Guastalla, Enrico
GUASTALLA, ENRICO
GUASTALLA, ENRICO (1828–1903), Italian soldier and patriot. Born in Guastalla, central Italy, Guastalla gave up his career as a businessman in 1848 to volunteer for the Piedmontese army in the struggle for the unification of Italy. He fought against Austria in 1848 and participated in the abortive capture of Rome from the pope in the following year. For several years he was editor of Libertà e Associazione, but his radical views came into conflict with the authorities and in 1858 he fled to England, where he joined the radical patriot Giuseppe Mazzini. Guastalla returned to Italy in 1859 and joined Garibaldi in his campaigns of 1860, 1862, and 1866, being promoted major. In 1867 he married Sofia Weill-Schott and began to work in the bank of his father-in-law in Florence. In 1869 he moved finally to Milan where he was elected a member of the city council. He tried to be elected to the Italian parliament without success. He devoted the last years of his life to studies of the Italian Risorgimento, and in 1884 he founded and was president of the Museo del Risorgimento di Milano.
bibliography:
F. Conti, "Guastalla, Enrico," in: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, v. 60 (2003), 483–85.
[Mordechai Kaplan /
Federica Francesconi (2nd ed.)]