On 30 April 1945, the National Liberation Committee of Trieste organised the city's insurrection against the Nazi-Fascists: Don Edoardo Marzari presided over the CLN of Trieste, while the military commander of the operations was Colonel Antonio Fonda Savio, who had already been an irredeemable volunteer in the First World War in the ranks of the Alpine troops.

In the volume edited by Roberto Spazzali “La Resistenza italiana a Trieste e nella Venezia Giulia” (Del Bianco, Udine 2006) writings and documents have been collected that testify to the activity of Antonio Fonda Savio and the CLN in the most difficult moments of the liberation struggle and in particular those ranging from the city insurrection of 30 April 1945 to the period of Yugoslav occupation when, the only case in Italy, the CLN was forced into hiding again because it was vilified by pro-Yugoslav forces and threatened with death. Indeed, many of its men, treated as the worst enemies, were arrested by the Trieste communists and several were deported to Yugoslavia and eliminated there.

A well-known story, that of the Yugoslav occupation, which is reconstructed here in the methodical collection of information and documents that Fonda Savio thought up precisely to testify to the international authorities about the CLN's action and the conditions in which it found itself after the war.

The documents, many of which are unpublished, collected in the archives of the Associazione Volontari della Libertà, the University of Trieste and the Regional Institute for the History of the Liberation Movement in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, illuminate the personality of Antonio Fonda Savio and illustrate his action not only in the days of the insurrection but also in the months and years that followed, when political controversy, ideological mystification to the point of denigration of the fallen, called him into question with writings and interventions that were soon forgotten due to opportunism and moral mediocrity. Instead, a frank picture emerges and a strenuous defense of the action of the Italian patriots that was not affected at all by the bitterness of his detractors. Thus, it was deemed appropriate to re-propose some interventions published in the post-war press.

The research was commissioned by the Associazione Volontari della Libertà, moral heir of the Corpo Volontari della Libertà della Venezia Giulia, and the publication was made possible by a specific contribution from the Autonomous Region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia; the Committee of Trieste and Gorizia of the Institute for the History of the Italian Risorgimento has finally kindly welcomed the work in the series “Civiltà del Risorgimento”.