Aldino Felicani (1891-1967)

Italian-American anarchist, typographer, editor, printer, publisher.

Born March 15, 1891, Tuscany, Italy. Typographer, & editor of the antimilitarist "Rompez les rangs," Felicani was forced to leave Italy in 1914.

Settled in the US, first in Cleveland where he published "Libertarian Youth," then in NY where he produced "The Social Question".

In 1918, Felicani settled in Boston & became friends with Bartolomeo Vanzetti. With the arrests of Vanzetti & Nicola Sacco, Felicani organized a support group with the two & created, for their defense, the newspaper "The agitazione" (1920-1925) & "The Lantern" (1927-1929).

Aldino Felicani also began publishing the dual-language antifascist "Counter-Current" in English & Italian, then only in Italian, until his death, April 20, 1967.

For background on the Italian-American anarchist milieu Peter Lamborn Wilson's article "Brand: An Italian Anarchist & His Dream" is of interest (Frank Brand, a pseudonym for Enrico Arrigoni).
http://www.anarchist-studies.org/article/articleview/46/1/7/

In French, see Ephéméride anarchiste

For the Sacco & Vanzetti Case, see Bright Lights page at http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/SaccoVan/SaccoVan.html, the (former) Burn page at http://infoshop.org/page/Sacco-Vanzetti, or Al Filreis' page at http://www.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/sacvan.html

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Aldino Felicani:  I was the one who broke the news to Sacco & Vanzetti in the death cell that they had to die on August 10th...

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The History Matters website has "The Last Days Remembered: A Compatriot Recalls the Deaths of Sacco & Vanzetti in 1927," by Aldino Felicani/Dean Albertson, including an online audio interview with Felicani done in 1954,
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/108

The Boston Public Library has the Sacco-Vanzetti papers assembled by Aldino Felicani, treasurer of the Defense Committee for the accused men; see the online Sacco-Vanzetti Project.

Sacco & Vanzetti have inspired operas by Marc Blitzstein, (completed by Leonard Lehrman, commissioned originally by The Ford Foundation for The Metropolitan Opera in the 1960s), & Anton Coppola (world premiere March 2001).

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Aldino Felicani Page created April 1999; links & images corrected & updated March 15, 2004




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