Background '' Fioravanti was born in
Rovereto to a Roman family, his father was a television presenter. As a child actor, Fioravanti starred in a popular series of the 1960s, "
La famiglia Benvenuti", with
Enrico Maria Salerno and
Valeria Valeri playing his parents. Fioravanti's younger brother Cristiano had joined a far right youth section aged 13; he acquired a reputation for relishing violent confrontations with leftists. According to Fioravanti, his original motivation for associating with far right militants was not political, but a desire to protect his brother. Fioravanti's parents tried get him away from the escalating violence by sending him to study in the US for a year, he returned to make his last film, which was released in 1975. In early 1977, he was charged with assault, and given 40 days in jail for possession of a pistol. Fioravanti abandoned university studies to join a paratroop unit of the Italian army; he was repeatedly punished for disciplinary infractions. After a crate of hand grenades was stolen while he was on guard duty, Fioravanti was court-martialed for leaving his post and sentenced to several months in a military prison.
Francesca Mambro was the daughter of a policeman (who died in 1979), and from a relatively modest background. She met Fioravanti at a far right university club. As activists for the
Italian Social Movement, they were targeted by political opponents as fascists (Fioravanti himself rejected the label). In a 1997 interview, Mambro said she identified with far right wing youth as underdogs who tended to be on the receiving end of violence. Some of her friends died, including a young Social Movement protester who Mambro saw being shot dead by a
Carabinieri captain during disturbances that followed the
Acca Larentia killings. The incident alienated Fioravanti's associates, and led to riots during which some
Italian Social Movement youths shot at police. Mambro later said the experience made her decide to carry a gun, although her personal involvement with Fioravanti played a major part in her taking up terrorism.
Armed Revolutionary Nuclei It is believed that at some point Mambro devised the name
Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari, but the group was anti-authoritarian and was never formally structured.
Ideology The late seventies were a time of political violence in the form of bombings, assassinations, and street warfare between rival militant factions. Fioravanti was one of a number of teenage activists in Rome who saw the state-sanctioned
far-right political party as betraying them, through inaction in the face of attacks by political opponents and the police. Influenced by leftist movements, a large group of far right youths, including Fioravanti and his close associates, moved from street-fighting to terrorism. Unlike their left-wing counterparts, they emphasised personal qualities like spontaneity and willingness to fight, even in a lost cause, over political objectives. Fioravanti has said, "About defeat we never cared, we are a generation of losers, always on the side of the defeated." Italy was seen as a 'sick', unjust and repressive state. In a 2005 interview, Fioravanti characterized this former rationale for terrorist activities as 'total stupidity', and said 'exultation and rage' in his milieu had fed a collective delusion.
Personnel The original core members consisted of those close to Fioravanti: Franco Anselmi, magistrate's son Alessandro Alibrandi and Fioravanti's brother Cristiano. Two of the most active terrorists, Gilberto Cavallini, who was a fugitive, and 17-year-old Luigi Ciavardini, became part of the core group after the first armed actions. Others were the part-Eritrean George Vale and
Massimo Carminati (later to become a major figure in the Italian underworld). Mambro became active in NAR violence and romantically involved with Fioravanti during 1979. Testimony at their trial described the couple as "always together". Fioravanti was a good friend of Carminati, and through him, he was introduced to some members of
Rome's dominant criminal gang members, including Massimo Sparti, who became close to Cristiano. Their anti-hierarchical ethos precluded any formal leader, though Fioravanti was the main organizer. He anticipated others would be drawn to emulate NAR, and that other cells would spring up spontaneously, as they shifted to taking action irrespective of the consequences. Fioravanti advocated small, fast-moving groups, as he intended the name "Armed Revolutionary Nuclei" to be adopted by largely independent cells.
Armed violence Fioravanti was doing military service when the first killing occurred, it is believed to have been committed by either Cristiano or Alibrandi in September 1977; a leftist militant was shot dead. The victims of Armed Revolutionary Nuclei that followed included several policemen (this was justified on the grounds of them being 'thugs and torturers'), comrades suspected of treachery, and investigating magistrates including
Mario Amato. Fioravanti was 23, and Mambro 21, when warrants charged them with the
Bologna massacre bombing of 2 August 1980, which killed 85 people and both Fioravanti and Mambro were subsequently convicted of.
Capture In February 1981, police surprised members of Armed Revolutionary Nuclei as they were retrieving weapons cached in the
Bacchiglione river on the outskirts of
Padua. In the shooting that followed, two policemen were killed and Fioravanti was badly wounded in the legs; he was arrested later the same day. His brother Cristiano was tracked down two months later through telegrams he had sent his girlfriend. He quickly collaborated to provide police with a thorough account of NAR activities, and was released under a new identity after a year. The remaining group of NAR fugitives did not regard Mambro as a leader, she played a traditional female role by trying to keep life serene. In March 1982, she was shot and critically wounded while taking part in a bank robbery during which a bystander was killed. According to Mambro, accomplices had openly toyed with the idea of
coup de grâce rather than letting the police capture and interrogate her, but it was eventually decided to leave her at a hospital, where she was arrested. ==Bologna massacre investigation==