Aldo Bologni

Gabriotti, who had spent the night “like a common criminal” in the “foul-smelling security room”, and sleeping “on a rickety plank bed” was not informed of what had happened in Montone, and of the death of his young friend and colleague. The atmosphere that day at the Carabinieri station in Città di Castello is described by Captain Alberto Ivano Nardi (born in Ferrara, then 41 years old and residing in the hamlet of Lugnano, near Città di Castello) who was detained in another cell on the first floor of the building. He said, “The afternoon was sad, gloomy, interminable. A painful silence reigned in the barracks; officers, non-commissioned officers and many soldiers had gone to Montone, where Nazi-Fascist reprisals were raging”. Nardi, who in 1943 had held the position of Head of the Shooting office of the Central Artillery School located in Città di Castello, had been arrested in the early afternoon of the previous day in Lugnano. He had been caught distributing stolen wheat to the locals. It had been taken from the stockpile in Cerreto, near Canoscio, by the Monte Santa Maria Tiberina partisans led by Guerriero Baffo. Imprisoned in Città di Castello, he took advantage of his connections among the Carabinieri to obtain a place in the punishment cell on the first floor of the barracks, with a bed, mattress and blankets.