Tano D'Amico
Ragazza e carabiniere

This image dates back to the most fiery year of the Years of Lead. It was 1977. Month of April.

At that time, anger often dominated the spirits of people. Anger sometimes controlled, justified, sometimes wild and blind. What kind of anger can be detected in those eyes? Beautiful, spontaneous, more relaxed and direct the right one, more scrutinizing and focused the left one. A scarf, which for once replaces a keffiyeh, covers the nose and mouth. Almost as if wanting to leave the "servant of the State" the chance to play chess with imagination. Hair neatly separated by a dividing line and adorned with a delicate braid ornament. Some try to escape from the precision of the partitioned hairstyle, but wrapped in vanity they prefer to settle like a sweet comma on the larger eye. An arm that resists opposes the hardened chest of the man in uniform. Do not cross the line. Do not invade my territory.

From the right? Certainly not. From the left? Considering the dress, I’d say yes. That's the label. Long hair, not completely neat, keffiyeh, colorful sweaters, Clarks, eskimo... Yes, a communist, stuff from Lotta Continua or thereabouts. Don’t push, please. You wouldn’t understand why we are here. I might be your father or older brother, beautiful. Do not resist, please.

The children of the poor, those defended by the poet to the cube, have their backs to us. The unmistakable white bandolier brands the naked back of the troop soldier. The carabiniere, young, probably from the south, weighed down by a suffocating helmet of fiberglass and padded plastic. You can't see it but you can imagine it. In those years it was preferable to have it lowered like an artificial halo over your own head. When the infernal manna rained stones, bites of porphyry. And you were lucky if you got away with a few stitches. When the storms were more intense, molotovs fell, drops of various calibers that left you parallel to the sky. And you could stare at it, dazed, trying to understand why your friends were shaking your arms pinned to the ground. Until that blue turned black forever.

What is in that look? What does the girl say to the carabiniere? And what is he responding to her?

A passage opens between the militants of the extraparliamentary formations and the ranks of public order. Tano D'Amico, a knight of fortune from those iron days, creates an icon. It took only a gentle pressure of the right index finger, excellent timing, and a bit of luck. The Minister of the Interior, to contain the violence of the clashes, has launched a plan too sugar-coated towards the forces of order. Fierce and often unpunished towards the rebels and the harmless metropolitan Indians. Nothing to justify. In those years, everyone made mistakes.

On April 21, 1977, in Rome, the police evict students camped on the lands of the university city. Four faculties to clean up. Everything under control, no fiery opposition. Outside the university walls, however, a violent and very organized guerrilla is nourished. Against the riot police, molotovs and gunshots are hurled. Settimio Passamonti is a policeman and is 23 years old. Commanded with a platoon to push back barricades in the San Lorenzo district. Two shots fired by an unknown protester will snatch him from life while some colleagues will try to shield him in a panther tank.

A few days later he will meet a girl.

Cossiga, who at the time was identified with the kappa and double esses, does not tolerate that "the children of southern farmers are killed by the children of the Roman bourgeoisie". Said, done, and undersigned. He prohibits demonstrations and intensifies defense actions of law enforcement. The left-wing demonstrators do not accept and protest with a sit-in at Piazza Navona. It is May 12th. The police, as a precaution, deploy riot units in various areas of the historic center. Also, undercover agents mixed among the marching militants who will shoot at human height. Giorgiana Masi is a 19-year-old student and is located near Trastevere, between Piazza Belli and Ponte Garibaldi. Like a macabre coincidence, two shots will hit her in the abdomen. Her life will dissolve on the cold squalor of a white stretcher.

Maybe now she is running happily through wheat fields towards the sun.