“praise be to the Tuscans of Montanara and Curtatone that worked the cannon for our freedom”.
A glorious page the one written by the Battaglione Universitario Toscano that fought in Curtatone in 1848 to free Italy of foreign rule.
Many were the Pisan students who volunteered in the Battalion distinguishing themselves for their mettle.
They were the best young men, most generous and bold, those that used to gather at the Caffé dell’Ussero on the Lungarno.
At the Ussero you debate, argue and fraternise. There you can meet characters such as Giuseppe Giusti, Giosuè Carducci, Antonio Guadagnoli. Renato Fucini, the Pisan poet, claims that “at the Ussero you learn as much as at the Sapienza”, and at the café you can meet this “riff-raff of genius purposefully bent on chasing the enemies out of Italy’s soil”.
So, the pisan university – still, as in the past, one of the most renowned in Italy – would be traversed by the regenerative wind of great ideals and patriotism, and students and professors would be united in fighting for freedom. They set off ill-armed, some without as much as a uniform or a knapsack, but they were determined “not to set foot in Tuscany again as long as an Austrian could breath the aura of Lombardy”. Leading the pisan contingent was Ottaviano Mossotti, illustrious professor of celestial physics who is described as “the absolute negation of military” but who will “prove himself bold in the face of fire”. They advanced slowly, amidst a thousand difficulties. There were also discontentment and desertions along the way, but upon reaching Curtatone they gave an important contribution to the battle and many were the Pisan students that died fighting.
