DGR and A Last Confession

Rossetti’s dramatic monologue A Last Confession dramatised his disillusion with the failed revolution of 1848 in Italy.  I've discovered a historical source that also informs the poem‘s plot.

The narrative concerns a young Italian patriot who kills the  girl he loves (a poetic stand-in for Italy) when she scorns  both cause and lover in favour of accommodation with the Austrian occupation of Italy.   

The speaker,  who has fatal wounds incurred as a guerrilla fighter,  addresses the reader via a priest,  recounting the event:   

The day was one red blindness; till it seemed

Within the whirling brain’s entanglement

That she or I or all things bled to death.

 And then I found her laid against my feet 

 And knew that I had stabbed her, and saw still

Her look in falling.  For she took the knife

Deep in her heart.

This theme of sexual jealousy allied to political betrayal echoes the real life example of Antonio Gasparoni, the ‘famous brigand’ (1793-1882) whose career was the subject of Europe-wide mythologizing.  Gasparoni himself became a tourist attraction when imprisoned with his band in Civita Castellana.

 According to Stendahl, one such tourist in 1839, the bandit leader was betrayed by a lover who succumbed to a six thousand scudi bribe. Foreseeing imminent capture, Gasparoni strangled her.   

By 1855 the narrative had evolved, as artist Joanna Boyce related:

‘When he was 20 in a  fit of jealousy he killed the girl he loved and finding a price was put on his head he turned brigand and for ten years he made himself the terror of travellers.  So well known was he for his wonderful daring and agility even among foreigners, that very few  English passed through Civita Vecchia, where he was first imprisoned, without going to visit him.  When he was a little past thirty he gave himself up to the authorities and and he and his 16 men have lived together in prison more than thirty years, a happy quiet life …. A nobler looking old man I have never seen.’ 

Gasparoni’s trademark was his conical brigand’s hat, shown in this portrait,  from the museum  in Sonnino, a historical centre of banditry.  Rather uncannily, the scowling features bear a distinct likeness to the young D.G.Rossetti….