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Giovanni Angelo Ossoli

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Patriot

The Resume

    (January 17, 1821-July 19, 1850)
    Born in Lombardy, Italy
    Italian count, revolutionary
    Common law husband of Margaret Fuller
    Conceived a son, Angelo Eugene Phillip Ossoli with Margaret (nicknamed 'Nino' and 'Angelino'; born September 1848)
    Son of the Marquis Filippo Ossoli and Maria Anna Cleter
    Actively fought in the Italian Revolution, supporting the establishment of a Roman Republic in the place of the monarchy (1848-1849)
    Fled the Italian peninsula for England after the Republicans met with defeat; eventually boarded a ship bound for America in late 1849
    Drowned, along with his wife and child, after their ship hit a sandbar off the coast of Fire Island, New York

Why he might be annoying:

    Adam Mickiewicz called him 'the little Italian.'
    He knocked up a woman over ten years his senior.
    He was a deadbeat who lived off of his quasi-nobility title and his family's money.
    His father was a high-ranking Vatican-official, while his brothers were functionaries in the Papal court (he was the only one in the family who didn't seek to enter the Papacy).
    He became estranged from his elderly father and siblings by joining the Roman Revolution, prompting him to be disinherited.
    He descended from a prominent line of Italian nobles, but the ranks and stature of his family's estate had diminished to the point where Ralph Waldo Emerson summed up his title as amounting to 'that of a selectman here [in America].'
    His eventual wife herself called him 'a person of no intellectual culture ... despite his air of refinement' (in her letters she also implied she doubted he'd even read a book in his life).
    Details about his relationship with Fuller are murky (and probably always will be). Many historians believe that they never actually married.

Why he might not be annoying:

    His mother died when he was six.
    He was a close ally of Giuseppe Mazzini.
    His union with Fuller was the subject of merciless gossip among New England intellectuals.
    He first met Fuller at St. Peters Cathedral on Holy Thursday, after she became separated from friends while hearing the vespers (he gave her a tour of the cathedral's side chapels before walking her home).
    He had proposed to Margaret on several occasions but was turned down each time.
    He was credited with instilling Margaret with a sense of revolutionary fervor that would have been a complete-180 from her Transcendentalist leanings (she, in turn, taught him English).
    He enlisted in the Republican Civic Guard, in the 2nd Company of the 1st Battalion, and endured months of separation from Margaret and their child.
    He was stationed outside the Vatican walls in defense of the Ube, besieging troops of General Oudinot, and later earned the rank of a Captain. However, he was forced to flee Rome as the Revolution fell apart.
    During the five-week voyage to the United States, the ship's captain died of smallpox, leaving an inexperienced first mate to steer for the remainder of the trip (likely dooming him and his family).
    Many theorized that his untimely drowning was actually a blessing in disguise; the three would have undoubtedly been ostracized by stringent, elite society Brahmans and ladies of New York/New England.

Credit: BoyWiththeGreenHair


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    For 2024, as of last weekly ranking, Out of 2 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2023, Out of 6 Votes: 33.33% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 9 Votes: 88.89% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 9 Votes: 88.89% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 18 Votes: 94.44% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 2 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 13 Votes: 61.54% Annoying