Summary
We arrived in Milan on the 12th of October, 1816, and left it on the 3rd of November. Those with whom we chiefly associated during the time were the Abate Monsignore Lodovico Gattinara de Breme, and his brother the Marquis, the head of that distinguished Piedmontese family; the celebrated Monti; Silvio Pellico, the author of ‘Francesca da Rimini,’ afterwards so well known by the painful narrative of his sufferings in the dungeons of Spielberg. There also we saw Count Perticari, an author of some repute, and Bosieri, the conductor of a literary journal called ‘The Day.’ These gentlemen—even Monti, of whom it may now safely be told, for “nothing can touch him further,”—were all of one way of thinking in politics; but we also saw something of the inmates and frequenters of the Casa Castiglione, such as Acerbi, conductor of the Biblioteea Italiana, Anelli, and others whose opinions took their complexion from the recently-restored masters of Lombardy.
I passed through Milan in 1822. All my friends of the Liberal party had disappeared. Where is De Breme? “He is happy in having died; he has seen none of these things,” was the reply. And Silvio Pellico? “In an Hungarian dungeon.” Bosieri too? “In prison.” De Tracy? “Also in confinement.” Confalonieri? “Reprieved on the scaffold; but whether dead or in prison now, no one knows.”
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- ItalyRemarks Made in Several Visits, from the Year 1816 to 1854, pp. 9 - 34Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009First published in: 1859