SANTAROSA, ANNIBALE SANTORRE DI ROSSI DE POMAROLO, COUNT OF (1783-1825)

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SANTAROSA, ANNIBALE SANTORRE DI ROSSI DE POMAROLO, COUNT OF (1783-1825) , Piedmontese insurgent,and leader in the revival (Resorgimento) of Italy, was born at Savigliano near Coni on the 18th of November 1783. He was the son of a general officer in the Sardinian army who was killed at the battle of Mondovi in 1796. The family had been recently ennobled and was not rich. Santarosa entered the service of Napoleon during the annexation of Piedmont to France, and was sub-prefect of Spezia from 1812 to 1814. He remained, however, loyal in sentiment to the

house

of Savoy, and, after the restoration of the king of Sardinia in 1814, he continued in the public service. During the brief campaign of the Sardinian army on the south-eastern frontier of France in 1815 he served as captain of grenadiers, and was afterwards employed in the ministry of war. The revolutionary and imperial epoch had seen a great development of Italian patriotism, and Santarosa was aggrieved by the great extension given to the Austrian power in Italy in 1815, which reduced his own country to a position of inferiority. The revolutionary outbreak of 182o, which extended from Spain to Naples, seemed to afford the patriots an opportunity to secure the independence of Italy. When in 1821 the Austrian army was moved south to coerce the Neapolitans, Santarosa entered into a conspiracy to obtain the intervention of the Piedmontese in favour of the Neapolitans by an attack on the Austrian lines of communication. The conspirators endeavoured to obtain the co-operation of the prince of Carignano, afterwards King Charles Albert, who was known to share their patriotic aspirations. On the 6th of March 1821 Santarosa and three associates had an interview with the prince, and on the loth they carried out the military " pronunciamiento " which proclaimed the Spanish constitution. The

movement

MOVEMENT

had no real popular support, and very soon collapsed. During the brief predominance of his party Santarosa showed great decision of character. He was arrested and would have died on the

scaffold

if sympathisers had not rescued him. He fled to France, and lived for a time in Paris under the name of Conti. Here he wrote in French and published in 1822 his La revolution piemontaise, which attracted the notice of

Victor

Cousin, by whom he was aided and concealed. The French government discovered his hiding-place, and he was imprisoned and expelled from Paris. After a short stay first at Alengon and then in Bourges, he passed over to England, where he found

refuge

REFUGE

in London with Ugo Foscolo, and made a few English friends. He went to Nottingham, in the hope of being able to support himself by teaching French and Italian. The miseries of

exile

EXILE (Lat. exsilium or exilium, from exsul or exul, which is derived from ex, out of, and the root sal, to go, seen in salire, to leap,
consul
- CONSUL
- CONSUL (in Gr. generally ihraros,ashortened form of errpavgybs 8hraeos, i.e. praetor maximus)
, &c.; the connexion with solum, soil, country is now generally considered wrong)

rather than any hope of advantage led him to accompany his countryman Giacinto Collegno to Greece in November 1824. The Italians were ill-treated by the Greeks and were not well looked on by the Philhellene committees, who thought that their presence would offend the powers. Santarosa was killed, apparently because he was too miserable and desperate to care to save his life, when the Egyptian troops attacked the island of Sphacteria, near Navarino, on the 8th of May 1825.
See Atto Vannucci, I

Martini

della liberta italiana (Milan, 1897), and vol. ix. of the

series

SERIES (a Latin word from serere, to join)

called I Contemporanei italiani (Turin), in which there is a life by Angelo Degubernatis. Santarosa's correspondence was edited by Signor Bianchi, Lettere di Santorre Santarosa (Turin, 1877). A personal description of him by

Victor

Cousin will be found in the Revue des deux mondes for the 1st of March 184o. Cousin dedicated to him the fourth volume of his translation of Plato, and the long dedication is a compressed biography.

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