[1] Between August and October 1890, he travelled to Germany where he came into contact with Marxist ideas, met some social-democrat leaders and was inspired to translate socialist texts into Italian, such as Thesen über den Sozialismus by Jakob Stern (de).

[1][2] He changed from his original Mazzinian position towards the radical and socialistic ideas represented in Sicily by Napoleone Colajanni, with whom he would maintain a lifelong friendship.

[1] He was part of the central committee of the Fasci Siciliani (1893–1894) for the province of Trapani and the regional direction of the newborn Italian Socialist Party (PSI).

[1] Due to a wave of national strikes and peasant demands in September 1901, made possible by the more liberal political climate established by the Zanardelli-Giolitti government, the socialist movement in the province of Trapani under Montalto and Sebastiano Cammareri Scurti, developed a network of socialist sections in small towns, that managed to obtain the first successes in the struggle for agrarian reform and the revision of rents.

[1] After World War I, he encountered enormous difficulties in achieving acceptance of his application for readmission to the PSI, and withdrew from active politics, devoting himself to the legal profession.