The second son of
Ezio Vigorelli, a well-known
Socialist lawyer, he studied
law at the
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan, and in 1939 he enlisted as a
reserve officer in the
Royal Italian Army, being assigned to the Automobile Corps. During the
Second World War he remained stationed in Italy, and after the
Armistice of Cassibile – on 8 September 1943 he was assigned to the 3rd Automobile Regiment with the rank of
second lieutenant – he evaded capture by the Germans and soon made contact with other Milanese anti-Fascists. Hunted down by the Fascist police, he escaped to
Switzerland along with his father and elder brother, Bruno, but after meeting in
Lugano Dionigi Superti, commander of the "Valdossola" Partisan Division, the two brothers decided to follow him back to Italy to resume the fight against the German occupiers and the
Italian Social Republic. In June 1944, during a German offensive against partisan positions in the
Val Grande, Bruno died after falling into a ravine while trying to rescue a wounded partisan, and Adolfo was killed after being surrounded at Alpe Casarolo. He was posthumously awarded the
Gold Medal of Military Valor. ==References==