A destroyed station. A frozen clock. The deadliest attack.
On a hot August morning in 1980, a bomb exploded in Bologna, killing 85 people. It was the worst tragedy of Italy’s "Years of Lead."
In the final part of our three-part mini-series on "Gli Anni Di Piombo" (The Years of Lead), we investigate the suspects, the government secrets, and why the station clock is forever stopped at 10:25.
[00:00:05] Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English, the show where you can listen to fascinating stories and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:22] I'm Alastair Budge, and today it’s part three, the final part, of our mini-series on the Years of Lead.
[00:00:31] In case you missed them, in part one, we set the scene and talked about the Piazza Fontana bombing and the early years of this tumultuous period.
[00:00:41] In part two, we talked about the Red Brigades and the kidnapping and murder of the former Prime Minister, Aldo Moro.
[00:00:49] And today, we are going to bring it to a close with the most deadly event of the entire period: The Bologna bombing.
[00:00:57] If you haven’t listened to parts one and two yet, I’d recommend listening to those first, as I’ll be referencing quite a bit from that.
[00:01:06] So, let’s not waste a minute and get right into it.
[00:01:12] There are many wonderful things about the city of Bologna: fantastic food, a beautiful centre, a famous university and a vibrant cultural scene.
[00:01:23] One area where Bologna doesn’t score so highly, however, at least compared to other Italian cities, is its weather, its climate.
[00:01:34] It’s in the Po valley, surrounded by mountains on all sides.
[00:01:39] This means winters can be cold and damp, and in summer, it’s hot, humid and sticky, making it pretty uncomfortable.
[00:01:51] Fortunately, the sea isn’t so far away, and in the summer months, a fair portion of the city piles into cars, buses and trains, heading east towards the Adriatic coast.
[00:02:06] August 1980 was particularly hot and unpleasant.
[00:02:11] And on the Saturday of the first weekend of August, Saturday the 2nd, thousands of people were piling into the train station, no doubt looking forward to a refreshing day by the sea, away from the stifling heat of the city.
[00:02:30] The station waiting room was jam-packed: families, children, grandparents, people from all walks of life.
[00:02:39] None of them would catch their train that day.
[00:02:44] At precisely 10.25 am, there was a huge explosion that ripped through the train waiting room. The roof collapsed. Windows were blown to smithereens. Cars overturned. The entire area around the station covered in dust.
[00:03:05] According to eyewitness accounts, in the immediate aftermath, there was an eerie silence.
[00:03:12] Then came the groans and wails from under the rubble. The shrieks of horror as people found the lifeless bodies of loved ones. Then the sound of police and ambulance sirens.
[00:03:28] In total, 85 people were killed, and more than 200 were wounded.
[00:03:36] Initially, it was thought to have been an explosion of a gas pipe in the station, a tragic but innocent maintenance error.
[00:03:46] Shortly afterwards, it became clear it was something altogether more sinister.
[00:03:53] The cause was 23kg of explosives that had been placed in a suitcase in the waiting room, on a timer.
[00:04:02] It would go down as the deadliest terrorist attack not only of the Years of Lead, but also has the grim distinction of being the deadliest terrorist attack in Italian history.
[00:04:16] And to make matters worse, nobody has ever formally admitted to it, and many people believe that the true culprits have never been found.
[00:04:29] It is, like the Piazza Fontana bombing and the kidnapping of Aldo Moro before it, one of those incidents where there is an official verdict, a legally guilty party, but there is a common belief that the whole story has never really come to light.
[00:04:48] So, let us remind ourselves a little bit about the Years of Lead up to this point.
[00:04:55] By the summer of 1980, Italy had lived through more than a decade of political violence.
[00:05:04] It had started, as we talked about in part one, with the Piazza Fontana bombing in 1969.
[00:05:11] That attack opened a grim new chapter in Italian history, where political violence became an almost daily reality. There were clashes in the streets, bombs on trains, shootings, and kidnappings, and by the mid-1970s, Italy was experiencing hundreds of acts of political violence every year.
[00:05:37] Then came the kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro in 1978, which we explored in part two.
[00:05:45] Moro’s death marked a turning point.
[00:05:49] The dream of the “historic compromise” between the Christian Democrats and the Communists collapsed. The Red Brigades, who had staged the kidnapping, believed they were striking a blow against the state, but instead they found themselves increasingly isolated, hunted down by police, and losing public sympathy.
[00:06:12] And within a few years, they would be completely dismantled.
[00:06:17] But that didn’t mean the violence stopped.
[00:06:21] If anything, it shifted shape.
[00:06:25] On the far left, there were still extremist groups carrying out targeted assassinations, mostly against judges, journalists, and business leaders.
[00:06:36] On the far right, neofascist organisations continued their strategy of bombings, aiming to create fear and instability, to push Italy towards authoritarian rule. As you may recall, this was part of what later came to be called the strategy of tension: the belief that terrorism itself could be used, or tolerated by elements of the state, to push Italy away from the left and towards authoritarian rule.
[00:07:08] So by 1980, Italy was a country still deeply scarred, still fearful, still accustomed to waking up to headlines about kidnappings, bombs and bloodshed.
[00:07:23] Yet nothing could have prepared it for the horror of Bologna.
[00:07:28] See, despite the almost daily political violence, this was typically violence against politicians or people in positions of power.
[00:07:38] Or between rival political groups; the left against the right, and in fact much more frequently, the right against the left.
[00:07:46] Of course, these are generalisations, and you’d also have factions on both sides even fighting each other, but the point is that the violence wasn’t typically against “civilians”, regular, ordinary people.
[00:08:02] Bologna was different; it didn’t target politicians, judges, or symbols of power, it was aimed squarely at ordinary people: families, children, pensioners, holidaymakers waiting for trains.
[00:08:20] It wasn’t just another strike in Italy’s political war; it was an attack on Italian society itself.
[00:08:29] As you can imagine, in the hours and days after the explosion, Bologna became a city of grief.
[00:08:37] The President travelled to the city almost immediately.
[00:08:41] He walked among the rubble of the station, spoke to the wounded in hospitals, and delivered an emotional appeal for unity against terrorism.
[00:08:52] Pertini, the President, was an old partisan fighter, a man who had resisted Mussolini, and his presence gave a sense of dignity to the mourning.
[00:09:04] The funerals were held in Bologna’s Piazza Maggiore, the great square at the heart of the city.
[00:09:11] Thousands upon thousands of people stood in silence, clutching photographs, waving black flags, demanding justice.
[00:09:23] But justice for whom?
[00:09:26] No group has ever claimed responsibility for the attack, and the list of potential culprits, well it was depressingly long.
[00:09:37] On the far left, the Red Brigades had not yet been completely crushed, and their willingness to kill for political ends, well after Aldo Moro, that was evident for anyone to see.
[00:09:51] On the far right, neofascist groups had carried out a string of bombings in Milan and Brescia, and even attacks on trains.
[00:10:01] Almost immediately, the finger of blame was pointed in both these very different directions.
[00:10:08] Some officials and newspapers suggested leftist anarchists must be responsible, as they had done after Piazza Fontana. For many, especially after Aldo Moro just two years before, the idea that anarchists were behind Bologna seemed to fit perfectly.
[00:10:27] But there was no evidence linking them to the attack.
[00:10:31] Attention soon shifted to the far right, in particular to a group known as the Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari, or NAR for short, the Armed Revolutionary Nuclei, as they’re called in English.
[00:10:47] This was a violent neofascist organisation, formed by young extremists who rejected mainstream politics and embraced terror. They had links to older neo-fascist movements and were already suspected of earlier attacks, and their fingerprints were all over Bologna.
[00:11:08] But the investigation was messy from the very beginning.
[00:11:13] Files disappeared. Evidence was mishandled. Suspects slipped through the cracks.
[00:11:21] Two people were eventually convicted of the bombing: Valerio Fioravanti and Francesca Mambro.
[00:11:30] In Fioravanti’s case, he was sentenced to 10 consecutive life sentences plus 250 years in prison, but he ended up only serving a fraction of that; he was allowed out on day release in the year 2000, and has been a completely free man since 2009.
[00:11:54] Even for Italy’s famously forgiving justice system, this was a remarkably short stint in prison, given the gravity of the crimes he was convicted of.
[00:12:05] Now, for their part, Fioravanti and Mambro have always maintained their innocence.
[00:12:11] They admit to their involvement with NAR, having been far-right activists and being behind other attacks, but say that they weren’t responsible for Bologna.
[00:12:24] So if Valerio Fioravanti and Francesca Mambro had nothing to do with it, or if they were too young and unconnected to have been able to do it alone, who else was behind it?
[00:12:38] Well, again, this is where it's easy to go down rabbit hole after rabbit hole of Years of Lead conspiracy theories, which lead to masonic lodges, the mafia, Gladio, the “stay behind” NATO operation, and even to Carlos The Jackal, the Venezuelan political terrorist.
[00:12:57] See, the more the investigation unfolded, the less clear things seemed to become.
[00:13:05] Judges complained of obstruction from within the Italian secret services. Evidence went missing, false leads were planted, and witnesses were intimidated.
[00:13:18] It was as if someone wanted the truth buried under the rubble of Bologna’s station.
[00:13:25] And the evidence from earlier attacks suggested that this was not just a paranoid theory.
[00:13:32] By this time, investigations into the Piazza Fontana bombing and others had uncovered links between far-right terrorists and elements of the Italian secret services. There were cases where extremists were tipped off before arrests, or evidence was destroyed to throw judges off the scent.
[00:13:53] And the Bologna bombing fit perfectly into this dark pattern.
[00:13:59] So when judges pointed to NAR as the culprits, and later on, when Fioravanti and Mambro were released after only serving a small portion of their sentence, many Italians were left wondering.
[00:14:14] Were Fioravanti and Mambro really behind it?
[00:14:17] Were they simply pawns in a larger game?
[00:14:22] The investigation into the Bologna bombing has dragged on for decades.
[00:14:27] Fioravanti and Mambro had been in custody since 1981, the year following the bombing. It took until 1988 for them, along with several other members of the NAR, to be sentenced.
[00:14:40] But, still, this wasn’t the end of it.
[00:14:43] There were also convictions of secret service officials for obstruction of justice, accused of deliberately derailing the investigation.
[00:14:52] Appeals, retrials, and new verdicts followed for years.
[00:14:57] Even into the 2000s and 2010s, courts continued to re-examine evidence, uncover hidden documents, and issue new rulings.
[00:15:10] The result was a long, confusing judicial saga that left many Italians unconvinced that the full truth had ever come to light.
[00:15:22] Now, if you take a train from Bologna train station today, you might not immediately see any sign that this was not so long ago the site of Italy’s most deadly terrorist attack.
[00:15:34] But if you look up at the clock, you’ll notice something.
[00:15:39] It is stuck at precisely 10.25 am, the very moment of the blast.
[00:15:46] Somehow, the original clock wasn’t completely destroyed; it remained stuck there, forever frozen in time, like the 85 people who lost their lives that day.
[00:15:59] If there is anything good to be taken from this tragedy, it’s that it marked the worst point of The Years of Lead. There were still isolated killings throughout the 1980s, but the era of constant bombings and spectacular acts of terror was over.
[00:16:19] After the best part of two decades, political violence–both by the right and the left–had failed to achieve its stated goals, and public support on both sides was at all-time lows.
[00:16:34] But the shadow of those years still hangs over Italy.
[00:16:39] The violence left scars: deep mistrust of institutions, a political culture where conspiracy theories thrive, and a lingering sense that the state has not told its people the full story.
[00:16:55] And as for Italian politics today?
[00:16:58] The Christian Democrats, which had dominated the country during the Years of Lead, no longer exist as a party.
[00:17:05] The Communist Party, once the largest in the West, is also gone.
[00:17:11] And the Italian political scene is not much less fragmented. There were 15 different political parties in the 2022 election, the most popular of which was Fratelli d’Italia, a party with roots in the post-fascist right.
[00:17:29] And of course, this is all very recent stuff: Giorgia Meloni, almost every member of her government, and any Italian over the age of 45 was alive during the Years of Lead.
[00:17:44] So, these memories, whether they are first-hand from people who were teenager activists during the Years of Lead, or, like Meloni, their memories are likely second-hand, from parents and older relatives, well they are still fresh, and are part of the political DNA of modern Italy.
[00:18:08] Now, to wrap up Bologna, and indeed this entire mini-series, it’s very easy to visit Italy and get distracted by the beautiful city centres, art, history, and restaurants.
[00:18:23] You probably don’t think of bombs, kidnappings, and murder, or if you do, it’s in the context of organised criminals, not political actors.
[00:18:36] The story of The Years of Lead isn’t very often told outside Italy, but it is as fascinating as it is confusing and murky.
[00:18:47] It’s hard to understand, partly because there was no clear, unifying, villain.
[00:18:54] There wasn’t a single external, foreign enemy plotting to destroy Italy. The violence came from within, by people who were convinced that they were acting in the best interests of their country.
[00:19:08] The bombers, the kidnappers, the police, the politicians — they all believed, in some warped way, that they were defending the Republic, protecting freedom, fighting for workers’ rights, or preserving order.
[00:19:24] It is perhaps a reminder that when it comes to political violence, there are rarely any winners.
[00:19:33] OK, then, that is it for today's episode on the Bologna bombings, and with that comes an end to this three-part mini-series on this fascinating but haunting period of Italian history, the years of lead.
[00:19:46] If you’ve made it this far, let me tell you something that might be interesting.
[00:19:50] I spent quite a lot of my last year at university studying this period, and my professor was a guy called John Foot, who is, incidentally, probably the best-known English-language historian on the Years of Lead.
[00:20:05] I never imagined that the courses I did would have any practical use, but almost 20 years later, they were more useful than I thought.
[00:20:14] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds by Leonardo English.
[00:20:19] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[00:00:05] Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English, the show where you can listen to fascinating stories and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:22] I'm Alastair Budge, and today it’s part three, the final part, of our mini-series on the Years of Lead.
[00:00:31] In case you missed them, in part one, we set the scene and talked about the Piazza Fontana bombing and the early years of this tumultuous period.
[00:00:41] In part two, we talked about the Red Brigades and the kidnapping and murder of the former Prime Minister, Aldo Moro.
[00:00:49] And today, we are going to bring it to a close with the most deadly event of the entire period: The Bologna bombing.
[00:00:57] If you haven’t listened to parts one and two yet, I’d recommend listening to those first, as I’ll be referencing quite a bit from that.
[00:01:06] So, let’s not waste a minute and get right into it.
[00:01:12] There are many wonderful things about the city of Bologna: fantastic food, a beautiful centre, a famous university and a vibrant cultural scene.
[00:01:23] One area where Bologna doesn’t score so highly, however, at least compared to other Italian cities, is its weather, its climate.
[00:01:34] It’s in the Po valley, surrounded by mountains on all sides.
[00:01:39] This means winters can be cold and damp, and in summer, it’s hot, humid and sticky, making it pretty uncomfortable.
[00:01:51] Fortunately, the sea isn’t so far away, and in the summer months, a fair portion of the city piles into cars, buses and trains, heading east towards the Adriatic coast.
[00:02:06] August 1980 was particularly hot and unpleasant.
[00:02:11] And on the Saturday of the first weekend of August, Saturday the 2nd, thousands of people were piling into the train station, no doubt looking forward to a refreshing day by the sea, away from the stifling heat of the city.
[00:02:30] The station waiting room was jam-packed: families, children, grandparents, people from all walks of life.
[00:02:39] None of them would catch their train that day.
[00:02:44] At precisely 10.25 am, there was a huge explosion that ripped through the train waiting room. The roof collapsed. Windows were blown to smithereens. Cars overturned. The entire area around the station covered in dust.
[00:03:05] According to eyewitness accounts, in the immediate aftermath, there was an eerie silence.
[00:03:12] Then came the groans and wails from under the rubble. The shrieks of horror as people found the lifeless bodies of loved ones. Then the sound of police and ambulance sirens.
[00:03:28] In total, 85 people were killed, and more than 200 were wounded.
[00:03:36] Initially, it was thought to have been an explosion of a gas pipe in the station, a tragic but innocent maintenance error.
[00:03:46] Shortly afterwards, it became clear it was something altogether more sinister.
[00:03:53] The cause was 23kg of explosives that had been placed in a suitcase in the waiting room, on a timer.
[00:04:02] It would go down as the deadliest terrorist attack not only of the Years of Lead, but also has the grim distinction of being the deadliest terrorist attack in Italian history.
[00:04:16] And to make matters worse, nobody has ever formally admitted to it, and many people believe that the true culprits have never been found.
[00:04:29] It is, like the Piazza Fontana bombing and the kidnapping of Aldo Moro before it, one of those incidents where there is an official verdict, a legally guilty party, but there is a common belief that the whole story has never really come to light.
[00:04:48] So, let us remind ourselves a little bit about the Years of Lead up to this point.
[00:04:55] By the summer of 1980, Italy had lived through more than a decade of political violence.
[00:05:04] It had started, as we talked about in part one, with the Piazza Fontana bombing in 1969.
[00:05:11] That attack opened a grim new chapter in Italian history, where political violence became an almost daily reality. There were clashes in the streets, bombs on trains, shootings, and kidnappings, and by the mid-1970s, Italy was experiencing hundreds of acts of political violence every year.
[00:05:37] Then came the kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro in 1978, which we explored in part two.
[00:05:45] Moro’s death marked a turning point.
[00:05:49] The dream of the “historic compromise” between the Christian Democrats and the Communists collapsed. The Red Brigades, who had staged the kidnapping, believed they were striking a blow against the state, but instead they found themselves increasingly isolated, hunted down by police, and losing public sympathy.
[00:06:12] And within a few years, they would be completely dismantled.
[00:06:17] But that didn’t mean the violence stopped.
[00:06:21] If anything, it shifted shape.
[00:06:25] On the far left, there were still extremist groups carrying out targeted assassinations, mostly against judges, journalists, and business leaders.
[00:06:36] On the far right, neofascist organisations continued their strategy of bombings, aiming to create fear and instability, to push Italy towards authoritarian rule. As you may recall, this was part of what later came to be called the strategy of tension: the belief that terrorism itself could be used, or tolerated by elements of the state, to push Italy away from the left and towards authoritarian rule.
[00:07:08] So by 1980, Italy was a country still deeply scarred, still fearful, still accustomed to waking up to headlines about kidnappings, bombs and bloodshed.
[00:07:23] Yet nothing could have prepared it for the horror of Bologna.
[00:07:28] See, despite the almost daily political violence, this was typically violence against politicians or people in positions of power.
[00:07:38] Or between rival political groups; the left against the right, and in fact much more frequently, the right against the left.
[00:07:46] Of course, these are generalisations, and you’d also have factions on both sides even fighting each other, but the point is that the violence wasn’t typically against “civilians”, regular, ordinary people.
[00:08:02] Bologna was different; it didn’t target politicians, judges, or symbols of power, it was aimed squarely at ordinary people: families, children, pensioners, holidaymakers waiting for trains.
[00:08:20] It wasn’t just another strike in Italy’s political war; it was an attack on Italian society itself.
[00:08:29] As you can imagine, in the hours and days after the explosion, Bologna became a city of grief.
[00:08:37] The President travelled to the city almost immediately.
[00:08:41] He walked among the rubble of the station, spoke to the wounded in hospitals, and delivered an emotional appeal for unity against terrorism.
[00:08:52] Pertini, the President, was an old partisan fighter, a man who had resisted Mussolini, and his presence gave a sense of dignity to the mourning.
[00:09:04] The funerals were held in Bologna’s Piazza Maggiore, the great square at the heart of the city.
[00:09:11] Thousands upon thousands of people stood in silence, clutching photographs, waving black flags, demanding justice.
[00:09:23] But justice for whom?
[00:09:26] No group has ever claimed responsibility for the attack, and the list of potential culprits, well it was depressingly long.
[00:09:37] On the far left, the Red Brigades had not yet been completely crushed, and their willingness to kill for political ends, well after Aldo Moro, that was evident for anyone to see.
[00:09:51] On the far right, neofascist groups had carried out a string of bombings in Milan and Brescia, and even attacks on trains.
[00:10:01] Almost immediately, the finger of blame was pointed in both these very different directions.
[00:10:08] Some officials and newspapers suggested leftist anarchists must be responsible, as they had done after Piazza Fontana. For many, especially after Aldo Moro just two years before, the idea that anarchists were behind Bologna seemed to fit perfectly.
[00:10:27] But there was no evidence linking them to the attack.
[00:10:31] Attention soon shifted to the far right, in particular to a group known as the Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari, or NAR for short, the Armed Revolutionary Nuclei, as they’re called in English.
[00:10:47] This was a violent neofascist organisation, formed by young extremists who rejected mainstream politics and embraced terror. They had links to older neo-fascist movements and were already suspected of earlier attacks, and their fingerprints were all over Bologna.
[00:11:08] But the investigation was messy from the very beginning.
[00:11:13] Files disappeared. Evidence was mishandled. Suspects slipped through the cracks.
[00:11:21] Two people were eventually convicted of the bombing: Valerio Fioravanti and Francesca Mambro.
[00:11:30] In Fioravanti’s case, he was sentenced to 10 consecutive life sentences plus 250 years in prison, but he ended up only serving a fraction of that; he was allowed out on day release in the year 2000, and has been a completely free man since 2009.
[00:11:54] Even for Italy’s famously forgiving justice system, this was a remarkably short stint in prison, given the gravity of the crimes he was convicted of.
[00:12:05] Now, for their part, Fioravanti and Mambro have always maintained their innocence.
[00:12:11] They admit to their involvement with NAR, having been far-right activists and being behind other attacks, but say that they weren’t responsible for Bologna.
[00:12:24] So if Valerio Fioravanti and Francesca Mambro had nothing to do with it, or if they were too young and unconnected to have been able to do it alone, who else was behind it?
[00:12:38] Well, again, this is where it's easy to go down rabbit hole after rabbit hole of Years of Lead conspiracy theories, which lead to masonic lodges, the mafia, Gladio, the “stay behind” NATO operation, and even to Carlos The Jackal, the Venezuelan political terrorist.
[00:12:57] See, the more the investigation unfolded, the less clear things seemed to become.
[00:13:05] Judges complained of obstruction from within the Italian secret services. Evidence went missing, false leads were planted, and witnesses were intimidated.
[00:13:18] It was as if someone wanted the truth buried under the rubble of Bologna’s station.
[00:13:25] And the evidence from earlier attacks suggested that this was not just a paranoid theory.
[00:13:32] By this time, investigations into the Piazza Fontana bombing and others had uncovered links between far-right terrorists and elements of the Italian secret services. There were cases where extremists were tipped off before arrests, or evidence was destroyed to throw judges off the scent.
[00:13:53] And the Bologna bombing fit perfectly into this dark pattern.
[00:13:59] So when judges pointed to NAR as the culprits, and later on, when Fioravanti and Mambro were released after only serving a small portion of their sentence, many Italians were left wondering.
[00:14:14] Were Fioravanti and Mambro really behind it?
[00:14:17] Were they simply pawns in a larger game?
[00:14:22] The investigation into the Bologna bombing has dragged on for decades.
[00:14:27] Fioravanti and Mambro had been in custody since 1981, the year following the bombing. It took until 1988 for them, along with several other members of the NAR, to be sentenced.
[00:14:40] But, still, this wasn’t the end of it.
[00:14:43] There were also convictions of secret service officials for obstruction of justice, accused of deliberately derailing the investigation.
[00:14:52] Appeals, retrials, and new verdicts followed for years.
[00:14:57] Even into the 2000s and 2010s, courts continued to re-examine evidence, uncover hidden documents, and issue new rulings.
[00:15:10] The result was a long, confusing judicial saga that left many Italians unconvinced that the full truth had ever come to light.
[00:15:22] Now, if you take a train from Bologna train station today, you might not immediately see any sign that this was not so long ago the site of Italy’s most deadly terrorist attack.
[00:15:34] But if you look up at the clock, you’ll notice something.
[00:15:39] It is stuck at precisely 10.25 am, the very moment of the blast.
[00:15:46] Somehow, the original clock wasn’t completely destroyed; it remained stuck there, forever frozen in time, like the 85 people who lost their lives that day.
[00:15:59] If there is anything good to be taken from this tragedy, it’s that it marked the worst point of The Years of Lead. There were still isolated killings throughout the 1980s, but the era of constant bombings and spectacular acts of terror was over.
[00:16:19] After the best part of two decades, political violence–both by the right and the left–had failed to achieve its stated goals, and public support on both sides was at all-time lows.
[00:16:34] But the shadow of those years still hangs over Italy.
[00:16:39] The violence left scars: deep mistrust of institutions, a political culture where conspiracy theories thrive, and a lingering sense that the state has not told its people the full story.
[00:16:55] And as for Italian politics today?
[00:16:58] The Christian Democrats, which had dominated the country during the Years of Lead, no longer exist as a party.
[00:17:05] The Communist Party, once the largest in the West, is also gone.
[00:17:11] And the Italian political scene is not much less fragmented. There were 15 different political parties in the 2022 election, the most popular of which was Fratelli d’Italia, a party with roots in the post-fascist right.
[00:17:29] And of course, this is all very recent stuff: Giorgia Meloni, almost every member of her government, and any Italian over the age of 45 was alive during the Years of Lead.
[00:17:44] So, these memories, whether they are first-hand from people who were teenager activists during the Years of Lead, or, like Meloni, their memories are likely second-hand, from parents and older relatives, well they are still fresh, and are part of the political DNA of modern Italy.
[00:18:08] Now, to wrap up Bologna, and indeed this entire mini-series, it’s very easy to visit Italy and get distracted by the beautiful city centres, art, history, and restaurants.
[00:18:23] You probably don’t think of bombs, kidnappings, and murder, or if you do, it’s in the context of organised criminals, not political actors.
[00:18:36] The story of The Years of Lead isn’t very often told outside Italy, but it is as fascinating as it is confusing and murky.
[00:18:47] It’s hard to understand, partly because there was no clear, unifying, villain.
[00:18:54] There wasn’t a single external, foreign enemy plotting to destroy Italy. The violence came from within, by people who were convinced that they were acting in the best interests of their country.
[00:19:08] The bombers, the kidnappers, the police, the politicians — they all believed, in some warped way, that they were defending the Republic, protecting freedom, fighting for workers’ rights, or preserving order.
[00:19:24] It is perhaps a reminder that when it comes to political violence, there are rarely any winners.
[00:19:33] OK, then, that is it for today's episode on the Bologna bombings, and with that comes an end to this three-part mini-series on this fascinating but haunting period of Italian history, the years of lead.
[00:19:46] If you’ve made it this far, let me tell you something that might be interesting.
[00:19:50] I spent quite a lot of my last year at university studying this period, and my professor was a guy called John Foot, who is, incidentally, probably the best-known English-language historian on the Years of Lead.
[00:20:05] I never imagined that the courses I did would have any practical use, but almost 20 years later, they were more useful than I thought.
[00:20:14] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds by Leonardo English.
[00:20:19] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[00:00:05] Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English, the show where you can listen to fascinating stories and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:22] I'm Alastair Budge, and today it’s part three, the final part, of our mini-series on the Years of Lead.
[00:00:31] In case you missed them, in part one, we set the scene and talked about the Piazza Fontana bombing and the early years of this tumultuous period.
[00:00:41] In part two, we talked about the Red Brigades and the kidnapping and murder of the former Prime Minister, Aldo Moro.
[00:00:49] And today, we are going to bring it to a close with the most deadly event of the entire period: The Bologna bombing.
[00:00:57] If you haven’t listened to parts one and two yet, I’d recommend listening to those first, as I’ll be referencing quite a bit from that.
[00:01:06] So, let’s not waste a minute and get right into it.
[00:01:12] There are many wonderful things about the city of Bologna: fantastic food, a beautiful centre, a famous university and a vibrant cultural scene.
[00:01:23] One area where Bologna doesn’t score so highly, however, at least compared to other Italian cities, is its weather, its climate.
[00:01:34] It’s in the Po valley, surrounded by mountains on all sides.
[00:01:39] This means winters can be cold and damp, and in summer, it’s hot, humid and sticky, making it pretty uncomfortable.
[00:01:51] Fortunately, the sea isn’t so far away, and in the summer months, a fair portion of the city piles into cars, buses and trains, heading east towards the Adriatic coast.
[00:02:06] August 1980 was particularly hot and unpleasant.
[00:02:11] And on the Saturday of the first weekend of August, Saturday the 2nd, thousands of people were piling into the train station, no doubt looking forward to a refreshing day by the sea, away from the stifling heat of the city.
[00:02:30] The station waiting room was jam-packed: families, children, grandparents, people from all walks of life.
[00:02:39] None of them would catch their train that day.
[00:02:44] At precisely 10.25 am, there was a huge explosion that ripped through the train waiting room. The roof collapsed. Windows were blown to smithereens. Cars overturned. The entire area around the station covered in dust.
[00:03:05] According to eyewitness accounts, in the immediate aftermath, there was an eerie silence.
[00:03:12] Then came the groans and wails from under the rubble. The shrieks of horror as people found the lifeless bodies of loved ones. Then the sound of police and ambulance sirens.
[00:03:28] In total, 85 people were killed, and more than 200 were wounded.
[00:03:36] Initially, it was thought to have been an explosion of a gas pipe in the station, a tragic but innocent maintenance error.
[00:03:46] Shortly afterwards, it became clear it was something altogether more sinister.
[00:03:53] The cause was 23kg of explosives that had been placed in a suitcase in the waiting room, on a timer.
[00:04:02] It would go down as the deadliest terrorist attack not only of the Years of Lead, but also has the grim distinction of being the deadliest terrorist attack in Italian history.
[00:04:16] And to make matters worse, nobody has ever formally admitted to it, and many people believe that the true culprits have never been found.
[00:04:29] It is, like the Piazza Fontana bombing and the kidnapping of Aldo Moro before it, one of those incidents where there is an official verdict, a legally guilty party, but there is a common belief that the whole story has never really come to light.
[00:04:48] So, let us remind ourselves a little bit about the Years of Lead up to this point.
[00:04:55] By the summer of 1980, Italy had lived through more than a decade of political violence.
[00:05:04] It had started, as we talked about in part one, with the Piazza Fontana bombing in 1969.
[00:05:11] That attack opened a grim new chapter in Italian history, where political violence became an almost daily reality. There were clashes in the streets, bombs on trains, shootings, and kidnappings, and by the mid-1970s, Italy was experiencing hundreds of acts of political violence every year.
[00:05:37] Then came the kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro in 1978, which we explored in part two.
[00:05:45] Moro’s death marked a turning point.
[00:05:49] The dream of the “historic compromise” between the Christian Democrats and the Communists collapsed. The Red Brigades, who had staged the kidnapping, believed they were striking a blow against the state, but instead they found themselves increasingly isolated, hunted down by police, and losing public sympathy.
[00:06:12] And within a few years, they would be completely dismantled.
[00:06:17] But that didn’t mean the violence stopped.
[00:06:21] If anything, it shifted shape.
[00:06:25] On the far left, there were still extremist groups carrying out targeted assassinations, mostly against judges, journalists, and business leaders.
[00:06:36] On the far right, neofascist organisations continued their strategy of bombings, aiming to create fear and instability, to push Italy towards authoritarian rule. As you may recall, this was part of what later came to be called the strategy of tension: the belief that terrorism itself could be used, or tolerated by elements of the state, to push Italy away from the left and towards authoritarian rule.
[00:07:08] So by 1980, Italy was a country still deeply scarred, still fearful, still accustomed to waking up to headlines about kidnappings, bombs and bloodshed.
[00:07:23] Yet nothing could have prepared it for the horror of Bologna.
[00:07:28] See, despite the almost daily political violence, this was typically violence against politicians or people in positions of power.
[00:07:38] Or between rival political groups; the left against the right, and in fact much more frequently, the right against the left.
[00:07:46] Of course, these are generalisations, and you’d also have factions on both sides even fighting each other, but the point is that the violence wasn’t typically against “civilians”, regular, ordinary people.
[00:08:02] Bologna was different; it didn’t target politicians, judges, or symbols of power, it was aimed squarely at ordinary people: families, children, pensioners, holidaymakers waiting for trains.
[00:08:20] It wasn’t just another strike in Italy’s political war; it was an attack on Italian society itself.
[00:08:29] As you can imagine, in the hours and days after the explosion, Bologna became a city of grief.
[00:08:37] The President travelled to the city almost immediately.
[00:08:41] He walked among the rubble of the station, spoke to the wounded in hospitals, and delivered an emotional appeal for unity against terrorism.
[00:08:52] Pertini, the President, was an old partisan fighter, a man who had resisted Mussolini, and his presence gave a sense of dignity to the mourning.
[00:09:04] The funerals were held in Bologna’s Piazza Maggiore, the great square at the heart of the city.
[00:09:11] Thousands upon thousands of people stood in silence, clutching photographs, waving black flags, demanding justice.
[00:09:23] But justice for whom?
[00:09:26] No group has ever claimed responsibility for the attack, and the list of potential culprits, well it was depressingly long.
[00:09:37] On the far left, the Red Brigades had not yet been completely crushed, and their willingness to kill for political ends, well after Aldo Moro, that was evident for anyone to see.
[00:09:51] On the far right, neofascist groups had carried out a string of bombings in Milan and Brescia, and even attacks on trains.
[00:10:01] Almost immediately, the finger of blame was pointed in both these very different directions.
[00:10:08] Some officials and newspapers suggested leftist anarchists must be responsible, as they had done after Piazza Fontana. For many, especially after Aldo Moro just two years before, the idea that anarchists were behind Bologna seemed to fit perfectly.
[00:10:27] But there was no evidence linking them to the attack.
[00:10:31] Attention soon shifted to the far right, in particular to a group known as the Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari, or NAR for short, the Armed Revolutionary Nuclei, as they’re called in English.
[00:10:47] This was a violent neofascist organisation, formed by young extremists who rejected mainstream politics and embraced terror. They had links to older neo-fascist movements and were already suspected of earlier attacks, and their fingerprints were all over Bologna.
[00:11:08] But the investigation was messy from the very beginning.
[00:11:13] Files disappeared. Evidence was mishandled. Suspects slipped through the cracks.
[00:11:21] Two people were eventually convicted of the bombing: Valerio Fioravanti and Francesca Mambro.
[00:11:30] In Fioravanti’s case, he was sentenced to 10 consecutive life sentences plus 250 years in prison, but he ended up only serving a fraction of that; he was allowed out on day release in the year 2000, and has been a completely free man since 2009.
[00:11:54] Even for Italy’s famously forgiving justice system, this was a remarkably short stint in prison, given the gravity of the crimes he was convicted of.
[00:12:05] Now, for their part, Fioravanti and Mambro have always maintained their innocence.
[00:12:11] They admit to their involvement with NAR, having been far-right activists and being behind other attacks, but say that they weren’t responsible for Bologna.
[00:12:24] So if Valerio Fioravanti and Francesca Mambro had nothing to do with it, or if they were too young and unconnected to have been able to do it alone, who else was behind it?
[00:12:38] Well, again, this is where it's easy to go down rabbit hole after rabbit hole of Years of Lead conspiracy theories, which lead to masonic lodges, the mafia, Gladio, the “stay behind” NATO operation, and even to Carlos The Jackal, the Venezuelan political terrorist.
[00:12:57] See, the more the investigation unfolded, the less clear things seemed to become.
[00:13:05] Judges complained of obstruction from within the Italian secret services. Evidence went missing, false leads were planted, and witnesses were intimidated.
[00:13:18] It was as if someone wanted the truth buried under the rubble of Bologna’s station.
[00:13:25] And the evidence from earlier attacks suggested that this was not just a paranoid theory.
[00:13:32] By this time, investigations into the Piazza Fontana bombing and others had uncovered links between far-right terrorists and elements of the Italian secret services. There were cases where extremists were tipped off before arrests, or evidence was destroyed to throw judges off the scent.
[00:13:53] And the Bologna bombing fit perfectly into this dark pattern.
[00:13:59] So when judges pointed to NAR as the culprits, and later on, when Fioravanti and Mambro were released after only serving a small portion of their sentence, many Italians were left wondering.
[00:14:14] Were Fioravanti and Mambro really behind it?
[00:14:17] Were they simply pawns in a larger game?
[00:14:22] The investigation into the Bologna bombing has dragged on for decades.
[00:14:27] Fioravanti and Mambro had been in custody since 1981, the year following the bombing. It took until 1988 for them, along with several other members of the NAR, to be sentenced.
[00:14:40] But, still, this wasn’t the end of it.
[00:14:43] There were also convictions of secret service officials for obstruction of justice, accused of deliberately derailing the investigation.
[00:14:52] Appeals, retrials, and new verdicts followed for years.
[00:14:57] Even into the 2000s and 2010s, courts continued to re-examine evidence, uncover hidden documents, and issue new rulings.
[00:15:10] The result was a long, confusing judicial saga that left many Italians unconvinced that the full truth had ever come to light.
[00:15:22] Now, if you take a train from Bologna train station today, you might not immediately see any sign that this was not so long ago the site of Italy’s most deadly terrorist attack.
[00:15:34] But if you look up at the clock, you’ll notice something.
[00:15:39] It is stuck at precisely 10.25 am, the very moment of the blast.
[00:15:46] Somehow, the original clock wasn’t completely destroyed; it remained stuck there, forever frozen in time, like the 85 people who lost their lives that day.
[00:15:59] If there is anything good to be taken from this tragedy, it’s that it marked the worst point of The Years of Lead. There were still isolated killings throughout the 1980s, but the era of constant bombings and spectacular acts of terror was over.
[00:16:19] After the best part of two decades, political violence–both by the right and the left–had failed to achieve its stated goals, and public support on both sides was at all-time lows.
[00:16:34] But the shadow of those years still hangs over Italy.
[00:16:39] The violence left scars: deep mistrust of institutions, a political culture where conspiracy theories thrive, and a lingering sense that the state has not told its people the full story.
[00:16:55] And as for Italian politics today?
[00:16:58] The Christian Democrats, which had dominated the country during the Years of Lead, no longer exist as a party.
[00:17:05] The Communist Party, once the largest in the West, is also gone.
[00:17:11] And the Italian political scene is not much less fragmented. There were 15 different political parties in the 2022 election, the most popular of which was Fratelli d’Italia, a party with roots in the post-fascist right.
[00:17:29] And of course, this is all very recent stuff: Giorgia Meloni, almost every member of her government, and any Italian over the age of 45 was alive during the Years of Lead.
[00:17:44] So, these memories, whether they are first-hand from people who were teenager activists during the Years of Lead, or, like Meloni, their memories are likely second-hand, from parents and older relatives, well they are still fresh, and are part of the political DNA of modern Italy.
[00:18:08] Now, to wrap up Bologna, and indeed this entire mini-series, it’s very easy to visit Italy and get distracted by the beautiful city centres, art, history, and restaurants.
[00:18:23] You probably don’t think of bombs, kidnappings, and murder, or if you do, it’s in the context of organised criminals, not political actors.
[00:18:36] The story of The Years of Lead isn’t very often told outside Italy, but it is as fascinating as it is confusing and murky.
[00:18:47] It’s hard to understand, partly because there was no clear, unifying, villain.
[00:18:54] There wasn’t a single external, foreign enemy plotting to destroy Italy. The violence came from within, by people who were convinced that they were acting in the best interests of their country.
[00:19:08] The bombers, the kidnappers, the police, the politicians — they all believed, in some warped way, that they were defending the Republic, protecting freedom, fighting for workers’ rights, or preserving order.
[00:19:24] It is perhaps a reminder that when it comes to political violence, there are rarely any winners.
[00:19:33] OK, then, that is it for today's episode on the Bologna bombings, and with that comes an end to this three-part mini-series on this fascinating but haunting period of Italian history, the years of lead.
[00:19:46] If you’ve made it this far, let me tell you something that might be interesting.
[00:19:50] I spent quite a lot of my last year at university studying this period, and my professor was a guy called John Foot, who is, incidentally, probably the best-known English-language historian on the Years of Lead.
[00:20:05] I never imagined that the courses I did would have any practical use, but almost 20 years later, they were more useful than I thought.
[00:20:14] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds by Leonardo English.
[00:20:19] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
