Antonio Capece Minutolo

[4] Deeply religious, in 1795 Canosa published a treatise on the dogma of Trinity, in which he confuted deism, arguing that any attempt to rationalize religion ends up destroying its very essence.

[8] Coherently with this vision, he criticized absolute monarchies for abusing their power and introducing new taxes and obligations without consulting the representative institution of the estates of the realm.

When the royal family left the Kingdom, the feudal parliament of Naples elected him as a member of an “extraordinary deputation for good government and internal tranquility of the city”.

[4] After the French occupation of Naples he was forced to hide, but a few months later he was arrested, imprisoned in Castel Sant'Elmo and sentenced to death for royalist conspiracy.

While the prince's father, Fabrizio, joined the new regime, the young Canosa followed the court to Sicily, from where he coordinated a secret legitimist network.

[11] In 1808 he engaged in a conspiracy to kill Antoine Christophe Saliceti, who served Joseph Bonaparte and Joachim Murat as Minister of Police in the Napoleonic kingdom of Naples between 1806 and 1809.

He wrote several pamphlets, books and articles against liberalism and collaborated with politically explicit and combative newspapers, such as La Voce della Verità (The Voice of Truth).

He began a propaganda campaign in favor of legitimism and against liberalism[22] and established royalist militias, the Battalions of Volontari Estensi, tasked with “maintaining order in the countryside by seconding the active troops in case of need”.