Eleonora Fonseca Pimentel – poet and revolutionary

Noblewoman who sacrificed her life for the principle of liberty

Eleonora Fonseca Partinel was inspired by the
French Revolution to join the Jacobins

A writer and leader of the movement that established the Parthenopean Republic in Naples, Eleonora Fonseca Pimentel was hanged on this day in 1799 in a public square near the port.

A noblewoman, she would have expected her execution to be carried out by beheading, but had given up her title of marchioness when she became involved with the Jacobins, founded by supporters of the French Revolution, who were working to overthrow the monarchy.

Pimentel had asked to be beheaded anyway, but the restored Bourbon monarchy showed her no mercy, reputedly because she had written pamphlets denouncing Queen Maria Carolina as a lesbian.

On the day of her execution, Pimentel was reputed to have stepped calmly up to the gallows, quoting Virgil by saying: ‘Perhaps one day this will be worth remembering.’ She was 47 years of age.

Pimentel was born in Rome in 1752 into a noble Portuguese family. As a child she wrote poetry, read Latin and Greek and learnt to speak several languages.

Her family had to move to Naples because of political difficulties between Portugal and the Papal States, of which Rome was the capital.

A plaque marks the birthplace of
Pimentel in Campo Marzio in Rome

As an adult, Pimentel became part of literary circles in Naples and exchanged letters with other literary figures.

She had a long correspondence with Pietro Metastasio, the Italian court poet in Vienna, who was a prominent librettist at the time, and Voltaire, the French writer, who was an outspoken advocate for civil liberties.

Pimentel married a lieutenant in the Neapolitan army and gave birth to a son, Francesco, who died at the age of eight months. She had no other children as she suffered two subsequent miscarriages, following alleged mistreatment by her husband, and eventually the couple separated.

In the 1790s Pimentel became involved in the Jacobin movement in Naples, which was working to overthrow the monarchy and establish a republic. She was one of the leaders of the revolution that installed the Pathenopean Republic in the city in January 1799, which was proclaimed from the Certosa di San Martino, citing liberty and equality for all along the lines of the French model.

Pimentel was the director of Monitore Napoletano, the republic’s newspaper, for which she wrote most of the content. She also translated books and articles into the Neapolitan dialect to try to win popular support. When the republic was overthrown, after just five months, she was arrested on the orders of the restored Bourbon monarchy and sentenced to death.

The Certosa di San Martino occupies a commanding
position on too of the Vomero hill

Travel tip:

The Certosa di San Martino in Naples, from which the short-lived republic was proclaimed, is a former monastery complex that is now a museum. It is one of the most visible landmarks of the city, perched high on the Vomero hill overlooking the bay. Today the museum houses paintings, porcelain, jewellery, Neapolitan costumes, and old presepi, nativity scenes made in the city.  

The Piazza Mercato is an open space not far from the main
port of Naples between Corso Umberto I and the waterfront 

Travel tip:

Piazza Mercato, where Pimentel and her fellow revolutionaries were executed, is in the heart of Naples not far from the port. Overlooked by the church of Santa Maria del Carmine, it had been the setting for many other historic events in the city, including the beheading in 1268 of Corradino, a 16-year-old King of Naples.

Home

Alessandro La Marmora - military general

Founder of Italy's famed Bersaglieri corps

A painting, by an unknown artist, that shows General
Alessandro La Marmora, in his Bersaglieri uniform

The general who founded the Italian army's famous Bersaglieri corps was born on this day in 1799 in Turin.

Alessandro Ferrero La Marmora was one of 16 children born to the Marquis Celestino Ferrero della Marmora and his wife Raffaella.  The family had a strong military tradition. Alessandro was one of four of the male children who grew up to serve as generals.

La Marmora was a captain when he came up with the idea for the Bersaglieri in 1836.

He had spent much time in France, England, Bavaria, Saxony, Switzerland, and the Austrian county of Tyrol studying armies and tactics and he approached King Carlo Alberto of Piedmont-Sardinia with the idea of creating a new corps of light infantry.

He envisaged a mobile elite corps similar to the French chasseurs and Austrian jägers, trained to a high physical level and all crack marksmen.  He suggested they should act as scouts, providing screen for the main army, operate as skirmishers and use their sharpshooting skills to weaken the flanks of the enemy during a battle.

From this proposal emerged the Bersaglieri, soldiers who were trained to be bold, carrying out their duties with patriotic fervour despite personal danger.

A painting by Carlo Ademollo from 1880 shows Bersaglieri
 soldiers storming Rome's Porta Pia in 1870

They wore distinctive headgear, both for ceremonial occasions and in action, that sported generally black grouse or capercaillie feathers, which was seen to symbolise their flair and bravery on the battlefield, setting them apart from others.

The other feature of the Bersaglieri was that, on parade, they moved in a fast jog rather than marching.

The feathers were important to morale, reinforcing belief in corps members that they were a force to be reckoned with against any opposing troops.  Battlefield helmets carried about 100 plumes compared with 400 on dress helmets.

The feathers served a practical purpose, too. Worn on the right side of the hat, they helped shade the shooting eye of the soldier as an aid to taking aim.  Also, because adornments to military headgear were normally worn on the left, they had the potential to confuse enemy spotters over the direction in which they were moving.

When, during the First World War, it was decided that feathers would make the Bersaglieri too conspicuous in trench warfare and the corps were ordered to wear plain tin helmets, morale suffered so much that the order had to be reversed.

Bersaglieri in action at the Battle of Novara

The Bersaglieri made their first public appearance at a military parade on July 1, 1836 and so impressed King Carlo Alberto they were immediately integrated as part of the Piedmontese regular army.  The Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia was relatively poor and a quick-moving infantry corps with sharpshooting skills helped compensate for their army's lack of numbers.

Led by La Marmora, the Bersaglieri distinguished themselves during the First Italian War of Independence by storming a bridge in the Battle of Goita - in which La Marmora suffered a broken jaw when he was shot in the face - and became famous on September 20, 1870 when they charged through a breach in the walls of Rome at Porta Pia. Their assault led to the capture of the city, completing Italian unification.

Elements served in the expeditionary force sent by the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia to Russia during the Crimean War and during the First World War many Bersaglieri saw service on the front with Austria and in the Middle East. Their valour and bravery was noted.

In the Second World War, although largely disastrous for Mussolini's armies, the Bersaglieri regiments performed so effectively they not only impressed Italy's German allies, particularly during the North African campaign, but also their adversaries on the Allied side.

Today's Bersaglieri regiments are no longer foot soldiers but mechanised units. They have served as peacekeepers in the in Lebanon, Yugoslavia and in the Somali civil wars, and were also active in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

A modern Italian Bersagliere in the
service of Nato

La Marmora had joined the Piedmontese army at the age of 15 in the regiment of the Grenadier Guards and became a second lieutenant. At the age of 22, during the First Italian War of Independence, he fought at the Battle of Novara and was awarded the cross of justice by the Mauritian Order.

In 1849, he was appointed Chief of Staff of the army and inspector of the Bersaglieri. He was in charge of the division stationed in the Ligurian city of Genoa and at the command of his brother Alfonso, the Royal commissioner, who had been sent to quell an anti-monarchy revolt.

In 1852 Alessandro was regular commander of the military division of Genoa and in the same year was promoted by King Vittorio Emanuele II to lieutenant general. He stayed in the Ligurian capital until 1854, when he married Rosa Roccatagliata,

In 1855, at the age of 56, he was lieutenant general in command of the second division of the army corps sent to the Crimea, but died at Balaklava from cholera. A memorial bust was erected outside among the statues and monuments of patriots on the Janiculum Hill in Rome.

Porta Pia and the monument to the Bersaglieri in Rome

Travel tip:

The achievements of the Bersaglieri are commemorated in Rome at the Historical Museum of the Bersaglieri, which was inaugurated by King Victor Emanuel III in June 1904, at the La Marmora barracks in the Trastevere district. From May  1909 it housed the medals won by the Bersaglieri corps.  The museum was moved to the area of Porta Pia in 1921.



Travel tip:

In addition to the bust at the Janiculum Hill in Rome, La Marmora is commemorated in Turin with a statue in bronze in the Giardino La Marmora on Via Cernaia in the centre of the city. The statue, which shows La Marmora in action with his sword drawn, was created in 1867 by the sculptors Giuseppe Cassano and Giuseppe Dini.

More reading:

How the capture of Rome completed Italian unification

Italy's decisive victory of the First World War

The Milanese uprising that drove out the Austrians

Also on this day:

1969: The birth of Gianluigi Lentini, once the world's most expensive footballer



Home

Lazzaro Spallanzani – priest and scientist

18th century biologist who pioneered artificial insemination 

Lazzaro Spallanzani

Lazzaro Spallanzani, the first scientist to interpret the process of digestion and the first to carry out a successful artificial insemination, died on this day in 1799 in Pavia.

Spallanzani made important contributions to the experimental study of bodily functions and animal reproduction. His investigations into the development of microscopic life in nutrient culture solutions paved the way for the later research of Louis Pasteur.

Born in Scandiano in the province of Reggio Emilia, the son of a wealthy lawyer, Spallanzani attended a Jesuit college and was ordained as a priest but then went to Bologna to study law.

Influenced by the eminent Laura Bassi, a professor of physics at the University, Spallanzani became interested in science.

Laura Bassi, whose work at the University
of Bologna influenced Spallanzani

In 1754 Spallanzani was appointed professor of logic, metaphysics and Greek at a college in Reggio and he later became a professor of physics at the University of Modena.

Spallanzani experimented in transplantation, successfully transplanting the head of one snail on to the body of another.

After a series of experiments on digestion, he obtained evidence that digestive juices contain special chemicals that are suited to particular foods.

He also performed in vitro fertilisation on frogs and, in 1780, artificial insemination on a dog, the first successful experiment of its kind on any animal recorded anywhere in the world.

As Spallanzani’s fame grew he received many offers from scientific societies throughout Europe but he accepted a chair at the University of Pavia in 1769, where he remained for the rest of his life.

He took every opportunity to travel in order to study new phenomena and to meet other scientists.

A coin struck in 1932 to commemorate
Spallanzani's achievements

In 1788 he visited Vesuvius in Campania and the volcanoes of the Lipari islands and Sicily and recorded the results of his research in a large work, Viaggi alle due Sicilie ed in alcune parti dell’Appennino.

Spallanzani died from bladder cancer on 12 February 1799 in Pavia. After his death his bladder was removed for study by his colleagues and it was then placed on public display in a museum in Pavia, where it remains to this day.

A number of medals and coins have been struck to commemorate Spallanzani's achievements, including one produced for the 14th International Congress of Physiology, in Rome, in 1932, designed by Renato Brozzi.

The monument to Lazzaro Spallanzani
in his home town of Scandiano

Travel tip:

There is a statue of Lazzaro Spallanzani showing him examining a frog through a magnifying glass, in his home town of Scandiano, which is near Reggio Emilia in Emilia-Romagna. The town was founded in 1262 when a defensive castle was built and some houses later developed around it. The town is now an important centre for the production of tiles.

Book a stay in Scandiano with Booking.com

Travel tip:

Pavia, where Lazzaro Spallanzani died, is a city in Lombardy, south of Milan. It is famous for its university, where Spallanzani taught, which was founded in 1361, and for its Certosa, a magnificent monastery complex north of the city that dates back to 1396. A pretty covered bridge over the River Ticino in the centre of Pavia leads to Borgo Ticino, an area where the inhabitants claim to be the true people of Pavia and are of Sabaudian origin, which means they are connected with the House of Savoy, from where the rulers of Italy came.

Find Pavia accommodation with Booking.com

More reading:

How ground-breaking academic Laura Bassi paved way for women

Scientist Luigi Galvani appeared to give new life to dead frog

Giuseppe Forlenza's cataract surgery impressed Napoleon

Also on this day:

1602: The birth of painter Michelangelo Cerquozzi

1923: Birth of film director Franco Zeffirelli 

1937: The birth of Vittorio Emanuele, heir to the last King of Italy

1944: The birth of actress and singer Claudia Mori

(Picture credits: Scandiano monument by Maxo via Wikimedia Commons)

Home