Draft:Giovan Battista Falcone

Biography
Son of Angiolo and Mariantonia Giannone, heir from both parents to two of the wealthiest and highest-ranking families of Acri (Cosenza). The Falcone family, in particular, had inherited part of the Calabrian heritage of the Sanseverino princes of Bisignano. The life of young Giovanni Battista is strongly linked to the Muratian ideals, which animated the salons and cultural circles of the South between 1850 and 1860. His patriotic ideals began from a very young age, in secondary school. In fact, Vincenzo Padula wrote: "when Ferdinand II of Bourbon wanted to indicate a 'hothead,' a person who loved civil liberty and the independence of the Fatherland, he used to say 'Calabrian head,' just as, speaking of the college of S. Adriano in San Demetrio Corone, he called it 'a forge of devils'." And in this forge, the young Falcone was formed, sent to study at the nearby college, as befitting a scion of a noble family. "Unfortunately, his ideals could not be tolerated, and therefore the son (a rebel), who wanted to pursue a life and career in the clergy, was urgently transferred to the diocesan college of Bisignano, where he completed his studies before going to Naples. There he joined his brother Francesco, who was already a law student, at the home of the brothers Francesco and Vincenzo Sprovieri, where he met old friends such as Domenico Mauro, Agesilao Milano, Francesco Tocci, Attanasio Dramis, already intent on preparing the assassination attempt against Ferdinand II of Bourbon.

He was a friend of Agesilao Milano, a patriot from San Benedetto Ullano, hanged for high treason, for anti-Bourbon conspiracy, on December 13, 1856, of Demetrio Baffa, of Domenico Damis and of Carlo Pisacane, co-designer with Giovanni Battista and Giovanni Nicotera of the failed landing on the island of Ponza in 1857 (the so-called Sapri Expedition), all of republican faith and followers of the ideas of Mazzini. Falcone, who had emigrated to Malta and to the Sardinian States, participated in this tragic expedition, ending up massacred on July 2 in Sanza, embraced together with Carlo Pisacane by the local population incited by pro-Bourbon sentiments.