The Amnesiac of Collegno
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Lo smemorato di Collegno ("the Amnesiac of Collegno") is the name under which the Bruneri-Canella case went down in history, one of the most widely discussed judicial and media affairs of twentieth-century Italy. On the morning of 10 March 1926 a man with no papers and no memory was detained in Turin on suspicion of stealing vases from the monumental cemetery; unable to say who he was, he was committed to the asylum in Collegno, registered as "unknown" [1].
The identification and the two identities
The case broke into the open in February 1927, when the weekly magazine "La Domenica del Corriere" published a photograph of the patient. Giulia Canella, wife of the Veronese philosopher Giulio Canella, who had gone missing on the Macedonian front in 1916 during the First World War, believed she recognised her husband in him and took him home to Verona. Shortly afterwards, an anonymous letter to the Turin police headquarters (Questura) pointed to another identity, that of Mario Bruneri, a Turin printer with a previous conviction for fraud who had also been missing for some time; Rosa Bruneri, the latter's wife, likewise claimed to recognise her husband in the amnesiac. Italian public opinion split between "Canellists" and "Brunerists" [1].
The trial
The trial opened in October 1928 and, after a series of appeals and adjournments, ended with the final 1931 ruling, which identified the man as Mario Bruneri. He continued to insist he was Giulio Canella, and Giulia Canella never accepted the verdict: she stayed at his side and, after the amnesty, followed him to Brazil, where the amnesiac died in 1941 [1].
Cultural legacy
For decades the case has inspired books, films and stage plays, including Leonardo Sciascia's "Il teatro della memoria" ("The Theatre of Memory"), and has entered everyday Italian: to this day, someone who forgets, or pretends to forget, something is called a "smemorato di Collegno" [1].
A meeting in Roatto
On 13 November 2026, at 9 pm, the library of Roatto hosts the talk "Lo smemorato di Collegno — parla il pronipote" ("The Amnesiac of Collegno — the great-grandnephew speaks"), organised by the cultural association La Stele di Nettuno under the auspices of the Municipality of Roatto: the evening's guest is Guido Canella, great-grandnephew of Professor Giulio Canella [1].
Sources
- ATnews — 10 November 2026