Gabriele Pepe

Gabriele Pepe (7 December 1779 – 26 July 1849) was an Italian republican insurgent, active in many campaigns against royalists fighting with or alongside the Bourbon kings of Naples.

Born in Civitacampomarano (now Molise), by the age of 20, he had fought in defence of the Neapolitan Republic in 1799.

He would return to Naples, this time fighting for the Napoleonic armies both under Joseph Bonaparte.

He was wounded, and captured by royalist troops led by Cardinal Fabrizio Ruffo, and again banished to Marseille, France.

On February 19, 1826, he dueled with the poet Alphonse de Lamartine, who had compared Italians to "human dust" in his poem "Le Dernier Chant du pélerinage d'Harold".