Distinguished people of Meldola

Felice Orsini was born in Meldola on 18 December 1819, son of Andrea (Lugo,1787 – Bologna,1857) and Francesca Ricci (Florence,1799 – 1831). His father was the administrator of the Borghese Aldobrandini family in Meldola, who were succeeded by the Doria family.

When Felice was two years old, his parents moved to Florence. Strong, however, remained his ties with Meldola. In 1828, his father was expelled from the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, for political reasons: in 1821 he was already listed as a leader in a list of Carbonari compiled by the Tuscan police. Andrea settled in Bologna; Felice was with him, but after a brief residence in this city, he was welcomed in Imola by his paternal uncle Orso (1786 – 1864), a wealthy merchant, and his wife, Lucia, with whom he stayed until 1839, when he was admitted to attend the Faculty of Law at the University of Bologna, where he graduated in 1843.

On 5 July 1836, Felice fatally wounded Domenico Spada, a member of the Orsi family, with a pistol shot: the court in Ravenna ruled that the shot had been fired accidentally.

In 1844, Felice was arrested, as the author of an insurrectional plan, and sentenced to life imprisonment. His father Andrea was also arrested.

The amnesty granted in 1846 by the newly-elected Pope Pius IX also restored Felice’s freedom, and he settled in Florence, his mother’s hometown, where he was very active in the conspiracy.

Here he met Assunta Laurenzi, whom he married on 28 June 1848. When the First War of Independence broke out in March 1848, he took part in it, as part of the Free Corps of Hunters of the Upper Rhine, commanded by Livio Zambeccari from Bologna. The Zambeccari Battalion took part in the following autumn in the defense of Venice, which rose up against the Austrians and resisted their siege.

Orsini was elected, in the constituency of the Province of Forlì, as a deputy to the Constituent Assembly, which proclaimed the Roman Republic in Rome on 9 February 1849. On behalf of its rulers, Orsini carried out important missions: to Terracina, to put an end to the violence and abuses of all kinds committed here by Callimaco Zambianchi; to Ancona, to eradicate the anarchy that dominated there, and to Ascoli against banditry.

The fall of the Republic in early July 1949, following the French military intervention in support of Pope Pius IX, forced Felice into exile.

After a short stay in Florence and one of about eight months in Genoa, he was in Nice with his wife at the beginning of March 1850. Here his two daughters, Ernestina (1851 – 1927) and Ida (1853 – 1859) were born.

It was here that he met the great Russian writer Alexander Herzen and, through him, the couple Giorgio Herwegh and Emma Siegmund, with whom Orsini established a strong ideal bond: she was to play a very important role in the patriot’s later life.

Although he dedicated himself to mathematical and military studies and to the hemp trade, amor patrio remained predominant in Orsini: he accepted, in fact, to lead a Mazzinian insurrectional attempt in September 1853, in the area of Sarzana and Massa, which failed in the bud.

In May 1854, he prepared another Mazzinian insurrection in Lunigiana, which also failed, like the attempt made, again at Mazzini’s behest, in Valtellina, in August of the same year.

His separation from his family also dates back to August ’54: his daughters and wife, who did not intend to follow him in his adventurous life, remained in Nice.