Domenico Cucchiari

General Domenico Cucchiari

Cucchiari in old age

Domenico Cucchiari (born July 24, 1806 in Carrara , † January 19, 1900 in Livorno ) was an Italian general.

Life

Cucchiari was born in Carrara in 1806 as the son of Francesco Cucchiari and Maria Rossi and was a nephew of the lawyer and economist Pellegrino Rossi .

He studied law at the University of Pisa and then switched to further studies in Modena , where the outbreak of the local revolution caught up with him in February 1831. When the rule of the French Bourbons ended in July 1830 , the Duke of Modena , Franz IV. D'Este , refused to recognize the rule of the new citizen king Ludwig Philipp . He also supported Don Carlos as the legitimate king of Spain in the Carlist War and granted Dom Miguel von Braganza asylum at his court. In Carrara, the opposition headed by Carlo Marchetti and Pietro Menconi came out against the Duke and demanded the abolition of the customs duties imposed by Modena and political freedom for Carrara. After Francis IV's flight, officers Fanti and Cialdini assigned Cucchiari to provoke an uprising in Massa as well . Within two days, on February 15, he took over the defected garrison in Massa and marched directly to Carrara, where he incited the people by demanding the abolition of the grain tax. The Italian rebels under General Zucchi faced the Austrians again at Rimini on March 25, 1831 . After the defeat, the ringleaders under Jacopo Antonio Vanelli were dug up in a hut in San Giuseppe ( Torano ). These included Cucchiari, Angelo and Bernardo Fiaschi, Pietro Bombard and Franco Tenerani. 7 rifles, 6 pistols and several rapiers were secured. Cucchiari was sentenced to death by an Austrian military court , but he escaped with several insurgents to Ancona and embarked for Marseille .

He found asylum in Portugal and joined the 20 light infantry regiment there, which was already under the direction of the Genoese Borso di Carminati. He was promoted to sergeant on December 8, 1832, captain on January 2, 1835, and major on October 22 . He later went to Spain, where he organized a volunteer corps for Donna Isabella under Carminati in Porto. Cucchiari took part in the Battle of Chiva and was wounded in retreat fighting near Morella . On October 9, 1840 he was promoted to colonel . In 1841 he joined the Italian Legion organized by Fabrizi, which led the armed struggle near Valencia . For lack of solidarity and because of personal jealousy, he left the Legion on October 21, 1842.

In the spring of 1848 a letter from Mazzini asked him to support the provisional government formed in Lombardy and to organize the volunteers there. After arriving in Milan, he took part in the First War of Independence . He led a battalion of an infantry regiment under Cialdini, on June 2 he was given the command of a Savoy infantry regiment with which he participated in the fighting near Gonzaga (July 26th to 27th). The Sardinian Minister of War sent him an official request to Modena, which recognized Cucchiari as a colonel and gave him command of the 4th Savoy regiment. As part of the 4th Division of the Duke of Genoa, he personally carried out a courageous attack against the Austrians in the Battle of Novara on March 23, 1849 at Castellazzo on the heights of Bicocca and received the silver medal of bravery on July 13, 1849.

He then switched directly to the Savoyard Army, rose to Brigadier General in 1855 and took over command of the Casale Brigade. In the campaign of 1859 he led the 5th division and distinguished himself under La Marmora on June 24, 1859 at Solferino . He fought with varying degrees of success near San Martino on both sides of the road to Pozzolengo and took the villages of Chiodine and Plandro. In the evening of the day, Cucchiari was appointed lieutenant general by the king while still on the battlefield . He was elected to the House of Representatives of Carrara on March 25, 1860 and that of Massa on February 3, 1861, and began a political career. As such, he opened the newly completed railway line near Carrara. On October 8, 1865, the king appointed him senator . In the campaign of 1866 he commanded the II Army Corps under General La Marmora in the Mantua area against the Austrians. Adopted in September 1866, he retired to Livorno in 1869, where he died in early 1900 at the age of 84.

literature

• Giuseppe Monsagrati:  Cucchiari, Domenico. In: Massimiliano Pavan (ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 31:  Cristaldi – Dalla Nave. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 1985.

Web links

• Cucchiari, Domenico. In: Enciclopedie on line. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome. Retrieved November 1, 2016.