Antonio Gramsci was 15 years old and still in school when, in May and June 1906, Sardinia, the island where he grew up, was hit by mass social unrest. Increasingly, many basic groceries such as cheese had become unaffordable for much of the population. This provided the popular saying, ‘Chie mandicat casu hat dentes de oro’. The English translation is ‘he who eats cheese has gold teeth’. Rising prices paired with stagnant wages had led to riots. Cheese factories and tax offices were burned, carters overturned trams, and Luddism returned amongst workers whose trades had been damaged by the introduction of machines. In many ways, these riots marked a turning point. In school, Gramsci would have read Grazia Deledda’s tales of banditry. The bandit, in a society lacking political formation, was a figure of hope and subversion. To some degree, the riots changed this. Mass organisation became a possibility and collective action entered the public consciousness. Giuseppe Fiori’s biography of Gramsci provides the source material for the account outlined above. It forms the basis for Max Fletcher’s woodcut prints.
