Piero Bessone, Cesare Baio, Luigi Alberto Broglio, Giorgio Gasparini. They are the “Gioia rebels”, students of the classical high school of Piacenza who became partisans and died in battle. They were very young, the years of birth were between ’23 and ’26, and they fell under the blows of the Nazi-fascists without knowing the future they had dreamed of at school. Under the guidance of teacher Marisa Cogliati, the fifth A class carried out meticulous research work that lasted a few months on the trail of those “little masters” (to quote Meneghello’s novel) now distant in time.
Rebels against fascist conventions, against the obtuse discipline of the regime, to the point of making sensational gestures like that of Broglio, who was expelled from high school. The fifth grade students went to retrieve the handwritten registers of the time from the school archives, they found the report cards of those young students, trying to put together not only their respective personal stories, but also unpublished biographical details of their school careers. . The research work also made it possible to reconstruct the conduct of the principal of those years, Luigi Massaretti, an early fascist (he himself defined himself as a Sansepolcrista) and subsequently a supporter of Gabriele D’Annunzio’s Fiume enterprise. Until his appointment at the “Gioia” where he distinguished himself for having expelled the student Broglio, guilty of having publicly mocked fascism.
The appointment for the presentation of the research is for Wednesday 24 April at the State Archives at Palazzo Farnese at 5pm, the students will speak and a greeting will be given by Giulia Piroli from the Anpi Medina Barbattini section of Piacenza.
Tags: Dead fascism stories Gioia rebels archives
