Page 306 - General Giuseppe GARIBALDI - english version

288 GENERAL GIUSEPPE GARIBALDI

den of Lazzari House were it was used through a hole made in the city wall.
In the evening, about 20:00, a fourth attack takes place. Porta Romana is
set on fire by pushing underneath – by Lieutenant Fratelli – a cart full of
wood strewn with some sulphur left from the sulphuring of the vines and
found in the nearby farmsteads: the fire lasted until midnight. The besieged,
unable to put the fire out because of a lack of fountains within the city, bar-
ricade themselves within the inhabited centre to put up a last resistance at the
end of Via Felice (present Oberdan), Via Rasella and Via Ospedale; the pieces
are brought back in the courtyard of the castle.
A similar tentative against the Porta Romana fails due to the heavy fire
from those defending it.
Having completely burned the Porta Romana, the Garibaldians go on the
th
attack at about 02:00 of the 26 , the Papal army, after a short resistance on
the two barricades on the road from Piazza Lambruschini, retreat to the cas-
tle, where those defending the other sectors also gather, apart from the
Dragoons and the Gendarmes that surrender in their barrack outside the cas-
tle. Shortly before 04:00. Garibaldi enters Monterotondo placing his head-
quarters in the Frosi Café in Piazza Lambruschini and orders the immediate
ceasefire from and against the palace. At 07:00 the action resumes: at 09:30
the castle chooses to surrender after the fire was started on the main door and
the start of a mine excavation.
Garibaldi allows the officers to keep their weapons, grants the pay to pri-
vates and double pay to the officers: all are declared prisoners of war. They
were gathered in the Cathedral and the escorted to Corese by Major Marani,
were they were delivered into the hands of the Italian troops on the border.
They then continued for Varignano (Spezia).
While Garibaldi takes possession of the castle, news arrives that a column
of Papal troops is marching from Rome to Monterotondo.
It was the 7 th company of the Antibo legion (about 85 men) led by
th
Captain Levesque-Durostu that had left Rome at 01:30 of the 26 . Once
out of Porta Pia, after the Nomentano Bridge kept to the left until the Salaria
road, but at 05:00, it got to between Marcigliana and Forno Nuovo, and hav-
ing learned from a gendarme that this was a locality occupied by the
Garibaldians turned right and with the help of a local guide went through
Massa, past the Rio della Casetta, through the gorge of the Pozzo, goes up to
S. Luigi at about 09:00 at the moment of the castle surrender.
The were noticed; Captain Durostu, ignoring the capture of Montero-