From Umanità Nova
December 2, 2025
A few days after his 79th birthday, long-time partner and friend Gianpiero Bottinelli passed away at his home.
After completing an apprenticeship as a commercial clerk, in 1970 he moved with his family to Lausanne to obtain a diploma in social work, a profession he would pursue until retirement.
In Lausanne, he attended and participated in the activities of the International Centre for Research on Anarchism (CIRA), where he met Marie-Christine Mikhaïlo and Marianne Enckell. In 1972, he was among the organizers of the commemoration of the Anti-Authoritarian International in Saint-Imier. This allowed him to connect with Swiss and Spanish organizations and comrades and engage in political work with them.
Upon returning to Ticino, he immediately joined the Ticino Anarchist Organization (OAT), founded in December 1973 in Lugano-Cassarate, marking the return of organized anarchist activity in the canton after an interruption of almost thirty years.
Specific initiatives were born from the members of the OAT: in 1975, Azione diretta, a publication initially of antimilitarist propaganda and then of anarchist propaganda, to which Giampi contributed articles and dossiers; in 1978, Edizioni La Baronata, of which he was one of the founding members. For this publishing house, in addition to researching texts, he worked as a translator and editor and, above all, we remember him as the co-author of L'antimilitarismo libertario in Svizzera (1989) and the author of the beautiful biography of Luigi Bertoni (1997), subsequently translated and completed in French and German.
In 1976, he was among the members of the group of comrades from Ticino, Swiss-Germans, French-speaking Switzerland, and Spanish exiles who promoted the International Colloquium for the centenary of the death of the Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin, held in Zurich. He also collaborated with anarchist press outlets such as Umanità Nova and the magazine A.
Always an antimilitarist, he actively participated with other Ticino anarchists in the Group for a Switzerland without an Army and for a Policy of Peace (GSsE), with articles for the newspaper in the Italian version and in the collective work Rapsodia dell'antimilitarismo (1989).
Disappointed by the outcome of the national vote rejecting the initiative to abolish military service, he refused to take his final refresher course in the army and was sentenced by the military court to several weeks in prison, to be served in the open section of the cantonal penitentiary.
In 1991, the Human Rights League was founded in Minusio, with Giampi among its promoters and leaders. The organization's mission was to monitor and report police abuse against detainees and prisoners in pretorial prisons, and it even obtained visitation rights for inmates in the cantonal penitentiary who requested it. The League was dissolved in 1999.
The occupation of the former Bernasconi Mills in Lugano in 1996 and the birth of the CSOA Il Molino encouraged Giampi to frequent it and propose activities over the years and in its various locations.
In particular, he collaborated with the anarchist group Bonnot, which ran the La Vendetta space at the Molino social center and published the anarchist periodical LiberAzione since 2003. When LiberAzione ended and was relaunched in 2007 under the title Voce libertaria, Giampi agreed, along with other comrades from the now old guard, to join the editorial team. And it must be said that if the periodical lasted until 2024, it was thanks to Gianpiero's perseverance and commitment, because there had been some defections, especially since 2020.
The frequent visits and constant contacts with the CIRA in Lausanne since 1970 pushed Gianpiero and other comrades to plan a documentation centre in Ticino that would collect and make available not only the material – books and documents – collected over the decades, but also the interviews and testimonies of old comrades active in the first half of the 20th century, namely those of Carlo Vanza, known from the OAT days, of Antonietta Peretti, of Ferdinando Balboni, of Rocco Molinari and others.
Thus, in 1986, the Circolo Carlo Vanza (CCV) documentation center was founded. In 2003, it finally opened to the public for consultation and for the promotion of libertarian ideas, first in Locarno, and then in Bellinzona from 2014. Giampi's commitment was constant, expert, and practical, contributing to the documentation center's recognition in Switzerland and abroad, so much so that the CCV joined the FICEDL ( International Federation of Libertarian Study and Documentation Centers) and RebAl (Network of Anarchist and Libertarian Libraries and Archives). The contacts established were cultivated and maintained by Gianpiero through his active presence at both FICEDL meetings and various anarchist events, including those of international scope (Self-Management Fairs in San Martino in Rio, the Anarchist Publishing Showcases in Florence, the People's Kitchens in Massenzatico, and so on). The collaboration with the CCV ended abruptly and controversially in 2023 due to political and management disagreements that caused Gianpiero and two or three other long-time companions to abandon the Club.
Giampi's profound knowledge of the history of anarchist and libertarian movements and ideas, combined with a meticulous ability to pinpoint significant details, prompted him to systematize the information he had gathered over decades and catalogue it in the Cantiere Biografia degli anarchici IN Svizzera (Biographical Archive of Anarchists in Switzerland), available online. It lists nearly 2,000 biographies or biographical notes of well-known and lesser-known activists and individuals who spent time in Switzerland. The work, carried out predominantly by Giampi, began around 2007 and continued until its completion. The last entry was made on November 6th.
In short, a full life, largely dedicated to the anarchist ideal in many forms and aspects. We will remember him for his great historical knowledge, his polemical verve in discussions dictated by rigor and precision, and a not always accommodating nature, but also and above all his cheerfulness and humor, which truly made him a " bon compagnon."
We share the grief of his partner Rosemarie and his sons Michele and Massimo. Giampi will be missed by many.
Ticino comrades
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