Giuseppe Sirtori

Giuseppe Sirtori (17 April 1813 – 18 September 1874) was an Italian soldier, patriot and politician who fought in the unification of Italy.

Sirtori was born at Monticello Brianza, north to Milan. He started an ecclesiastic career, being ordained in 1838. In 1842 he went to Paris to study theology and philosophy, but, in 1840, he left the church and returned to France studying medicine. He took part in the 1848 revolution, being amongst the one who forced Alphonse de Lamartine to proclaim the Republic at the Hotel de Ville.

Circumstances of Sirtori's adherence to the revolutionary movements are unclear, as documents of his life in Paris were later destroyed. Also unknown are the circumstances leading him to the Five Days of Milan (18–22 March 1848), where he was elected captain of the rebel's army. In this position he was sent to the defence of Venice, which had freed itself from the Austrian. Here he grew strife with the more moderate Venetian leader Daniele Manin, and was even accused of plotting to surrender the city (5 March 1849) during the long Austrian siege of 1849. Anyway, Sirtori was amongst the most gallant defenders of the city, which fell in August 1849.

Sirtori escaped on a French vessel, which left him in Corfu. Then he moved to Paris, where, as a fervid Republican, grudgingly witnessed to Napoleon III's suppression of the French 2nd Republic. In Lausanne, he met the Italian Republican leader Giuseppe Mazzini, becoming one of his most faithful followers. In the 1850s he was one of the main members of the Mazzinian committee in Genoa, together with Giacomo Medici, Nino Bixio and Benedetto Cairoli. He however abandoned Mazzini after the failed revolt in Milan of 6 February 1853.

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