Documents to detail links between Dom Mintoff, Nerik Mizzi and Italian exiles

Book will detail relationship between former prime ministers Dom Mintoff and Nerik Mizzi and two Italian exiles who fled the country during Mussolini's reign

Historian Georgio Peresso
Historian Georgio Peresso

New documents released by historian Giorgio Peresso is expected to uncover new documentation which shows the close relationship that existed between two anti-fascist Italian emigres in Malta during Mussolini’s dictatorship and leading Maltese political figures, foremost amongst which are former prime ministers Dom Mintoff and Nerik Mizzi.

The book “Giuseppe Donati and Umberto Calosso - Two Italian anti-fascist refugees in Malta  has been published by SKS Publications, will be launched during a public talk at the Mediterranean Conference Centre on Wednesday, 4 November at 6.30pm. during the National Book Festival. 

In a brief statement to describe the book, SKS said that Dom Mintoff who still in his early twenties when he met Umberto Calosso in his home-town of Cospicua.

Calosso lived close to Mintoff, having just returned from the battlefields of Spain’s civil war after fighting shoulder to shoulder with the Republicans against Spanish head of state Francisco Franco. 

Giuseppe Donati fled from Italy after accusing Mussolini of organising the murder of Giacomo Matteotti, became friends with Nerik Mizzi and contributed regularly to Nerik Mizzi’s newspaper Il Popolo.

While Donati’s political ideology focused on the Christian values of social issues, Calosso was more concerned with defending social issues primarily from a secular perspective free from rigid doctrinaire theories.

However, their common denominator was the defence of the democratic secular state, and the restoration of democratic values.

The book will disclose for the first time a number of documents pertaining to Donati’s and Calosso’s  Malta links, as well as a number of pictures of the persons with whom the Italians were associated.