TO THE YOUNG MEN OF ITALY[1]
(1848)
Born in 1805, died in 1872; arrested in 1830, but released for want of evidence to secure conviction; lived abroad and conducted agitations for the liberation of Italy; in 1848 returned to become a member of the short-lived triumvirate; organized insurrections afterward, but played a subordinate part in the unification effected under Victor Emmanuel in 1861.
When I was commissioned by you, young men, to proffer in this temple a few words consecrated to the memory of the brothers Bandiéra, and their fellow martyrs at Cosenza, I thought some one of those who heard me might, perhaps, exclaim, with noble indignation: "Why thus lament over the dead? The martyrs of liberty can be worthily honored only by winning the battle they began. Cosenza, the land where they fell, is enslaved; Venice, the city of their birth, is begirt with strangers. Let us emancipate
- ↑ From an address at Milan on the 25th of July, 1848, delivered by request at a solemn commemoration of the death of the brothers Bandiéri and others at Cosenza. Contemporary translation revised for this collection.
Attilio and Emilio Bandiéra. natives of Naples and sons of Admiral Bandiéra, attempted to effect a rising of patriots on the Calabrian coast in 1844, and were arrested and execuved by the Neapolitan government at Cosenza.
Before the walls of Cosenza died Alaric, king of the West Goths in 410, after having twice sacked Rome.
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