Bruneri-Canella case

The Bruneri-Canella case, called in Italian the case of the Smemorato di Collegno (the Collegno Amnesiac), is a notorious judicial and media affair concerning the alleged reappearance in 1926 of a man who had gone missing in World War I. The question of his identity was thoroughly discussed in newspapers and in courtrooms, and endured for almost 40 years. Due to nationwide interest in the case, the term smemorato di Collegno became a common saying since the 1930s, meaning a person who forgets something.

The man was originally identified as Professor Giulio Canella, an Italian philosophy scholar and teacher who had gone missing in action in World War I. His wife, Giulia Concetta Canella, had refused to give up hope of seeing him again. When she saw a newspaper photograph of a man who claimed to have no memory of his past or name, she thought she recognized him. She went to the mental hospital where he had been confined. After a few visits, she became convinced that he was her husband.

However, a few days after he was released to her, an anonymous letter was sent to the Quaestor of Turin, claiming that the man was actually an anarchist and petty criminal with an extensive police record named Mario Bruneri. After an inquiry and several trials and appeals, the court found that he was indeed Bruneri.

During that time, the couple had lived together and had three children. After the final verdict was rendered, they moved to Brazil to get away from the scandal. Bruneri died there in 1941. Giulia Concetta Canella tried without success to have the decision overturned. She died in 1977.

Giulio Canella was born in Padova in 1881. After his studies, he moved to Verona, where he became the principal of a high school specializing in education. In 1909, he founded with Agostino Gemelli the Rivista di filosofia neoscolastica, and in 1916 was among the founders of the newspaper Corriere del mattino, a Roman Catholic opinion newspaper.

He married his cousin Giulia, the daughter of a wealthy landowner who had a successful business in Brazil. The couple had two daughters, the second in 1916.

Mario Bruneri was a typist from Turin, born in 1886. He was homeless, an anarchist, and a petty criminal, wanted since 1922 for fraud and violence.

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