Amendola, Giovanni

(1882–1926)

   Born in Naples on 15 April 1882, Amendola was to become the leader of the Aventine Secession. This talented liberal deputy and one-time cabinet minister suffered beatings by Fascist thugs on 26 December 1923, and again in 1925 (at Montecatini) at the hands of Carlo Scorza, a Fascist who was to become secretary of the Partito Nazionale Fascista/National Fascist Party (PNF) in 1943. While serving in the government of Luigi Facta as minister for colonial affairs, Amendola had been one of the three who persuaded the prime minister to prepare for royal signature a decree of martial law to stop the March on Rome. Facta’s repeated failure to persuade the king and the latter’s refusal to sign cleared the way for the call to Rome of BenitoMussolinito form a government. Amendola’s final parliamentary address, listing the wrongs committed in Fascism’s name, was repeatedly interrupted by Mussolini and the blackshirts. In the violence-ridden elections of 1924, Amendola founded and led the Unione Democratica Nazionale/National Democratic Union (UDN) (the constitutional opposition), only 14 of whose candidates were elected. After the Matteotti slaying, many deputies from the Partito Comunista Italiano/Italian Communist Party (PCI) and the Partito Popolare Italiano/Italian People’s Party (PPI) withdrew from Parliament and retired to the Aventine Hill. Their leader, Amendola, was convinced that King VictorEmmanuel III would act against Mussolini once the Fascist leader was implicated in the kidnapping and murder of a parliamentary deputy. However, far from provoking the hoped-for public reaction, this move showed itself to be completely ineffective. The king clearly disliked the prospect of having socialists in government more than he did the rule of Fascism to which, after all, he was closely tied by virtue of his past support.

   Amendola had been an editorialist for Bologna’s daily newspaper, Resto del Carlino (1912–1914), and had supported the war in Libya as well as intervention in World War I. From the Carlino, he went to the more prestigious Corriere della Sera of Milan, where he served between 1914 and 1920, opposing the Balkan expansionism of foreign minister Sidney Sonnino. In 1922, he founded—and was editor of—Il Mondoof Rome. His impassioned antifascist editorials, especially after the Matteotti crime, were among the most telling and probably explain Fascist motives in the several beatings administered to him. He also signed Benedetto Croce’s Manifesto degli Intellettuali.

   Amendola became one of the so-called fuorusciti, the antifascist expatriates. Their number grew and included—in addition to Amendola—Francesco Nitti, Carlo Sforza, Luigi Sturzo, Gaetano Salvemini, Piero Gobetti, Claudio Treves, Pietro Nenni, and Filippo Turati. Amendola died in Cannes, France, on 7 April 1926. In 1950, his ashes were removed to his native Naples.

   See also Squadrismo.