The Bruneri-Canella case, called in Italian the case of the Smemorato di Collegno (the Collegno Amnesiac), is a notorious judicial and media affair concerning the alleged reappearance in 1926 of a man who had gone missing in World War I. The question of his identity was thoroughly discussed in newspapers and in courtrooms, and endured for almost 40 years. Due to nationwide interest in the case, the term smemorato di Collegno has been a common saying since the 1930s, meaning a person who forgets something.
The man was originally identified as Professor Giulio Canella, an Italian philosophy scholar and teacher who had gone missing in action in World War I. His wife, Giulia Concetta Canella, had refused to give up hope of seeing him again. When she saw a newspaper photograph of a man who claimed to have no memory of his past or name, she thought she recognized him. She went to the mental hospital where he had been confined. After a few visits, she became convinced that he was her husband.
However, a few days after he was released to her, an anonymous letter was sent to the Quaestor of Turin, claiming that the man was actually an anarchist and petty criminal with an extensive police record named Mario Bruneri. After an inquiry and several trials and appeals, the court found that he was indeed Bruneri.
During that time, the couple had lived together and had three children. After the final verdict was rendered, they moved to Brazil to get away from the scandal. Bruneri died there in 1941. Giulia Concetta Canella tried without success to have the decision overturned. She died in 1977.
Background Giulio Canella was born in Padova in 1881. After his studies, he moved to Verona, where he became the principal of a high school specializing in education. In 1909, he founded with Agostino Gemelli the Rivista di filosofia neoscolastica, and in 1916 was among the founders of the newspaper Corriere del mattino, a Roman Catholic opinion newspaper.
He married his cousin Giulia, the daughter of a wealthy landowner who had a successful business in Brazil. The couple had two daughters, the second in 1916.
Mario Bruneri was a typist from Turin, born in 1886. He was homeless, an anarchist, and a petty criminal, wanted since 1922 for fraud and violence.
The beginning
Missing in action On 25 November 1916, Canella was serving on the Macedonian front, near Nikopole, as a captain of an infantry company committed to capturing Monastir Hill. The company was caught in a crossfire by Bulgarian soldiers armed with machine guns and was decimated. Among the missing was Canella. Some of his comrades-in-arms reported that he was severely wounded in the head, but was still alive and was taken prisoner by the enemy.
After the ambush, the company fell back and regrouped, counterattacked, and ultimately took the hill despite heavy losses. Medics searched the battlefield, recovering Italian wounded and corpses, but Canella was not found. Some Bulgarian prisoners were questioned, but denied having captured a captain.
Canella was listed as missing in action by the Ministero della Guerra, and a letter was sent to his wife. She never accepted the news, and kept hoping for his return.
Enter the amnesiac Eleven years later, on 6 February 1927, the Chi li ha visti? (In English, "Who has seen them?") column of the national newspaper La Domenica del Corriere broke the story of an inmate of the Collegno Mental Hospital, confined there since 10 March 1926. The man had been found by the caretaker of the Jewish graveyard stealing a copper vase."Smemorato e sconosciuto" Italian Carabinieri website. Article not found as of 2 August 2011. When apprehended by the Carabinieri, he had been strolling around Turin, crying and threatening suicide. The 45-year-old man had a full beard, and claimed to have no recollection of his past or his name.
The Quaestor of Turin ordered him put in the mental hospital, in the hope that he would recover his memory. The man was well behaved and calm, and exhibited to the staff signs of some education. They diagnosed a "mental block" that prevented him from remembering his history and identity. The man was classified as Inconnu ("unknown", much like a John Doe), and given the number 44170.
Giulia Concetta Canella saw the photograph of him in the newspaper, and thought to have found her beloved lost husband. She asked to visit, and on 27 February 1927, she was granted a meeting with the man.
Meetings at the hospital Great care was placed in the handling of the meeting, in order to hide from the patient that the encounter had been prearranged. The man had shown signs of fear and psychological stress when confronted with staff members or visitors, so the meeting was to look to him like a random occurrence.
The man was taken for a stroll in the cloister of the hospital, and crossed Giulia Canella's path without showing any emotion or sign he recognized her. Canella stated that the man was her husband beyond doubt. On a second attempt the day later, the man told his psychiatrists that he vaguely recognized the woman, and that some recollections were resurfacing in his mind. In the third meeting, the woman broke into tears, and the man hugged her, apparently recognizing his wife. On the same afternoon, a fourth encounter convinced the doctors that the man was indeed Canella, who told them about some vague recollections about his children. More encounters were scheduled to aid in memory recovery, but the man was now considered identified.
In March 1927, the patient was officially recognized as Professor Canella and sent back to Verona with his wife. The story of a man lost in the war and returning to his family after ten years received a lot of news coverage, sparking hope in many other people who had also lost relatives in the conflict. The usually moderate Turin newspaper La Stampa printed the emphatic headline "A cry, a shiver, a hug, the light".
Despite newspapers covering the story, no interviews were granted. No one knew what he had done in the nine years since he went missing.
Arrest On 3 March 1927, just a few days after the apparently happy ending, an unsigned letter was received by the Quaestor of Turin stating that the man was not Canella, but instead Mario Bruneri, a typist from Turin born in 1886, an anarchist and con artist wanted since 1922 due to some convictions for acts of violence.
Bruneri was not new to jails: he had served time for accounting fraud and stealing. His criminal record was extensive. He was wanted in other cities, including Pavia and Milan, along with a woman from Brescia, Camilla Ghidini. She had a long criminal record too, with crimes against property and prostitution.
The records about Bruneri included a detailed physical and psychological profiling, perfectly matching the character and aspect of the amnesiac. On Sunday, 6 March 1927, the quaestor, firmly convinced he had been tricked, arranged for the arrest of Bruneri, who was brought back to Turin the same day.
Two days later, Bruneri's relatives were called in for an identification: his wife, Rosa Negro, recognized him immediately, as did their 14-year-old son, Giuseppino. His sisters Maria and Matilda and his brother Felice confirmed his identity. Bruneri had been missing for six years, when he fled the family to live with Camilla Ghidini. Bruneri refused to admit knowing the family, and faked a fainting. Another woman named Milly who had a love affair with him recognized him as Bruneri as well.
Bruneri's mother, Eugenia Mantaud, was not involved in the identification, being weak of heart. The identification was contested by Giulia Canella's attorneys on the grounds that the mother had not been allowed to see the man, claiming she would have foiled the whole Bruneri family plot orchestrated in conjunction with the quaestor and police. Eugenia died two days later on 4 July 1929 of heart failure, causing some embarrassment to Canella's attorneys.
Inquiry The quaestor ordered fingerprints to be taken, and had them compared with those from Bruneri's criminal records. Fingerprints had been sent to the central police archive in Rome when the man was initially arrested, but no match was found after a superficial search of the huge archive. The second try proved to be 100% positive, and the Scientific Investigation School of Rome wired back a telegram confirming that Bruneri and the alleged amnesiac were the same person. Bruneri was a fugitive and had to serve two years from previous sentences, so he was jailed in the Collegno mental hospital while awaiting further trials.
Giulia Canella fought the allegations and began a long campaign of appeals to the Turin Court, asking for the man to be set free on the premise that he was not Bruneri. The famous attorney and jurist Francesco Carnelutti offered to defend Bruneri, along with the lawyer and fascist gerarca (National Fascist Party member) Roberto Farinacci. Carnelutti, with the aid of political pressure, managed to have the man released on 23 December 1927. The Turin Court stated that no certain proof of the man being Bruneri had been presented, despite the identification from the criminal records.
Bruneri's mother, after learning of the developments, stated that she was sure beyond doubt that the case was another scam by her son, that being his style. Rosa Negro and Felice Bruneri (Mario Bruneri's wife and brother) challenged the court decision in order to obtain an executive order from the court to bring Bruneri back to his duty to his wife and his mother.
Trials
Chronology 28 December 1927. The Turin Criminal Court declares the man's identity unproven despite the questor's identification and Coppola's neuropsychiatric analysis. Early 1928. Bruneri family challenges the decision in the Turin Civil Court 15 November 1928. The Turin Civil Court acknowledges the complete and sure identification of the man as Mario Bruneri, rejecting further requests from the Canella family. 24 March 1930. The Corte di Cassazione voids the Turin Civil Court finding due to procedural errors. The Canella family is granted the right to present further evidence in their favor. 2 May 1931. After a new trial is held, the Florence Appeal Court reinstates the Turin Court's verdict, rejecting the Cassazione's request and denying further prolonging of the trial. 25 December 1931. After another appeal from the Canellas, the Cassazione denies a further reexamination of the case. The decision is a close call, with the 14 judges equally divided. Ultimately, the commission president asks to consult with the Minister of Justice, Alfredo Rocco, and votes against a new trial. Bruneri identification is confirmed again. 1946. A further request for a reopening of the case is rejected, since the outcome is not considered a "fascist political sentence", thus not subject to a new law requiring reviews of trials of prosecuted political opponents. 1964, Giuseppe Canella, son of Giulio Canella, asks to reopen the case, but is denied.
The civil trial On 22 October 1928, the civil trial began, lasting over two years and ending with a solid identification of the man as Mario Bruneri. High-profile witnesses were brought into the debate, including Father Agostino Gemelli and Earl Giuseppe della Torre. The former had worked with Canella at the Rivista di Filosofia Neoscolastica, the latter was a co-founder of the Corriere del Mattino and director of the Catholic newspaper L'Osservatore Romano. Gemelli and Dalla Torre both stated that the man was not in any way Canella. They were important representatives of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, and independently chose to testify. They were accused by Canella's attorneys -despite Carnelutti being a close friend of the Church himself- of being part of a secret plot to hurt the family.
The Italian Army never removed Canella's name from its list of missing in action, stating that nothing had suggested that the man was Canella.