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Conspirators
and brigands/2
The hope to ignite a liberal insurrection in the Reign of the Two Sicilies rested on the active liberal leaders of the area, foremost among them Vincenzo Padula, who was born in the house "CasaPadula", in a family already renowned for its liberal ideas. As many bright young people at the time he was sent to study in the local seminar of Teggiano in the absence of a school system. Back in his home town, he began organizing the clandestine local liberal committee. Vincenzo Padula was able to build up a network spanning over the whole province, hiding arms in the house and the sorrounding garden, where the ruins of the castle offered many suitable hiding places.But the bourbonic police was after him and arrested him with other conspirators just weeks before the landing of the small expeditionary force led by Carlo Pisacane (June 1857). |
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Pisacane
headed for Padula, knowing the place to be one of the centers of
liberalism and unaware of Vincenzo Padula's arrest. Deprived of the support of the local
liberal leaders, Pisacane's group faced the regular Neapolitan army in the
small streets of Padula, where most of the patriots were savagely
massacred.The
imprisonment of Vincenzo Padula lasted another 2 years,until he was exiled
to Genoa, then a foreign town and port of the Piedmontese Kingdom. In
Genoa Vincenzo met Garibaldi, and joined in his brave volunteer's expedition
of the "Thousand" that landed in Sicily and succeded in
defeating twice the Neapolitan army (battles of Calatafimi and Palermo,
May-June 1860) and to effect a general insurrection in the island.Vincenzo
fought always gallantly, but fell, aged 28, at the battle of
Milazzo(July 1860) that completed the liberation of Sicily
from the Neapolitan rule. To learn what happened after the unification of Italy in the southern provinces and in Padula click here |
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For more information, or if you have any document on the historical events here presented,please contact storia@casapadula.net |
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