Events for the centenary of the death of Cesare Battisti, Damiano Chiesa and Fabio Filzi

Coordinated by the Trentino Committee for the Commemoration of the Centenary of the First World War, chaired by the Councillor for Culture Tiziano Mellarini, with the participation of: the Government Commissioner for the Province of Trento, the president of the Provincial Council, the president of the Council of Local Authorities, a spokesperson of the Army Command “Trentino – Alto Adige” and one for the Commission for Honours to War Victims.

Exhibitions, conferences, meetings, events and other celebrations are planned in the course of 2016 aiming at offering a versatile overview of the figure of Battisti, geographer, Irredentist and politician.

Short biographical notes: Cesare Battisti was born on the 4^th February 1875 in Trento; the father was a merchant and the mother came from an aristocratic family of Rovereto. From an early age he became a follower the Italian irredentism movement. After having attended the high school in Trento, in 1893 he attended the university of Graz, but he enrolled at University of Florence, too.

In 1894 he moved from Florence to Turin, where he met Edmondo De Amicis, who introduces him to the socialism. Back to Florence, he met Gaetano Salvemini and his life companion, Ernesta Bittanti. They married in a civil ceremony in Florence in 1899 and then moved to Trento. They had three children: Luigi, 1901-46, Livia 1907-78 and Camillo 1910-82.

A the beginning of the Twentieth Century Battisti focused on geographical and naturalistic studies as well as on social and political problems, such as the creation of an Italian University in the Empire. Councilman of the City of Trento from 1903 to 1905 and from 1911 to 1914, he was elected in 1911 as a representative to the Austrian Imperial Council at Vienna and in 1914 to the Tyrolean Landtag assembly at Innsbruck.

Two weeks after the beginning of the world conflict he left Trento and moved to Italy where he held public meetings demanding that the Sabaudian monarchy enter the war against the Austro-Hungarian Empire. With the outbreak of the war, he enlisted as voluntary in the Alpine troops (Eolo battalion).

On the 10^th July 1916 he was captured by the Austrian forces and faced a court-martial in his home town Trento, charged with high treason. He was sentenced to death  and executed on the 12^th July 1916 in the Buonconsiglio Castle in Trento.