Sicilian nobleman Francesco Riso led an ill-fated revolt in Palermo against the Bourbon crown. Discovered by police spies, the insurgents were surrounded in the Gancia Convent and were killed or captured after a sharp gun battle. The surviving rebels were executed several days later. The rising, while a failure, began a pattern of Sicilian resistance that resulted in Garibaldi's simple conquest of the island in May 1860. (By John Osborne)
Source Citation
Lucy Rial, Sicily and the Unification of Italy: Liberal Policy and Local Power, 1859–1866 (New York: Clarendon Press, 1998), 66-67,