Pietro Micca

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Pietro Micca (March 6, 1677 - August 30, 1706) was an Italian soldier who became a national hero for his sacrifice in the defence of Turin (1706) against the French troops.

Traditional representation of Pietro Micca.

[edit] Biography

Micca was born at Sagliano (Piedmont). His mother was Anna Martinazzo, of Riabella. Little is known about his years before the siege of Turin.

During the siege, a party of the besiegers had succeeded in penetrating by surprise into the tunnels of the fortress on the night of August 29-30, and would undoubtedly have captured it had not Micca, a soldier in the engineers, fired a mine, with the result that he and the attackers were blown into the air and the rest of the force then driven back with heavy losses.

Micca's heroism has been the subject of poems, plays and romances. But, according to Count Giuseppe Solaro della Margherita, the commander of the Turin garrison at the time, it was through a miscalculation of the pace of the fuse, and not by deliberate intent, that he sacrificed his life.

A Museum in Turin, devoted to the battle, is dedicated to Pietro Micca.