FABBRI, ODOARDO. - Man of letters and patriot, born at Cesena on 13 Oct. 1778, died there on 7 Oct. 1853.
He entered public life with the Cisalpine Republic and subsequently under the Italian Republic and the Kingdom of Italy; he supported Murat in the unsuccessful attempt of 1815 and was appointed vice-prefect of Cesena. Accused of conspiracy against the papal government, he was implicated in the Rivarola trial and sentenced to life imprisonment. His sentence was later commuted to ten years of imprison-
ment, and F. was transferred to Civitacantilana, whence he was freed by the insurgents of ’31. Having returned to Cesena, he served there as vice-prefect until the Austrian intervention, then took refuge in Ancona and later in S. Marino.
Amnestied after two years, he returned to his studies, until Pio IX in 1848 appointed him pro-legate of Pesaro and Urbino and, on 2 Aug., charged him with forming a ministry, which lasted forty days: on 16 Sept. F. was replaced by Pellegrino Rossi. Sincerely devoted to Pio IX, he sought, during the brief period of his government, to reconcile the rights of the Apostolic See with the new liberal ideas, and the Pope accepted his resignation only with great reluctance, when F. realized the futility of his efforts. During the Roman Republic of ’49 he was a municipal councillor in his native city, where he subsequently spent his final years as a private citizen.
He left some mediocre tragedies and an interesting diary, of which the period from 15 Dec. 1824, the date of his arrest, to February 1831 was published under the title Sei anni e due mesi della mia vita (Rome 1915).