The exile of Sicilian revolutionaries of 1848

The exile of Sicilian revolutionaries of 1848 marks the defeat of a political hope as well as the punishment of its most visible advocates. In the aftermath of the revolution, the Bourbon authorities restored their power while leading revolutionaries, including Ruggero Settimo, Rosolino Pilo, Giuseppe La Masa, and Pasquale Calvi, were ordered into exile. Their departure made the limits of the settlement unmistakable: a royal pardon could spare political opponents from death, yet the island’s demand for independence remained unresolved, carried forward by those forced to leave it.

Background: A contested autonomy

The exile follows a longer contest over Sicily’s political status. In 1799, after the Jacobins of the Kingdom of Naples established the Neapolitan Republic, Ferdinand IV and Maria Carolina of Austria took refuge in Palermo. They returned to Naples in 1802, after the republican experiment ended in fierce repression. When Napoleon later installed Joseph Bonaparte as king of Naples, Ferdinand again fled to Palermo under British protection, while continuing to reign over Sicily. The island thus became a refuge for a displaced monarchy even as its own political future remained bound up with conflicts among European powers.

In 1812, revolt against Ferdinand IV’s income tax led to a constitution drafted on the Westminster model. It curtailed the Bourbon king’s power, called for the abolition of fiefdoms, and proposed reforms to government. The constitution’s stated purpose was to modernize Sicilian society and strengthen ties with Britain, which had an interest in keeping the island independent. The settlement did not last. In 1816, Ferdinand united the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily under the name Ferdinand I, annulled the constitution, and subjected Sicily to heavier taxation. The island’s political autonomy was thereby narrowed well before the revolution of 1848.

The revolution briefly reopened the constitutional question. After the Bourbons returned, however, Sicilian cities and provinces remained divided, and the island’s competing local interests weakened the prospect of a united response. By 1849, the political argument had become immediate and personal: accept a settlement imposed by the monarchy, or continue resisting at the risk of defeat, punishment, and exile.

The settlement and the exile list

The scene of the settlement takes place in a charged public atmosphere. Vincenzo Florio and his companions reach the Palazzo di Città through crowded streets, where people shout outside and stones strike the palace walls. Inside, officials throw documents into a fireplace, while Baron Turrisi sits exhausted. Baron Pietro Riso reports that the men assembled there have received a royal pardon, but that others are to be exiled. He names the leading figures: Settimo, Pilo, La Masa, the prince of Butera, and about forty more.

The distinction between pardon and exile is central to the episode. Riso considers the outcome a relief because it avoids death sentences, while recognizing that the king may find other ways to punish those spared. Vincenzo asks specifically who will be sent away. His question brings the political consequences out of abstraction: the settlement may end the immediate confrontation, but it does so by removing the revolution’s most prominent advocates from the country.

Calvi’s accusation and the cost of compromise

Pasquale Calvi refuses to treat the pardon as a satisfactory peace. He rejects the nobility’s titles and insists that he be addressed as Signor Pasquale Calvi. He accuses the men in the room of having sold the island and argues that they never truly believed in the cause for which Sicilians had fought. His own name is on the exile list; he must leave his country, while others who chose accommodation remain.

Calvi states the ideal that exile has interrupted: a free Sicily, independent and confederated with the Italian states. He blames the aristocrats’ fear and unwillingness to arm themselves, contending that a more courageous resistance might have kept Neapolitan forces from the city gates. Vincenzo cuts off his speech and counters that Calvi has escaped a death sentence and the Ucciardone fortress. Their exchange sets two political calculations against each other: Calvi’s insistence that compromise betrays the national cause, and Vincenzo’s hard attention to the punishment that continued resistance might have brought.

Baron Turrisi answers from the immediate facts of military collapse. With Messina and Catania fallen, he asks what weapons, supplies, or territory remained with which to resist. For him, the royal pardon is already a significant concession. Calvi sees the same outcome as a condemnation of the island to servitude. As the crowd’s shouts and thrown stones reach the room, he warns that those who accepted the settlement will be remembered for their cowardice. He then runs out into a city unsettled by shouting and gunfire; Turrisi, after hesitating at the window, says the men should leave and return when tempers have cooled.

Aftermath and continuing resistance

The exile does not end the political claims of 1848. In the years after the revolutions, Ferdinand II sought to restore unity in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, imposing a heavy national debt and suspending the constitution promulgated by the Sicilian Parliament in March 1848. A population and local administrations tired of prolonged instability accepted the taxes, while aristocrats kept their distance from rebellion. Uprisings continued, mostly in the countryside, but remained isolated and had little effect in the cities. The formal restoration of Bourbon authority therefore coexisted with lasting political discontent.

The book also connects the exiles’ removal to the island’s economic and administrative subordination. State offices, customs administration, and military command passed to Neapolitans; Palermo lost its power and independence, while heavier taxes, restrictions, and new constraints on trade brought its already weakened economy to a halt. Later, during the period of Garibaldi’s occupation, Casa Florio’s ships were requisitioned by the Bourbons: three of its five steamers were retained for troop transport, one was sunk, and the authorities nevertheless sought to fine Vincenzo over interrupted mail distribution. The episode demonstrates how changing regimes and administrative demands continued to reach into Sicilian commercial life.

The exiles’ patriotic momentum persisted in their writings and interventions. Giuseppe La Masa and Ruggero Settimo remained among those associated with that continuing cause, alongside Francesco Crispi, a young lawyer from Ribera near Agrigento. Their presence in later political life gives the exile a double consequence: it removes advocates of independence from Sicily, but does not extinguish the ideal Calvi voiced in the Palazzo di Città. The chapter’s conflict is therefore not resolved by the royal pardon. It survives as a dispute over what the settlement saved, what it surrendered, and who would bear the cost.