Michele Angiolillo
Encyclopedia
Foggia
Foggia is a city and comune of Apulia, Italy, capital of the province of Foggia. Foggia is the main city of a plain called Tavoliere, also known as the "granary of Italy".-History:...
, and murderer of Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
Prime Minister
Prime Minister of Spain
The President of the Government of Spain , sometimes known in English as the Prime Minister of Spain, is the head of Government of Spain. The current office is established under the Constitution of 1978...
Antonio Cánovas
Antonio Cánovas del Castillo
Antonio Cánovas del Castillo was a Spanish politician and historian known principally for his role in supporting the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy to the Spanish throne and for his death at the hands of an anarchist assassin, Michele Angiolillo.-Early career:Born in Málaga as the son of...
in 1897.
Barcelona bombing and Montjuïc repression
In June 1896, a bomb was thrown at the Corpus ChristiCorpus Christi (feast)
Corpus Christi is a Latin Rite solemnity, now designated the solemnity of The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ . It is also celebrated in some Anglican, Lutheran and Old Catholic Churches. Like Trinity Sunday and the Solemnity of Christ the King, it does not commemorate a particular event in...
procession
Procession
A procession is an organized body of people advancing in a formal or ceremonial manner.-Procession elements:...
in Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
. The attack precipitated an aggressive reprisal against Spanish anarchists
Anarchism in Spain
Anarchism has historically gained more support and influence in Spain than anywhere else, especially before Francisco Franco's victory in the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939....
, socialists
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
and republicans
Liberalism and radicalism in Spain
This article gives an overview of liberalism and radicalism in Spain. It is limited to liberal and radical parties with substantial support, mainly proved by having been represented in parliament. The sign ⇒ denotes another party in that scheme...
—four hundred alleged revolution
Revolution
A revolution is a fundamental change in power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time.Aristotle described two types of political revolution:...
aries were jailed at Montjuïc
Montjuïc
Montjuïc is a hill located in Barcelona, Catalonia.-Etymology:Montjuïc is translated as 'Jew Hill' in medieval Catalan, or is perhaps related to the Latin phrase Mons Jovicus . The name is found in several locations in the Catalan Countries: the Catalan cities of Girona and Barcelona both have a...
Fortress, many of whom died due to subsequent torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
. The prime minister Antonio Cánovas del Castillo himself ordered the repression and torture:
During a religious procession in 1896, at Barcelona, a
bomb was thrown. Immediately three hundred men and women were
arrested. Some were Anarchists, but the majority were
trade unionistsTrade unionA trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
and Socialists. They were thrown into that terrible
bastille, Montjuich, and subjected to most horrible tortures. After a
number had been killed, or had gone insane, their cases were taken up
by the liberal press of Europe, resulting in the release of a few
survivors.
The man primarily responsible for this revival of the Inquisition
was Canovas del Castillo, Prime Minister of Spain. It was he who
ordered the torturing of the victims, their flesh burned, their bones
crushed, their tongues cut out. Practiced in the art of brutality
during his regime in Cuba, Canovas remained absolutely deaf to the
appeals and protests of the awakened civilized conscience.
Of the 87 prisoners taken to the tribunal, eight received death sentence
Death Sentence
Death Sentence is a short story by the American science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the November 1943 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and reprinted in the 1972 collection The Early Asimov.-Plot summary:...
s and nine were condemned to long imprisonment. The other seventy-one were declared innocent but were deported to Río de Oro
Río de Oro
Río de Oro , is, with Saguia el-Hamra, one of the two territories that formed the Spanish province of Spanish Sahara after 1969; it was originally taken as a Spanish colonial possession in the late 19th century...
, a Spanish colony in West Africa
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...
, on the orders of Antonio Cánovas
Antonio Cánovas del Castillo
Antonio Cánovas del Castillo was a Spanish politician and historian known principally for his role in supporting the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy to the Spanish throne and for his death at the hands of an anarchist assassin, Michele Angiolillo.-Early career:Born in Málaga as the son of...
, Spain’s Prime Minister.
The assassination
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
(via London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
) to avenge the Montjuïc persecutions. There is some evidence that he originally planned to kill one or two young members of the Spanish royal family, but was dissuaded by Puerto Rican revolutionary leader Ramón Emeterio Betances
Ramón Emeterio Betances
Ramón Emeterio Betances y Alacán was a Puerto Rican nationalist. He was the primary instigator of the Grito de Lares revolution, and as such, is considered to be the father of the Puerto Rican independence movement...
, who suggested Cánovas del Castillo as a target instead. Betances provided logistical assistance for Angiolillo's safe travel into Spain, as well as some money. Angiolillo found Cánovas alone at the thermal bath resort of Santa Águeda (now a psychiatric hospital) in Mondragón
Mondragón
Arrasate or Mondragón - is a town and municipality in Gipuzkoa province, Basque Country, Spain...
, Guipúzcoa, on 8 August 1897, and shot him dead. The Prime Minister’s wife hurried to the scene, shouting “Murderer! Murderer!” after the gunman. Angiolillo, in turn, bowed and declared, “Pardon, Madame. I respect you as a lady, but I regret that you were the wife of that man.” The repression and mass torture at Montjuich was a direct factor behind Michele Angiolillo's decision to assassinate Cánovas:
Angiolillo soon became familiar with the detailed accounts in the press. He read of the great wave of human sympathy with the helpless victims at Montjuich. On Trafalgar Square he saw with his own eyes the results of those atrocities, when the few Spaniards, who escaped Castillo's clutches, came to seek asylum in England. There, at the great meeting, these men opened their shirts and showed the horrible scars of burned flesh. Angiolillo saw, and the effect surpassed a thousand theories; the impetus was beyond words, beyond arguments, beyond himself even.
Angiolillo allowed the authorities to capture him and vehemently denied other parties' involvement in the assassination. He was executed by garotte
Garrote
A garrote or garrote vil is a handheld weapon, most often referring to a ligature of chain, rope, scarf, wire or fishing line used to strangle someone....
in the nearby town of Vergara
Bergara
Bergara is a town located in the province of Gipuzkoa, in the autonomous community of Basque Country, in the north of Spain.An Enlightened center of education operated by the Real Sociedad Bascongada de Amigos del País , it was the place where Faustino Elhuyar discovered wolfram.During the Carlist...
.