Letters from Prison

1891 January 22. Born in Ales (Cagliari) to Francesco and Giuseppina Marcias, the fourth of seven children (Gennaro, Grazietta, Emma, Antonio, Mario, Teresina, Carlo). His father, the son of a colonel in the Bourbon gendarmerie, was born in Gaeta in 1860 and came from a family of Albanian origin that moved to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies after the Greek Revolution of 1821. After completing his high school studies, he found employment at the Registry Office in Ghilarza (1881). In 1883, he married Giuseppina Marcias, and some time later moved to Ales. His mother, born in Ghilarza in 1861, was Sardinian on both her father's and mother's sides and was related to wealthy local families.

1894-96 Along with his sisters Emma, Grazietta, and Teresina, he was sent to the sisters' kindergarten in Sòrgono (near Nuoro), where the Gramsci family had moved from Ales. The child was in delicate health; the fall from the arms of a domestic servant, which was to cause G.'s physical deformity, dates back to this period, around the age of four.

1897-98 The father was suspended from his job due to an administrative irregularity. His mother and the seven children went to live in Ghilarza. Antonio ("Nino") attended elementary school.

1901 He passed his final elementary exams with high marks, moving on to the fourth grade.

1903-905 Having obtained his elementary school certificate in 1903, he was forced, due to the family's difficult economic conditions, to work for two years at the land registry office in Ghilarza. He studied privately.

1905-908 Thanks to the help of his mother and sisters, he resumed his studies and attended the last three years of gymnasium a type of secondary school in Santu Lussurgiu, about 15 kilometers from Ghilarza. During the school period, he lived in Santu Lussurgiu in the house of a peasant woman. In the first years, he showed strong tendencies toward mathematics and science. Around 1905, he began to read the socialist press, including the "Avanti!", which his older brother Gennaro sent him from Turin.