Belfiore martyrs
It was the capital of a small but quite rich dukedom, as well as being of some military importance, both for the quality of its fortifications but also for its geographic position, allowing it to control the route between the Veneto and Lombardy and a large number of crossings over the River Po.
Indeed, the city had been at the centre of the 1797 campaign during the French Revolutionary Wars, with repeated Austrian invasions of the area until Eugène de Beauharnais surrendered it to Heinrich Johann Bellegarde on 23 April 1814.
Such a militarised city was very well suited to house what could in modern terms be called a maximum security prison (in the castello di San Giorgio) to hold the Lombard and Venetic patriots, imprisoned for their opposition to the Austrian occupation.
The French had also thought the city suitable for a prison when, on 20 February 1810, the Tyrolean rebel leader Andreas Hofer was executed in Mantua for leading a rebellion in two of Napoleon's client states.
Charles Albert of Sardinia had united the Sardinian army and countless volunteers from Lombardy, Veneto and many other Italian regions, but the defeat of his force by Radetzky at Novara in 1849 led to a hardening in the Austrian government's attitude.
The atmosphere became even worse with two visits by emperor Franz Joseph in 1851 (in March–April to Venice and in September–October to Milan, Como and Monza), which showed up how little success Radetzky's policy had had in winning over the region's population and nobility to the Habsburg regime.
These failed visits led Radetzky to issue two proclamations (on 22 February and 19 July 1851) decreeing that anyone found in possession of 'revolutionary' writings would be sentenced to 1 to 5 years in prison, reimposing the state of siege, holding the city collectively responsible for housing secret societies (even unknowingly).
Proclamations were printed, cells founded in Milan, Venice, Brescia, Verona, Padua, Treviso, and Vicenza, and money collected to finance the revolutionary activities via 'interprovincial loan folders' organised by Mazzini.
That execution was followed, at the end of 1851, by that of Don Giovanni Grioli, pastor of Cerese, arrested on 28 October and condemned to death on 5 November for having tried to cause two Hungarian soldiers to desert and for possessing revolutionary literature.
With a renewal in the repressive climate, the Austrian police increased their surveillance activities in Mantua and on 1 January 1852 commissioner Rossi found a folder of 25 francs from a Mazzinian loan during a raid on the home of Luigi Pesci, communal esattore of Castiglione delle Stiviere.
The Bishop of Mantua Giovanni Corti explained the situation to Pope Pius IX in a letter sent on 20 July 1852, asking for an intercession with emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria in order to avoid further capital punishments.
