No peace yet for anarchist who failed to kill a king in 1878
ROME -- Giovanni Passannante did not achieve much in life. The Italian cook turned anarchist failed in 1878 to kill the king with a kitchen knife, then went insane in solitary confinement on Elba.
Now his brain, still pickled in a glass box in Rome's crime museum, is at the centre of a row over whether to give him some peace, dragging in his home town mayor, actors, writers and politicians...
After emerging from the crowd in Naples in 1878 during a visit by Umberto I, the 28-year-old mistimed his lunge at the king, instead wounding the prime minister.
Passannante was jailed for life, and chained up in an underground cell. Declared insane after a decade living among his own excrement and sent to an asylum, he died in 1910. His body was fed to pigs, his brain removed to be studied for signs of innate criminality. "I am convinced we must immediately give some peace to the mortal remains of Passannante," [Deputy PM Francesco] Rutelli said.
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Now his brain, still pickled in a glass box in Rome's crime museum, is at the centre of a row over whether to give him some peace, dragging in his home town mayor, actors, writers and politicians...
After emerging from the crowd in Naples in 1878 during a visit by Umberto I, the 28-year-old mistimed his lunge at the king, instead wounding the prime minister.
Passannante was jailed for life, and chained up in an underground cell. Declared insane after a decade living among his own excrement and sent to an asylum, he died in 1910. His body was fed to pigs, his brain removed to be studied for signs of innate criminality. "I am convinced we must immediately give some peace to the mortal remains of Passannante," [Deputy PM Francesco] Rutelli said.