Mossotti escaped from Milan because of political reasons. On 26 December
1822
Buonarroti sent from Geneva to Milan a certain Philippe
Alexandre Andryane, with the task of reorganizing the Society in northern
Italy, and with the authority to accept in the Society whoever he would have
believed worth of it. Buonarroti also gave him a piece of paper with the names
of libertarian people to whom Andryane could have gone for help. Among these
names there was also that of Mossotti. Andryane was born in Liegi or
Maastricht, and resided in Paris. His father, Gandolphe, was a banker and
owned some shops in Liegi and Maastricht at the times when the French army
conquered Belgium; he was a rich bourgeoise with liberal views, and had always
been hostile towards the Government. Of his sons, one married the daughter of
a king murderer, and the other, Alexandre, had a high grade (master of the
third degree) in the Society of Perfect Sublime Masters. The police report
that after Alexandre Andryane arrived in Milan, having obtained a permission
for one month, he stayed there until the 18 January 1823, without causing any
trouble. And he would have probably completed his task without further ado, if
something inexplicable hadn't happened: the President of the Austrian Government
in Milan, the Count of Hartig, developed a suspicion that Andryane had a link
with the Swiss revolutionaries. Following this suspicion, the Customs police
went through Andryane's belongings and found compromising letters, secret
codes, keywords to break the codes, a template with the same purpose, the
profession of faith of the Society, the statute of the Society, and also, on a
piece of paper, the name of Ottaviano Fabrizio Mossotti. Andryane was
questioned four times by a special commission and gave in, confessing to
everything. The seizing of his papers was a very serious blow for the
Society, but as the names on the letters were all false, nobody would have
really been endangered. However, his confession compromised all those people
who would have otherwise been safe under the false name: about ten people were
either put in prison or questioned and put under surveillance by the police.
Andryane was first condemned to death and then graced into a lesser sentence:
life imprisonment in the infamous Spielberg. Other exponents of the
Society were luckier and managed to escape to Geneva, in particular the Count
Luigi Porro-Lambertenghi and Giuseppe Pecchio, who were sentenced to death
in contumacia, and Mossotti himself.
Figure 5: De Cesaris' letter to the Government (M10).