Ezio Franceschini was born in the hamlet of Villa di Strigno in Trentino. He graduated in literature from the University of Padua in 1928 discussing, with Concetto Marchesi, a thesis on the "Liber philosophorum moralium antiquorum". After graduating, he became a lecturer and then professor of medieval Latin literature at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan (Cattolica). Between 1929-1930 he served in the military as a Captain in the Alpini . From 1931 to 1934 he was an assistant at the chair of Latin Literature in Padua, under his former teacher Marchesi. In this same year he obtained a free teaching position in Medieval Latin Literature and was appointed professor in charge, first in Padua and then in Milan. In 1943, after the armistice, together with other professors of different ideological and political orientations, Franceschini supported the Resistance. In Milan, in a university whose rector, Father Agostino Gemelli, was suspected of close relations with fascism, Ezio Franceschini, in Gemelli's psychology laboratory, hosted meetings of the Volunteer Corps of Freedom command.
Concetto Marchesi studied in Catania where already in 1893 he founded a newspaper, Lucifero. He was in political trouble at an early age when the authorities judged the first issue to be defamatory, the newspaper was seized and the sixteen-year-old Marchesi was sentenced to one month in prison, with the suspension of the sentence to be served upon reaching the age of 18. In 1895 he joined the Italian Socialist Party, began to attend the Faculty of Letters at the University of Etna, but in February 1896 he was arrested and had to serve his month. On release, he continued to denounce social injustices and advocate for the common people.. After teaching in Sicily, Veneto and Tuscany, Marchesi obtained a teaching position at the University of Messina. His political positions were shifting decisively left: he judged the Communist Manifesto to be a "great beam of light" In 1921 he joined the Communist Party. In the meantime he published commentaries and studies on Latin literature on Ovid's Ars amatoria . Martial's Epigrams and on Seneca and Tacitus. His two volumes of the History of Latin Literature (1925-1927) became a high school set text. in 1922, he had enrolled in the faculty of law, graduating the following year with the thesis The legal and political thought of Cornelius Tacitus. In 1923 Marchesi moved to the University of Padua, with the position of professor of medieval Latin. his sporadic collaboration with communist publications ceased in 1925, with a polemical article against Catholics that appeared in "l’Unita" Subsequently, there were rare contacts, with the leaders and other militants of the clandestine Communist Party. In 1931, therefore, Concetto Marchesi took an oath of loyalty to fascism which was mandatory for teachers , becoming a member of the PNF, the National Fascist Party.
Marchesi's contacts with the Communist Party resumed in 1942 through the socialist politician Lelio Basso. In the spring of 1943 he met with military representatives in Veneto and Tuscany and with General Raffaele Cadorna , commander of the "Ariete" Division, who favoured the use of the army against Germany, if fascism fell and the Prince of Piedmont assumed command of the armed forces. The war was obviously lost and the problem arose of ending fascism. In May, the head of the Communist Party Palmiro Togliatti, broadcasting from Moscow on "Radio Milano-Libertà", opened up to collaboration with the anti-fascist monarchists. At the beginning of June he went to Rome to make contact with Liberal senators , who were involved in negotiations with the Crown aimed at removing Mussolini. On his return to Milan, Marchesi reported that the army was expected to intervene in Rome . He represented the PCI in July in Milan, at clandestine meetings in which the delegates of all the anti-fascist parties laboriously sought unity following the imminent fall of fascism. On 25 July 1943, Marchesi was on vacation on Elba when the news of the fall of Mussolini reached him. Marchesi was appointed rector in Padua taking office on 7 September 1943 . There, together with the pro-rector Egidio Meneghetti, a socialist, and Silvio Trentin, the Venetian National Liberation Committee (CLN).
On 10 September King Vittorio Emanuele and the new Prime Minister Badoglio, abandoned Rome without even informing the ministers,. The commander of the "Centaur" Division Calvi di Bergolo handed over the capital to the Germans without fighting -Marchesi, given the new political situation, resigned by letter as rector. German armies occupied all of central-northern Italy, set up the s Italian Social Republic ( RSI).
In Padua, the Fascist Minister of National Education, Carlo Alberto Biggini, rejected Marchesi's resignation, confiding to him that he was convinced of Germany's imminent defeat: it was now a matter - he said - of defending the University from German interference. Marchesi agreed to stay, having been guaranteed to be able to act in full autonomy and without compromising with political and military power. On 9 November, 1943, Marchesi inaugurated the academic year, in the presence of the Biggini, in the great hall of the University, where he allowed only students and professors to enter. A handful of members of the Fascist University Militia had taken possession of the tribune, haranguing the students to enlist and insulting the students who reacted to that intrusion . Marchesi and the pro-rector Meneghetti personally and forcibly removed the fascist militia from the podium. Marchesi’s then spoke of the present situation and the prospects that awaited the University and Italy, he did not give any approval of the past and present regime, nevertheless managing to be appreciated by the fascist press. He concluded:
" Young people, trust in Italy. Trust in its fortune if it is supported by your discipline and your courage: trust in the Italy that must live for the joy and decorum of the world, in the Italy that cannot fall into servitude without obscuring the civilization of the people.”
The incidents between fascist and anti-fascist students were repeated after the end of the speech and in the following days, Colonel von Frankenberg, German commander of Padua, asked the prefect to arrest him . Forewarned Marchesi went into hiding. While in hiding he wrote , a letter of resignation to Biggini and an appeal to the students of Padua,. The appeal ws divided into two parts. In the first, Marchesi justified his time at the University with the hope of "keeping it immune from the fascist offense and the German threat" and of defending the students "from political and military servitude" at the cost of appearing to be in "peaceful coexistence" with the Regime. In the second part, Marchesi called the students to insurrection:
“Students: I am leaving you with the hope of returning to you teacher and comrade, after the fraternity of a struggle fought together. By the faith that enlightens you, by the indignation that kindles you, do not let the oppressor dispose of your life, resurrect your battalions, free Italy from slavery and ignominy, add to the labarum of your University the glory of a new, greater decoration in this supreme battle for justice and peace in the world."
News of his appeal spread clandestinely. In German occupied Rome it was reproduced at the end of December by the newspaper of the Christian Democrats, "Il Popolo. His appeal found greater resonance following publication by the Swiss socialist newspaper "Libera Stampa and by the newspaper "La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno", printed in Italy liberated by the Allies. It was also discussed on Radio London.
On 30 November 1943 Marchesi left Padua for Milan, where he remained hidden for a month, changing his address several times. The Communist Party, which had suspended him after his refusal to resign immediately from the rectorate, reinstated him in the ranks after learning of his appeal and tried to contact him. Marchesi expatriated to Switzerland in February 1944, clandestinely crossing the border at Maslianico. His night crossing of the border is described in La bisaccia di Cratete
"a man accompanied me along a steep and narrow path. He proceeded cautiously, with repeated nods of silence. I was tired. The path ended and the countryside began, strewn with bushes; and a house stood on the hillock [...] After a short distance they made me bend on the ground: they lifted the net and I crawled through the narrow opening [...] I saw no one again. It was the full moon. In front of me stretched a shabby and thorny slope, behind a dog barking furiously. Among the stars veiled by the moon, Jupiter shone with a divine whiteness. Sometimes the sky is wonderful on man's trouble."
Marchesi asked for formal asylum to the police of Bellinzona, reporting the names of friends and acquaintances from the Canton of Ticino who could vouch for him. Marchesi was not interned, as was generally the case for the military and for most political refugees;. He was subsequently appointed professor, in an internment camp for officers established in Mürren,. The freedom of movement he enjoyed allowed him to associate with various personalities of international anti-fascism, contacted in their embassies in Bern Together, Franceschini in Italy and Marchesi in Switzerland became the Fra.Ma network. In a post war account of the Group’s activities, Franceschini laid them out in detail
1. Clandestine Expatriations
At Cattolica, a Capuchin Father Carlo da Milano, had already with the help of smugglers and financial guards, been assisting Jews, Allied prisoners of war and political persecuted people to expatriate to Switzerland through various border crossings, mainly at the border village of Maslianico, just above Cernobbio on lake Como. Father Carlo da Milano, born Dr. Domenico Varischi. His convent was in Viale Piave. He had, among other things, organized – on direct behalf of Card. Schuster – the Spiritual Assistance Work Raids on behalf of the victims of the bombings. From 15-16 August 1943 onwards he hid at least a hundred Jews in the houses of religious, graduates, friends, in cellars, farmhouses in the countryside, and also in the basement and in the air-raid shelter of the Marianum university college.
False documents were procured and a forgery office of the Catholic University was organized. Prof. Franceschini, in his memoirs, described the actions of Father Carlo da Milano, he noted: "There it was possible to see a Capuchin friar pulling out of the most unexpected hiding places, and right from the hood of his cassock, identity cards, stamps, photographs, Italian and German passes, who knows how and where stolen. The documents came, for example, from the Military District of Milan, then based in Abbiategrasso”. About a hundred Jews and as many Allied prisoners, were smuggled into Switzerland to emissaries of the Allied authorities who had been entrusted with that task: with two of them the relations were particularly close: Don Mario Zanini, from Padua, and Armando Romani, from Milan. Father Carlo was forced to leave Milan to escape arrest, and Franceschini took over his network although as months had passed following the armistice the intense movement had almost ceased for the Jews and prisoners. Franceschini was instrumental in aiding the escapes of ; Prof. Diego Valeri, a well-known Venetian poet and critic, also a professor at the University of Padua, who had been sentenced to thirty years by the fascists for having directed the newspaper Il Gazzettino during the Badogliano period); the Paduan industrialist Libero Marzetto, sentenced to twenty years in prison by the fascists for political reasons and comm. A. Zammatto, from Padua, wanted for racial reasons/ all expatiated in the spring of 1944.
2. Workshop for false documents
Franceschini also too over Fr. Carlo da Milano forgery workshop , which produced stamps for the compilation of false identity cards of the municipality of Lucerà:. Dr. Giancarlo Brasca, who served in the military district of Milan, then based in Abbiategrasso, procured blank military documents of all kinds, including numerous sheets of absolute discharge that were very useful for young conscripts and other military papers were receive from the district of Sondrio through Dr. Filippo Ponti. False identity cards from the municipality of Milan were provided to him by Anna Morganti and a considerable quantity of cards were given to me by the General Command of the CVL. Franceschini sent many of them to the Allied authorities based in Switzerland, who had requested them, with numerous ration cards
3. Supply drops for partisans
Marchesi began working with the Allied authorities to obtain supplies for the Italian partisans particularly those of the Venetian region: where again he was helped by Giorgio Diena and Wanda Scimone Diena. One of the first results was the opening of a new route of airborne supplies to the partisan the route of the "white special messages", of Radio London (which began with the conventional phrases "the rain has stopped", "the wind is off"). The "way" operated uninterruptedly until the end of November 1944 controlling around seventy landing sites, directed on the Swiss side by. Marchesi and Diena and on the Italian side by Franceschini. Originally conceived for the Veneto region, it was also placed, , at the disposal of the General Command of the CVL which used it for fields in Lombardy, Piedmont and Emilia and of the Italian Communist Party for the supply of Garibaldi partisan formations in Northern Italy. Franceschini had relations with the major leaders of the various areas and exceptionally with commanders of partisan formations. In Veneto he studied the location of the landing sites with Ing. Otello Pighin (Renato) commander of the "Silvio Trentin" sappers brigade (later killed in an ambush by the neo-fascists on 7 January 1945) and with Lt. Antonio Ranzato, commander of the "Guido Blacks" brigade. Most of the requests came t from Prof. Egidio Meneghetti {Antenore), now rector of the University of Padua, who was the main exponent of the liberation movement of Veneto.
In Milan, the requests were always delivered to me directly from Ing. Fermo Solari , who was Prof. Parri's major collaborator and general commander of the Brigate Giustizia e Libertà formations. Solari graduated as an engineer in Switzerland and started a construction company operating in Somalia. Returning to Italy, in 1942 he took part in the foundation of the Partito d'Azione. in Milan. In 1943 he graduated in Economics in Rome and after 8 September he took part in the Resistance among the partisan formations of Brigate Giustizia e Libertà of which he became political commissar in the Friulian Pre-Alps with the nom de guerre of "Somma". When in February 1945 Ferruccio Parri, was taken prisoner by the Nazis, Solari became vice-commander . In the same year, wounded and captured by the soldiers of the RSI “Somma" was hospitalized at the Niguarda hospital and subsequently freed by a partisan action. The Communists made requests through , a young woman with the nom di guerre Jole. In addition to the precise geographical coordinates and the set of other data requested by the Allied Commands, Franceschini was able attached to send topographical sketches taken from the tablets at 1: 25,000 of the Military Geographical Institute partly in his possession, partly consulted at the University Library of Padua, where he was assisted by Miss Dr. Lina Zanini.
One of Franceschini's most valuable couriers between Milan and the Swiss border was Romeo Locatelli (living in Viale Regina Margherita 11 ( now via Caldara) and then evacuated to Brunate ( near Como) who, later falling into a trap during ta mission, was arrested on November 20, 1944 in via Marcora together with Giorgio Diena, he had come to Milan from Switzerland, as he had often done before, to make direct contact with Franceschini and with some leaders of the resistance movement. Unfortunately, numerous encrypted dispatches addressed to the Allied Commands in Switzerland were found on Locatelli's clothes and any attempt to free him was therefore useless. Imprisoned in S. Vittore he was in January 1945, sent to Bolzano and then, a few days later, deported to Mauthausen where he died of starvation on 1 April, 1945. Diena, on the other hand, was sent to Dachau, from where he miraculously managed to return alive after liberation. In his task as courier, Locatelli was often replaced by his nephew Beno Andreoli who always behaved with skill and prudence.
4. Relations with Czech Liberation committees
From May 1944 until the liberation, Franceschini maintained liaison between the Czechoslovak CLN, chaired by Prof. Fr. Giorgio Vesely at Cattolica, and Dr. Kopecky, representative of the Czech Government- in -exile in Bern. Following the invasion of Czechoslovakia and its dismemberment by the , the Germans had established the protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, and established the so-called Government Army of around 7,000 men in twelve battalions. In May 1944, eleven battalions were transferred to Italy to support the Germans, mainly in construction projects and guarding roads and railways. Father Vesely became the chaplain to Czech troops in Italy. The battalions of the Government Army were based all over Northern Italy at Vicenza-Udine (2nd battalion -guarding railway s and bridges.) Piacenza-Bologna (3th & 5th.) Ostiglia-Cremona (4th) Milan (passing through, 6th) Aosta (7th) - Ciriè (Turin, 8th) Verona-Brenner (9th) Treviglio-Brescia (11th) ,Taino (Sesto Calende, 12th, custody of the powder magazine) The Supreme Command was at Chiari between Bergamo and Brescia . Numbers of the Czechs had spontaneously deserted to the partisans or crossed into Switzerland, Vesely was keen to establish a modus vivendi with the partisans, mainly to prevent reprisals against the remaining Czech units and their officers . The Czechs advised the Italian of the locations and orders which the Czech troops were under, and requested that the partisans refrained from asking whole Czech units to join them , leaving their officers subject to reprisals. It was suggested that they might collude in fake attacks to fool the Germans, who were by then somewhat suspicious of the Czechs. The partisans were specifically requested not to exchange any Czech prisoners with the Germans and the Czechs proposed that if they were evacuated from Italy, they would notify the partisans who could occupy the positions they held.
The Czech representatives met twice with the Italian representative at the Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. By the second meeting it was clear that the Germans were contemplating evacuating Czech units out of Italy, units in Aosta and Liguria had been concentrated in Milan. Both sides agreed that if the Germans were to try and transport the Czechs back over the alps, the partisans would intervene to free them and help them reach Allied lines, Unfortunately the plan never came off. Quite suddenly on 4 October , the Germans disarmed all the Czech troops in Milan and rather than transporting them by road to Veneto put them on heavily guarded trains. Possibly the Germans knew of the plans afoot and intervened to prevent the Czechs being freed during a road trip, Nonetheless Franceschini’s relations with the Czechs continued . When arrested in Milan in November 1944, Romeo Locatelli was in possession of ciphered communications intended to reach the Czech representatives in Switzerland.
5. Intelligence Services
Franceschini’s network provided valuable information to Allied representatives in Switzerland. Reports on the situation in Northern Italy, information of a military and civil nature, etc., notes on the location and movements of the Republican air force, data on the effects of the bombings (with protests and reports for areas of no military interest affected), requests from the partisans (with sketches and plans) for enemy installations to be hit (powder magazines, bridges, etc.,) Romeo Locatelli took many of the reports to the border and in Lugano Diena delivered them to the English vice-consul Mr. De Garston. Other information was passed directly to the General Command of the CVL to Fermo Solari, and Dr. Enzo Boeri {Giovanni), head of the Information Office, Franceschini relied on a network of Italian collaborators . These included Dr. Renato Ferraro, a captain in the Real carabinieri who worked at The republican air force office in Milan who provided detailed information on the formations, dislocations, movements of the Republican air force , including the dispositions of German aircraft granted by Hitler to Mussolini , This enabled the RAF to bomb them.
6. Counter Espionage
Franceschini’s group also involved Counter-. Espionage: its most notable achievement being the unmasking of rag. Redaelli, a spy who had infiltrated partisan groups and betrayed them. Redaelli was sentenced to death by the Command in November 1944, but then the sentence was not carried out: arrested after liberation and tried at the extraordinary Assizes of Milan, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
7. Prisoner Exchanges
Franceschini negotiated with Major Boshammer of the SS, commander of the Padua area, I to try and free Count Tonetti, from Venice, head of the partisan formations of Grappa and Prof. Egidio Meneghetti, arrested in Padua. For the former, it was proposed to exchangr the nephew of gen. Wolff, commander of the SS in Italy, taken prisoner by the Allies in France, for the second two German SS officers. With Major Boshammer , Franceschini’s intermediary was a Benedictine Father Germano of the Convent of S. Giustina in Padua and with the Allies, in Switzerland, Mrs. Wanda Scimone Diena The initiative could not be completed, but the continuation of the negotiations meant that Count Tonetti and Prof. Meneghetti were not deported to Germany, but were detained in Bolzano- He also tried negotiating with . Col. Rauff, commander of the SS of Milan, for the exchange of Giorgio Diena and Romeo Locatelli .But although in principle it was agreed to exchange for Diena for Generaldirektor Tropp, of Organisation Todt, captured by partisans . Rauff acted in bad faith and negotiations failed.
8. Other relations
In addition to the relations, which were continuous, with the General Command of occupied Italy and with the Veneto Regional Command Franceschini had many other contacts : with the Lazzarino group in Luino; with the "Ateo Caremi" brigade and the formations operating in the Veronese valleys and on the Asiago Plateau, with the brigades active in the province of Padua that I had occasion to mention above; with the Command of the city of Milan through Sergio Kasman (Marco) killed by the neo-fascists in December 1944. Throughout Franceschini was supported by a network of helpers , especially those who hid him in their homes. These included the Morganti family in via Polidoro da Caravaggio 25 who despite the danger hosted him from December 1944 until the day of liberation; Dr. Giovanna Calore of the Parini High School, kept the links between his group and other organizations. Miss Giuditta Salis and Mr. Eugenio Regli, from Ponte Chiasso, who assisted in getting documents, into Switzerland: Mrs. Pina Ronzio (via Pecchio 20) facilitated providing Franceschini with her telephone and her shop (a box of yeast, in the window, among the bread, warned his collaborators of nearby danger and, in case of my arrest, would have prevented a trap). Mrs. Antonietta Consonni Colombo (via Pecchio 20), the doorkeeper of the house where he lived, was faithful and skilled in keeping silent, even during the searches of the apartment by the German SS. A retired Finance officer . Varana was in charge of the passages in Switzerland from the Maslianico, and Toselli who arranged another pass in the Varese area when the first became dangerous Prof. Dr. Carlo Trabattoni who established contacts with the Italian embassy in Bern. In Padua, there were Prof. Vittorio Scimone and Dr. Oreste Bareggi whose pharmacy served as a support point for the group, Dr. Lina Zanini and Dr. Lucia De Marchi collaborated in the most diverse fields. Also Attilio Agostini10, janitor of the Faculty of Letters , with whose help Franceschini stole at night from the house of Prof. Concetto Marchesi some vital documents. With the help of all these people, the group's activity lasted without suspicion until 20 November 1944 when Diena and Locatelli were arrested. On the night of 2nd December , Franceschini was warned to leave home since his activity had also been discovered, at least in part due Dr. Ugo of the SS of the Regina Hotel. From that day on, he became Dr. Andrea Zanoni, from the Marche region, with a regular identity card issued to me following an affidavit executed in Court, and a regular refugee booklet. Three times that I was stopped by the police in the months that followed, the documents were in perfect order. Franceschini concluded his brief history of the Fra.Ma Group saying :
“ I have done what I have indicated above without being a member of any political party, but considering myself morally in military service after September 8, 1943 against Germany, to which the only legitimate Italian government had declared war on October 13, and against fascism reborn solely for the moral and material ruin of my country. If I have collaborated with the underground press and helped men and political groups, I have always done so without distinction of party, seeing in them only men of the resistance, united above ideological differences for the common goal of the liberation of the fatherland. I have never asked or accepted either for myself or for my collaborators,”