Pisacane, Carlo (1818–1857)

Officer in the Neapolitan army. He was one of the most colourful personalities of the Italian Risorgimento (a movement for Italian unity and independence). An affair with the wife of a local landowner caused him to flee Naples, and after joining the French Foreign Legion he returned to Italy to fight in the campaigns against Austria in 1848–49. His experience led him to develop a programme which was critical of Giuseppe Mazzini and other radicals, whom he accused of neglecting the revolutionary potential of the Italian peasants. Pisacane was killed in 1857 during an attempt to put his ideas into practice. Landing at Sarpi, south of Salerno, he appealed to the local people to rebel against the Bourbons, but they mistook him for a smuggler and killed him.