Sinigaglia was born in
Fiesole to David Sinigaglia, a
Jew from
Mantua, and Cynthia White, an
African American woman from
Saint Louis. White had arrived in
Italy as a maid in
Villa la Fonte, owned by the Smith family, founders of the railways in
Vermont. They worked in the same villa. Professionally a mechanic, he served in the military as a submariner in the
Navy. In 1924, he returned to Fiesole and joined the clandestine
Communist Party. In 1928, to avoid arrest, he fled to
France and from there to the
Soviet Union, where he attended a party school, worked as a mechanic again, and got married. He then moved to
Switzerland and organized Italian communist exiles there. Later, he participated in the
Spanish Civil War aboard a
Republican cruiser. After the Spanish Republican defeat, in 1939, he sought refuge in
France. He was arrested and handed over to the Italian authorities in 1941, who confined him to
Ventotene. He was released in August 1943, following the
fall of Mussolini, and returned to
Florence, where he organized and led one of the first
GAP formations. A few months later, he fell into an ambush set by the Special Services Unit of Major
Mario Carità and was killed on Via Pandolfini in Florence. == Legacy ==