Aurora

From Centro studi libertari - Archivio G. Pinelli

Yesterday, Sunday 6 April 2025, Aurora Failla left us.

Aurora, born with her twin sister Gemma in Syracuse in 1951, can be said to have been an anarchist from birth. Daughter of Alfonso Failla and Eufemia Pastorello, she was politically active from an early age, first in Carrara, where she lived with her family, and then, starting in the mid-1970s, in Milan, where she joined the editorial staff of "A Rivista anarchica" and the Bandiera Nera group.

For the next 45 years, she worked alongside Paolo Finzi, a comrade in life and in battle, on the editorial staff of "A." And it is undoubtedly largely thanks to her joy and her lighthearted, cheerful laughter that, for nearly half a century, the editorial staff of "A" and Aurora and Paolo's home remained a meeting place and an obligatory crossroads for countless comrades from around the world.

We will remember you smiling and full of life as you were, despite everything, even when only a few years ago we interviewed you for one of our "Notebooks", the one dedicated to Paolo.

We therefore want to leave the story of your life to your own words:

THE PLEASURE OF MEETING
Interview with Aurora Failla and Alba Finzi
edited by Andrea Breda

Andrea Breda: The first thing I wanted to ask you is if you could talk a little about Paolo's origins: his family, his childhood, any particular memories or stories. In short, if you could talk a little about his life before you met him.

Aurora Failla: Well, hers was a wealthy family, absolutely anti-fascist, with a very strong female figure, Paolo's mother, Matilde Bassani, a partisan. After 1943, she was active in the Roman Resistance, where she also came into contact with the anarchists of Rome, but even before that, she had been part of the Red Aid movement in Ferrara. In Rome, she met Paolo's father, Ulisse Finzi, whom she later married and together they moved to Milan in 1945.

My father-in-law was an anti-fascist, but he wasn't actively involved. He came from a wealthy family, while Matilde came from a normal family, but one of educated people, intellectuals who placed great importance on culture, and true anti-fascists, some in one capacity, some in another. Matilde herself was an intellectual and had a great love of culture.

Paolo was born and raised in Milan. His family was part of the enlightened Milanese bourgeoisie. Let's just say that Matilde was the strong, unifying element of the family, and she was also a very beautiful woman. His mother, Lavinia, Paolo's grandmother, was also a woman of great personality. A family of intellectuals, in short. Intellectuals who had a strong ethical sense and were very sympathetic towards people who didn't have money.

Paolo's family had a stroke of luck. Ulisse Finzi was a furrier and knew his trade well, and in fact invented a machine for cleaning furs that used a (secret!) ingredient he produced himself. When he went to choose furs, he did this with the skin [mimes a hand rubbing the skin] and immediately recognized its quality. Paolo had even tried to learn the trade, but his father was much better. Anyway, these two people—Matilde and Ulisse—meet at a certain point, and they are both of Jewish origin and anti-fascist.

How did this influence Paul?

Aurora: It had a huge influence. Also because so many people passed through his house: Jews, non-Jews, people from all over... He grew up listening to the stories these people told, the stories of those who had gone to Israel, and the stories of those who were no longer there. Let's say he grew up on "bread and anti-fascism." This kind of environment and these stimuli are what pushed him to frequent Carrara later in life for similar reasons.

So, tell me a little about Carrara. Is that where you met?

Aurora: Let me tell you this wonderful story! Everyone in Carrara said I'd taken him by the heart, but my mom had taken him by the stomach. Because my mom ran a grocery store and, what's more, she was a great cook. And she liked that Paolo was a big eater, and a huge fan of hers! [laughs] That's why they said I'd taken him by the heart and she by the stomach.

But why did he cook? Did he have a restaurant or a shop?

Aurora: A shop. But that was after she moved to Carrara. My father, Alfonso Failla, had met my mother in Rome. She, like all women who had neither money nor anything, worked as a cleaner. She came from a family of ten children.

What was your mother's name?

Aurora: Eufemia Shepherd. In her family there were many children, and they were almost all girls: seven girls and three boys.

Alba Finzi: All poor, ten of them had only one pair of shoes: the first one to wake up took them.

Aurora: They had nothing. And like many poor women at the time, my mother also moved to Rome when she turned sixteen. In Rome, there was an aunt, the sixth of I don't know how many aunts, who worked for an old socialist whose name I don't remember. My dad went to visit this old socialist and saw this girl. There were many years between them, because she was born in 1924 and he was born in 1906, eighteen years apart. My dad was a small, ordinary man, but very charming, warm, and honest. And so, he had gone to visit this socialist, and she worked there as a cleaner. She could read and write a little because she was an intelligent woman, but she had no education whatsoever. Her account of that first meeting was: "He seemed crazy to me." This was because my dad often took a ladder, put it in the street, climbed up on it, and started "shouting," that is, holding a speech. But for her it was "screaming" [laughs] . Obviously, he had had other relationships before, other women who were also important in his life.

Well, Paolo comes to Carrara from Milan specifically to meet my dad. He arrives, rings the bell, and I open the door. Back then, people like Paolo Finzi didn't show up at the door; they were the hippies, the most diverse types... And yet, here comes Paolo Finzi: slim, handsome, elegant, and in a suit and tie.

Alba: That time he had to go to a rally, and his comrades in Milan had told him to go to Alfonso Failla's, who would put him up for the night. He even had a letter of introduction written by one of the Milan group. So the day he arrived, he slept under a table in the living room. At first, he flirted with my aunt [Gemma Failla, Aurora's twin sister; Editor's note], but she didn't give him any credit. Then he asked my mother if she wanted to go for a walk, and she said yes. And so, while they were walking, they touched hands... When he returned to Milan, my father immediately wrote to her: "Aurora and Carrara will remain forever in my heart." And he didn't send her a note, but a telegram!

Aurora: It's true, that's exactly how it happened. We met and fell in love. And then that telegram arrives: imagine, it wasn't even used back then...

Paolo was an outgoing, friendly guy, never sitting still, hopping around, always wanting to know everyone's business. We talked a lot together, or rather, the little time my dad left us, because he was also a big talker, and as soon as he found a friend available, especially if they had a car, he wouldn't let go: he'd hop in the car, because he didn't have one, and have them drive him around to visit his friends who were here and there. And he'd take him away from me! [laughs]

How come your parents moved from Rome to Carrara at a certain point?

My father knew and frequented the anarchists of Carrara, and they realized he was a capable man. This was especially true of Ugo Mazzucchelli. Mazzucchelli was an anarchist from Carrara who had become wealthy because he knew marble very well and could identify the right veins. He wasn't born a landowner, nor had he inherited anything: he had an eye for marble and knew how to exploit this quality. In any case, my father had been invited to move from Rome to Carrara to reinvigorate the local anarchist movement. Because in Carrara, there was a great desire to do things, but there wasn't much culture, let's say, even if there was a strong anarchist instinct.

So there was a need for capable men.

Aurora: Exactly. It's not like my father did anything special. More than anything, he worked to make the Partisan Cooperative run smoothly, founded by Mazzucchelli, who had provided the initial funding. It was a cooperative made up of a few shops, and it was in one of them, a grocery store, that my mother went to work. The basic idea was to help people who didn't have money: they could go there and pay at the end of the month when the money arrived.

But beyond his relationships with you and your father, did Paolo hang out with other anarchists in Carrara?

Aurora: He met them all. Up until then, he'd only known the anarchists of Milan, but when he started hanging out in Carrara, he met not only the local anarchists, the Mazzucchellis and so on, but also all the people who came and went... Because there was this special figure there, my father, who acted as a catalyst. He wasn't an intellectual: he came from a family of police officers and had only graduated from sixth grade. But let's just say my father was like honey: he attracted comrades... After all, he had a very important role in the anarchist movement. He was also the one who had spent the longest in exile and prison during Fascism, the one who had toured all the islands. So for a young anarchist like Paolo, hanging out with him, he who came from an anti-fascist family of Jewish origin, was the best thing. Our house was very busy, people were constantly passing by, just as Paolo's family home was always very busy. So he immediately found himself in an environment similar to his own.

And then there was the friendship with Pinelli. Pino would come to Carrara for vacation and was our friend. And so Pino, from Milan, also became another link between us.

Tell me a little about your Italian-American comrades. As far as I know, many of them, when they returned to Italy, stopped by Carrara, which at the time was considered the "anarchist capital."

Aurora: We initially met them precisely because all the anarchists who came to Italy from abroad had Carrara as a point of reference. Some Italian-Americans came there on vacation because they were originally from there, but many also came to meet local anarchists. Those of their generation all needed work, and they were a bit like gypsies [laughs], or like today's migrants. If someone from Carrara went to the United States and found work, they'd whistle and many would flock there. Then these same emigrants, with the little money they had (which was very little compared to what the PCI had), funded an initiative like the Maria Luisa Berneri Community, which was based in Ronchi di Marina Massa, near the pine forests. They'd bought a plot of land with a house, which they then converted into a summer camp. And this camp continued for years.

Roughly what year are we in?

Aurora: In the early 1960s. The children of the poorest classmates usually came here.

And did the children of Italian-Americans come too?

Aurora: My grandchildren would come. And there was a lot of solidarity. For example, Valerio Isca, an immigrant of Sicilian origins, had two twin nieces in the United States. I also had a twin, but we had absolutely nothing, yet we seemed very rich because Isca sent us all the clothes his nieces had cast off, very elegant clothes. From America in those years, they sent us bundles of clothes. We even had leopard-skin coats because one of them worked in the fur trade and had sent us two leopard-skin coats, those of us who lived in public housing! There was solidarity, in short, partly out of respect for my dad, and partly because of my mother's hospitality. My mother didn't care much about politics, but she was an exceptional woman. And she had a great nose [he bangs his fist on the table], because when some spy showed up, she recognized him immediately! And then she would say: "This guy stinks, he stinks..." and they were always undercover cops!

Then at some point you went to the United States. You took a long trip, right? Or more than one?

Aurora: We took two trips to see them all. The first was just me and Paolo. After meeting so many people here in Italy, we went there ourselves and had a wonderful trip. The trip of our lives, before having children. And we really connected with everyone.

What tour did you take?

Aurora: We first went to Canada, to Attilio Bortolotti, and then down to the southern United States. We visited all the anarchists we'd met in Carrara, as well as other comrades we'd never met. The Italian-American anarchists were already quite old at the time, but their children and grandchildren were also there. The oldest comrade we met was John the Cook [Vincenzo Ferrero], who was 101 at the time!

Let's return to Italy and "A." After the first few years, you and Paolo remained to run the magazine. Were there any particular phases?

Aurora: There have been various groups over time. There's always been a flow of people arriving and then, after a while, leaving... But the magazine has continued to be published throughout all these years and has never missed an issue. And it has always been a point of reference for all anarchists, even those arriving from abroad and passing through Milan.

A little Carrara in Milan, then.

Alba: Since I was born, I've seen people from all over the world pass through my house, from the United States to Japan... And what my mother says about her house in Carrara, I've experienced here in Milan.

Aurora: There were even ten of us sleeping on the floor in the living room [laughs] .

You have therefore been a point of reference not only for Italian anarchism but also for international anarchism, both politically, through the magazine, and physically, through your home and the editorial office on Via Rovetta.

Aurora: Absolutely. There have always been people willing to pass on what was said and done, to make sure it became something everyone could share. Because storytelling—making a magazine and therefore storytelling—means providing continuity.

Tell me more about this storytelling, memory, and continuity. I'm actively involved in the Pinelli Archive. For me, as for many others, there's no longer a revolution looming, and anarchy also involves the distribution of books and magazines. Of course, not only that, but it's also that. And one of the things that fascinates me most about the Pinelli Archive and the CSL is precisely the thread of memory and the connections with people around the world. Contacts that in some cases go back a very long time and that remain incredibly strong over time.

Aurora: Of course. Also because we weren't the only ones traveling the world; the others traveled a lot, too. At one time, we didn't travel much, but at a certain point, everyone started traveling, often relying on local comrades to get to know them better and create solidarity networks. This established the habit of welcoming comrades from outside, for example to participate in conferences organized by the CSL. All of this created community. And in this sense, the magazine did a lot. Obviously, it wasn't just Paolo and I who did it. Let's just say we were happy to welcome comrades.

It's been a bit of a common thread in your life, you might say...

Aurora: Of course. My great fortune, Paolo's and mine, was to have met two families behind us who shared a common thread of solidarity. And so it was a pleasure to meet them. I consider myself very fortunate because I was born into a wonderful family. My mother could barely read or write, but she was a formidable woman... In any case, this human solidarity was very important to me, and it's something that goes beyond culture, beyond what you learn through study.

Alba: If I may say one thing, with my father's death and the magazine's closure, I fear many of these bonds will be lost. He had this incredible ability to maintain relationships over time. Even those who only stopped by the editorial office once in a while would immediately sit down and start a conversation. Both at my home and on Via Rovetta, I met and heard exceptional people from all over the world discuss everything.

Changing the subject, how did you meet Fabrizio De André? Did he ever visit Via Rovetta?

Aurora: Fabrizio was a personal friend. I remember that Dori and Fabrizio had just moved to Milan and were still living in a hotel. Paolo had managed to secure an interview for "A" and so he went to their hotel. And as he later recounted, the first person he met was Dori Ghezzi, dressed all in white. "She looked like a goddess," he always said. That was the first time we met. Then Paolo did the interview, and from there a great friendship was born, even on a personal level.

Alba: Taking a step back and returning to family memories, I'd like to tell you an episode from my father's youth. He always said he grew up on "anti-fascism," but he also confessed to me that when the whole Piazza Fontana massacre arose, my grandparents—his parents—were very scared after his arrest. They knew he hung out with anarchists, and out of concern, despite being staunch anti-fascists, they forbade him from going to the Ghisolfa Bridge. My father, usually very dutiful and responsible, at that point began to lie, as he himself told me a few years ago. He told them he was going somewhere else, but instead, from Piazza della Repubblica, where they lived, he crossed half the city to get to the bridge in Bovisa. When he told me this, he was still amazed at himself for having lied to his parents—the height of transgression for him! And then I wanted to add something else. Besides his mother, there was a second important female figure for my dad. My great-grandmother, his mother's mother, whom he often spoke of: Grandma Lavinia [Bassani], who died at 101.

Aurora: A very strict woman, but with a strong ethical sense.

Alba: I think Grandma Lavinia had a huge influence on him. So much so that, like my father, I grew up with her proverbs. There was a proverb for everything. She lived to be almost 101 years old by doing crosswords, despite contracting malaria in Africa, where she had gone to visit one of her daughters, Eugenia Bassani, my father's aunt, another very important female figure for him…

Aurora: Yes, Aunt Eugenia was a feminist ante litteram ... She had also studied and practiced acupuncture many years ago. She had moved to Libya for several years because, at just 21 years old, before the war, she had won a scholarship to manage pharmacies in Tripoli and Benghazi.

Alba: She was a graduate, in fact, she had a double degree at a time when very few women graduated. When she was 90, she even wrote a book on Chinese medicine [ Biophysics and Pulse Therapy. Traditional Chinese Medicine: A Holistic Medicine According to the Universal Laws of Living Beings , 2003; Editor's note] . She was a completely independent woman. In her old age, she lived alone in Milan until her death, and my father was one of the few relatives who continued to see her, even though she had eventually gone a little crazy. In short, all these women were important in her life. My father always loved women more than men.

Aurora: For their strength and independence.

Alba: He never explicitly told me "women are better," but he certainly thought so. For example, when he met a couple of classmates, he'd say of him, "Yes, he's good, he's nice," but who knows why the woman was always better! [laughs]

Let's change the subject. I wanted to ask you about your relationship with Gianfranco Bertoli. Bertoli was undoubtedly a controversial figure: the attack on the Milan police headquarters in May 1973, a year after the assassination of Luigi Calabresi, with the aim of "avenging" Pinelli; the accusations of collusion with the secret services and neo-fascist circles; the long detention following a life sentence, during which he collaborated with "A," for which he wrote several anti-prison articles [see Gianfranco Bertoli is dead , "A rivista anarchica" no. 269, February 2001, Editor's note]... Beyond your collaboration with the magazine, your relationship with Bertoli was even more special because Paolo was his guardian during his prison term.

Aurora: There's been far too much talk about Bertoli. Ultimately, I think it was a mistake to have any dealings with him, and that the judgment of him was probably skewed by too much kindness. He wasn't a great figure of ethics and didn't deserve everything he was offered.

Alba: I don't know the story well, but I know my father was very disappointed. He wasn't very proud of having been his guardian.

Let's move on to your relationship with Judaism and the Roma, also understood as a relationship with individuals. Tell me a little about this.

Aurora: Throughout our lives, Paolo, and I, have always thought of the least fortunate. It's always been important for us to acknowledge others, wherever they come from. In fact, we've always had a curiosity for the least fortunate, which also stemmed from a desire for honesty. Paolo always suffered greatly from coming from a wealthy family. So he used his heart, gave so much, and was a man of great kindness and honesty. But be careful: giving to others didn't just mean giving money. It meant acknowledging that you're privileged and it's your duty to help those who aren't. Of course, you get screwed too. But what's always been important is this constant drive to know and acknowledge others.

Another form of that pleasure of meeting that we were talking about before.

Aurora: Yes, because this opens you up to so many things, even to disappointments, indeed. Or to disenchantment, sometimes. But curiosity remains, which instinctively isn't a question mark but a certainty. You are different, but you are still part of my family. This was a fundamental aspect of Paolo. Of his honesty and kindness.

If the origin of the connection with Judaism is more evident, what prompted Paul to become interested in the Roma? Did he seek this relationship? Was there a particular event that prompted his interest in this culture?

Aurora: The last: because they are the last.

Alba: May I? It's my topic! If you want, I'll tell you about it. My dad was very involved in the school on Via Russo, in Milan, where my brother and I went. He was the parents' representative. This school was full of Roma because all the ones from the Via Idro camp in those years came to school thanks to a project by the Municipality of Milan, which had provided a minibus to take them from the camp to the school and back. The parents and teachers also organized "breakfasts" for the Roma children during which they could not only eat but also shower, etc. Paolo had made friends with two women, one was a Gagi like me, the other was not, the mother of a friend of mine. They were cultural mediators. Paolo approached these two women, who were also the ones who accompanied the children from the camp to the school, and after becoming friends, he went to the camp with them. That's how he began to hang out with the Roma. And sometimes he took me to the camp with him. Recently, I remembered some episodes I had forgotten. Paolo—alone! – Every now and then he took a dozen or so Roma children to Gardaland. Sometimes he went with the girls, and he took me too, and only once did he go with the boys, and he took my brother. The one time he went with the boys, he swore “never again”! A terrible mess ensued; they were even violent. While we girls were “prettier,” he took us several times!

My son Lapo's Roma godmother once told me another story I didn't know. When she was little, my father picked her up from the camp to bring her to our house for my brother's birthday party. But she didn't want to come because she didn't have any shoes: she only had her mother's slippers. Paolo then told her not to worry, he'd buy them for her. They went to a store, but they didn't have her size. At this point, Paolo told her it wasn't a problem anyway, because Aurora always made everyone take their shoes off: "You take off your slippers, put them somewhere, and no one will notice." The end of the story is that some kids saw her show up in slippers and started teasing her, and of course she burst into tears! In short, the relationship with the Roma was born like this, a neighborhood story combined with concern for the less fortunate and the pleasure of meeting others. Although, and I speak from firsthand experience, the more you get to know gypsies, the harder it is to maintain a relationship. In recent years, Paolo had become somewhat disillusioned with this, too.

About something specific or about their way of doing things in general?

Alba: Towards the end, he was a little less confident that they truly intended to redeem themselves and change. Because gypsies are stubborn. So, even if you want to help the least fortunate...

Maybe because in a way they want to stay that way?

Alba: Yeah, yeah. We can say they're definitely not trying too hard to get out of the situation they're in. And that ultimately pissed Paolo off a bit.

My father, on the other hand, had a relationship with Judaism that I've never truly understood. Perhaps it's the only thing about my father I've never fully understood. Because he grew up in a secular, non-practicing Jewish family. Yet, over the years, he strengthened this bond.

I see a bit of what we were talking about before. That is, the points of contact between a certain Jewish culture and anarchist culture, both, if you will, from the diaspora. Without forgetting the importance both place on conviviality...

Aurora: Certainly, to conviviality, but also to solidarity.

This is most evident, for example, in the case of the United States, where there have been many points of contact between the libertarian part of the immigrant Jewish community and the more general anarchist community, itself largely immigrant. The Center for Libertarian Studies even organized an international conference on this topic in 2000: Anarchists and Jews: The Story of an Encounter . Perhaps Paolo himself experienced some common aspects of these two worlds, which indeed display surprising similarities.

Alba: That's true, but for some reason I'm still missing something... We even went on a trip to Israel...

Aurora: In Israel, we also visited many friends we'd met in Italy who weren't anarchists. His interest in Judaism has always been there: being a deeply anarchist, Paolo couldn't help but see certain things that had nothing to do with anarchism. But ultimately, Paolo's focus has always been on the least... and among the least are certainly the Jews. Then there's the State of Israel and everything else, that's another story... Anyway, his parents were also completely secular. They might go to some Jewish family celebrations, but it was mostly because they ate and drank together!

Alba: [laughs] I remember that we used to go to Mantua every year, to the Jewish cemetery, so that we could eat pumpkin tortelli afterwards. When my grandmother Matilde died, I remember that at the funeral my father was really pissed off because he had purposely put on a pink shirt that my brother had brought him as a gift from China. But Jews have a funeral custom: the rabbi, as a sign of mourning, cuts off your shirt! He, who knew nothing about these things, was left feeling like shit! We arrived at the cemetery in Mantua, and the rabbi tore the shirts off my dad, his brother Enrico, and his sister Valeria! Then, of course, he had it sewn back on and continued to wear it.

Well, we've talked about many things, and from all of them, I'd say it's clearly evident that there's a very close relationship between you, Aurora, and Paolo—a special bond, I dare say. Would you like to add anything about this, about the relationship between you and Paolo?

Aurora: We had a special relationship, an intense love... we were very similar in our sensibilities. A love that couldn't have been greater. It was a love based on respect, mutual esteem, a free love. We were free, we were a couple of people who loved each other all our lives by choice.

Aurora Failla (Syracuse 1951 - Milan 2025), daughter of Alfonso Failla and Eufemia Pastorello, and twin sister of Gemma, moved with the rest of her family to Carrara after her birth, where she remained throughout her childhood and adolescence and where she began to actively participate in the anarchist movement. In 1971, she met Paolo Finzi, with whom she began a lifelong relationship that led her to move to Milan. She and Paolo would have two children and share the management of "A" until its closure.

Alba Finzi (Milan 1991), daughter of Paolo and Aurora, began frequenting the Roma communities in her early twenties, where she met her future partner Rudi Hudorovich, a Croatian Roma with whom she had two children, Lapo and Luna.

Andrea Breda (Milan 1983) was an active participant in the Milanese student movement as a teenager, and in his early twenties, he began to engage with the anarchist movement, quickly becoming a regular. His true anarchist activism began within the A.sperimenti collective and the Circolo dei Malfattori collective in Milan, with which he experienced the relatively brief but intense occupation of Ripa dei Malfattori, three storefronts provocatively overlooking Milan's Navigli district. For approximately three years (2013–2015), a wide range of cultural initiatives were organized there. In 2009, he began collaborating with the Centro Studi Libertari / Archivio G. Pinelli and shortly thereafter with the publishing house elèuthera, collaborations that continue to this day.

[Excerpt from Notebook No. 3 , Paolo Finzi: the (imperfect) practice of anarchy ]

Add new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.

Filtered HTML

  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a href hreflang> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul type> <ol start type> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
CAPTCHA
a
3
C
s
m
q
z
G
Enter the code without spaces.
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.