ZUCCHI, CARLO. – General, born on 10 March 1777 at Reggio Emilia, died there on 31 December 1863.
As a young man, he abandoned his studies to fight alongside the French and, as a second lieutenant in 1796, took part in all the wars of the Revolution and the Empire, earning the noble title of baron and attaining the rank of divisional general in 1813. He then served briefly in the Austrian army, but, having fallen under suspicion because of his liberal sentiments, after undergoing four years of imprisonment in the Duchy of Modena (1823–27), in 1831 he became head of the revolutionary forces of central Italy, fighting valiantly against the Austrians between Rimini and Cattolica.
Captured at sea with other exiles on the Ancona–Corfu route, he was tried in Venice and sentenced to death, with the sentence commuted to twenty years of hard imprisonment, part of which he served at Munchaz, Josephstadt, and Palmanova. The events of 1848 caught him there: he tenaciously defended that fortress and was subsequently given command of a division of the provisional government of Milan. The Salasco armistice forced him, because of the excesses of the rabble, to seek brief refuge in Switzerland.
His excellent military reputation and these antecedents led Pius IX, in the autumn of 1848, to summon Z. to Rome as Minister of War in the Cabinet of Pellegrino Rossi (v.). No less hostile than the latter toward the extremists, he set about disbanding and disarming those criminal and violent volunteer corps that constituted the backbone of the insurrectionary agitation. He thus worked actively to restore the rule of law both in Rome and in the provinces, as well as in Bologna against Garibaldi himself, but his efforts were short-lived, being interrupted by Rossi’s assassination, the violence of 16 November, and Pius IX’s departure into exile at Gaeta.
By order of the Pontiff, he became a member of the State Government Commission presided over by Cardinal Castracane. Faithful to his oath, Z. joined the sovereign at Gaeta, where on 7 January 1849 he issued an order of the day to the papal soldiers so that they would not join forces with the revolutionary regime, and, KANZLER, HORMANN (v.), worked to reconstitute adequate regular papal forces, first at Benevento and then at Bologna, thanks to the influx of soldiers who, out of loyalty, deserted the republican banners.
He retired to private life in his native city (10 October 1850). His final years were embittered by the rancour of the sectarians who could not understand his honest and consistent rectitude, and only in 1860 did he obtain from the Italian government definitive recognition of the rank of lieutenant general.