1859 Perugia uprising

On the 14th of June, the committee asked the pontifical government, through the intermediary of its representative at Perugia, Luigi Giordani, to abandon the position of neutrality it had adopted in the war in Italy.

It also clearly appeared that there was no support available from Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, who had his hands tied by the agreements with Napoleon III, although he found the insurrection in Perugia had strong motivations that would be useful for his political campaigns.

The Cardinal Secretary of State Giacomo Antonelli, informed of what had happened, gave the order on the 14th of June to Giordani (who had retired to Foligno) "to stop all disorder, calling if necessary a company from Spoleto", in the expectation of reinforcements of "two thousand men and perhaps even of the French".

The French aid was rejected however by the commander of the occupation body of Goyon, but they prepared the expedition of the first foreign regiment, which counted around 1700 men, under the orders of Colonel Anton Schmid,[3] a Swiss mercenary leader from Altdorf in Papal service since 1855.

Following the atrocity of the looters, as a logical continuation, the legal government was banned by Schmidt who with his acolytes benefitted from a large number of favours and honorific titles; solemn and magnificent funerals were celebrated by the Cardinal-Bishop Pecci, today Pope Leo XIII, with the devilish inscription carried on the catafalque: ‘Happy are those who die in the grace of the Lord.’” — Il risorgimento, in “Storia generale d'Italia”», under the direction of Pasquale Villari.

Milan, 1881, p. 376“Besides, many families there still bleed from the hideous massacres of Perugia and Viterbo, and we find more than one father, more than one husband that by a refinement of barbarism, a wild soldier had forced them to assist in the revolting outrage inflicting on their daughter or their wife; because nothing equals the atrocities committed at Perugia by the adventurers that the Swiss catholic Schmidt commanded, when in 1859 the court of Rome charged this foreigner with the care of returning the pontifical yoke on the inhabitants of Perugia where the insurrection had risen without any spilling of blood, because the roman garrison had withdrawn without firing a shot, whereas after the taking of the town, Schmidt delivered there all the horrors of pillage…” — Petr Aleksandrovich Chikhachev : Le royaume d'Italie, éditions Ch.