Il Piccolo
- Grave words from the Party's secretary general
- The author of the attack was a young Bolognese
- A noble message from the Duce
Il Piccolo's front page of 2 November 1926 was given over to the aftermath of the shot fired at Mussolini in Bologna. The party's secretary general, addressing Blackshirts, denounced four years of 'stupid clemency' toward the regime's enemies and demanded the death penalty not only for the attacker but for those who had driven him to act, a speech the paper printed with its bursts of delirious applause. A second report named the culprit as a young Bolognese and described the arrest of his household: his mother, his older brother Vico, who worked in the father's print shop, and a 40-year-old sister-in-law, Virginia, with carabinieri guarding the house. A telegram from Mussolini declared that the crime did not dim the day's glory and sent the bullet-pierced Mauritian sash to be kept among the relics of Bolognese Fascism.
Translation
Grave words from the Party's secretary general
Blackshirts! Our Revolution, which began four years ago, did not wish or was not able, in the act of seizing power, to free Italy from the handful of vermin that occupied it. (Loud applause). But on that day the Duce and Fascism said that the revolution was continuing its inexorable march. Today, after four years of generosity and stupid clemency (Voices: It's true, it's true!), we still find ourselves facing the same vermin, unbowed by the magnificent reality of what we have built, not for ourselves, but for Italy. In the face of this reality that no one can deny, of our generosity and of the perfidy of others, which multiplies and grows more bitter, Fascism repeats its will clearly and firmly, and it is this: the death penalty not only for the one who carried out the final act, but also for those who drove him to it. (Delirious applause).
The author of the attack was a young Bolognese
with his mother and with an older brother of his, named Vico, who works in his father's print shop, while a second brother is serving in the army outside Bologna. Also living in the house is the sister-in-law, named Virginia, aged 40. All the members of the family have been summoned to Police Headquarters and held under arrest. The house where the Zambonis live is guarded by carabinieri.
A noble message from the Duce
The criminal episode of the last minute does not dim the glory of the splendid day. I am sending you the Mauritian sash pierced by the bullet. You will keep it among the relics of Bolognese Fascism.
Context
From a rally cry for executions to the Special Tribunal
The speech printed under 'Gravi parole' demanded the death penalty not only for the person who carried out 'the final act' but also for 'those who drove him to it', a formula that turned a single shooting into a charge against the whole opposition. The regime soon put that line into law. The Bologna attempt became the pretext for a package of repressive legislation that included the creation of a secret police, the dissolution of political opposition and the reintroduction of the death penalty. The new political offences were assigned to the Special Tribunal for the Defence of the State, created by Law no. 2008, which came before the Senate for approval on 20 November 1926, less than three weeks after this issue. The law provided for a president chosen from among military officers, while the other five judges came solely from the Fascist Militia, and the one military magistrate on the bench, the rapporteur, had no vote. Article 71 of the Albertine Statute, still formally in force, declared that no one could be removed from his natural judges and that extraordinary tribunals or commissions could not be created; the government and the king, the Statute's guarantor, paid that prohibition little heed. Il Piccolo presented the secretary's words as the will of Fascism, and the legislative record shows that will taking shape within weeks as a court staffed by the party's own militia.
Lasting doubts over who fired the shot
The headline states flatly that the author of the attack was a young Bolognese, and the report moves on to his family as though guilt were settled. What is independently established is narrower: on 31 October 1926 a shot was fired at Mussolini as he rode in an open car through Bologna, and it led to the lynching of a 15-year-old boy, Anteo Zamboni. Whether the boy fired at all has long been disputed. The terrorism specialist J. Bowyer Bell judged him likely innocent and the affair either a put-up job or a plot among Fascists. The Jesuit historian Giovanni Sale, in an essay in La Civiltà Cattolica reported by Avvenire, writes that the course of events is still shrouded in mystery, and notes that possible instigators have been named, among them Leandro Arpinati, the Fascist boss of Bologna, and Roberto Farinacci. The page therefore records the official identification of the culprit two days after the shooting and before any trial, an identification that historians have never settled.
What awaited the arrested Zamboni family
The report lists the household taken into custody: the mother, the elder brother Vico, who worked in his father's print shop, and a 40-year-old sister-in-law named Virginia, with carabinieri posted at the house. The father, Mammolo Zamboni, was himself the printer of the Bologna Fascio; the journalist Diego Gabutti, reviewing Mimmo Franzinelli's 2025 book Colpire Mussolini, calls him an 'anarcho-ultra-Fascist' and describes the mother as a quiet housewife. According to the same review, Mammolo at once disowned his son for having dared to strike at Mussolini, before later changing his mind. In Franzinelli's account, the arrests reported here led to a prosecution indifferent to the evidence: faced with the evident and proven innocence of Anteo's relatives, Mussolini insisted that they be convicted all the same, in order to keep alive the myth of a 'plot' by murderous exiles. The family named in this short paragraph thus became defendants in the regime's effort to present a teenager's shot as an organised conspiracy.
The pierced sash as a Fascist relic
Mussolini's telegram, as printed here, turns a damaged garment into an object of commemoration: the 'criminal episode' does not dim the day's glory, and the sash pierced by the bullet is to be kept 'among the relics of Bolognese Fascism'. The Jesuit review La Civiltà Cattolica reported in 1926 that the bullet tore Mussolini's sash of the Mauritian Grand Cordon and his jacket at chest height, then passed through the sleeve of the mayor seated beside him. The sense of a providential escape spread well beyond the Fascist press. Part of the Catholic press interpreted the escape as a sign from Heaven, and a Te Deum of thanksgiving for the Duce's life was sung in many Italian cathedrals. Giovanni Sale concludes that the Bologna attempt, skilfully exploited by Fascist propaganda, deeply shook national opinion and strengthened Mussolini's personal prestige among Italians. The telegram shows Mussolini himself entrusting Bolognese Fascism with a tangible emblem of that survival, with the bullet hole in the sash serving as visible proof of the narrow escape.
Original
Gravi parole del segretario generale del Partito
Camicie nere! La nostra Rivoluzione, che ha avuto inizio quattro anni or sono, non ha voluto o non ha potuto, nell'atto di conquistare il potere, liberare l'Italia dalle quattro carogne che l'occupavano. (Applausi vivissimi). Ma in quel giorno il Duce e il Fascismo hanno detto che la rivoluzione continuava la sua inesorabile marcia. Oggi, dopo quattro anni di generosità e di stupida clemenza (Voci: E ' vero, è vero!) noi ci ritroviamo ancora davanti le stesse carogne non piegate dalla magnifica realtà di ciò che abbiamo costruito, non per noi, ma per l'Italia. Di fronte a questa realtà che nessuno può negare, alla nostra generosità e all'altrui perfidia che si moltiplica e si inasprisce, il Fascismo ripete chiara e ferma la sua volontà che è questa: la pena di morte non solo per colui che ha compiuto l'ultimo gesto, ma anche per coloro che ve lo hanno spinto. (Applausi deliranti).
L'autore dell'attentato era un giovane bolognese
con la madre e con un fratello maggiore di lui, di nome Vico, che lavora nella tipografia del padre, mentre un secondo fratello si trova sotto le armi fuori di Bologna. In casa vi è pure la cognata a nome Virginia, di 40 anni. Tutti i componenti della famiglia sono stati chiamati in Questura e trattenuti in arresto. La casa abitata dagli Zamboni è piantonata dai carabinieri.
Un nobile messaggio del Duce
L'episodio criminale dell'ultimo minuto non offusca la gloria della giornata stupenda. Ti mando la fascia Mauriziana bucata dal proiettile. La conserverai tra i cimeli del Fascismo bolognese.
Source: Source: Internet Archive