Bandiera Brothers - Events

Events

Rumours reached them in Corfu of agitation in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, where the people were being represented as ready to rise en masse at the first appearance of a leader. The Bandiera brothers, encouraged by Mazzini, consequently determined to make a raid on the Calabrian coast. They assembled a band of about twenty men ready to sacrifice their lives, and set sail on their venture on 12 June 1844. Four days later they landed near Crotone, intending to go to Cosenza, liberate the political prisoners and issue their proclamations. Tragically for the Bandiera brothers, they did not find the insurgent band they were told awaited them, so they moved towards La Sila. They were ultimately betrayed by one of their party, the Corsican Boccheciampe, and by some peasants who believed them to be Turkish pirates.

A detachment of gendarmes and volunteers were sent against them, and after a short fight the whole band was taken prisoner and escorted to Cosenza, where a number of Calabrians who had taken part in a previous rising were also under arrest. First, the Calabrians were tried by court-martial, and a large number were condemned to death or the galleys. The raiders’ turn came next, and the whole party, save the traitor Boccheciampe, were condemned to be shot, but in the case of eight of them the sentence was commuted to the galleys. On the 23rd of July the two Bandiera brothers and their nine companions were executed by firing squad; some accounts state they cried "Viva l’Italia!" (Long live Italy!) as they fell.

The remains of the Bandiera Brothers and of their companion Domenico Moro were brought back to Venice on June 18, 1867, following the liberation of that city after the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. The three remains are buried in the Church of San Giovanni e Paolo, at the Campo San Giovanni e Paolo, where the equestrian monument of Colleoni is located.