Giovanni Amendola

Giovanni Amendola is the hero and martyr of Salerno’s antifascism. The Piazza in front of the City Hall and a statue are dedicated to him.
He was born in Naples to a family originally from Sarno in the province of Salerno, and his political career led to his election in the constituency of Mercato San Severino and then Salerno.
He began his career as a journalist, working first with Prezzolini’s Vove and then with Corriere della Sera, with whose editor Albertini he built a friendly relationship. When war broke out he left for the front and fought on the Isonzo, earning a bronze medal.
When the war ended he attempted an academic career, continued journalism, but his vocation was politics. He was elected to the Chamber first in 1919 and then in 1921, as a liberal with positions vicene to those of Francesco Saverio Nitti, and in the Facta government of 1922 he became Minister of the Colonies. This is the year of the March on Rome, and Amendola is among those unsuccessfully calling on the King to proclaim a state of siege and block the advance of fascist militias. Thus began his anti-fascist battle, both from the benches of Parliament and from the tribune of Mondo, the newspaper he founded.
He suffers for this opposition as many as three assaults by fascist squads, the first and second in Rome, where he is seriously wounded. But he does not bend and is one of the animators of the Aventino, the boycott of parliamentary work by anti-fascist deputies after the assassination attempt on Matteotti.
But in July 1925 near Montecatini-where he had attended a political meeting – he was ambushed: wounded again with spiked clubs, he fled to France and died there in 1926 after a difficult surgery due to the consequences of the last beating.
One of his sons, Giorgio, will join the Communist Party, of which he will become one of the top national leaders, linked however to Salerno, the city in which he will be elected several times to the Chamber.