Ferruccio Macola

Conte Ferruccio Macola around the turn of the century

Ferruccio Macola (born May 17, 1861 in Camposampiero , Province of Padua , Italy , † August 18, 1910 in Merate , Province of Como , Italy), with full name Conte Ferruccio Macola di Gomostò e Mortesa was an Italian conservative-liberal politician, member of parliament, Writer and journalist. In a duel that caused a sensation across Europe, he accidentally killed the socialist MP Felice Cavallotti . He was bullied for this, suffered from depressive disorders as a result and killed himself in 1910.

Origin and youth

Ferruccio was born in Camposampiero, 25 km north of Padua, where the family had resided for several generations. The father was Evaristo Macola, the mother Maria Bettiolo. The noble Makolas family came from Epirus , a Bernardos Makolas had rendered outstanding services to the Serenissima in the 7th and 8th Venetian Turkish War and was once again ennobled for his services by the Venetian Senate in 1701 together with his brothers.

Ferruccio entered the cadet school of the Venetian Navy at the age of fifteen, but left the school because he could not bear the military pressure and became an officer student of the merchant navy in Genoa. In 1881 he left the Navy.

The journalist

He travels to America and begins to write reports, first in Genoa as an employee of the magazine Il Progresso (1883–84) and the magazine Epoca .

Il Secolo XIX

In Genoa, only 25 years old, on April 25, 1886, he and others founded the daily Il Secolo XIX (The 19th Century) and became its editor. The sponsor is Marcello Durazzo. He gives the newspaper a dynamic and modern appearance and takes it on a monarchist, moderately left line in opposition to the Depretis government . In this political grouping of the Pentarchia , extreme lefts like the socialist Felice Cavallotti, who was friends with Macola but would later become his political opponent, are marginalized.

Macola is aggressive and brave. In 1887, after the Battle of Dogali in the Eritrean War (1886–1889) , in which the Italians suffer a heavy defeat, he, who advocates the colonial expansion of Italy, travels to the Red Sea as a war correspondent and survives a second dramatic defeat by the Italians. After his return he took over the editor-in-chief again, but left the newspaper in 1888 and sold his share.

Gazzetta di Venezia

Immediately thereafter, he acquired the most important daily newspaper in Venice, the Gazzetta di Venezia , which was founded in 1799 and is rich in tradition and became its editor-in-chief. He modified his political stance and now advocates a moderate right-wing federalism, which he propagates polemically. He advocates regionalist and autonomist tendencies and fights the government policy in the Mezzogiorno , which Macola's opinion is favored, while Northern Italy suffers from an unjust tax policy.

Trip to South America

His political outlook is increasingly influenced by economic nationalism, he promotes the acquisition of non-European colonies, increased military spending and increased emigration as a means against overpopulation. After a trip to Brazil, which he undertook together with his brother Romolo Macola after a defeat in the elections, he published the very successful publication L'Europa alla conquista dell'America Latina , in which he proposed to follow up troops To send South America to open up the “prosperous continent” for use by Italians.

Political career

Macola began to be politically active as early as 1890. He is elected to the Provincial Council in the Castelfranco electoral district. In 1993 he ran for election in the electoral district Mirano - Dolo , but was defeated and made his trip to South America (see above).

In 1895 he was elected deputato (member of parliament) in the Castelfranco - Asolo district. He retained his mandate in three further legislative periods until 1905. In 1895 he supported Filippo Grimani's candidacy as mayor of Venice. Grimani is also nominated by the Patriarch Giuseppe Sarto, later Pope Pius X , within a clerical-moderate coalition. Macola also later had a political and personal friendship with the Pope, which probably contributed to the fact that later, in the elections in 1904, the Pope canceled the non expedit for him against Giolitti , which won him the votes of Catholic-Conservative voters, in particular the landowner, in the rural municipalities of Veneto, and thus the election victory.

Although Macola was not far from the Crispi government , he was headstrong, not only in his polemics against the left. He caused a stir when he voted against the introduction of September 20 as a national holiday (to commemorate the unification of Italy and the end of the secular power of the popes).

The opponent of the duel: Felice Cavallotti 1898

Confrontation with Felice Cavallotti

In 1897, the immunity of MP Felice Cavallotti was requested because of a defamation suit. In a series of articles in his newspaper, Macola alleged that Cavallotti had intervened illegally in the decision-making committee in his own interest. This publicly replied that the article authors of the Gazzetta di Venezia were "professional liars", which again Macola did not sit on him. Despite attempts to mediate, the polemics escalated until Cavallotti challenged Count Macola to a duel. On March 4, 1898, the seconds Cavallottis, Achille Bizzoni and Camillo Tassi, and those Macolas, Carlo Donati and Guido Fusinato (all with one exception) signed a protocol on the conduct of the duel with sabers.

The duel

The challenger Cavallotti was considered a high favorite. Contemporaries described him as

"Personality with a passionate and stubborn character who had previously won thirty-two duels without ever killing an opponent" (quoted from Graziella Andreotti)

The duel between MPs Onorevole Cavallotti and Onorevole Macola on March 6, 1898 in the garden of Villa Cellere, a contemporary lithograph dated March 20, 1898

Ferruccio Macola had "only" fought sixteen to eighteen duels, but he was sporty, taller, younger than Cavallotti, who was 56 years old at the time, and had a greater reach with the cutting weapon. It was foreseeable that Cavallotti had little chance in a saber duel. It would have been an unequal fight - if Macola had attacked at all.

On March 6, 1898, the combatants met with their seconds in the park of the Contessa Cellere villa at the gates of Rome. The encounter lasted only a few minutes. Macola, who was friends with Cavallotti in previous years until the two became politically alienated, did not want the duel. According to the eyewitness reports, he just stood there defending himself while Cavallotti attacked heatedly. In the third failure, parried by Macola with his saber extended, Cavallotti fell victim to an unfortunate combination of circumstances. He had lost a few incisors in a previous duel, and through this gap the opponent's weapon penetrated his throat and cut the carotid artery . After a very short time he was bleeding to death.

Political decline

For Macola, the long-term consequences were no less devastating than for Cavallotti. The duel destroyed his political and civil existence. The left accused him of allowing himself to be used as a tool of reaction aimed at getting rid of an uncomfortable opponent. He was insulted and threatened as a murderer. The Florentine medical student Gagliardo Gentile, who wanted to avenge Cavallotti , was prevented from doing so by his father, who had the courage to report to the Treasury .

In the inevitable criminal trial, Macola was sentenced to thirteen months in prison in the first instance, and the sentence was reduced to seven months on appeal. Thanks to an amnesty, Macola never started the sentence. In Parliament, members of the extreme left left the room when he spoke in the debate. In April 1905 he resigned from his parliamentary mandate. He fell ill with tuberculosis and also gave up his journalistic work. In 1902 he had already sold the Gazzetta di Venezia .

Private life

After the political and human catastrophe, he seeks compensation in his private life. On October 3, 1900, near his hometown Camposampiero, in Castello di Godego , he married the daughter of a wealthy family, the young Maria Moresco. The couple lived in Villa Frida in Castello di Godego, but their happiness only lasted two and a half years: Maria died in July 1903. Probably the following year he will marry for the second time. Luisa Milanovich is the daughter of a general from Rovigo whom Macola knows from the officers' circle in Rome. He buys Villa Barbarella in Castelfranco Veneto , but the couple is rarely there. Ferruccio Macola, in poor health, travels from one sanatorium to another, his wife accompanies him.

On August 18, 1910, Ferruccio Macola put an end to his life with a pistol shot in the San Rocco sanatorium in Merate , a popular summer resort of the Brianza , while his wife was walking in the park with friends. The day before he had had cheerful conversations, made optimistic plans and wanted to travel to the spa town of Recoaro .

Funeral and Damnatio memoriae

Ferruccio Macola was refused an ecclesiastical funeral, although he defended the church politically and was a devout Catholic. Luisa tried to organize a religious ceremony, but to no avail. The responsible dioceses of Milan and Adria agreed, spoke of a misunderstanding and shifted responsibility to the other diocese. Pius X remembered the friendship and sent the widow a telegram with the apostolic blessing. Macola had bought a grave in Castelfranco, but Luisa wanted to bury him in the Milanovich family crypt. The coffin came by train to Rovigo, Luisa's hometown, on August 22, 1910, and a huge funeral procession of dignitaries, politicians, journalists and friends moved to the cemetery. Macola lies under a grave slab, which can only be identified by the words “FAM. NOB. MILANOVICH ”. Macola's name does not appear on the stone. His name is also being forgotten and suppressed in public. In contrast to Cavallotti, after whom streets and squares are named, Macola falls under the Damnatio memoriae . Luisa, 33 years old, with no children, was almost destitute, because when the will was opened it became clear that Ferruccio had bequeathed everything to his brother Romolo. A strange duplicity wants her to end her own life too, also at the age of 49. Her grave in France, where she died, can no longer be found.

Aftermath

Some of Macola's ideas and journalistic campaigns were not without consequences. The exodus of many poor Italians to South America can still be seen today in the Italian portion of the population of Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and the southern states of Brazil. The contrast between the north and the Mezzogiorno , the south of Italy, fueled by Macola, has not diminished. The resentment of the secular left against the church and of the Catholics against the left persists little changed. The origins of the first separatist, then autonomist Lega Nord can be found in the ideas of Macola.

Fonts

In addition to the articles in Il Secolo XIX and the Gazzetta di Venezia and the parliamentary speeches, the Enciclopedia Treccani names a selection, among others:

• Come si vive nell'Esercito e nella Marina (How to live in the army and navy). Genoa 1884
• Nella città dei sultani. Sul "Duilio". Impressioni ( In the City of the Sultans, On the Duilio, Impressions ) Rome 1884
• Emancipazione? (Lecture in the room of the Granguardia in Padua), Genoa 1886
• Relazione sul progetto per costruire una federazione politica regional, 7 giugno 1889 (report on the project to create a regional political federation), Venice 1890
• Ordine e legge (Order and Law, Speech in Treviso), Venice 1895
• Il tram a vapore Bassano - Caselle d'Asolo - Montebelluna - Castelfranco - Riese - Caselle (The steam tramway Bassano - Caselle d'Asolo - Montebelluna - Castelfranco - Riese - Caselle), Bassano 1904

Literature on Macola

• Felice Santini: Per la verità della storia (in memoria di FM) , Rome 1910
• P. D'Angiolini, Ed .: Quarant'anni di politica italiana. Dalle carte di G. Giolitti Part I: L'Italia di fine secolo (1885–1900) , Milan 1962.
• G. Carocci, Ed .: Quarant'anni di politica italiana. Dalle carte di G. Giolitti Part II: Dieci anni al potere (1901–1909) , Milan 1962
• Felice Cavallotti: Letters 1860–1898 , ed. C. Vernizzi, Milan 1979
• R. Colapietra: F. Cavallotti e la democrazia radicale in Italia , Brescia 1966
• E. Reato, Ed .: Cattolici e liberali veneti di fronte al problema temporalistico e alla questione romana. Congress files II of the Studi risorgimentali , Vicenza 1972
• L. Vanzetto: Clericali e liberali in una diocesi guida: Treviso 1890–1902 . In Movimento cattolico e sviluppo capitalistico . Congress files Padua 1974, Venice-Padua 1974
• A. Galante Garrone: Felice Cavallotti , Turin 1976
• S. Lanaro, Ed .: Storia d'Italia, Le regioni dall'Unità a oggi. Il Veneto , Einaudi, Turin 1984
• PL Ballini: La Destra mancata. Il gruppo rudiniano-luzzattiano fra ministerialismo e opposizione (1901–1908) , Florence 1984
• E. Franzina: La transizione dolce. Storie del Veneto tra '800 e' 900 , Verona 1990
• M. Milan: La stampa periodica a Genova dal 1871 al 1900 , Milan 1989
• L. Urettini: History of Castelfranco , Padua 1992
• R. Stradiotto: Un conservatore estremista: biografia di FM (1861–1910) , dissertation, University of Padua, Faculty of Literature and Philosophy 1994–95
• F. Galli: Il Secolo XIX . Un giornale per l'Ansaldo, in: Storia dell'Ansaldo, II, La costruzione di una grande impresa, 1883–1902 , edited by G. Mori, Rom-Bari 1995
• R. Beccaria: I periodici genovesi dal 1473 al 1899 , Genua 1995
• L. Vanzetto: I "blocchi popolari" in provincia di Treviso . In Il Comune democratico. Riccardo Dalle Mole e l'esperienza delle giunte bloccarde nel Veneto giolittiano (1900–1914) , Ed. R. Camurri, Venice 2000
• M. Isnenghi - JS Woolf: Storia di Venezia. L'Ottocento e il Novecento , Rome 2002
• M. Cavina: Il sangue dell'onore. Storia del duello , Rome-Bari 2005

References and comments

1. ↑ Since 1982 Province of Lecco
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Fulvio Conti: Macola, Ferruccio. In: Dizionario biografico degli italiani, vol. 67, 2006. Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana, accessed on November 10, 2019 .  
3. ^ Franco De Checchi: Alta Padovana - Storia, Cultura, Società (The Northern Region of Padua, History, Culture, Society), 2005. Accessed November 10, 2019
4. ↑ which was bought by the daily Il Gazzettino in 1941 and ceased to appear in 1945
5. ^ The bull Pius IX. of 1874, which banned Catholics from participating in democratic elections in a united Italy
6. ↑ In Italy the duel was definitely banned by law in 1875.
7. ^ Graziella Andreotti: La damnatio memoriae di Ferruccio Macola. Riposa nel cimitero di Rovigo con i Milanovich. In: Aidanews, Rivista culturale. Aidanews, August 29, 2018, accessed November 9, 2019 . 
8. ↑ La Civiltà Cattolica, Series XVII, Volume I, Fascicle 1146, March 12, 1898. pp. 743-746
9. ^ Il duello Cavallotti-Macola. L'Antologia dell '"Informazione", Corriere d'Informazione, 12.-13. July 1958
10. ↑ today Conservatory
11. ^ Graziella Andreotti: La damnatio memoriae di Ferruccio Macola. Riposa nel cimitero di Rovigo con i Milanovich. In: Aidanews, Rivista culturale. Aidanews, August 29, 2018, accessed November 9, 2019 .