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Giacomo Matteotti

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The Matteotti Murder and Mussolini

Part of the book series: Italian and Italian American Studies ((IIAS))

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Abstract

Giacomo Matteotti was born to Girolamo and Elisabetta Garzarolo on May 22, 1885, in the town of Fratta Polesine in northeast Italy. His father, originally from Trentino, had settled in Fratta when he was 20 years old. He opened a store and made a discreet fortune which he then invested in the purchase of farmland. When Girolamo died, his wife Elisabetta, an energetic and shrewd woman, took over the reins of the family’s various commercial activities and succeeded in appreciating the family assets considerably. At the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, the Matteotti’s were one of the few wealthy families in Polesine.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Giacomo Matteotti, Discorsi parlamentari, Roma, 1970, vol. III, 1510.

  2. 2.

    Giacomo Matteotti, Lettere a Velia, S. Caretti ed., (Pisa: Nistri-Lischi, 1986), 68–69; the letter is from 3 September 1914. Italics are mine. Giacomo married Velia Titta on 8 January 1916.

  3. 3.

    See ACS, PS, cat. A4, b. 346.

  4. 4.

    ACS, CPC, b. 3157, fasc. Matteotti G.

  5. 5.

    Regarding agrarian fascist violence in Rovigo see the 1921 report of a superior officer of the police force in ACS, PS, 1921, b. 110, fasc. Rovigo.

  6. 6.

    See the report of the Verona carabinieri dated 2 April 1921 in ACS, PS, 1921, b. 110, fasc. Rovigo—Fasci di combattimento; inoltre, ACS, Ufficio Cifra, Telegrammi in arrivo, telegr. n. 200 of 13 March 1921 from prefect Frigerio to Giolitti. Many years later, in 1947, Carlo Silvestri gave the judges of the second Matteotti trial a detailed account of the type of aggression Matteotti was subject to on that occasion, saying that he learned of it in 1924 from one of the participants. See Carlo Silvestri, Matteotti Mussolini e il dramma italiano, (Roma: Ruffolo, 1947), 172–173.

  7. 7.

    Matteotti, Discorsi parlamentari, vol. II, 450.

  8. 8.

    F. Turati-A. Kuliscioff, Carteggio (1919–1922). Dopoguerra e fascismo (Turin: Einaudi, 1977), vol. V, 752; G.E. Modigliani, L’assassinio di Giacomo Matteotti, 4.

  9. 9.

    F. Turati-A. Kuliscioff, Carteggio (1919–1922). Dopoguerra e fascismo, 752.

  10. 10.

    Matteotti, Discorsi parlamentari, vol. II, 525.

  11. 11.

    Ibid., 660.

  12. 12.

    Filippo Turati attraverso le lettere di corrispondenti (1880–1925), A. Schiavi ed. (Bari: Laterza, 1947), 272.

  13. 13.

    Ibid., 204–207.

  14. 14.

    See F. Turati—A. Kuliscioff, Carteggio (1919–1922), especially the letters dated 21 and 24 November 1922.

  15. 15.

    See the letter to Turati of 28 March 1924, where Matteotti denounces the disbanding of the party’s leaders, and strongly states that he would not have remained “any longer under such conditions”; Filippo Turati attraverso le lettere di corrispondenti (1880–1925), 272.

  16. 16.

    See ibid., 261.

  17. 17.

    See Alessandro Roveri, “La formazione di Matteotti nell’ambito delle lotte agrarie padane,” in Studi Storici, 1978, 110.

  18. 18.

    On his stay in England, see G. Bianco, “Matteotti a Londra,” in Giacomo Matteotti a sessant’anni dalla morte (Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1985), 123–126.

  19. 19.

    ACS, Minculpop, Report 87, fasc. Matteotti G.

  20. 20.

    Bianco, cit., 125.

  21. 21.

    Public Record Office, FO 371, b. 9945, C2359/2359/22, memorandum of the commercial attaché dated 6 February 1924.

  22. 22.

    PRO, FO 371, b. 9945, C4855/2359/22.

  23. 23.

    Bianco, cit., 124–125.

  24. 24.

    ACS, Minculpop, b. 164. The telegram reported: “Today’s American newspapers report correspondence from Rome that connect the Matteotti case with oil scandals and illegal activities of the Sinclair company. They state that when in London Matteotti had obtained papers damaging to some fascist leaders.”

  25. 25.

    ASMAE, Telegrammi di Gabinetto. Piccola Registrazione, telegr. from Caetani n. 188 of 24 June 1924.

  26. 26.

    “La ‘Convenzione Sinclair’ nei giudizi della stampa tecnica,” newspaper Il Nuovo Paese, 13 June 1924.

  27. 27.

    “La grande piovra,” newspaper Il Popolo d’Italia, 10 August 1924.

  28. 28.

    See “Revelations for which Matteotti died,” in The Daily Herald, 26 July 1924.

  29. 29.

    ASMAE, Telegrammi di Gabinetto. Piccola Registrazione, telegr. n. 92 of 14 June 1924.

  30. 30.

    See Mussolini, “Preludio al Machiavelli,” in Gerarchia, III, n. 4, April 1924, pp. 205–209.

  31. 31.

    PRO, FO 371, b. 9950, telegr. di Ronald Graham of 9 May 1924.

  32. 32.

    Giacomo Matteotti, “Machiavelli, Mussolini and Fascism,” in English Life, July 1924, 87. Italics are my own.

  33. 33.

    AS Roma, Esami, vol. III, 12.

  34. 34.

    AS Roma, Esami, vol. III, p. 17.

  35. 35.

    Matteotti, “Parlamento e Governo,” in Echi e Commenti, 5 June 1924.

  36. 36.

    Filippo Turati attraverso le lettere di corrispondenti (1880–1925), 272.

  37. 37.

    See AS Roma, Esami, vol. I, 53.

  38. 38.

    “Sobrero,” in newspaper Il Popolo d’Italia, 1 June 1924.

  39. 39.

    The telegram is in C. Rossi, Il delitto Matteotti nei procedimenti giudiziari e nelle polemiche giornalistiche (Milan: Ceschina, 1965), 37–38; on the phantom meeting of opposition groups see Turati’s ironic comments in F. Turati and A. Kuliscioff, Carteggio (1923–1925). Il delitto Matteotti e l’Aventino, A. Schiavi ed. (Turin: Einaudi, 1959), vol. VI, 262 and 265.

  40. 40.

    See ibid., 265, letter from Turati to Kuliscioff of 4 June 1924.

  41. 41.

    Matteotti, Discorsi parlamentari, vol. II, 895.

  42. 42.

    ACS, CPC, b. 3157.

  43. 43.

    See Turati and Kuliscioff, Carteggio (1923–1925), 273.

  44. 44.

    See ibid., 286.

  45. 45.

    See AS Roma, Esami, vol. III, 13–16.

  46. 46.

    ACS, PS, 1924, b. 47.

  47. 47.

    AS Roma, Esami, vol. II, 83–4.

  48. 48.

    R. Marvasi, Echi del terrore (Rome: OET, 1946), 16–19.

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    Mauro Canali

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Canali, M. (2024). Giacomo Matteotti. In: The Matteotti Murder and Mussolini. Italian and Italian American Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41471-8_4

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