Rocco Verduci (3 August 1824,

Caraffa del Bianco Caraffa del Bianco is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Reggio Calabria in the Italian region Calabria, located about southwest of Catanzaro and about east of Reggio Calabria. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 605 and a ...

– 2 October 1847,

Gerace Gerace (; , ) is a town and ''comune'' in the Metropolitan City of Reggio Calabria, Calabria, southern Italy. Gerace is located some inland from Locri, yet the latter town and the sea can be seen from Gerace's perch atop a vertical rock. T ...

) was an

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

revolutionary A revolutionary is a person who either participates in, or advocates a revolution. The term ''revolutionary'' can also be used as an adjective, to refer to something that has a major, sudden impact on society or on some aspect of human endeavor. ...

, and

martyr A martyr (, ''mártys'', "witness", or , ''marturia'', stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an externa ...

of the Insurrection of 1847 in the Two Sicilies. In September 1847 Verduci led a rebellion in the district of

, as part of the wider 1847 Insurrection in the

Kingdom of the Two Sicilies The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies ( it, Regno delle Due Sicilie) was a kingdom in Southern Italy from 1816 to 1860. The kingdom was the largest sovereign state by population and size in Italy before Italian unification, comprising Sicily and a ...

. The aims of the insurrection were the

unification of Italy The unification of Italy ( it, Unità d'Italia ), also known as the ''Risorgimento'' (, ; ), was the 19th-century Political movement, political and social movement that resulted in the Merger (politics), consolidation of List of historic stat ...

and the abolition of the monarchy. After having taken over several villages of the district, and proclaimed the suppression of the taxes on imports and exports and the reduction by half of the costs of salt and tobacco, the insurrection was eventually crushed by the arrival of royal troops. The revolutionary leaders, including Verduci, had to flee to the mountains, where they were eventually denounced, arrested, and sentenced to death. Rocco Verduci (aged 23) and four other members of the Gerace Revolt were executed in

on the morning of October 2nd, 1847, and are today remembered as the ''Five Martyrs of Gerace''.

Notes

References

* Vincenzo Cataldo. 2000. ''Cospirazioni, Economia e Società nel Distretto di Gerace dal 1847 all'Unità d'Italia''. Ardore, Arti Grafiche GS. * Vittorio Visalli. 1987. ''Lotta e martirio del popolo calabrese (1847-1848)''. Edizioni Brenner. {{DEFAULTSORT:Verduci, Rocco 1824 births 1847 deaths Italian people of the Italian unification People of the Revolutions of 1848