POERIO, CARLO

POERIO, CARLO, Italian patriot, was born on the 10th of December 1803, son of a Neapolitan lawyer who had suffered imprisonment and exile in the cause of liberty. He accompanied his father into exile, but on his return became an advocate at Naples. He was repeatedly imprisoned for his services to the liberal cause; and in 1848 he organised the famous demonstration of the 27th January, which was destined to produce the constitution of the 10th February. Under it he was successively nominated director of Police and minister of Public Instruction; but he soon resigned, and was appointed deputy for Naples to the parliament. On the 19th July 1849 he was arrested, charged with being a member of a secret society, 'the Italian Unity,' and condemned to irons. With fifteen others he was confined in one small chamber in the island-prison of Nisida. Diplomatic protests from various governments—Mr Gladstone's was declared by Garibaldi to have sounded the first trumpet-call of Italian liberty—and eloquent denunciations of the royal tyranny moved Ferdinand II. at last in 1858 to ship sixty-six prisoners to America. They persuaded the captain to land them at Cork, and Poerio returned by London to Turin. There he became a member of the parliament, and in 1861 its vice-president. He died at Florence, 28th April 1867.—The elder brother ALESSANDRO (1802-48), who fell in battle for the liberation of Venice, shared his father's exile, studied in Germany, settled in Florence, and devoted his life mainly to poetry and patriotism. His poems, which contain some of the most stirring Italian songs of freedom, have been repeatedly published. See a monograph on Alessandro by Imbriani (Naples, 1884).