Giovanni Defendi

Defendi met wife Emilia Tronzio, in London. A native of Cosenza, she had lost her parents in a cholera epidemic and had been adopted by the family of the internationalist Tito Zanardelli.^[5] In the 1870s she was the mistress of Errico Malatesta.^[2] In 1880 a letter was published in the Citoyen of Paris in which Giovanni Defendi and Emilia Tronzi-Zanardelli announced that on 1 May 1880 they had contracted a union libre, as opposed to a judicial or religious marriage.^[6] A similar statement was published in La Plebe of Milan on 2 May 1880.^[3] The Defendis opened a delicatessen at 12 Archer Street in the Soho section of London, home to many immigrants.^[5] They had six children.^[2] Giovanni used to go through the Italian colony selling his produce from a handcart, assisted by his son Enrico.^[5]

In 1885 Defendi was one of the leaders of the anarchists in London, along with Biagio Poggi and Vito Solieri.^[7] In 1896 Defendi was one of three judges on an anarchist court of honor that found Francesco Cini guilty of stealing some money he had collected to help Spanish militants who had been tortured while imprisoned in Montjuïc Castle.^[8] His children Enrico and Luigia also became anarchists, and were watched by the police.^[9] Defendi opened a grocery shop at 112 W. High Street in Islington.^[2] Emilia was the victim of an influenza epidemic in World War I.^[10]