Enrico Bignami was an Italian merchant, and the editor of La Plebe, a socialist newspaper. Enrico Bignami was born in

Lodi, Lombardy Lodi ( , ; Western Lombard, Ludesan: ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in Lombardy, northern Italy, primarily on the western bank of the Adda River, Italy, River Adda. It is the capital of the province of Lodi. History Antiquity Lodi ...

, on 3 December 1844. He came from a poor family. In 1866 and 1867 he fought with

Giuseppe Garibaldi Giuseppe Maria Garibaldi ( , ;In his native Ligurian language, he is known as (). In his particular Niçard dialect of Ligurian, he was known as () or (). 4 July 1807 – 2 June 1882) was an Italian general, revolutionary and republican. H ...

. He founded ''La Plebe'' in Lodi in 1868 to promote

Giuseppe Mazzini Giuseppe Mazzini (, ; ; 22 June 1805 – 10 March 1872) was an Italian politician, journalist, and activist for the unification of Italy (Risorgimento) and spearhead of the Italian revolutionary movement. His efforts helped bring about the ...

's ideas, financing the paper from his import business. The first issue appeared on 4 July 1868. At first, it was published bi-weekly, although during the following years, it appeared more or less frequently. The paper would last until 1883, despite seizures of issues and several arrests of the editor. It gave continuity from the left wing of the ''

Risorgimento The unification of Italy ( ), also known as the Risorgimento (; ), was the 19th century political and social movement that in 1861 ended in the annexation of various states of the Italian peninsula and its outlying isles to the Kingdom of ...

'' to the post-unification labour movement and the later elaboration of socialist ideology in northern Italy. Until the early 1870s ''La Plebe'' took a mainstream democratic position. However ''La Plebe'' was critical of the institutions ruling the new state of Italy, which it saw as opposed to the ideals of the ''Risorgimento''. Bignami became enthusiastic about the 1871

Paris Commune The Paris Commune (, ) was a French revolutionary government that seized power in Paris on 18 March 1871 and controlled parts of the city until 28 May 1871. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, the French National Guard (France), Nation ...

, and from then the paper took a socialist line. Bignami moved to Milan in 1875, taking the paper with him. He helped to found a number of worker's leagues in the years that followed, and in 1876 was one of the founders of the North Italy Federation of the International. He became a close friend of Osvaldo Gnocchi-Viani. At several times, particularly in 1879-80, he tried to organize a congress at which all left-wing democratic and socialist movements would be united, but he did not succeed. ''La Plebe'' played a central role in the formation of the Italian Workers Party (POI) in Milan in 1882. ''La Plebe'' stopped publication in 1883. In the late 1880s Bignami was a promoter of establishing the Milan Chamber of Labor. He founded the socialist publishing house ''Biblioteca socialista'' in 1895. In 1898 he moved to

Lugano Lugano ( , , ; ) is a city and municipality within the Lugano District in the canton of Ticino, Switzerland. It is the largest city in both Ticino and the Italian-speaking region of southern Switzerland. Lugano has a population () of , and an u ...

in Switzerland to avoid being arrested. From 1906 to 1918 he edited ''Coenobium'' (Common Life). Bignami died in

on 13 October 1921. He was Grand Master of the regular

Scottish Rite The Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry is a List of Masonic rites, rite within the broader context of Freemasonry. It is the most widely practiced List of Masonic rites, Rite in the world. In some parts of the world, and in the ...

Masonic Lodge A Masonic lodge (also called Freemasons' lodge, or private lodge or constituent lodge) is the basic organisational unit of Freemasonry. It is also a commonly used term for a building where Freemasons meet and hold their meetings. Every new l ...

"Lincoln" of Lodi, affiliated to the Grand Orient of Italy.

References

Citations Sources * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bignami, Enrico 1844 births 1921 deaths Italian newspaper editors Italian male journalists People from Lugano