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Antonio Capece Minutolo

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Antonio Capece Minutolo
Minister of Police of Kingdom of the Two Sicilies
In office
January 1816 – 27 June 1816
In office
13 April 1821 – 28 July 1821
Personal details
Born(1768-03-05)5 March 1768
Naples, Campania, Italy
DiedMarch 4, 1838(1838-03-04) (aged 69)
Pesaro, Papal States

Antonio Capece Minutolo, Prince of Canosa (5 March 1768 – 4 March 1838), was an Italian nobleman, writer, diplomat and statesman, who served as Minister of Police of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

Biography

Antonio Capece Minutolo was born in Naples on 5 March 1768. He belonged to an ancient noble family that had served the kings of Naples since the 13th century. Unlike many other young nobles of his time, he remained tenaciously attached to the ancien régime and defended it fervently.[1] After the outbreak of the French Revolution, he took a staunch position in favor of absolute monarchy, and when, in early 1799, the French Army led by Jean-Étienne Championnet approached Naples, he attempted in vain to prevent the proclamation of the Parthenopean Republic.[2] He was forced to hide, but a few months later he was imprisoned in Castel Sant'Elmo and sentenced to death for royalist conspiracy.[2] However, the republic fell before the execution could be carried out, and Canosa was freed from prison by the Sanfedisti only to be sentenced to five years in prison for defending the rights of aristocracy against the king.[2] He was amnestied after the Treaty of Florence (1801).[2]

In 1806, the French returned to Naples. While the prince's father, Fabrizio, joined the new regime, the young Canosa followed the court to Sicily, from where he coordinated a secret legitimist network.[2] He engaged in a conspiracy for which friends were executed and a bounty was put on his head by the new king Joseph Bonaparte.[2] In 1814 Ferdinand IV sent Canosa on a diplomatic mission to the newly restored Spanish King Ferdinand VII.[3] The mission was successful: Ferdinand VII decidedly supported the restoration of Ferdinand IV on the throne of Naples.[2] The king of Spain was favourably impressed by the young nobleman and awarded him the Great Cross of the Immaculate Conception.[4] At the time of Murat's expedition to Pizzo in 1815, Canosa was sent on a special mission to Calabria; he was, however, recalled on the receipt of the news that Murat had been captured and executed.[5]

After the second restoration of the Bourbon dynasty (1816), Canosa was appointed Minister of Police. Canosa was determined to root out any revolutionary threat by purging the justice system, the army, the civil service and the educational system of all those who had compromised themselves with Murat's government.[6] He endeavoured to unleash a massive repression against the Carbonari and Freemasons, and proposed to arm and support the Calderari, a secret society formed early in the century in opposition to the Carbonari.[7] However, his extreme political views made him highly suspect to Metternich who insisted on his removal from Naples.[8] In June 1816 Canosa was forced to resign and banished from the kingdom by his rival Luigi de' Medici, while some of his followers were arrested and tried.[2] He regained the office in 1821, but was quickly dismissed at Metternich's insistence, and the king urged him to leave the country.[9] Canosa thenceforth devoted himself to the fight in defense of the kings and against atheism and subversion. He wrote several pamphlets, books and articles against liberalism and collaborated with politically explicit and combative newspapers, such as La Voce della Verità (The Voice of Truth).[10]

For his reactionary ideas, he was expelled from Tuscany (1830), and he settled in the Duchy of Modena, where the reigning Duke, Francis IV, appointed him his advisor. He began a propaganda campaign in favor of legitimism and against liberalism[11] and established royalist militias, the Battalions of Volontari Estensi, tasked with “maintaining order in the countryside by seconding the active troops in case of need”.[12] Canosa died in Pesaro on 4 March 1838.[1]

Works

Notes

  1. ^ a b Paladino 1930.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Postigliola 1975.
  3. ^ See: Del Corno, Nicola (1994). "Un reazionario italiano nella Spagna della Restaurazione. La missione diplomatica del principe di Canosa a Madrid (1814-1815) nelle 'carte Canosa' dell'Archivio Borbone di Napoli". Spagna contemporanea (5): 157–168. Retrieved 7 June 2024.
  4. ^ Maturi 1944, p. 117.
  5. ^ Johnston, R. M. (1904). The Napoleonic Empire In Southern Italy and the Rise of the Secret Societies. Vol. II. London: Macmillan and Co.
  6. ^ Isabella, Maurizio (2023). Southern Europe in the Age of Revolutions. Princeton: Princeton University Press. p. 449. ISBN 9780691181707.
  7. ^ Stites, Richard (2014). The Four Horsemen: Riding to Liberty in Post-Napoleonic Europe. New York: Oxford University Press USA. pp. 132–3. ISBN 9780199978083.
  8. ^ Davis, John Anthony (1988). Conflict and Control: Law and Order in Nineteenth-century Italy. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press International. p. 137.
  9. ^ Di Giovine 2015, pp. 59–60.
  10. ^ See: Del Corno, Nicola (2016). "Modène, figure de proue de la culture réactionnaire en Italie". Siècles (in French). 43: 88–119. doi:10.4000/siecles.3057.
  11. ^ Bertoni 1927, pp. 100–8.
  12. ^ Sossai, Francesco. Modena descritta da Francesco Sossai. Modena: Tip. Camerale, 1841. p.162.

Bibliography

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