Italian patriotic hero Ciro Menotti was hanged on this date* in 1831.

Marker in Modena to the martyrdom of Ciro Menotti and Vincenzo Borelli. (cc) image from Filippo Fabbri.

Menotti (English Wikipedia entry | Italian) was a member of the revolutionary carbonari who stood at the fore of an insurrection in northern Italy in 1831. The plot was sponsored by the Duke of Modena and quashed by the same when he realized its premature exposure compromised its utility as a vehicle for expanding his dominions. The arrival of Austrian troops in March of 1831 swiftly pacified the risings.

In tribute of Menotti, national patron saint Giuseppe Garibaldi named one of his sons for him — Menotti Garibaldi, later a deputy in the parliament of the independent and unified Italy whose realization had been the common quest of both his namesakes.

* There are some citations out there for May 23, rather than May 26. This appears unambiguously mistaken to me (witness the date on the monument pictured in this post); I haven’t been able to determine the initial source of the discrepancy.

On this day..

• 2009: The brother of an Iraqi rape victim
• 1584: Samuel Zborowski, dangerous precedent
• 1755: Louis Mandrin
• Themed Set: The 2010s
• 2011: Mehdi Farahj, photographed by Ebrahim Noroozi
• 1868: Michael Barrett, the last public hanging in England
• Themed Set: Terrorism
• 1651: Jeane Gardiner, Bermuda witch
• 1991: Li Xinming, fecund
• 1884: Mary Lefley, exonerated by a deathbed confession
• 1647: Alse Young, the first witchcraft execution in New England
• 1871: Hostages of the Paris Commune
• 1831: Mariana de Pineda Muñoz, Spanish liberal
• 1923: Albert Leo Schlageter, Nazi martyr