Stefano Capasso
ELEONORA
The Revolutionary Ideas of
the French Enlightenment tended to affirm the Fundamental Principle that
the right to elect their rulers
belonged to the people.
This Wind that began to blow
hard throughout Europe alarmed many European Courts.
Meanwhile, the Kingdom of
Naples was in its moment of greatest splendour, thanks to the prestige of
important social reforms and cultural enrichment with works of great importance.
In this context of
Enlightenment ideas, the warrior character of the young woman
Eleonora
Pimentel de Fonseca
I find fertile ground for
your thought which you expressed, with courage, also in the newspaper that you
edited "MONITORE".
And in addition she became
even harder for painful events that changed her life:
the loss of her son and her
separation from her husband after just seven years, due to the repeated
betrayals she had had to endure.
After the ferocious
repression of the Neapolitan uprisings in 1799 with
the support of the English and Cardinal Ruffo, despite an advantageous
surrender offered to the insurgents to leave the country, King Ferdinand only
partially consented, repressing part of the insurgents with a terrible
massacre, among which Pimentel.
She was sentenced to be
hanged in the Piazza del Mercato in Naples in August 1799.
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ELEONORA ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Heroina of
the short-lived Neapolitan Republic
She
had lost love,
but not the grit
of a born fighter,
against a morality
male chauvinist and overbearing
that she also reigned in Naples
since then,
under the reign of Ferdinand
of the Bourbons.
Towards
the end of a happy century,
Naples was in its heyday
having assumed by now for all
a prestigious role in Europe
She really had a Rebel Soul,
hardened by fatal events
for the untimely death of her son
but even more wounded
by the
constant betrayals of her husband.
Of her involvement
in ideas
of a revolutionary enlightenment
she
was fatal to her, paying with her life.
Almost everyone was offered her
an
advantageous yield
to be able to expatriate
and so life, being able to save.
But the King agreed in part
to such a proposal,
because she put to death
all the leaders of the insurrection
and first
Eleonora Pimentel de Fonseca
in Naples hanged
in the Market Square.
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Author STEFANO.CAPASSO
Historical source :
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