Pietro Valpreda

Italian dancer, writer and anarchist, who was one of those wrongly accused of the Piazza Fontana bombing. He grew up in Milan and was involved in the Circolo la Gioventù Libertaria (Libertarian Youth Cicle), alongside Giuseppe Pinelli, and later the Circolo Ponte della Anarchica Ghisolfa (Anarchist Circle of the Ghisolfa Bridge). Moving to Rome, he frequented the Circolo Bakunin, later helping form the more confrontational Circolo 22 Marzo (believed to largely be a tool of the State, controlled by the intelligence services via the neo-fascist infiltrator and provocateur Mario Merlino). An ideal target to use as a cover for the fascist bombing of Milan's Piazza Fontana on December 12, 1969, which left 16 dead and 88 injured, and the group was rounded up with Valpreda's arrested on Dec. 15. Vilified in the press, he languished in jail awaiting trial for 3 years. Eventually released in 1972, it would not be until 1979 that he was acquitted and officially declared innocent in 1985. It would not be until 2001, the year before Valpreda died, that Delphi Zorzi, Carlo Maria Maggi, Giancarlo Rognoni and Stephen Tringali will be found guilty of the bombing (Zorzi, Maggi and Rognoni's convictions were later overturned and Tringali's sentence reduced).

Meanwhile, Buerger's disease affected his legs, degenerative condition carcinogenic that undermines his health and that it would make it impossible for him to earn a living as a dancer, dedicating himself to selling books by Giulio Einaudi's publishing house. In 1997 he published Tri dì a luii, a book of poems he wrote in prison. With the Journalist and Piero literary Colaprico wrote three books: Quattro gocce di acqua piovana (2001), La nevicata dell'85 (2001) and the Spring dei maimorti (2002). Pietro Valpreda died on July 6, 2002 at his home on the street Paolo Sarpi of Milan (Lombardy, Italy); the funeral, organized by the "Circolo Anarchico Ponte della Ghisolfa", was two days later and the your body to incineration He was accompanied by a retinue of 3,000 people.