Bologna. Luigi Zamboni organizes an uprising among the people of Bologna against the absolutist domination of the Church, enlisting students from the University of Bologna to join the cause, including Giovanni Battista De Rolandis, Antonio Succi, Camillo Tomesani, Antonio Forni, Angelo Sassoli, Tomaso Bambozzi, Pietro Gavasetti, Giovanni Osbel, Giovanni Calori, and others. They are not all students; some are already graduates, others are men of the street, all opposed to the absolutist and anti-democratic government of the Papal States, completely controlled by the prelates of the Holy Office. De Rolandis (an expert swordsman) and Zamboni take the lead. They write manifestos, and with the help of Zamboni’s mother and aunt, Brigida and Barbara Borghi, they make tricolor cockades in the French style, replacing the blue with green. The uprising, which took place during the night between November 13 and 14, 1794, failed, and the two students were discovered and captured in Covigliaio and imprisoned in the Torrone prison, along with nineteen other people. Luigi Zamboni was found dead on August 18, 1795, in a cell nicknamed “Hell.” De Rolandis was hanged on April 23, 1796, after cruel torture.
