Tonelli was born into a poor family. Her father, a bricklayer, who supported seven children, died of
typhus in 1915. Virginia began working as a seamstress and then as a nurse, working in the children's hospital in
Venice. In 1930 she joined the
Italian Communist Party, which at that time operated in hiding due to the ascendance of
fascism. In 1933 she emigrated to
Toulon,
France. In 1937 she married Pietro Zampollo, a fellow party member who went to fight in
Spain in the
International Brigades to support the Republic, where he was wounded, sent back to Italy and imprisoned. In Toulon, Tonelli, having become a revolutionary by profession, hosted several comrades who moved between Italy, France and Spain. Among the best-known of these were
Giorgio Amendola,
Giuseppe Dozza,
Giancarlo Pajetta and
Emilio Sereni. In the early months of 1943, with fascism now in difficulty, the party leadership asked her to return to Castelnovo to carry out propaganda and protest actions. In one of these, on 14 June, she was arrested, but the fall of the regime returned her to freedom. With the German occupation following the armistice of 8 September and with the creation of the
Italian Social Republic (the Republic of Salò), Tonelli had to go underground, actively engaging in the
Italian resistance movement under the
nom de guerre of "Luisa". == Honours ==