A-Infos (en) Italy, FAI, Umanita Nova #35-25 - Gianpiero Bottinelli (1946-2025) (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

A few days after his 79th birthday, his longtime companion and friend 
Gianpiero Bottinelli passed away at his home. After completing an 
apprenticeship as a commercial clerk, he moved with his family to 
Lausanne in 1970 to earn a degree in social work, a profession he would 
pursue until his retirement. In Lausanne, he attended and participated 
in the activities of the International Centre for Research on Anarchism 
(CIRA), where he met Marie-Christine Mikhaïlo and Marianne Enckell. In 
1972, he was among the organizers of the commemoration of the 
Anti-Authoritarian International in Saint-Imier. This allowed him to 
connect with Swiss and Spanish organizations and comrades and to carry 
out political work with them.

Upon returning to Ticino, he immediately joined the Organizzazione 
Anarchica Ticinese (OAT), founded in December 1973 in Lugano-Cassarate, 
marking the return of organized anarchist activity in the canton after a 
hiatus of nearly thirty years.

OAT members launched specific initiatives: in 1975, Azione diretta, a 
publication initially of antimilitarist propaganda and then of anarchist 
propaganda, to which Giampi contributed articles and dossiers; in 1978, 
Edizioni La Baronata, of which he was a founding member. For this 
publishing house, in addition to researching texts, he worked as a 
translator and editor, and is remembered above all as the co-author of 
L'antimilitarismo libertario in Svizzera (1989) and the author of the 
excellent biography of Luigi Bertoni (1997), later translated and 
completed in French and German.

In 1976, he was among the members of the group of Ticino, Swiss-German, 
French-speaking, and Spanish exile comrades who promoted the 
International Colloquium for the centenary of the death of the Russian 
anarchist Mikhail Bakunin, held in Zurich. He also collaborated with 
anarchist publications such as Umanità Nova and the magazine A.

A lifelong antimilitarist, he actively participated with other Ticino 
anarchists in the Group for a Switzerland without an Army and for a 
Politics of Peace (GSsE), contributing articles to the newspaper's 
Italian version and in the collective work Rapsodia dell'antimilitarismo 
(1989).

Disappointed by the outcome of the national vote that rejected the 
initiative to abolish military service, he refused to take his final 
refresher course in the army and was sentenced by the military court to 
several weeks in prison, to be served in the open section of the 
cantonal penitentiary.

In 1991, the Human Rights League was founded in Minusio, with Giampi 
among its promoters and leaders. The organization's mission was to 
monitor and report police abuse against detainees and prisoners in 
pretorial prisons and had even obtained visitation rights for inmates in 
the cantonal penitentiary who requested it. The League was dissolved in 
1999.

The occupation of the former Molini Bernasconi mills in Lugano in 1996 
and the founding of the CSOA Il Molino encouraged Giampi to frequent the 
site and organize activities there over the years at its various locations.

In particular, he collaborated with the anarchist group Bonnot, which 
ran the La Vendetta space at the Il Molino social center and published 
the anarchist periodical LiberAzione since 2003. When LiberAzione ended 
and was relaunched in 2007 under the title Voce libertaria, Giampi, 
along with other comrades from the now old guard, agreed to join the 
editorial team. And it must be said that the periodical's continued 
existence until 2024 is thanks precisely to Gianpiero's perseverance and 
commitment, especially since 2020.

His association with and constant contact with the CIRA in Lausanne, 
dating back to 1970, prompted Gianpiero and other comrades to plan a 
documentation center in Ticino that would collect and make available not 
only the material-books and documents-collected over the decades, but 
also interviews and testimonies from former comrades active in the first 
half of the 20th century, including Carlo Vanza, known during the OAT 
days, Antonietta Peretti, Ferdinando Balboni, Rocco Molinari, and others.

Thus, in 1986, the Circolo Carlo Vanza (CCV) documentation center was 
founded, which finally opened to the public in 2003 for both 
consultation and for the promotion of libertarian ideas, first in 
Locarno and then, from 2014, in Bellinzona. Giampi's commitment is 
constant, qualified, practical, and contributes to making the 
documentation center known in Switzerland and abroad, so much so that 
the CCV becomes part of the FICEDL (Fédération internationale des 
centres d'études et de documentation libertaires) and the RebAl (Network 
of Anarchist and Libertarian Libraries and Archives). Gianpiero 
cultivated and maintained the contacts he had established through active 
participation in both FICEDL meetings and various anarchist events, 
including those of international scope (the Self-Management Fairs in San 
Martino in Rio, the Anarchist Publishing Showcases in Florence, the 
People's Kitchens in Massenzatico, and so on). Collaboration with the 
CCV ended abruptly and controversially in 2023 due to political and 
managerial disagreements, which led to Gianpiero and two or three other 
longtime comrades leaving the club.

A deep knowledge of the history of anarchist and libertarian movements 
and ideas, combined with a meticulous ability to identify significant 
details, prompted Giampi to systematize the information he had gathered 
over decades and catalog it in the Cantiere biografico degli anarchici 
IN Svizzera (Biographical Workshop of Anarchists in Switzerland), 
available online and listing nearly 2,000 biographies or biographical 
sketches of well-known and lesser-known militants and individuals who 
spent time in Switzerland. Giampi's work, carried out predominantly by 
himself, began around 2007 and continued until the end. The last entry 
was made on November 6th.

In short, a full life, largely dedicated to the anarchist ideal in many 
forms and aspects. We will remember him for his great historical 
knowledge, his polemical verve in discussions driven by rigor and 
precision, and his not always accommodating nature, but also and above 
all his cheerfulness and humor, which truly made him a "bon compagnon."

We share the grief of his partner Rosemarie and his sons Michele and 
Massimo. Giampi will be missed by many.

Ticino Companions

https://umanitanova.org/gianpiero-bottinelli-1946-2025/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Subscribe/Unsubscribe https://ainfos.ca/mailman/listinfo/a-infos-en
Archive: http://ainfos.ca/en