The shocking violence caught on camera in Milan is just the latest in a wave of disturbing clashes that have hit Italy ahead of the election on 4th March.
Tensions between anti-fascist demonstrators and police forces boiled over into violence when the protesters tried to break through barriers into a nearby neo-fascist rally.
Milan was one of several Italian cities to witness brutal politically-related clashes today, with thousands of police officers deployed across the country.
Authorities said that protests in Rome, Milan, Trieste and Palermo drew crowds of up to 20,000 people.
The protesters in Milan were there to voice their fury at the nearby CasaPound march, which is a new neo-fascist political party contesting the upcoming general election.
The anti-fascist march was blocked by police when they tried to force their way past police barriers in La Foppa, and into the CasaPound rally.
Frustrated by the police, the demonstrators lit tear gas and smoke bombs, and chanted slogans against the police officers.
Shocking footage shows how violence erupted between the two sides soon after this, as police used batons to regain control of the situation.
Earlier on Saturday, young protesters who had climbed a monument to Giuseppe Garibaldi, a symbol of Italian unification, lit flares and waved an anti-Fascist banner, before being removed by police.
Also in Milan, thousands of supporters of The League attended a rally led by the party’s leader Matteo Salvini, who criticised the anti-fascist violence as a distraction.
He said: “I wonder if this rabid antifascism that is being vented today in Italian squares against a dead fascism, is not actually a weapon of distraction that the ruling class uses on students and workers to push the masses to fight a nonexistent enemy.”
In Rome, some 3,000 officers were mobilised for marches and sit-ins.
Yesterday, violence also struck the historical town of Pisa, where anti-fascist protesters threw glass bottles and knocked over police officers.
Video footage from the demonstration reveals protesters throwing smoke bombs, stones and bottles at riot police, who are trying to defuse the situation.
Italy bans polls from being carried out 15 days before an election, but the last poll showed the centre-right coalition, between Forza Italia led by former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, the anti-euro League and the rightwing Brothers of Italy, leading the way with 37 percent.
Additional reporting by Maria Ortega