Ninety-one years passed between the gallows and the statue. Francesco Mario Pagano, born in Brienza on 8 December 1748, the eldest son of Tommaso and Marianna Pastore, was hanged in Naples in piazza del Mercato on 29 October 1799 as one of the leading figures of the Neapolitan Republic: the appeals that reached King Ferdinand and Queen Carolina from half of Europe, asking that his learning and his scholarship be allowed to save him, came to nothing. He was fifty-one. Once those governments had fallen, the people of Brienza put together a committee to raise a monument to him and immediately opened a public subscription, joined by the town council, the province and the government; even so, the bronze was not unveiled until 1890.
What to see
The statue is the work of Achille D'Orsi, a Neapolitan sculptor, and it commands the open space in front of the town hall: not a side corner, but the ground where the town conducts its public business. Brienza also named a street after him, via Mario Pagano, which ends where one of the gates into the old borgo once stood; from there two lanes climb the hill, Santa Maria on the left and San Michele dei Greci on the right.
The bronze was last restored in October 1999, the year of the bicentenary of the Neapolitan revolution. Set side by side, the dates say more than any caption: 1799 the sentence, 1890 the monument. In between lies almost a century in which Brienza kept collecting money for a man the state had hanged.
Visiting
The monument stands in the open, in the middle of the largo, with no ticket and no opening hours: you look at it when you pass. Walk around it rather than stopping in front, since a sculpture made for an open space is meant to be read from several sides. Then, if you have time, take via Mario Pagano, which leads towards the old part of town.
Our editors' tip
Follow via Mario Pagano to its end, where the gate of the borgo used to be, and take the right-hand lane, the one named after San Michele dei Greci: it climbs towards the Caracciolo castle, the pivot the whole settlement wound itself around. The contrast repays the climb: below, the 1890 bronze in front of the town hall; above, the houses packed against the castle.