entry
Apr.
2003
Vincenzo Russo
It is not widely known
that there was an active Neapolitan offshoot of the
French Enlightenment just as dedicated as
mid–18th–century French intellectuals to discussions
of the Rights of Man (and even the Rights of Woman),
the decadence of monarchies, and democracy and
republicanism as societal goals worth striving for and
even worth having a revolution for. The French
Revolution is amply documented. The Neapolitan
Revolution of 1799 is not well documented, at least in
English, but there is some material in these pages at
these links:
Russo was born on
June 16, 1770 in Palma Campania, a small town about
halfway between Naples and Avellino. His father, Nicola,
was a lawyer. His mother was Mariangela Visciano
from San Paolo Belsito. At the age of eight, he
began attending the seminary in Nola, and at 13 he went
to Naples with his brother Joseph to start his studies
of the law. There he became a member of a Masonic lodge
and was attracted to the new ideas of reform and
democracy, in particular the ideals that would drive the
French Revolution. He started to attend secret meetings
of the "Republican clubs," so-called in imitation of
those in France. These societies in Naples of that
period typically immersed themselves in the works of
their fellow Neapolitans, Gaetano
Filangieri and Mario Pagano* [see note, below], as
well as the writings of the likes of Montesquieu,
Rousseau, Voltaire, and Locke.
When the French fleet came to Naples in 1792 to try to gain diplomatic recognition of the French Republic from the Bourbons, Russo was one of those who took part in meetings with admiral Latouche Treville. Yet, with the Bourbon monarchy running scared before potential French revolutionary contagion in Naples, Russo was one of a number of local "republicans" accused of conspiracy against the monarchy in 1792. Some were actually executed, but he was let off. Later, in 1797, under the similar circumstances of what was apparently an active Jacobin conspiracy within the kingdom, he was forced to flee the kingdom.
He took refuge in
Switzerland where he took up the study of medicine. He
moved to Milan and then Rome and was in that city when
the Roman Republic was declared in February of 1798. He
wrote for the Monitore di Roma. He took a
radical and anticlerical line. When Ferdinand IV of
Naples decided to march north and liberate the Roman
Republic, Russo enlisted as a doctor in a company of
Neapolitan exiles serving in the French army. The
Bourbon army was routed in the field and fled back to
Naples, pursued by the French, which episode eventually
led to the flight of the royal family to Sicily and the
proclamation of the Neapolitan Republic in January 1799.
At that point, Russo became active in the government of
the Republic and was appointed elector for the Volturno
region. On Feb. 10, because of his exceptional skill as
a speaker, he was put in charge of the ministry of
public instruction for the new republic, charged with
explaining the actions of the government to the average
citizen and with encouraging political discussion.
Russo was put in charge
of organizing resistance in Calabria to Ruffo's royalist Army of the Holy
Faith, which eventually overthrew the
Republic, and he was in the front line at the Republic's
"last stand", the battle of the Ponte della Maddalena,
just outside of Naples. The battle and the war went
against the Republic, and Russo was wounded and taken
prisoner. He was put on trial with 1000 other
Republicans and charged with being a zealous member of
the Republican government (which he was) and with
besmirching the name of his monarch (certainly true). He
was sentenced to death and was hanged on the November
19, 1799 in Piazza Mercato. His last words were: "I die
free and for the Republic."
During Russo's exile in Switzerland, he had started to write Pensieri Politici (Political Thoughts), the work for which he is remembered. It was eventually published in 1798 and is an expression of Russo's egalitarian interpretation of the values of the French Enlightenment. There are 45 short chapters, each bearing succinct titles such as "Revolution," "The Law," "Religion," "Education," —in short, Russo's view on how society should be constructed. It is Rousseauvian in that he believed in an ideal and simple human condition, free from the corruption of wealth and social class. The ideal society would be egalitarian and populated by educated small farmers all working for the common good. Private property would not exist and money would eventually be unnecessary. He affirmed the necessity of achieving such economic and social transformation through revolution, revolution being an instrument of education as well as one of social change.
He was called a
"Neapolitan Saint-Just" by some of his contemporary
detractors, this in reference to Antoine Louis Leon de
Richebourg de Saint-Just (1767—1794), the pitiless and
tyrannical "angel of death" of the French Revolution and
friend of Robespierre, who apparently enjoyed sentencing
people to the guillotine. Such a comparison is not
warranted in the case of Vincenzo Russo. Neither he nor
the Neapolitan Republic was bloodthirsty. There were no
loppings-off of royalist heads in the six or seven
months of life enjoyed by the Republic. Russo was,
however, argumentative and uncompromising in his
dedication to revolutionary ideals such as doing away
with feudal land rights. He was not a hypocrite and
often gave his salary back to the state, encouraging
others who could afford it to do the same. He, no doubt,
irritated a lot of people. As noted, he went to the
battlefield when it counted, and, with the likes of Eleonora Fonseca Pimentel, he
was one of the many bright lights of the Republic,
collectively the flower of Neapolitan culture, executed
for their efforts.
[*Mario Pagano was some 20 years
older than Russo and by the time of the French
Revolution already a noted jurist and legal scholar in
Naples. He was a supporter of the Neapolitan Republic
in 1799 and was instrumental in the drafting of the
constitution. He had also been an active defender of
those accused of conspiracy against the monarchy in
the early 1790s. He, too, was executed when the
Republic fell.]
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