Chilling story that gave notoriety to village in Val Brembana

Mass murderer born 168 years ago still officially on the run

Simone Pianetti shot and killed
seven perceived enemies

Notorious murderer Simone Pianetti, who is regarded as a hero by some Italian and American anarchists, was born on 7 February 1858 in Camerata Cornello in the province of Bergamo.

In July 1914, Pianetti went out with his rifle one day and shot and killed seven people living in his local area who he believed had wronged him. He then went on the run and after firing at some Carabinieri officers who tried to arrest him, escaped into the mountains above Bergamo.

A search was carried out by more than 200 officers, from the Polizia di Stato, the Carabinieri and an infantry regiment, to try to capture him, but Pianetti managed to stay hidden in the mountains near the villages of Olmo al Brembo and Cassiglio.

Despite a 'Wanted' poster being published and circulated by the local Prefetto, offering a 5000 lire reward, Pianetti was never caught and his body was never found.

It is known that when he was young, Pianetti had fired his rifle at his father without injuring him, after an argument over a legacy. He was not charged with any offence as a result and, with the agreement of the local head of the Carabinieri, he left Italy and went to the USA.

Years later, he returned to Italy, his journey being paid for by his father, and he went back to live in Camerata Cornello, where he got married and fathered seven children.

He opened a small restaurant where customers were also allowed to dance, but because the local parish priest and other church officials did not approve of the dancing at his restaurant, he was eventually forced to close it by the municipal authorities.

A reward of 5,000 lire was offered
for help with the search for Pianetti

He then opened an electric powered mill, but this later also turned out to be an unsuccessful business venture because his reputation was blackened by his enemies and he lost all his money and became impoverished.

As the only person in the area who did not attend church, Pianetti steadily grew to believe that everyone hated him, which led to his murderous rampage in 1914.

On the morning of 13 July, Pianetti went out with his rifle and a list of the people who he believed had contributed towards his business failures and his poverty by either closing him down, or cheating him. His eventual victims were the local doctor, Domenico Morali, the manager of the municipality, Abramo Giudici, and his daughter, Valeria, Giovanni Ghilardi, a shoemaker, Stefano Filippo, a priest, Giovanni Giupponi, a layman, and Caterina Milesi, a farmer.

It is thought his actions in 1914 could have been inspired by those of Gavrilo Princip, a Serbian student, who had assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife the previous month, the famous killings that set off the events that led to the start of World War I.

Pianetti was known to have survived in hiding in the mountains for some time and it is not known, when, or where, he eventually died. It is thought it may have been in 1952 in Milan, but this has never been proved. There were also reported sightings of him in the Bergamo mountains, as well as in America and Venezuela.

Some of the local people began to see the fugitive Pianetti as a liberator, and wrote on walls, praising him, with slogans such as ‘Long Live Pianetti, we need one in every town’.

It is thought people helped him stay hidden from the authorities by giving him food. Some residents were later sentenced to terms of imprisonment for helping him.

The village of Camerata Cornello, where
Pianetti carried out his killing spree

In his absence, Pianetti was sentenced to life imprisonment, which was accompanied by a sentence of five years in continuous solitary confinement.

Many theories have been put forward about how he escaped justice. Some people claim to have met him years later in America, and there is a theory that in his old age he returned from there and lived with his son, Nino, in Milan, until he died in 1952.

In later years, Pianetti’s story came to be admired by some Italian and American anarchists because of the actions he took against what was perceived to be the bigotry of those in authority in Italy, in the religious establishment and the society of his time.

He is remembered in towns in the Brembana Valley as a sort of avenger, often referred to as a righter of wrongs, and a hero opposed to the people in authority. The “romantic” aspect of his story endures, leaving aside the tragic and criminal side, and the threat of “doing like Pianetti”, (in the Bergamo dialect fà de Pianetti) is sometimes used.

Pianetti’s death has never been recorded and the case against him has never been dropped, so he is now officially on the run aged 168.

His birthplace, Camerata Cornello, a comune of Bergamo, about 20 kilometres (12 miles) north of the city, is one of the oldest villages in the Brembana Valley.

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