DRAGONETTI, Luigi. — Patriot and statesman, born in L'Aquila on 10 Oct. 1791, died there on 21 Feb. 1871. Deputy to the Neapolitan Parliament, he was later appointed by Ferdinand II inspector of prisons (1831), significantly contributing to the improvement of the old punitive systems.
Accused of participating in the L'Aquila uprising of 1841, though acquitted by the military tribunal, he was confined to Monte Cassino, where he became a faithful and beloved friend of Abbot Tosti. Released in 1846, he settled in Rome and founded several liberal periodicals there. Returning to Naples (1848), he served for a time as Minister of Foreign Affairs. Arrested the following year on false charges, he was imprisoned for four years. Having left Italy (1852), he was able to return to Naples only after a long period of exile, following the fall of the Bourbons. In 1861 he was appointed senator of the new Kingdom of Italy. He left behind a Collection of his polemical and various writings (Aquila 1868), in which, in harmonious and noble pages, he expressed all his disappointment and sorrow for the fierce struggle that the new Italy was waging, in the name of a poorly understood freedom and love of country, against the religion of his ancestors and against the Church and the papacy.