Scheda
Born in Forli on 12 March 1827, son of Leopolodo and Maddalena Maioli, Gregorio Gregorini studied at the school of Urbino and then at Bologna, where his aunt Adelaide lived with her husband Richard Bingham Count of Lucan, and where he graduated with a degree in engineering in 1847. In 1848 he enlisted in the university battalion and fought in the army of Napoleonic General Ferrari at Montebelluno. In 1852 he assisted in the escapes of Aurelio Saffi and Francesco Pigozzi, Young Italy delegates sent to Bologna to start insurrection movement against the Papal government and the Austrian army: the plan was to hide them to his aunt’s house on via Barberia, then move them to his aunt’s villa in Monte Albano, and from there they would cross the border. Their plan was discovered so together with the other patriots Gregorgio was condemned to death. Following the pressure his aunt Adelaide exerted upon the Vienetian court through the English council, the penalty was changed to five years in prison, the frist four were spent in the fortress of the Civita Castellana, the last year was spent in the prison of Forli.
Gregorio, released on 31 December 1857, was subjected to the obligation that he would not leave Flori, from which, as recorded in a letter conserved at the Museum of the Risorgimento in Bologna, he often ran away at night to Bologna to see his cousin, and future wife, Adele. With the start of the war in 1859, he ran away to Piemonte where he voluntarily enlisted in the lancery of Novara. At the end of this military stage, he travelled over Europe, and while he was in London, he was promoted to second artillery lieutenant. Participating in the occupation of Perugia in 1860, he received a silver medal, and during the campaign of 1866 he was promoted to captain. Assigned to the reserves, he was promoted to the rank of colonel. He died on 8 December 1904. On 20 September 1907, by a committee that had elected the professor Dioscoride Vitali as president dedicated a memorial stone to Gregorio that reads: (Here he lived /who died in 1904/ GREGORIO GREGORINI/ indomitable valiant soldier/ agitator who for the homeland/ saw and challenged the face of death/ an example of virtue and fortitude/ to who friends and admirers/ wall this memory/ 20 September 1907), placed on the wall of his house on via Barberia, where he lived with his wife Adele, daughter of Richard Bingham count of Lucan and Adelaide Gregorini, married in 1874, and with his son Ugo. He had a second son, Aldo, before their marriage, with an unknown woman, who died at seven years old from tubercular meningitis in 1880 (burial n. 941-5565).
Translation from italian language by Holly Bean.
