1. Because he had committed a crime which was punishable with death.
2. Because he had been the means of corrupting the younger part of the community.
3. Because he had abused the situation of Professor of Belles Lettres, at Correggio, in converting it into an instrument[instrument] of Carbonarism.
4. Because he had confessed his crime too late, and not within that time, which the Duke had fixed upon as available for such confessions.
As to the latter, it is to be borne in mind, that he confessed, simply on account of the Duke’s encouragement. The sentence was confirmed on the 11th of October, 1822, not because it was legally necessary, but, indeed, for the personal gratification of Francis IV; “Invocando il Santissimo nome di Gesù.”
At the period of the production of this work Panizzi’s own process was in suspense. He mentions it in a note, complaining of the delay, as intended to discredit him in the eyes of the other Italian patriots. His cousin, Francesco Panizzi, had, it appears, made some sort of confession, and been treated with suspicious lenity. If the Modenese Government had any intention of forcing or enticing Antonio into the like course of action with his cousin, it must have been frustrated by his publication, which may account for the impotent passion evinced in the subsequent proceedings against him. The work would be felt the more irritating from its sobriety of manner, its moderation even in the midst of invective, and its constant appeal to establish legal principle, as the criterion of the whole question. While proclaiming his fervent aspirations for the independence of his country, the author incidentally disclaims any participation in the proceedings of the Carbonari, and the commission of any act tending to the overthrow of the existing Government.
Such would be the natural attitude of a citizen like Panizzi, and he may well have affiliated himself to the secret society, as at that time the sole efficient agent in the cause of Italian freedom.
It is, nevertheless, difficult to conceive a man of his solid sense and practical sagacity, long acquiescing in the mummery of a Carbonarist conclave, and submitting to be known to the initiated as Thrasybulus or Archimedes. He represents, however, all the more faithfully, the indignation of the generous youth who had grown up under the comparative liberty of Napoleon’s sway, and who, on attaining maturity, found themselves deprived by political changes in other countries, of their birthright in their own; forbidden to call or think themselves Italians; and with every avenue in life closed against them, unless they consented to become instruments of a cruel and senseless despotism.
As this generation has passed away other aspects of the Italian question have come into greater prominence; the stately tree of Italian unity has covered the soil in which it originally took root. Even more as a picture of contemporary national feeling, than as an exposure of the fraud and cruelty of an extinct tyranny, is Panizzi’s youthful work, worthy of being rescued from the oblivion to which he for so long condemned it.
Deeply interesting as are these recollections of the struggle for freedom in Italy, and intimately as they are connected with the life of Panizzi, than whom no stauncher advocate for the liberty of his country ever existed, it must not be forgotten that the object we have immediately in view is to refer to these exciting events so far only as Panizzi himself was concerned with them, and not to allow ourselves to be carried away by our subject beyond the limits necessary to elucidate the object we have at heart.