Revolutions and their failures

This chapter describes the events and consequences of Padua’s 1848 revolution. As prominent figures in Padua’s intellectual and social life, Andrea and Giuseppe Meneghini were deeply involved in the construction of a new order. After the Austrian retreat, Andrea became head of the revolutionary administration; yet when the Habsburg troops returned a few months later, both brothers and many of their peers were forced into exile. Andrea Cittadella Vigodarzere and Achille De Zigno stayed in Padua, hoping to mediate between the city of Padua and the enraged Austrian government. A long period of repression and isolation followed. Only Andrea returned sixteen years later to become Padua’s first mayor after the annexation of Veneto to the Italian kingdom. Giuseppe, relying on the support of his Italo-Austrian botanical network, settled in Pisa where he became professor of Geology. For Padua, the failure of the 1848 revolution meant the end of many projects of social and scientific innovation as well as the inevitable end of a period of extraordinary cross-fertilization between plant knowledge and the city’s emerging civil society.