Italian brothers Carlo and Nello Rosselli, born into a wealthy Jewish family, became ardent voices of anti-fascism in the early 20th century, standing up against the brutal regime of dictator Benito Mussolini and eventually losing their lives for doing so. As author Caroline Moorehead notes in the preface to her book, A Bold and Dangerous Family, their resistance was cemented by a political assassination that proved a turning point in Italy’s history.

On May 30, 1924, a tall, elegant man in his late 30s, lean but not bony, with thinning, slightly curly hair, and very blue eyes set off by an equally blue sapphire on his watch chain, rose in the Chamber of Deputies in the Italian parliament in Rome and delivered an excoriating attack on Mussolini and the newly elected Fascist Party.

His name was Giacomo Matteotti and he was a socialist from the Po Valley. He had recently brought out a book in which he analyzed Mussolini’s speeches, pointing out their inaccuracies and inconsistencies, and had devoted 42 pages to a list of some 2,000 separate assaults committed by Mussolini’s fascists between November 1922 and October 1923 — murder, beatings, arson, destruction of the homes and offices of left-wing opponents, and the forcible administration of castor oil. He had come to the Chamber, he said, to denounce the voting irregularities of the recent elections, the atmosphere of intimidation in which they had been conducted, and to call for them to be declared invalid.

Matteotti spoke for two hours, against a background of jeers, threats, bullying and calls for his removal. He told the Chamber that he was preparing a dossier of fascist crimes which would include evidence of bribes accepted by the fascists from an American oil company in exchange for the right to control the distribution of petrol in Italy, in which Mussolini’s brother Arnaldo was complicit; and that he would soon be presenting it to parliament. He spoke calmly, without hyperbole; but he was implacable and he loved spare, precise facts. In Italy’s political world, where daily business had become a matter of obfuscation, deals, lies and evasions, and the many different opposition parties were weak and fighting among themselves, Matteotti was a rare honest man.

As he left the Chamber, he said to a colleague: “Now you may prepare my funeral oration.”

Mussolini, sitting at the back, had kept largely silent while Matteotti spoke. Afterwards, bursting into the office of the secretary of the Fascist Party, he shouted: “If you weren’t all a pack of cowards, no one would have dared make that speech … People like Matteotti … should not be allowed to circulate.”

At 3:30 on the afternoon of June 10, Matteotti left his home at 40 Via Pisanelli on the banks of the Tiber. It was very hot and the streets were almost deserted. A black Lancia pulled up alongside him. A small boy playing with friends reported later that he had seen a man hit in the face and carried, struggling, into a car. Matteotti disappeared. A few hours later, Amerigo Dumini, leader of a semi-official terror squad with a string of political murders to his name, appeared in Mussolini’s office carrying a small piece of bloodstained upholstery from the Lancia.

Next day, June 11, Mussolini publicly denied all knowledge of any crime, saying that since Matteotti had recently been given a passport, he had probably gone abroad — a claim vehemently denied by Matteotti’s wife, Velia. On June 12, while journalists gathered outside, Mussolini told parliament that though he still knew nothing, he was beginning to suspect foul play. He spoke of a “diabolical outrage.”

Banks of flowers piled up on the spot where Matteotti had been kidnapped. A cross was painted on the wall in red. In the Piazza del Duomo in Milan, cars, carts and buses stopped while people knelt to pray. To prevent further criticism and rumour, Mussolini prorogued parliament and visited the king to tender his resignation. The king refused it. The number of the Lancia was reported to the police by a vigilant caretaker, the car traced and found to be spattered with blood. Matteotti’s bloodstained trousers were discovered in Dumini’s briefcase; he and his associates were arrested.

On Aug. 17, a road mender inspecting pipes on the Via Flaminia, 24 kilometres outside Rome, discovered a jacket. It was identified as belonging to Matteotti. Nearby, in a shallow ditch, was his body, decomposed and bearing clear stab marks. Isabella, Matteotti’s mother, identified what remained of her son.

A sense of horror and disgust spread around Italy. The Italians had grown accustomed to daily violence, as fascist leaders dispatched their black-shirted squadristi on punitive raids against editors and publishers, union representatives and uncorrupt lawyers and judges, beating those who opposed Mussolini into silence. But this cold-blooded murder was something different. Even previous supporters of the fascists expressed shame and indignation. No one could quite believe that Italians were capable of such a deed. Within fascist circles, there were accusations, counterattacks, a feeling of panic.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Mussolini, with ruthlessness and great subtlety, survived. But no Italian ever forgot the moment when fascism itself seemed to stumble.

In 1924, having endured five years of strikes, impotent governments, street fighting and the poverty that followed the First World War, the Italians were exhausted. Mussolini’s opponents were weak and disorganized. In the wake of the Matteotti murder they met, they talked, they discussed setting up a broad-based coalition to challenge Mussolini; but no one gave the order to move and no one could agree on what to do. They had won a great moral victory; but they failed to translate it into a political one.

Scattered in ones and twos around the country, however, in universities, lawyers’ and editors’ offices and publishing houses, were individuals for whom Matteotti’s death was a defining moment, the start of 20 years of struggle inside Italy and abroad, conducted against overwhelmingly stronger forces, with many casualties along the way. Anti-fascist resistance was born and it would end only with Mussolini’s death.

And for one Florentine family — ardent followers of Giuseppe Mazzini, hero of the Risorgimento, full of strong feelings about duty, responsibility and courage — the murder of Matteotti was the day their lives changed, and there would be no going back. It turned them into bold anti-fascists, heedless of their own safety, as uncompromising as Matteotti himself, a man they had revered and believed capable of saving Italy from violent, unprincipled rule. Their names were Amelia, Carlo and Nello Rosselli.