Carlo Filangieri

Carlo Filangieri (10 May 1784 – 9 October 1867), Prince of Satriano, was a Neapolitan soldier and statesman. He was the son of Gaetano Filangieri, 5th Prince of Satriano, a celebrated philosopher and jurist, and father of Gaetano Filangieri, 7th Prince of Satriano, an art historian and collector.

Early life

Filangieri was born on 10 May 1784 at Cava de' Tirreni, near Salerno. He was the eldest child of Gaetano Filangieri, 5th Prince of Satriano, a celebrated philosopher and jurist. His mother was the Hungarian noblewoman Carolina Frendel, who was the teacher of Princess Luisa Maria, second daughter of King Ferdinand IV.

At the age of fifteen Filangieri decided on a military career, and having obtained an introduction to Napoleon Bonaparte, then first consul, was admitted to the Military Academy at Paris.

Career

In 1803, he received a commission in an infantry regiment, and took part in the campaign of 1805 under General Davout, first in the Low Countries, and later at Ulm, Mariazell and Austerlitz, where he fought with distinction, was wounded several times and promoted.

He returned to Naples as captain on Masséna's staff to fight the Bourbons and the Austrians in 1806, and subsequently went to Spain, where he followed Joseph Bonaparte in his retreat from Madrid. After having slain General François Franceschi-Losio in a duel he was sent back to Naples; there he served under Joachim Murat with the rank of general, and fought against the Anglo-Sicilian forces in Calabria and at Messina. On the fall of Napoleon, he took part in Murat's campaign against Eugène de Beauharnais, and later in that against Austria, and was severely wounded at the Battle of the Panaro in 1815. Together, they were the parents of:

Princess Carolina Filangieri (1821–1895), who married Giovanni Battista de Guevara, Duke of Bovino, in 1838. Princess Giovanna Filangieri (1822–1886), who married the Duke of Serra di Cardinale. Gaetano Filangieri, 7th Prince of Satriano (1824–1892), and 2nd Duke of Taormina; an art historian and collector. Princess Teresa Filangieri (1826–1903), who married Vincenzo Ravaschieri Fieschi, Duke of Roccapiemonte.

The Prince died at his villa of San Giorgio a Cremano near Naples on 9 October 1867.

Legacy According to Luigi Villari in the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, Filangieri was a very distinguished soldier, and a man of great ability; although he changed sides several times, he became really attached to the Bourbon dynasty, which he hoped to save by freeing it from its reactionary tendencies and infusing a new spirit into it. His conduct in Sicily was severe and harsh, but he was not without feelings of humanity, and he was an honest man and a good administrator.

His biography was written by his daughter Teresa Filangieri Fieschi Ravaschieri, Il generale Carlo Filangieri (Milan, 1902), an interesting, although somewhat too laudatory volume based on the general's own unpublished memoirs; for the Sicilian expedition see V. Finocchiaro, La rivoluzione siciliana del 1848-49 e la spedizione del generale Filangieri (Catania, 1906, with bibliography), in which Filangieri is highly criticised.