Tito Livio Zambeccari (30 June 1802 – 2 December 1862) was an Italian soldier and journalist known for his participation in the struggle for Italian unification. He was involved in various wars for liberation and skirmishes that marked the Italian struggle for independence between 1821 and 1860. He was frequently forced into exile by the authorities throughout his life. Between 1826 and 1840, he was active on the side of Liberalism and nationalism in South America where he participated in several major wars, including the Cisplatine War, the Argentine Civil Wars, and the Ragamuffin War.
Zambeccari's courage and commitment to the liberation cause were widely recognized, but nevertheless among more thoughtful comrades he suffered from a reputation as an outspoken and impulsive buffoon. Felice Orsini wrote: "Zambeccari is a very close friend, but be in no doubt that when danger threatens, in those situations where military insight and resolve are needed, it is unfortunately the case that he is useless. That is a great pity, because the man is devoted to his country."
In the 2003 Brazilian television series "A Casa das Sete Mulheres "("At the home of seven women") the part of Livio Zambeccari is played by Ângelo Antônio.
Biography Provenance and early years Tito Livio Zambeccari was born, like his father before him, in Bologna, which since 1797 had been part of the Cisalpine Republic, a "sister republic" (through conquest) of the French Republic. He was his parents' only son, and the second of their three children. Count Francesco Zambeccari (1752-1812), his father, a polymath-scientist and naval officer, was well known as an aviation pioneer. Livio Zambeccari was just ten when, on 21 September 1812, a balloon that his father was piloting caught fire, following a collision with a tree during take-off. The alcohol powering the burner spilt onto the two occupants of the aircraft, as a result of which they were very badly burned. Francesco Zambeccari died the next day as a result of his injuries. Francesco Zambeccari had nevertheless lived for long enough to exercise a considerable influence on Livio, whose own life would reflect his father's "man of action" propensities.
A year after his father's death he was enrolled at Bologna's venerable "Collegio San Luigi" (secondary school). By the time he had completed his schooling both his parents were dead, and in 1818 he entered the local university to study first Philosophy and then, in compliance with the wishes of the relatives who had taken on responsibility for his care, Jurisprudence. He graduated with an excellent law degree in 1821, but instead of embarking on the career as a diplomat which had been intended for him, he now became involved with liberals and joined the Freemasons. He allowed himself to be drawn into "obscure missions" which compromised him politically, and as a result he was obliged to emigrate.
Long exile: 1821-1840 The initial part of what turned out to be a long period of exile was spent in Spain where he served under Generals Antonio Quiroga and Rafael del Riego who were leading and sustaining a three-year military uprising against the authoritarian rule of King Ferdinand VII. His initial period of service was relatively brief, but he re-joined the revolutionary armies in 1822 after news came through of an imminent French invasion designed to put an end to not quite three years of relatively liberal government in Spain. The king of France succeeded in returning Spain to a form of pre-revolutionary autocratic governance. With the "liberal experiment" terminated, Zambeccari spent three years between travelling in Europe and indulging a passion for scientific enquiry which he had inherited from his father. Although the range of his scientific interests can be characterised as eclectic, his travels involved a particular focus on Mineralogy.
In 1823 he headed for England where he undertook a lengthy stay in London. That was followed by an equivalent stay in Paris. There is no indication of any attempt to return to Italy at this point. In 1826, like many exiled Italian patriots, he headed for South America, arriving in Montevideo later that same year. He arrived in the middle of the Cisplatine War between the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata and the Empire of Brazil over control of Cisplatina (which would be rebranded as Uruguay after winning independence in 1828). The region was already home to large numbers of Italian political exiles. Supported by his Masonic connections and the reputation among Italian patriots that he had already acquired through his activism in Europe, he rapidly found himself part of an expatriate Italian network. His arrival was greeted with enthusiasm by senior leaders of the Cisplatinan revolutionaries fighters such as Generals Juan Antonio Lavalleja and Manuel Oribe who invited him to take command of the revolutionary army's artillery: this was one invitation he felt able to refuse. He instead devoted his energies to his scientific and literary studies while remaining in close contact with liberationist military circles. One practical outcome of his literary studies was his rapidly-acquired mastery of the Spanish language to a level which very soon enabled him to embark on a parallel career as a "liberation journalist".
After turning down the opportunity to organise the artillery for the Uruguay liberation forces, Zambeccari relocated across the Plata estuary to Buenos Aires. At once, through his pen, he provided support for the liberationist cause, publishing an adaptation of Bruto Primo by Vittorio Alfieri, and also publishing a "Hymn to Liberty" ("Inno alla libertà") of his own as a fundraiser for the wounded heroes of Ituzaingó, the battle whereby the Cisplatina province effectively secured independence from the Empire of Brazil (though that was an outcome only formally secured, following British mediation / encouragement, eighteen months later through the Treaty of Montevideo, the founding treaty of the independent state of Uruguay).
Following Zambeccari's arrival in Buenos Aires, he at once found himself caught up in the internal fighting between liberal "unitarians" and the more conservative "federalists": he was drawn towards the former. Lined up alongside Juan Antonio Lavalleja, he participated in several important military successes. That was not enough to prevent the federalists, under the leadership of Caudillo Juan Manuel de Rosas, from regrouping and inflicting a severe defeat on the armies of the unitarians during the first part of 1829.
Later in 1829 Caudillo Juan Manuel de Rosas took power as governor in Buenos Aires, marking the start of what de Rosas characterised as a three-year benevolent dictatorship, and opponents viewed in less charitable terms. Zambeccari left the country, moving now to Porto Alegre in the Brazilian province of Rio Grande do Sul, where he became involved with another liberation movement, backing the separatist "rebel monarchist" Bento Gonçalves da Silva. During the next few years he switched roles frequently, at times a liberation journalist, sometimes a scientific researcher, and at other times working as a private secretary to Gonçalves. According to one commentator, he emerged "as one of the inspirers and theorists of the republican revolution" Among the other leading companions of Gonçalves during the years of what many English language sources term the "Ragamuffin War", for students of Italian unification the most famous was another of the Italian patriot exiles, Giuseppe Garibaldi. It may have been Zambeccari who first introduced Garibaldi to Gonçalves. It was, in any event, during 1834/35 that Garibaldi arrived in Rio Grande do Sul and came to know Livio Zambeccari, which turned out to be the start of a close and lasting friendship between two men who politically and in terms of their temperaments had a good deal in common.
On 4 October 1836, while engaged in combat against the armies of the boy emperor, Zambeccari was captured at the Battle of Fanfa Island and taken prisoner. He was led in chains to a prison ship moored in the harbour at Porto Alegre. Later he was transferred to a more permanent place of detention in the Fortress of Santa Cruz near Rio de Janeiro. He was held as a prisoner of war for slightly more than three years. This put an end to his participation in the fighting, but he was able to remain active, producing a number of geographical maps and watercolour paintings. In addition, he translated into Portuguese a number of political and philosophical works by Félicité de La Mennais and Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi. Release, when it came, was predicated on a conditional amnesty. On 2 December 1839 Zambeccari was escorted to an English ship and sent back to Europe.
He was landed at Portsmouth and made his way to London. The cause of Italian liberation from (primarily) Austrian domination and/or control was popular with the political class in England, and London was home to a large number of Italian political exiles. Among these, Zambeccari met Giuseppe Mazzini, who had been living in London since 1837. Long before they met, Mazzini had been aware of Zambeccari, whom he regarded as a "republican of integrity" ("un repubblicano integerrimo"). In South America Zambeccari had publicised and promoted Mazzini's Young Italy movement through his journalism, and in London Mazzini was able to express his appreciation of this in person, and to introduce Zambeccari to the principal Italian revolutionaries present in London at the time. From London he moved on to France.E. Spartaco, "Livio Zambeccari per Enrico Spartaco", Napoli, Stabilimento tipografico Strada S. Sebastiano, 1861, p.20
Back in Italy Livio Zambeccari was back in Italy by the end of 1840, but he remained under a ban when it came to any attempt to access territories controlled as part of the Papal States. Before 1860 that included not just Rome but also Romagna including, under arrangements re-instated in 1815, Bologna. Unable to return, even now, to his home city, Zambeccari made his new home between Lucca and Florence, close to the homes of his Tuscan relatives. In Lucca he was staying close to the ducal court, and it was through the intervention with the Papal authorities of Duke Charles Louis that during 1841 Zambeccari was finally permitted to return home to Bologna. In his home city, Count Zambeccari did his best to pass himself off as a lifelong student and scholar with a passion for geography and other natural sciences. Nevertheless, he is of greater interest to subsequent generations of historians because of the way in which throughout (and beyond) the 1840s he participated actively in the events which led to Italian unification. As soon as he arrived in Bologna he established contacts with local Mazzinian and Carbonari groups dedicated, according to the "revolutionary" narrative of the times, to the ending of tyranny and the establishment of constitutional government. He worked closely with Nicola Fabrizi, a fiery and committed leader in the network of risorgimento patriots.