Renato Curcio is the former leader of the Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 left-wing militant organization, the Red Brigades

Red Brigades

The Red Brigades was a Marxist-Leninist terrorist organisation, based in Italy, which was responsible for numerous violent incidents, assassinations, and robberies during the so-called "Years of Lead"...

 (Brigate Rosse).

Background

Born of an extramarital affair between Renato Zampa (brother of film director Luigi Zampa

Luigi Zampa

Luigi Zampa was an Italian film-maker.- Biography :Son of a worker, Zampa studied film making from 1932 to 1937 at the Italian film school Centro sperimentale di cinematografia in Rome....

) and Yolanda Curcio, Curcio was born at Monterotondo

Monterotondo

-History:According to some historians, Monterotondo is the heir of ancient Sabine town of Eretum, although the modern settlement appeared in the 10th-11th centuries in a different location...

, in the province of Rome

Province of Rome

The Province of Rome , is a province in the Lazio region of Italy. The province can be viewed as the extended metropolitan area of the city of Rome, although in its more peripheral portions, especially to the north, it comprises towns surrounded by rural landscape.-Geography:The Province of Rome...

. His early years were a difficult time for him and his mother, a housemaid, whose itinerant positions with families required long separations. In April 1945, Curcio's beloved uncle, Armando, a Fiat

Fiat

FIAT, an acronym for Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino , is an Italian automobile manufacturer, engine manufacturer, financial, and industrial group based in Turin in the Italian region of Piedmont. Fiat was founded in 1899 by a group of investors including Giovanni Agnelli...

 auto worker, was murdered in a Fascist ambush.

A poor student, Curcio failed several subjects in his first year of high school and had to repeat the year. He then resumed vocational training classes until moving to Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

 to live with his mother. He enrolled in the Ferrini Institute in Albenga

Albenga

Albenga is a city and comune situated on the Gulf of Genoa on the Italian Riviera in the Province of Savona in Liguria, northern Italy.left|thumb|220px|Towers of Albenga.The economy is mostly based on tourism, local commerce and agriculture-History:...

, where he became a model student.

On completing his degree in 1962, he won a scholarship to study at the new and innovative Institute of Sociology at the University of Trento

University of Trento

The University of Trento is an Italian university located in the cities of Trento and Rovereto. It has been able to achieve considerable results in didactics, research and international relations, as shown by Censis University Guide and by the Italian Ministry of...

, where he became absorbed in existential

Existentialism

Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...

 philosophy. During the mid-1960s, he gravitated toward radical politics and Marxism as a byproduct of his interest in existentialism and the self. By the late 1960s, he had become a committed revolutionary and Marxist theoretician.

According to Alessandro Silj, three political events transformed him from a radical to an activist: two bloody demonstrations at Trento

Trento

Trento is an Italian city located in the Adige River valley in Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol. It is the capital of Trentino...

 and a massacre by police of farm laborers in 1968. During the 1967-69 period, Curcio was also involved in two Marxist university groups: the Movement for a Negative University and the publication Lavoro Politico (Political Work).

Embittered by his expulsion from the radical Red Line faction of Lavoro Politico in August 1969, Curcio decided to drop out of Trento and forego his degree, even though he already had passed his final examinations. Prior to transferring his bases of activities to Milan, Curcio married, in a Catholic

Catholic

The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...

 ceremony, Margherita (Mara) Cagol

Margherita Cagol

Margherita Cagol was a former leader of the Italian left-wing militant organization, the Red Brigades . She was married to Renato Curcio.-Life:...

, a Trentine sociology

Sociology

Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...

 major, fellow radical, and daughter of a prosperous Trento merchant.

In Milan, Curcio became a full-fledged militant. The Red Brigades were formed in the second half of 1970 as a result of the merger of Curcio's Proletarian Left and a radical student and worker group. After getting arrested in February 1971 for occupying a vacant house, the Curcios and the most militant members of the Proletarian Left went completely underground and organized the Red Brigades and spent the next three years, from 1972 to 1975, engaging in a series of bombings and kidnappings of prominent figures. Curcio was captured, but freed by Margherita in a raid on the prison five months later. Three weeks after the dramatic prison escape, Margherita was killed in a shootout with the Carabinieri

Carabinieri

The Carabinieri is the national gendarmerie of Italy, policing both military and civilian populations, and is a branch of the armed forces.-Early history:...

. Curcio was again captured by the authorities in January 1976, tried, convicted and imprisoned.

In April 1993 he was allowed to spend the day outside the jail in order to work as writer then in 1998 he was freed.

To date, Curcio has not expressed remorse for the activity of the Red Brigades.

In August 2007, French actress Fanny Ardant

Fanny Ardant

Fanny Marguerite Judith Ardant is a French actress. She has appeared in more than fifty motion pictures since 1976. Ardant won the César Award for Best Actress in 1997 for her performance in Pédale douce.-Early life:...

expressed her "admiration" for the Red Brigades leader as a "hero", adding she "considered the Red Brigades phenomenon to be very moving and passionate". For her comments the actress was sued in the Italian courts by Piero Mazzola, the son of an Italian policeman killed by the Red Brigades.