Piero Calamandrei (21 April 1889 – 27 September 1956) was an Italian author, jurist, soldier, university professor, and politician.

He fought as a volunteer in the 218th infantry regiment in World War I, rising to the rank of captain, and turning down a further promotion to resume teaching.

Calamandrei was highly critical of Italian fascism; he signed Benedetto Croce's 1925 Manifesto of the Anti-Fascist Intellectuals and was linked to the Florentine journal Non mollare!

When Kesselring was freed, he refused to repent for his crimes and claimed the Italians ought to build him a monument for his good work there.

Calamandrei responded with this poem, stating that if Kesselring returned, he would indeed find a monument but one stronger than stone and comprising the fighters within the Italian resistance movement who "willingly took up arms, to preserve dignity, not to promote hate, and who decided to fight back against the shame and terror of the world".