The recent publication of a book on the private life of Emilio Canzi has refocused attention on an important partisan figure from the Northern Apennines, more specifically from the Piacenza area.[1]This is an interesting and certainly timely book, given the risk of oblivion that has long plagued many of those who courageously chose to fight for a truly different society, one in which there was freedom, social justice, solidarity, and equality. Emilio Canzi, an anarchist, was one of these.
His life, let us say without fear of overusing the term, is legendary. Born in Piacenza on March 14, 1893, at the end of 1913 he was conscripted and sent to Libya, then to the Italian-Austrian front in Trentino, and finally participated in the Battle of Vittorio Veneto, reaching the rank of sergeant major. He joined the anarchist movement and actively participated in the postwar protests and the anti-fascist struggle with the Arditi del Popolo. For this reason, he and his wife Vittoria Parmeggiani were forced to emigrate to France-where their children Bruna and Pietro were born-and there he joined the Union of Anarchist Communists of Italian Refugees and the Anarchist Committee for Political Victims in Paris, playing a central role. In September 1936, at the beginning of the civil war and the revolution, he traveled to Spain and joined the Italian "Ascaso" Column, operating in Aragon. He immediately took part in the Battle of Almudevar and subsequently in all the major battles, assuming command of a section of the Column. Canzi later joined the Italian anarchists who accepted the militarization of the militias, joining the former Durruti Column. After the events of May 1937 in Barcelona, he decided to remain in Spain and fought in the International Brigades, becoming commander of a Brigade and being wounded. In September 1937, he returned to Paris, joined the Pro-Spain Anarchist Committee, and collaborated with the libertarian press. Following the German invasion of France, Emilio Canzi was arrested in January 1941 by the Nazi police, and after detention in Germany, he was extradited to Italy, where he was sentenced to five years' confinement and sent to the island of Ventotene. Following the fall of Mussolini, he was not released, like all the other confined anarchists, and only after September 8, 1943, did he manage to escape from the Renicci di Anghiari (AR) concentration camp; he then went to the Piacenza mountains, where he promoted the formation of the first partisan group in the province in Peli di Coli. After the group's disbandment, he continued to participate in conspiratorial activity but was arrested by the fascists, then released in May 1944 in a prisoner exchange. Having received the post of Commander of the Northern Italian National Liberation Committee (CLN), he unified the partisan formations into a single command and became commander of the XIII Zone, a delicate role requiring him to coordinate the defense against the constant raids by the German army and the fascists, and to maintain a balance among the various partisan formations, given the tensions in the Piacenza area between the autonomous and political groups. Following a major winter raid, which severely affected the partisan formations in the area, a crisis arose within the "Single Command" between those who supported the apolitical nature of the formations and those-like the PCI-who wished to work towards their politicization. This called into question the role of Emilio Canzi, who had always acted with a pluralist vision, and who was seen by the communists as the weak point of the Piacenza command, lacking an organized political force behind him (which was, however, the case with the anarchist partisans in Genoa, Carrara, Milan, etc.). The communists then attempted to seize overall command-unexpectedly supported by the British mission, which favored replacing him with a career soldier-and on April 20, 1945, they arrested Emilio and his associates, who were later freed by another partisan unit. Thus, Emilio Canzi participated as a private partisan in the fighting for the liberation of Piacenza and was present a few days later at the solemn partisan parade through the city streets.After the war, despite strong tensions within the partisan community and between political parties, he was elected president of the Piacenza ANPI and was reinstated in his role as sole commander with the rank of colonel. Canzi also participated in meetings and conferences of the anarchist movement, and in the Carrara congress of September 1945, where the Italian Anarchist Federation was founded. On October 2nd, he was hit, under unclear circumstances, by an English military van and had his leg amputated, but he died of bronchopneumonia in Piacenza hospital on November 17th, 1945. His city paid him a grand funeral and a public mourning; he was buried in Peli di Coli, where he had begun his partisan struggle and where a monument was later dedicated to him, a popular destination for excursions and visits. His intense militant life, his image as an internationalist, non-sectarian, and pluralist man and partisan commander, were and remain an enduring example of anarchism seen as a point of reference for a broader class and liberation movement.
Note
[1]Christian Donelli, Franco Sprega, Cristiano Maggi, The Anarchist Commander and His Battles in the Heart of the 20th Century. Emilio Canzi, Life, Struggle, and Memory Through Documents and Unpublished Photographs, Ravizza Editore, 2025.
Sources
Claudio Silingardi, "Emilio Canzi," in Biographical Dictionary of Italian Anarchists, BFS Edizioni, Pisa, 2000.
Giorgio Sacchetti, "Without Borders: Thought and Action of the Anarchist Umberto Marzocchi (1900-1986), Zero in Conduct, Milan 2005.
Gabriele Barone, "The Anarchist Commander," Emilio Canzi's Private Album Reveals the Human Dimension of a Hero of the Resistance, "Il Fatto Quotidiano," February 18, 2026 (https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2026/02/18/emilio-canzi-comandante-anarchico-resistenza-notizie/8293428).
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