[2][3] A leading figure in the cultural life of Cosenza at the end of the 19th century, Fera was a successful criminal lawyer, a philosophy teacher at the Bernardino Telesio high school, a member of the Accademia Cosentina of which he became perpetual secretary at a very young age, and editor-in-chief of the anticlerical weekly La Lotta.

On 18 March 1911 he intervened on behalf of the radical group in the Chamber debate that caused the fall of the Luzzatti government, strongly supporting electoral reform.

[5] Despite the radicalism of his domestic politics, Fera was an interventionist in foreign policy, supporting both the Italian invasion of Libya and Italy’s entry into the First World War.

[3] In the electoral speech delivered in Catanzaro on 15 May 1921, Fera expressed his position on fascism: "the fascists offered determined resistance to the violence that the communists had committed for long months in some provinces, imposing respect for national symbols and the will of the majority, sometimes destroying the trade union bodies, and thus engaging in violent conflicts, which were the cause of serious deaths".

[5][3] In 1923 he was a member of the Commission of Eighteen, chaired by Giovanni Giolitti, for the examination of the Acerbo law, where, faced with the fascists' intention to annul other political parties, he began to develop a critical position towards the regime.