Ciro Menotti

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Ciro Menotti (January 22, 1798 - May 23, 1831) was an Italian patriot.

[edit] Biography

Menotti was born in Migliarina, near Carpi, then part of the Duchy of Modena and Reggio.

A member of Carboneria since 1817, he was a fervent democratic and patriot. From 1820 he held contacts with French intellectuals, with the goal to free Modena from the Austrian egemony.

Initially, duke Francis IV declared favourably towards Menotti's claim, probably pushed by the possibility to become the king of a future unified Northern Italy. Menotti organized a revolt in Modena for February 3, 1831, but, with a brusque volte-face, Francis deprived him of his support, and even, from his voluntary exile in Mantua, called the help of Austria and its allies.

Menotti was arrested and, after a summary process, condemned to death by hanging. The sentence was executed in the Citadel of Modena.

Afterwards Menotti become the idealized figure of partiotic martyr of the Italian Risorgimento. In 1880 the former Garibaldine officer Taddeo Grandi wrote a biography of him. A monument in Modena was built to Menotti in 1879, facing the former Grand Dukes palace.