Nicola Petrina


Nicola Petrina was an Italian socialist and politician from Sicily. He was one of the national leaders of the Fasci Siciliani a popular movement of democratic and socialist inspiration in 1891-1894.

Life

Together with the anarchist Giovanni Noè, he set up the first Fascio dei Lavoratori in Messina on March 18, 1889, but the organisation remained dormant after the arrest of Petrina in July of that year. He was not released until 1892 when many more Fasci had been set up in Sicily. Another reason why the Fascio of Messina – formed after the example of the Fasci operai constituted in Central and North Italy from 1871 – initially did not develop was that it brought together not individual workers but the workers' associations of the city, which retained their independence, their status and economic orientation.
Petrina was among the 500 delegates from nearly 90 leagues and socialist circles at the Congress of the Fasci that was held in Palermo on May 21–22, 1893. A Central Committee was elected, composed of nine members: Petrina was elected for the province of Messina. The Congress decided that all Leagues were obliged to join the Party of Italian Workers.
In July 1893, he was elected in the municipal council of Messina, where he immediately discovered serious abuses that had been committed in the City Hall for years.
Following the repression of the Fasci Siciliani by the government of Francesco Crispi, he was arrested on January 4, 1894, and was brought to trial. On May 30, 1894, the leaders of the movement received their sentence: Giuseppe de Felice Giuffrida to 18 years and Rosario Garibaldi Bosco, Nicola Barbato and Bernardino Verro to 12 years in jail. Petrina was sentenced to three years, on trumped up charges and his contact with the anarchist Amilcare Cipriani.
He died as a result of the earthquake and tsunami of December 28, 1908, when the city of Messina was almost entirely destroyed killing about 60,000 people. His body was found on January 11, 1909.