Giovanni Rossi

Giovanni Rossi (11 January 18569 January 1943) was an Italian anarchist, collectivist, writer, and founder of utopian communities. He was a promoter of cooperative libertarian colonies, free love, and the emancipation of women. The experimental libertarian Cecília Colony he founded in Brazil in 1890, inspired several fictional treatments including a feature film La Cecilia in 1976.

Biography

Giovanni Rossi was born in Pisa in 1856. An agronomist and veterinarian by profession, he was influenced by French utopian socialists. His libertarian ideals included free love and the emancipation of women.

In November 1887, Rossi founded and served as secretary of a collective in Cremona, "Colonia Cittadella", based on his ideas about cooperative agriculture.

Libertarian colony in Brazil "La Cecília" On 20 February 1890, a group of Italian anarchists, on the initiative of Giovanni Rossi, left Italy with the goal to found in Brazil an experimental libertarian colony named "La Cecília"In February 1890, Rossi left Italy with a group of anarchists from Genoa, to go to Brazil's Paraná state where they established the Cecília Colony based on his ideas about anarchist communism and free love. This community, mostly of men, attained at one time a population of about 300, but closed in 1894. The novel imagines a future technological world where Belgium and Paraná have become great world powers.

In 1907 he returned to Italy, where he worked as a veterinarian and as a teacher, continuing to promote the formation of utopian colonies and the emancipation of women. He died in Pisa in 1943.