regarding Pinelli’s assassination, the demonstrations, the trial and private vicissitudes of Pietro Valpreda; in a word, any article published in the main Italian newspapers (but also some minor and movement ones) from 1969 to 2015 that concerned Giuseppe Pinelli and the events of Piazza Fontana. The press clippings are arranged chronologically within subseries named after the newspapers’ mastheads.
Browse the archive: https://omeka.bida.im/s/pinelli/item/130
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Licia Rognini
November 11, 2024
From Federazione Anarchica – Milano – F.A.I.
This morning, November 11, 2024, following an illness, Licia Rognini, widow of Pino Pinelli, left us .
In the face of pain, not all of us are able to show strength of character, dignity and rigor as Licia was able to do for a long time when she was grappling with a cowardly and murderous power, a servile, manipulative and mystifying press.
Much of her life was dedicated to the battle to give back to Pino what the State tried to take away from him, his humanity, his ideals of social justice and freedom, and at the same time to raising two daughters, Silvia and Claudia, who are today always present in the anti-fascist and anti-authoritarian battles and in affirming the memory of our unforgettable comrade Pino.
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Licia Rognini Pinelli
November 26, 2024
From Umanità Nova
“A State that does not want to recognize the truth is a State that does not exist. I do not feel defeated because I did not have justice in the courtrooms. Justice lies in the fact that everyone knows the truth.”
With this lapidary phrase Licia Rognini Pinelli – who passed away at the age of 96 on the morning of November 11th – summarized the path that characterized her life since her husband Pino was thrown from the office of Commissioner Luigi Calabresi to the fourth floor of the Police Headquarters in Via Fatebenefratelli in Milan, on the night between December 15th and 16th 1969, the day after the Piazza Fontana massacre. An uphill path, full of obstacles of all kinds, placed by those who held the reins of the anti-popular provocation that had to find in the anarchists, at all costs, the scapegoats for those infamous bombs. Licia, in her life, pursued with stubbornness, with lucidity the goal of knowing the truth about Pino's death in the Police Headquarters. A truth that the anarchists, and not only them, immediately affirmed, summarizing it in the slogan 'Valpreda innocent, Pinelli murdered, the massacre is by the State'. A truth that the State never wanted to give her, offering instead - after the false reconstructions of the first moments functional to present Pino as responsible for the massacre together with Valpreda and his companions and after the attempts to archive the case - the phantasmagorical tomb pronouncement of judge D'Ambrosio very close to the PCI who in 1975, in the rising climate of the historic compromise of Berlinguerian memory, resorted to the theory based on the "collapse that manifests itself with the alteration of the center of equilibrium which is not followed by loss of muscle tone and which is often accompanied by active and uncoordinated movements", in essence the famous 'active illness' - as it was called then - which would have forced Pinelli, subjected to the stress of an increasingly pressing interrogation, to stumble in the middle of the room until he leapt over the window railing. : After having ascertained the anarchists' innocence in the attack carried out by the fascists in collusion with parts of the State, it was no longer possible to continue with the tale of suicide, but it was also impossible to admit the complicity of those who were then in the Milan Police Headquarters, at the Ministry of the Interior in Rome and at the Reserved Affairs Office: so everyone was saved with the idea of 'active illness'. But Licia could not accept this solution and continued undaunted in her search for the truth, that truth that had seemed within reach when in 1970, Commissioner Luigi Calabresi, left alone by his superiors and tired of a press campaign fueled above all by Lotta Continua, had denounced the newspaper's managers for defamation in a trial that had immediately turned against him: from accuser he became accused; the subordinates present in the police room had begun to string together increasingly contradictory testimonies, forcing the judge to silence at least one, the most talkative. Licia will say that never before had the truth seemed to come to light.The recusal of judge Biotti and then the murder of Calabresi will take care of sinking that trial. Before then Licia had continued her fight with the complaint, in June 1971, for voluntary homicide of Calabresi and his associates present in the room. D'Ambrosio will take charge of the complaint to bring it where we have already seen, drafting a sentence without even a public trial, without cross-examination.
Year after year, decade after decade, the mobilization for truth and justice on the Piazza Fontana massacre and the murder of Pino Pinelli continued and never stopped. Just as the meetings of Licia, and then of her daughters Silvia and Claudia, continued in schools, clubs and situations where she was invited to talk about Pino and that massacre.
For Licia, the invitation to the Quirinale by President Napolitano in 2009 seemed like yet another opportunity to obtain the justice she had sought. After so many cover-ups and archiving, Napolitano's words acknowledging the wrongs suffered by her partner seemed to be able to open a door for a new proceeding that would bring those responsible to trial. Nothing. It was just a political operation aimed at 'pacifying' those who had never been in conflict, the widows, sons and daughters of the anarchist and the commissioner. And with this 'pacification', trying to close an entire historical period, effectively hiding the responsibilities of the political class and the Italian bourgeoisie in the strategy of tension.
Not even an investigative book, written by Gabriele Fuga and Enrico Maltini (published first by Zero in Condotta and then, expanded, by Colibrì) which revealed for the first time ever the presence of agents of the Italian secret services, of the infamous Reserved Affairs Office, in the interrogations that led to Pino's death, served to reopen even a shred of an investigation.
A magistrate once confided to Licia that if it weren't for her, with her stubbornness and determination to seek the truth about Pino's death, Valpreda would have been sentenced to life in prison. It's no coincidence that those who knew Licia always called her a 'rock', a stone that contributed to derailing a train, together with all those who, in this half century, have worked to keep alive the memory and denunciation of the misdeeds of power.
On the afternoon of Friday the 15th, her funeral took place at the funeral home on Via Corelli, the family having refused the institutional ceremony proposed by Mayor Sala. Several hundred people gathered around Licia's family, her daughters Silvia and Claudia, and her grandchildren in an embrace that was not at all ceremonious, with flag waving, songs and words. Numerous speeches followed, focusing on the human dimension and Licia's commitment to the truth. Truth that can only mean the full assumption of responsibility by the State apparatus in Pino's murder. There was no shortage of political and social figures in attendance, such as the Milanese secretary of the ANPI who supported the Pinelli sisters in organizing the funeral, as well as representatives of Milanese society. Many anarchists contributed, with their testimony and their presence, to remembering the meaning of that massacre, of that murder and of the false accusations that kept Valpreda, Gargamelli and their companions in prison for three years.
Max Varengo
Video from her funeral: https://www.facebook.com/selva.varengo/videos/421923480970810
