Gaetano Grassi

Born in Florence in November 1846 to Agostino and Giuseppa Gozzini, tailor. Volunteer with Gari-baldi in the Third War of Independence of 1866 and the following year in Mentana; in July 1871 he was among the internationalists of Florence who helped to create the Social Democratic Union. Already in the following spring, however, G. left the Union to organize the first Workers’ Beam and the first section of the International in Florence. In August, together with Piccioli Poggiali, he represented the two bodies at the Congress of Rimini and from that moment he will be for his entire life one of the most tenacious supporters of the deliberates of the congress. In October 1873 he joined the secret Alliance, then constituted by Bakunin, as well as the Italian Committee for the Social Revolution and, in November, the CDC of the Italian Federation, then transferred to Florence. In December he is one of the organizers of the (clandestine) congress of Pisa, where the Tuscan Workers' Federation was born, and on March 18, 1874 he was with Cafiero at the Congress of Locarno to represent the Italian Federation. Now it is time for Italian internationalists to move from propaganda to facts. Already in February G., along with Natta and O. Lovari was among the secret promoters of a Tuscan Revolutionary Committee (similar bodies are formed in other regions) with the aim of achieving general lifting.

In August, the insurrectionary attempt was cut off in the bud everywhere by the repressive action of the government. G. manages to escape the mass arrests that follow and repairs in Switzerland. Here, together with Cafiero, Nabruzzi and others, the Council of the Italian Federation forms to reorganize the ranks. For these facts, in April 1876, he was sentenced in absentia to 11 years of forced labor but in October a hand-sty can come and G. can return to Florence, just in time to be arrested on the 19th of that month, with Natta and Costa. The police in fact want to prevent the Third Congress of the Italian Federation called in that city for the following 22. On the sidelines of the congress, which the escapeees keep the same in the woods around the nearby Pontassieve, it is decided to start the guerrillas on the mountains of the Matese. As a result, G. in December goes to Naples but must flee to not be involved, like Pezzi, in the wounding of the internationalist T. Schettino (30 January 1877); in the spring of 1877, however, he was part of the group of six Tuscans participating in that action. On April 4, however, he was arrested at Solopaca station, along with L. Ardinghi, M. Innocent and to the Russian S. Kravcinsky before he could reach the other insurgents. The four remain in prison until January 1878 when on the occasion of the accession to the throne of Umberto i an amnesty is issued. G. returns to Florence but on 1 October the arrest in that city of the major representatives of the Italian Federation still free forces him to repair again in Switzerland, soon reached by Cafiero and many other refugees. On December 5, 1880, Cafiero and G. organized the Chiasso Conference in order to tighten the ranks of the Upper Italy Federation and address the situation created by the political turning point of Andrea Costa (Jul. 1879). In Congress G. has a decisive role on a par with E. Marchs and F. Matteucci in reiterating the insurrectionist line of Cafiero. The Congress is their success as they communicate to the Revolutionary Committee reorganized in secret in Florence by Pezzi, Natta, Niccheri and Eugenio Rin-gressi. The goal is once again the insurrection and to prepare it takes charge of Amilcare Cipriani, recently returned from forced labor in New Caledonia. On January 31, 1881, however, Cipriani was arrested on his arrival in Rimini; this together with the nervous collapse of Cafiero compromise the entire plan and sharpen the crisis of the Italian Federation triggered by Costa. G. then reaches Genoa clandestinely together with E. Marzoli but is discovered and translated in the prison of Florence.

In 1883 it was again free and probably his is the fiercely anti-Christian memorial that the periodical local “Il Popolo”, “organ of the displaced” published in September of that year, resumed the month after, and with wide diffusion, by the Turin “Proximus tuus”. G. is therefore at the side of Malatesta, who arrived in Florence to reorganize the International and isolate Costa, and signs together with I.U. Parrini and E. Marzoli, for the Circles of anarchist propaganda, the circular-announcement of the exit of the new newspaper «The Social Question» and in February 1884, together with 88 other internationalists, the manifesto of solidarity in Malatesta, Merlin and comrades all on trial in Rome. Convicted of this, like the other signatories, he was forced in January 1885 to expatriate. He goes to Cairo where he is appointed secretary of the local Federation of the ail which reiterates the clear rejection of the Costan line. After a brief stay in Tunis, in the summer of 1887 he went to Marseille and in August, together with N. Convert and G. Suiero, takes over the management of the periodical «The Slave» of Nice giving it a distinctly internationalist tone and contrary to the project of International Anarchist Alliance of F.S. Merlin then published by the “Humanitas” of Naples. G. and Converts speak out in favor of propaganda for affinity groups and for their functional and therefore temporary union in the “old” name of the International. In the autumn G. returns to Tunis, together with Converti with whom he collaborates in the weeks «The Worker». In April 1889 the magazine suspended his activity and G. embarked for Buenos Aires where, from '85, Malatesta directs «The Social Question», but arrives when the anarchist from Campania is returning to Europe. From this moment the police, who also consider him “very dangerous and very influential in the party” lose track of it.

It is very likely that G., like many other anarchists, will have to leave Argentina in the late 1902, to escape the repression then unleashed by the government of that country. Certainly in October 1903 he is in the Brazilian state of Paranà where he lives for almost twenty years (first in Santarem then in Palmeira) and still keeps in contact with the movement. In fact, when in 1922 he left Brazil to return to Florence with his brother, also a tailor, the royal consul in Paranà communicates with regret that he had to issue the passport to G. (Mar. 1922) warning that “according to the Chief of Police of this state [G.] he was an instigator of strikes” and a contributor of subversive newspapers where he constantly incited the “class struggle”. G. died in Florence on August 5, 1928. (L. Of Flap)