On 12 December 1969 , a roughly decade-long period of extremist left - and right-wing political terrorism , known as The Years of Lead ( as in the metal of bullets , ) , began with the Piazza Fontana bombing in the center of Milan . Neofascist Vincenzo Vinciguerra later declared the bombing to be an attempt to push the Italian state to declare a state of emergency in order to lead to a more authoritative state . A bomb left in a bank killed about twenty and was initially blamed on anarchist Giuseppe Pinelli . This accusation was hotly contested by left-wing circles , especially the Maoist Student Movement , which had support in those years from some students of Milan 's universities and who considered the bombing to have all the marks of a fascist operation . Their guess proved correct , but only after many years of difficult investigations
Piazza Fontana bombing
Piazza Fontana bombing
Politics of Italy