"The massacre that, 55 years ago, struck Milan, in Piazza Fontana, was an expression of the subversive attempt to destabilize our democracy, imprinting the institutions with an authoritarian twist. A wound in the life and conscience of our community, a gash in national history". Thus opens a statement by the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, released yesterday on the day of remembrance of one of the most dramatic pages of the "years of lead". "December 12, 1969 was a day when terrorists intended to produce a rupture in Italian society, with devices detonated also in Rome, generating chaos and generalization of violence. The Republic is close to the families of the victims and feels the duty of remembrance. The Italian people overcame a terrible ordeal. It was first and foremost unity in defense of constitutional values that defeated the subversives and allowed the resumption of the path of civil and social growth," continued the Head of State. "Milan was a bulwark and the whole country knew how to unite. Valuable legacy and, at the same time, permanent lesson since it was not to be taken for granted. Attempts at disinformation and obfuscation of reality followed. The neo-fascist imprint of the '69 massacre emerged clearly in the judicial process, even if deviations and guilty delays prevented those responsible from being held accountable for their misdeeds. The citizens' pressing demand for truth has sustained the commitment and dedication of men in the institutions, enabling the criminal design and responsibility to be reassembled. Truth and democracy have an inseparable ethical bond". "Having reconstructed one's history, even where it is most painful, has been a condition for passing on the baton to the younger generations, whose turn it is now to continue the path of civilization opened by our fathers in the Liberation struggle and in the Constitution," Mattarella concluded.