SortThey spent fifty years since that night, between 29 and 30 September 1975. The night in which Villa Moresca, on the Circeo promontory, turned into a horror theater. Victims of thirty -six hours of torture, rapes and torture were two young girlsRosaria Lopez, nineteen, and Colasanti Donatella, seventeen. The first was killed, the second survived only because he fought dead. It was found in the trunk of a car, next to the friend’s body. To attract them in this trap of extreme violence, Three young people of “Rome good”, Angelo Izzo, Gianni Guido and Andrea Ghira. A heinous crime that, however, was not only a terrible fact of news, was a watershed.
Circeo: 50 years from the crime that changed Italy
The whole of Italy, in fact, He found himself forced to look in the face of the brutality of patriarchal violencethe social complicity, the classism that protected the executioners, because they were young from wealthy families. The process was a distortion theater: we spoke of “orgy finished badly”, we tried to shorm the victims. And also, the reaction of public opinion was contradictory. Many newspapers and intellectuals focused on the social belonging of the attackers. Others tried to investigate the life of the victimsinsinuating doubts about their reputation, according to a sadly consolidated practice.
The crime that made violence against women a political question
But this time, something changed: The squares filled themselves with women like never before who asked for justice not only for Rosaria and Donatella, but for all. Until then concentrated on civil rights and reforms, Italian feminism mobilized against male violence. Collective, consultors, campaigns were born.
In the process, the lawyer of Colasanti, Tina Lagostena Bassi, became a central figure in the defense of women: his arches, his language, his presence in the classroom marked a turning point. This time, not only a sentence was wondered, but but a public recognition of violence as a structural fact, not episodic.
A archive photo of Donatella Colasanti while answering the questions of a journalist. The photo was taken on October 6, 1980 during the trial for the Circeo massacre (ANSA)
Italy of the seventies: a country in transformation
To understand the scope of that turn, it is necessary to return to the Italy of the seventies, a country crossed by profound social and cultural changes. The feminist movement was growing, Women claimed rights and autonomy, But the society remained deeply patriarchal.
In the Rocco code, inheritance of fascism still in force, Rape was considered a “crime against public morality and morality”, Not against the person. In this context, denouncing rape meant for a woman to undergo a second process: that of public opinion, where the victim had to demonstrate that he was “good”, that he had resisted enough, not having caused. Almost always, it was she who ended up on the defendants’ counter.
The mobilization: the squares are filled with anger
But something, this time, broke up. Women went into the mass squareswith unpublished determination. The feminist organizations of the time, the collectives that were born throughout Italy, mobilized immediately. It was a question of saying that that violence did not concern only two girlsbut it was a question that called into question the entire society. The processions brought banners that recited slogans that later became iconic of Italian feminism: “The body is mine and I manage it”, “trembled, trembled, the witches are back”. The claim was clear: Women claimed to be able to live free from fear, to walk on the street without being considered preyto be respected as people and not as properties or objects of male desire.
The trial: a court of court becomes political stage
The Process for the Circeo massacre opened in July 1976 And it became one of the most followed media events in Italian judicial history. But what emerged during the hearings was, in many ways, more shocking than the crime itself. Defense lawyers systematically tried to discredit Donatella Colasanti. The defensive strategy was based on the guilty of the victims: the idea that the girls had “put themselves in that situation”, that they had somehow caused or deserved violence, which would have had to stay at home instead of going out in the evening.
Tina Lagostena Bassi: a woman in court
To counteract that narrative, however, there was an extraordinary woman: Tina Lagostena Bassithe lawyer who assisted Donatella Colasanti. Born in Milan in 1926, she was already known for her commitment to women’s rights, but it was during the Circeo trial that He became an icon of Italian legal feminism. His arches were memorable because the lawyer did not limit himself to defending Donatella: he defended all the women. Lagostena Bassi brought a radically new perspective to the classrooms: The raped woman, or the victim, had no longer had to demonstrate her respectability or to be innocent. It was the attacker who had to answer for his crimeswithout extenuating circumstances related to the victim’s behavior. His role was fundamental.
The battle to change the penal code
The Circeo trial ended with life imprisonment for Izzo and Ghira, while Guido obtained a reduced penalty as a minor. It was a historical sentencenot because the convictions were particularly severe for the atrocious facts committed, but because the trial had highlighted, the mechanisms of an unfair judicial and cultural system. And, in fact, the process accelerated the political mobilization of women. The main feminist groups of the time, They coalized to ask for a radical reform of the criminal code. The goal was clear: The rape was to be considered a crime against the person, not against public morality.
From the crime of Circeo to law 66, a more symbolic than concrete victory
It was a long and tortuous path. The political and cultural resistances were enormous. But, in 1996, twenty -one years after that night at Villa Moresca, Law 66 was finally approvedwhich introduced the “rules against sexual violence” and moved rape among the crimes against the person. It was a victory: The woman’s body no longer belonged to the community, but to herself.
But it was a more symbolic than concrete victory. Fifty years later, the crime of Circeo, in fact, continues to question us. In recent decades, other fundamental laws have been approved: The stalking crime in 2009, Femicide as aggravating the murder in 2013, The red code in 2019 To speed up investigations in cases of domestic and gender violence.
Still, the data remain dramatic: in Italy a woman is killed every three days, often as partners or former partners. And it is precisely the persistence of this violence, which shows that the battle is far from over.