Arconovaldo Bonaccorsi

Arconovaldo Bonaccorsi is a veteran Fascist squadristi whose past in street clashes and repeated arrests leads directly into the organized assault on Alfredo Misuri in Rome. Summoned after political dissent provokes Benito Mussolini’s anger, Bonaccorsi turns a demand for punishment into action, while invoking militia authority when Carabinieri arrive. His episode links personal history, party command, and violence in the streets to the government’s continued confidence in Parliament.

Background and Political Formation

Bonaccorsi’s experience of political violence began before his Fascist militancy. During the Red Biennium, when he was twenty, he served in army units assigned to maintain public order during clashes with socialists. The account presents this service not as a departure from later squadrist violence but as part of the experience that preceded it: Bonaccorsi had been exposed to street conflict before becoming a Fascist.

He had belonged to the Fascist movement since the San Sepolcro meeting. In November 1919, he went to Milan for the elections with Leandro Arpinati and took part in a shooting at the Teatro Gaffurio in Lodi. He was arrested and spent ten months in jail. The account describes a subsequent pattern of arrests for offenses, assaults, and political violence, followed repeatedly by release. It also records numerous injuries, though it does not detail their circumstances. The result is a portrait of a militant accustomed to returning to political action despite arrest and punishment.

From Militant to Instrument of Discipline

Bonaccorsi’s established association with Arpinati connects his earlier political activity to the later operation in Rome. After Cesare Rossi openly threatened a dissident, Mussolini reacted angrily in the corridors of the Italian Parliament, insisting that the party could not allow such talk and that the dissident had to be punished. Italo Balbo volunteered to handle the matter and said that Bonaccorsi was in Rome. In this sequence, Bonaccorsi is not simply a street fighter acting on his own initiative: Balbo identifies him as the person to carry out a punishment demanded at the center of the movement.

The account then places Bonaccorsi and the operation in practical detail. Amerigo Dùmini sat in the back of a Lancia K with two Bolognese squadristi. They had located the car in a courtyard of the Viminale, a building still under construction and intended to become the prime minister’s headquarters. Late in the evening, the group followed Misuri through the streets around Montecitorio at a slow pace, then waited on Via Due Macelli. Bonaccorsi occupied the passenger seat, watching the exit of a public urinal on Vicolo dello Sdrucciolo. He held a cudgel while the others waited; the scene makes the punishment planned and coordinated, rather than a spontaneous confrontation.

The Assault on Misuri

When Misuri emerged, Dùmini had not yet got out of the car. Bonaccorsi was already moving toward him with the cudgel in hand. Misuri, still adjusting his clothing, did not see him approach. Bonaccorsi struck first; the other squadristi joined the attack, beating and kicking the deputy. The narrative identifies Bonaccorsi as the immediate instigator and a participant, while the presence of the two others shows that the violence was carried out collectively.

Carabinieri arrived in response. Dùmini drew a knife, shouted threats against the enemies of Fascism, and went into a nearby bar. Bonaccorsi, by contrast, stayed and claimed that the officers could not arrest him because he was their superior and a senior militia officer. The claim does not establish that the Carabinieri accepted his authority or that he was formally beyond arrest. It does, however, show how he presented militia rank as a basis for defying the police in the aftermath of a political assault.

Political Significance

The attack gives concrete form to the demand that dissent be punished. A political order issued in response to speech passes through Balbo’s offer, Bonaccorsi’s presence in Rome, the squadristi waiting in a car, and the assault on an elected deputy. That chain makes the episode significant not only as an instance of Bonaccorsi’s violence but as a depiction of organized Fascist force acting in the orbit of political leadership.

The immediate parliamentary aftermath sharpened the contrast. On May 30, the day after the attack, Bonaccorsi’s colleagues in Parliament voted on the provisional budget and confirmed confidence in the government, with 238 votes in favor and 83 against. The account does not state what formal consequences Bonaccorsi faced. Instead, it places the attack beside a successful vote of confidence: violence against a dissident and parliamentary support for the government appear side by side, exposing the distance between the institutions’ public proceedings and the coercion operating around them.