Antonio Canepa (1908) – Wikipedia

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Antonio Canepa , also known by the pseudonym of Mario Turri (Palermo, 25 October 1908 – Randazzo, June 17, 1945), was an Italian military, political and politologist, founder and commander of the voluntary army for the independence of Sicily.

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He was born in Palermo, descending from Canepa, a family of Genoese origins established in the Kingdom of Sicily in the 16th century.

Antonio Canepa as a child

His father, Pietro, was a university teacher. Her mother, Teresa, was the sister of the honorable Antonino Pecoraro, deputy of the popular party. [first]

He studied at the Jesuits in Palermo and then to the Pennisi College of Acireale. He graduated in law from the University of Palermo in 1930 discussing a thesis entitled Unit or plurality of legal systems? . He was in contact with anti -fascist groups with which he wanted to organize a coup in the Republic of San Marino in 1933, for the sole purpose of demonstrating the active presence of forces contrary to the fascist regime. The plan was foiled and Canepa was arrested on June 17, 1933 together with his brother Luigi and other exponents, who were sentenced to penalties from two to four years in prison, while Canepa, pretending to be an infirm, was hospitalized [2] until November 1934 [3] . Released in 1935, he devoted to study and research.

In 1937 he was the author of the Fascism doctrine system , work praised by the fascist magazine Hierarchy . [4] , but criticized by People of Italy . In fact, Canepa had not failed to insert in the text also numerous quotes taken from forbidden works, to thus carry out an indirect anti -fascist propaganda. That same year he became a professor in charge of History of political doctrines at the University of Catania, where he is remembered as a severe university teacher. Parallelly undertaken with the pseudonym of “Mario Turri” or “Prof. Bianchi” an illegal activity in the files of justice and freedom with the “Etna group”. In 1939 he made friends with Herbert Rowland Arthur, Duke of Bronte, who subsequently made him as a link to collaborate with the Intelligence Service britannica [5] .
Also in 1939, which became a professor of history and doctrine of fascism at the University of Palermo, he published the volume The organization of the PNF .

Canepa in the 1930s

In December 1942 he published, like Mario Turri, the booklet La Sicilia to the Sicilians, who was the manifesto of his idea of ​​Sicilian independence. He believed that Sicilian independence was the means for the emancipation of the popular classes, thus conflicting himself with the separation project advocated by the agrarian, probable cause “not only of the division of the independence movement, but also of the death of the Canepa very death” . [6] In the same period he directed, with some of his students, sabotage actions against Italian-German military installations in Sicily, such as the attack, together with an English commando, on the night of June 9, 1943, at the Air Base of Gerbini [7] , in Motta Sant’Anastasia, in the hands of the Germans.

After the landing in Sicily of the allies he was sent to Tuscany, and joined an anarchist partisan brigade in 1944. In Florence it seems to have also had close relationships with the Italian Communist Party, but the circumstance is doubtful. [6] Returning to Catania at the end of that same year, he resumed university teaching and placed himself at the head, together with Antonino Varvaro, of the left wing of the Sicilian independence movement. In February 1945 he constituted a clandestine paramilitary force, the voluntary army for the independence of Sicily (Evis). [8]

On the morning of June 17, 1945 Canepa was killed in a fire conflict with the carabinieri, in the Murazzu Rutu district near Randazzo, on the state road 120 in circumstances not entirely clear [9] and still today at the center of a debate resulting from the interpretations of the different versions of the official minutes [ten] . Together with him they died his right arm, 22 -year -old Carmelo Rosano, and Giuseppe Lo Giudice, 18 years old. A patrol made up of the Calabrian carabiniere, by the deputy abiligader, cicciò and commanded by Marshal Rizzotto [11] , ordered the everything to the vehicle that did not stop. In the shooting – which ended with the explosion of a hand bomb – Lo Giudice died instantly, Rosano and Canepa, in the hospital. Nando Romano would have managed to survive, Antonino Velis and Pippo Amato, fled to the surrounding countryside [twelfth] .

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According to recent studies, the idea that in the murder of the leader of Avis there is the combined hand of international secret services, so that the Yalta agreements had already established that Sicily should be part of Italy therefore it was necessary to neutralize the outbreaks separatists. [13]

At the scene of the massacre stands a memorial stone dedicated to the fallen of Avis Antonio Canepa is buried in the cemetery of Catania, in the avenue of the illustrious Sicilians, next to Giovanni Verga and Angelo Musco.

His son Antonio Enrico Canepa, born in 1940, was a socialist deputy for three legislatures, but died only 43 years of overdose.

  • Fascism doctrine system , 3 vols., Rome, Formiggini, 1937
  • The organization of the P.N.F. , Palermo, Ciuni, 1939
  • Sicily to the Sicilians! , Catania, Battiato, 1944. (published with the pseudonym of Mario Turri)
  1. ^ Canepa, the separatist and guerrilla intellectual . are palermo.repubblica.it .
  2. ^ G. Rebuffa, Canepa Giorgio , in “Biographical Dictionary of Italians”, 1975.
  3. ^ Alfio Caruso, Ours arrive , Longanesi, 2004, page 29
  4. ^ Hierarchy , 8, 1938, p. 580.
  5. ^ A. Caruso cit. page 30
  6. ^ a b G. Rebuffa, Cit.
  7. ^ A. Caruso cit. Page 138
  8. ^ G. Cucinotta, Yesterday and today Sicily , 1996, p. 226
  9. ^ Antonello Battaglia, Sicily disputes. Separatism, war and mafia , Rome, Salerno, 2014.
  10. ^ Antonello Battaglia, Sicilian separatism. Military documents , Rome, New Culture, 2015.
  11. ^ Antonello Battaglia, Sicilian separatism in the documents of the EM and SIM , in Interforce and multinational operations in military history, Ministry of Defense, Rome, 2014 , pp. 861-863.
  12. ^ Antonello Battaglia, The end of the conflict and the parable of Sicilian separatism in Italy 1945-1955, the reconstruction of the country and the armed forces , Ministry of Defense, Rome, 2014, pp. 437-438.
  13. ^ Amedeo Finocchiaro “Antonio Canepa”
  • Massimo Ganci, Antimoded Italy , Parma, Guanda, 1968
  • Giorgio Rebuffa, Canepa Antonio , in “Biographical Dictionary of Italians”, XVIII, Rome, Institute of the Italian Encyclopedia, 1975
  • Salvo Barbagallo, A missed revolution. A story that Italians do not want to know , Catania, Bonanno, 1979
  • Giuseppe Carlo Marino. History of Sicilian separatism 1943-1947 . Rome, Editori Riuniti, 1979
  • Filippo Gay. The army of the lupara . Milan, Maquis Editore, 1990
  • Giovanni Cucinotta, Yesterday and today Sicily , Cosenza, Pellegrini Editore, 1996
  • Gliozzo Totò, Antonio Canepa and the Army for the independence of Sicily. E.V.I.S to Cesarò and the massacre of Randazzo (1944-1945) , San Giovanni La Punta, Boemi Editore, 1998
  • Alfio Caruso, Ours arrive , Milan, Longanesi, 2004
  • Amedeo Finocchiaro, “Antonio Canepa”, Messina, Multigraf Editrice, 2012
  • Antonello Battaglia, Sicilian separatism in the documents of the EM and SIM in Interforce and multinational operations in military history , Ministry of Defense, Rome, 2014, pp. 858–874.
  • Antonello Battaglia, The end of the conflict and the parable of Sicilian separatism (1945-1951) in Italy 1945-1955, The reconstruction of the country and the armed forces, Ministry of Defense, Rome, 2014.
  • Antonello Battaglia, Sicily disputes. Separatism, war and mafia, Rome, Salerno, 2014.
  • Antonello Battaglia, Sicilian separatism. Military documents , New culture, Rome, 2015

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