Giovanni Passannante
Giovanni Passannante (born February 9, 1849 in Salvia , today Savoia di Lucania , † February 4, 1910 in Montelupo Fiorentino ) was an Italian cook and anarchist .
Life
Giovanni Passannante grew up as the youngest of ten children, four of whom died early. Even as a child he had to help his parents and work. So he decided not to go to school regularly. In order to find a better job, he moved several times and eventually worked as a cook in Potenza . As an autodidact, he became enthusiastic about political writings, such as by Giuseppe Mazzini , and the Bible .
On the night of 15./16. In May 1870 he was arrested for circulating revolutionary proclamations and imprisoned for two months. In 1872 he moved to Salerno , where he joined a socialist party and continued to be enthusiastic about anarchist ideas, which did not diminish with his move to Naples.
Attack on the king
During a parade on November 17, 1878 in Naples , he tried to kill the newly elected Italian King Umberto I. In the process that followed, he was initially sentenced to death. This was unusual in that this judgment was only intended in the event of a successful murder.
The death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment due to strong popular protests. He was declared insane for trying to kill the king and locked in a tower on the island of Elba at the age of 30 . With a height of 160 cm, he had to live in a two square meter and 140 cm high cell under inhumane conditions, which actually drove him insane.
As a result of his mental illness, Giovanni Passannante was taken to the asylum Montelupo Fiorentino in the Villa Medici L'Ambrogiana , where he died in 1910.
Aftermath of the attack
The day after the attack, monarchists started a procession in Florence to celebrate the king's survival. A bomb explosion in the crowd caused by anarchists killed two people and injured ten others. In a few other cities there were demonstrations both by the royalists and their opponents. Numerous prominent anarchists were arrested in the following days. The entire Passante family was also arrested and declared degenerate .
A few days after the attempted regicide, the condemnation of the attack was unanimous in parliament , but Benedetto Cairoli's government was attacked from the right and part of the left for its inability to protect public order. On December 11, 1878, Cairoli lost a motion of no confidence and had to resign.
To calm the troubled situation, feeding the poor was reintroduced in some towns and villages .
The mayor of Salvia, the hometown of the assassin, officially apologized to the king. Due to a royal decree , the place was renamed on July 3, 1879 from Salvia (in German sage, the place was named because an extraordinary amount of sage grows here) in Savoia di Lucania (after Savoy , the country of birth of the king).
After his death
After Passante's death, his head was cut off and made available to criminologists . In 1936 it was brought to the Crime Museum in Rome and put on display there.
The handover of the skull and brain to the municipality of Savoia di Lucania was planned for May 11, 2007. The burial there was brought forward one day. This step was justified by the authorities with the maintenance of public order, since communist activists had announced themselves for the funeral . On January 7, 2012, the grave was damaged by unknown persons.
In 2011, the film Passannante was directed by Sergio Colabona , in which Fabio Troiano took on the role of the anarchist.
literature
- Virgilio, Gaspare: Passannante e la natura morbosa delitto . Loescher, Rome 1888.
- Galzerano, Giuseppe: Giovanni Passannante: la vita, l'attentato, il processo, la condanna a morte, la grazia'regale'e gli anni di galera del cuoco lucano che nel 1878 ruppe l'incantesimo monarchico . Galzerano, 1997.
Web links
- Homepage of the Crime Museum Rome (Italian)
- The Cook that Broke the Spell: Giovanni Passanante Speaks for Rebellion against the Savoy Dynasty (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Anarchist's Head Is Finally Buried, but Outcry Arises Over Timing nytimes.com, Retrieved December 8, 2018.
- ^ Passannante, and the story of an unusual anarchist web.archive.org, Retrieved December 8, 2018.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Passer-by, Giovanni |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Passanante, Giovanni |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Italian chef and anarchist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 9, 1849 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Salvia, today Savoia di Lucania |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 4, 1910 |
| Place of death | Montelupo Fiorentino |