He graduated from the municipal high school in 1866, and at the end of that year passed the entrance exam to enroll in the University of Bologna to study jurisprudence.
[4] In a series of letters Bakunin undermined Marx, with his authoritative tendencies, and Garibaldi and Mazzini with their lack of true socialist convictions.
With Bakunin's support, Nabruzzi, Ceretti, Andrea Costa and others arranged a conference in Bologna on 17 March 1872 where most of the internationalist sections of Romagna were represented.
[6] The congress rejected Mazzini's view that the question of social reform could follow creation of a republic, and also voted against participating in elections, in effect moving towards Bakunin's position.
He participated in the IWA conference in Saint-Imier in which the anarchists broke away from Karl Marx and the General Council in London.
The climate back in Bologna was increasingly difficult, with many internationalists arrested and jailed, including Nabruzzi's brother.
Nabruzzi moved to Lugano where he found work as a writer in a commercial agency, then as editor of Il Repubblicano.
[8] Encouraged by Benoît Malon, Zanardelli and Nabruzzi published their Almanacco del proletario per l'anno 1876 in which they criticized the 1874 insurrection.
In November 1875 Nabruzzi, Zanardelli and Favre, along with Benoît Malon, founded the internationalist section of Lake Lugano.
The next year he was arrested along with Andrea Costa and Anna Kuliscioff after a demonstration to commemorate the Paris commune, and was expelled from the country.
In December 1880 he participated in the Congress of Chiasso with a manifesto written by Zanardelli and suggested by Amilcare Cipriani in which they returned to their former position of promoting insurrection in Italy.
The court recognized that Nabruzzi was not just plagued by financial distress, but from a disease that made him impressionable and inclined to do strange things.