1848: volunteers, refugees and the new federal state

The Five Days of Milan and Ticino

The revolution in Milan began on 18 March 1848, when a crowd of about 10,000 people gathered in front of the town hall and demanded a free press, a civic guard and a national assembly. In five days of street fighting the Milanese built some 1,600 barricades. On 20 March the republicans Carlo Cattaneo and Enrico Cernuschi formed a council of war to direct the fighting, and on 22 March Radetzky ordered his troops to evacuate the city.¹ The same day the moderate aristocrat Count Gabrio Casati formed a provisional government that sidelined the republicans. About 409 Milanese died in the fighting.² The news reached Lugano on 18 and 19 March and set off an immediate mobilization. Giacomo Ciani's committee in Lugano coordinated its action with the patriots of Como. Diego Piacentini led fourteen exiles across the border, and Antonio Arcioni gathered seventy-two volunteers at Chiasso.³ Ticinese died on the barricades of Milan, among them Pietro Taddeo Petrolini of Brissago and Giuseppe Broggi, a Milanese-born son of a Blenio family.⁴

The Dizionario storico della Svizzera summarizes the Swiss contribution in two sentences: several corps of volunteers from Switzerland supported the insurrection, and rebels such as Cattaneo later found asylum in Ticino.⁵ Behind these sentences lay a considerable movement of men, money and weapons. The Swiss merchants of Lombardy mentioned above also sympathized in many cases with the revolution, some of them to the point of taking part in it.

Arcioni, Vicari and the columns of volunteers

Antonio Arcioni of Corzoneso, a soldier of fortune who had fought in the civil wars of Portugal and Spain, formed the Como-Ticinese brigade. It began with about 1,200 men, grew to 1,500 and claimed 2,300 at its peak. Its officers included Ticinese such as Achille Jauch of Bellinzona, Antonio Bazzi of Brissago, Antonio Gabrini of Lugano and Ottavio Fontana of Mendrisio.⁶ In April and May 1848 the brigade fought in the Trentino at Sclemo, Sarche and Toblino with heavy losses. When ordered to integrate into the royal Sardinian army, Arcioni refused and dissolved the column at Como. The lawyer and federal officer Natale Vicari of Agno mobilized the cantonal carabinieri on 19 March and led, together with Francesco Simonetta, a column of about 400 men in seven companies, which took part in the operations around Peschiera and was praised by General Alfonso La Marmora and by King Charles Albert.⁷

The supply of these columns depended on arms and money from Ticino. The young lawyer Leone Stoppani of Ponte Tresa, Arcioni's adjutant, coordinated the smuggling of weapons with the patriots of Como.⁸ The federal authorities had prohibited the formation of free corps by decree, but the prohibition was enforced half-heartedly. The volunteers crossed the border in groups that the cantonal authorities did not stop.⁹ The pattern recurred in later wars. Ticinese fought at Rome in 1849, where the eighteen-year-old Emilio Morosini of Lugano was mortally wounded on 30 June on the Janiculum. They served with Garibaldi's Alpine riflemen in 1859, with the Thousand in 1860, where Luigi Fumagalli of Lugano fell at Calatafimi, and in the campaigns of 1866 and 1867. Antonio Cattaneo of Mendrisio fought in 1859, at Marsala in 1860, at Aspromonte in 1862, in the Trentino in 1866 and at Mentana in 1867, as well as on the Union side in the American Civil War.¹⁰

Notes

1. Alexander Grab, "Five Days of Milan", in James Chastain (ed.), Encyclopedia of 1848 Revolutions (Ohio University), https://sites.ohio.edu/chastain/ip/milanfiv.htm (consulted 4 October 2026). ↩
2. Grab, "Five Days of Milan" (above), on the Casati government and the 409 dead. ↩
3. Giuseppe Martinola, "Ticinesi volontari nelle guerre d'Italia", Scuola ticinese no. 94, PDF, https://m4.ti.ch/fileadmin/DECS/DS/Rivista_scuola_ticinese/ST_n.94/ ST_94_Martinola_ticinesi_volontari_nelle_guerre_d__Italia.pdf (consulted 4 October 2026). ↩
4. Martinola, "Ticinesi volontari" (above). ↩
5. Bauer, "Royaume lombard-vénitien" (above): "plusieurs corps de volontaires venus de Suisse apportèrent leur soutien à l'insurrection". ↩
6. Martinola, "Ticinesi volontari" (above). ↩
7. Martinola, "Ticinesi volontari" (above). ↩
8. Martinola, "Ticinesi volontari" (above). ↩
9. Martinola, "Ticinesi volontari" (above), on the federal decree against the formation of corpi franchi and its limited enforcement. ↩
10. Martinola, "Ticinesi volontari" (above), for Morosini, Fumagalli and Antonio Cattaneo. ↩

For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of October 2026.