Le Stragi di Perugia dagli Svizzeri del Papa, il 20 di Giugno, 1859

Funny thing how these things you think you know get all uncertain and hard to pin down when you start pursuing them.  Did Pio Nono, or did he not, order a band of his loathly Swiss mercenaries under the command of Colonel Schmid[t] to rape, loot, and murder the old men, women and children of Perugia on June 20th, 1859 (the young men being away at the wars in Lombardy)?  Did they not massacre some 12,000 Perugini?  That's what I learned in Perugia when I lived there in the summer of 2001.  But just now, googling the matter, it seems that there may have been some exaggeration--perhaps.  Certain it is that the Wicked Beast subsequently exalted Colonel Schmid with a Papal Order (need one remind us of the Ordo Draconis=Dracula?).  "And," innocently ask official Catholic Historians, "would the Pope have done that if Colonel Schmid had had the blood of 12,000 non-combattant Perugians on his hands?"  No question but that the rumor of the massacres in Perugia, exaggerated or not,  spread like wildfire in Umbria and the Marches, causing particular execration of Papacy and the ultimate victory of the Revolution.  But still....