Risorgimento: Carlo Pisacane

Carlo Pisacane was born in Naples on 22nd August 1818.
He was one of the greatest but less known revolutionaries of the Italian Risorgimento.
He came from a noble family.
In 1848 he moved to Lombardy where he fought as a volunteer in the First War of Independence. Later he went to Rome and with Giuseppe Mazzini and Giuseppe Garibaldi, founded the Roman Republic; they wanted to make a revolution.
They prepared the famous “Expedition of Sapri: on 25th June 1857 in Genova Carlo Pisacane together with other twenty-four men embarked on a steamer directed to Tunis. During the journey they hijacked the boat and headed for the island of Ponza, where they landed on 27th June. Here they set three hundred prisoners in the penal colony free, the one who were to participated in the useless revolutionary attempt to free that land. On 28th June 1857 they landed in Sapri, but they were attacked by local farmers. The revolutionaries had to flee from the attacks of the population and on 1st July in Padula, twenty-five of them were massacred, while the others were captured and
handed over to the police.
Carlo Pisacane committed suicide with his pistol on 2 July in Sanza (Salerno), while the others were tried and sentenced to death in January 1858.