The Belfiore martyrs were a group of pro-independence fighters condemned to death by hanging between 1852 and 1853 during the Italian
Risorgimento. They included
Tito Speri and the priest
Enrico Tazzoli and are named after the site where the sentence was carried out, in the valley of Belfiore at the south entrance to
Mantua. The hanging was the first in a long series of death sentences imposed by
Josef Radetzky
Johann Josef Wenzel Anton Franz Karl, Graf Radetzky von Radetz ( en, John Joseph Wenceslaus Anthony Francis Charles, Count Radetzky of Radetz; cz, Jan Josef Václav Antonín František Karel hrabě Radecký z Radče; sl, Janez Jožef Vencelj ...
, governor general of
Lombardy–Venetia. As a whole these sentences marked the culmination of Austrian repression after the
First Italian War of Independence
The First Italian War of Independence ( it, Prima guerra d'indipendenza italiana), part of the Italian Unification (''Risorgimento''), was fought by the Kingdom of Sardinia (Piedmont) and Italian volunteers against the Austrian Empire and other ...
and marked the failure of all re-pacification policies.
Mantua
The city of Mantua had formed part of the lands of the Austrian
House of Habsburg since 1707. It was the capital of a small but quite rich dukedom, as well as being of some military importance, both for the quality of its fortifications but also for its geographic position, allowing it to control the route between the
Veneto and
Lombardy
Lombardy ( it, Lombardia, Lombard language, Lombard: ''Lombardia'' or ''Lumbardia' '') is an administrative regions of Italy, region of Italy that covers ; it is located in the northern-central part of the country and has a population of about 10 ...
and a large number of crossings over the
River Po
The Po ( , ; la, Padus or ; Ancient Ligurian: or ) is the longest river in Italy. It flows eastward across northern Italy starting from the Cottian Alps. The river's length is either or , if the Maira, a right bank tributary, is included. Th ...
. Indeed, the city had been at the centre of the
1797 campaign during the
French Revolutionary Wars, with repeated Austrian invasions of the area until
Eugène de Beauharnais surrendered it to
Heinrich Johann Bellegarde
Count Heinrich von Bellegarde, Viceroy of Lombardy-Venetia (german: Heinrich Joseph Johannes, Graf von Bellegarde or sometimes ''Heinrich von Bellegarde''; 29 August 1756 – 22 July 1845), of a noble Savoyard family, was born in Saxony, joined the ...
on 23 April 1814. It was thus logical that, from 1815 onwards, the Austrians turned the whole city into a kind of large stronghold, perhaps the strongest one in the Lombardy-Veneto.
Such a militarised city was very well suited to house what could in modern terms be called a maximum security prison (in the
castello di San Giorgio
The Palazzo Ducale di Mantova ("Ducal Palace") is a group of buildings in Mantua, Lombardy, northern Italy, built between the 14th and the 17th century mainly by the noble family of Gonzaga as their royal residence in the capital of their Duchy. ...
) to hold the Lombard and Venetic patriots, imprisoned for their opposition to the Austrian occupation. The French had also thought the city suitable for a prison when, on 20 February 1810, the
Tyrolean rebel leader
Andreas Hofer was executed in Mantua for leading a rebellion in two of
Napoleon
Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...
's client states.
Political context
Charles Albert of Sardinia
Charles Albert (; 2 October 1798 – 28 July 1849) was the King of Sardinia from 27 April 1831 until 23 March 1849. His name is bound up with the first Italian constitution, the Albertine Statute, and with the First Italian War of Independence ...
had united the Sardinian army and countless volunteers from Lombardy, Veneto and many other Italian regions, but the defeat of his force by Radetzky at
Novara in 1849 led to a hardening in the Austrian government's attitude. In just one year, from August 1848 to August 1849, the Austrians carried out 961 hangings and executions, requisitioned many expatriates' goods and imposed heavy taxes and extraordinary taxes on the people. The repressive policy was directly carried out by field marshal Radetzky, governor general, but strongly supported from the imperial court in Vienna. In all, they allowed no ambiguity as to the occupying power's real intentions.
The atmosphere became even worse with two visits by emperor
Franz Joseph in 1851 (in March–April to
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
and in September–October to
Milan,
Como and
Monza
Monza (, ; lmo, label=Lombard language, Lombard, Monça, locally ; lat, Modoetia) is a city and ''comune'' on the River Lambro, a tributary of the Po River, Po in the Lombardy region of Italy, about north-northeast of Milan. It is the capit ...
), which showed up how little success Radetzky's policy had had in winning over the region's population and nobility to the Habsburg regime. These failed visits led Radetzky to issue two proclamations (on 22 February and 19 July 1851) decreeing that anyone found in possession of 'revolutionary' writings would be sentenced to 1 to 5 years in prison, reimposing the state of siege, holding the city collectively responsible for housing secret societies (even unknowingly).
The Mantua plot
Discontent in the region grew yet more and the patriots began to organise and meet secretly. A section organised itself in Mantua, with its first meeting on 2 November 1850 attended by 10 patriots, including the engineers
Attilio Mori
Saint Attilio, one of the legendary martyrs of the Theban Legion, is venerated as a saint in the area of Trino Vercellese, in Piedmont, north-west Italy and commemorated on 28 June. However his cult is no longer officially recognized by the Roma ...
and
Giovanni Chiassi Giovanni may refer to:
* Giovanni (name), an Italian male given name and surname
* Giovanni (meteorology), a Web interface for users to analyze NASA's gridded data
* ''Don Giovanni'', a 1787 opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, based on the legend of ...
, the teacher
Carlo Marchi Carlo is a given name. It is an Italian form of Charles. It can refer to:
*Carlo (name)
*Monte Carlo
*Carlingford, New South Wales, a suburb in north-west Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
*A satirical song written by Dafydd Iwan about Prince Char ...
,
Giovanni Acerbi
Giovanni Acerbi (14 November 1825, Castel Goffredo - 4 September 1869, Florence) was an Italian soldier, politician and supporter of Risorgimento
The unification of Italy ( it, Unità d'Italia ), also known as the ''Risorgimento'' (, ; ), ...
, the lawyer
Luigi Castellazzo
Luigi Castellazzo (29 September 1827 – 16 December 1890) was an Italian lawyer, politician, writer and supporter of Italian unification, federalism and the Historical Far Left.
Castellazzo was born in Pavia. He fought for Giuseppe Garibaldi ...
,
Achille Sacchi and the Mantuan doctor
Carlo Poma. The group's inspiration was
Enrico Tazzoli, a prelate close to the Mazzinian movement. In particular it had contacts with notable figures such as
Tito Speri, protagonist in the
Ten Days of Brescia
The Ten Days of Brescia ( it, Dieci giornate di Brescia) was a revolt which broke out in the northern Italian city of that name, which lasted from 23 March to 1 April 1849.
In the early 19th century Brescia was subject of the Austrian empire, as ...
, and
Antonio Scarsellini of
Legnano
Legnano (; or ''Lignàn'') is an Italian town and ''comune'' in the north-westernmost part of the Metropolitan City of Milan, Province of Milan, about from central Milan. With 60,259, it is the thirteenth-most populous township in Lombardy. Le ...
, in
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
. Proclamations were printed, cells founded in Milan, Venice,
Brescia,
Verona,
Padua,
Treviso, and
Vicenza, and money collected to finance the revolutionary activities via 'interprovincial loan folders' organised by Mazzini. It was these folders that led to the arrest of
Luigi Dottesio
Luigi Dottesio (14 January 1814 in Como – 11 October 1851 in Venice (then called Venezia)) was an Italian patriot who was very active in the distribution of anti-Austrian pamphlets, before and after 1848.
Intercepted by the gendarmes in Masli ...
from Como, hanged in Venice on 11 October 1851. That execution was followed, at the end of 1851, by that of Don
Giovanni Grioli Giovanni may refer to:
* Giovanni (name), an Italian male given name and surname
* Giovanni (meteorology), a Web interface for users to analyze NASA's gridded data
* ''Don Giovanni'', a 1787 opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, based on the legend of ...
, pastor of
Cerese, arrested on 28 October and condemned to death on 5 November for having tried to cause two Hungarian soldiers to desert and for possessing revolutionary literature.
Arrest
With a renewal in the repressive climate, the Austrian police increased their surveillance activities in Mantua and on 1 January 1852 commissioner Rossi found a folder of 25 francs from a Mazzinian loan during a raid on the home of Luigi Pesci, communal esattore of
Castiglione delle Stiviere
Castiglione delle Stiviere ( Upper Mantovano: ) is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Mantua, in Lombardy, Italy, northwest of Mantua by road.
History
The town's castle was home to a cadet branch of the House of Gonzaga, headed by the M ...
. The raid was on charges of Pesci's forging Austrian bank notes and so the discovery came as a surprise. Under fierce interrogation, Pesci revealed that the folder came from the priest don Ferdinando Bosio, a friend of Tazzoli and professor of grammar at the episcopal seminary in Mantua. Bosio was then arrested and after 24 days confessed and indicated that don Enrico Tazzoli was the movement's coordinator. Tazzoli was then arrested on 27 January, and with him many documents were seized, such as a register in which he had encrypted annotated receipts and expenditures, with the names of members who had paid money.
Torture and trial
The trial lasted from January 1852 till March 1853, and the first death sentences were pronounced in December 1852.
Tazzoli did not give into his interrogators, led by the judicial auditor Alfred Krauss, but the police managed to decipher the register thanks to informing by the Mantuan lawyer
Giulio Faccioli and by one of the society's members, the son of
Luigi Castellazzo
Luigi Castellazzo (29 September 1827 – 16 December 1890) was an Italian lawyer, politician, writer and supporter of Italian unification, federalism and the Historical Far Left.
Castellazzo was born in Pavia. He fought for Giuseppe Garibaldi ...
(a commissioner of police). This allowed them to move on to arresting
Poma,
Speri,
Montanari and other members in Mantua, Verona, Brescia and Venice, with 110 patriots being arrested in total, as well as 30 (including
Benedetto Cairoli
Benedetto Cairoli (28 January 1825 – 8 August 1889) was an Italian politician.
Biography
Cairoli was born at Pavia, Lombardy. From 1848 until the completion of Italian unity in 1870, his whole activity was devoted to the ''Risorgimento'', as ...
) condemned in absentia.
The Austrian police and occupying government evidently exaggerated the society's extent, putting most of the prisoners under torture. Most confessed, some died before they could do so, and Pezzotto even chose to commit suicide in his cell at the Castello di Milano. In the end 110 people came to trial. Krauss supported the Austrian belief in the existence of an association in Mantua and of committees in other provinces, communicating with Mazzini and expatriates in Switzerland, attempts by Carlo Montanari to map the fortifications of Mantua and Verona, a plan by the Trentine patriot Igino Sartena for an attempt on Radetzky's life, another plan to capture Franz Josef on his visit to Venice (both of which plans Poma and Speri had in the end quashed as impractical).
Sentence and intervention of the bishop of Mantua
Tazzoli and Ottonelli, being two priests, could in theory only be judged by the Vatican ''Foro Ecclesiastico''. The
Bishop of Mantua
The Diocese of Mantua ( la, Dioecesis Mantuana) is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Catholic Church in Italy. The diocese existed at the beginning of the 8th century, though the earliest attested bishop is Laiulfus (827). ...
Giovanni Corti
Giovanni Corti (14 April 1797 - 12 December 1868) was an Italian priest who became Bishop of Mantua. He supported the cause of Italian reunification at a time when his diocese was under Austrian rule, although he defended the temporal powers of the ...
explained the situation to
Pope Pius IX
Pope Pius IX ( it, Pio IX, ''Pio Nono''; born Giovanni Maria Mastai Ferretti; 13 May 1792 – 7 February 1878) was head of the Catholic Church from 1846 to 1878, the longest verified papal reign. He was notable for convoking the First Vatican ...
in a letter sent on 20 July 1852, asking for an intercession with emperor
Franz Joseph I of Austria in order to avoid further capital punishments. The Vatican replied on 1 September, mentioning that a mediation with the Austrian government did take place, but there was not much hope. Should the priests be found guilty, they will have to be
degraded.
The Austrian trial on 13 November ended with the death sentence being pronounced for all ten defendants. Tazzoli, Poma, Scarsellini, Canal, and Zambelli will later be hanged, while through the intervention of Corti the sentence for Paganoni, Mangili, Quintavalle, Ottonelli and Faccioli was turned into 8–12 years of imprisonment.
The rite of defrocking of Tazzoli and Ottonelli took place on 24 November.
Executions
The five convicts were hanged in Belfiore on 7 November.
Tito Speri,
Carlo Montanari, and
Bartolomeo Grazioli were put to death in Belfiore on 3 March 1853.
Pietro Frattini
Pietro Domenico Frattini (1 December 1821 – 19 March 1853) was a supporter of Italian unification and one of the Belfiore martyrs.
Life
He was born in Vigo di Legnago, but moved to Mantua at the age of 15, and was converted to the Republic ...
was hanged on March 19.
Pier Fortunato Calvi, the last of the Belfiore Martyrs, was executed on 4 July 1855.
Subsequent events
After the
Second Italian Independence War
The Second Italian War of Independence, also called the Franco-Austrian War, the Austro-Sardinian War or Italian War of 1859 ( it, Seconda guerra d'indipendenza italiana; french: Campagne d'Italie), was fought by the Second French Empire and t ...
Mantua remained in Austrian hands. During June 1866, in preparation for the
Third Italian War of Independence, the Austrian commander ordered work to reinforce Mantua's fortifications. As part of those works it proved necessary to excavate the sand needed for the work on the city walls and in doing so the chiefs of works from the Andreani family (father and son) recovered what were identified as the martyrs' remains (only those of
Pietro Frattini
Pietro Domenico Frattini (1 December 1821 – 19 March 1853) was a supporter of Italian unification and one of the Belfiore martyrs.
Life
He was born in Vigo di Legnago, but moved to Mantua at the age of 15, and was converted to the Republic ...
and don
Grioli, found in 1867, were missing). The Andreani kept the discovery secret and asked their absent Austrian contractors to speed up the work by working at night. The Austrians' absence allowed the wall-workers to transport the corpses to a city cemetery in great secrecy. Funeral rites for the remains were finally celebrated some months after this, when Mantua became part of the
Kingdom of Italy at the end of the Third Independence War.
Tazzoli continued to be honoured throughout the Mantua diocese, led by Monsignor
Giovanni Corti
Giovanni Corti (14 April 1797 - 12 December 1868) was an Italian priest who became Bishop of Mantua. He supported the cause of Italian reunification at a time when his diocese was under Austrian rule, although he defended the temporal powers of the ...
, who Tazzoli had authorised to publish the sermons Tazzoli had written in jail. Tazzoli had done a great service to the Roman Catholic Church when, under Austrian interrogation, he had written that the Mantuan clergy were as faithful to the revolt as to Catholic tradition, "with spirit adhering to the social and practical value of men's education and training ... and to implement what was necessary to be free. May God forgive me."
References
{{Authority control
Italian unification
1853 in Italy