AN ACT OF REVENGE FOR RIZAL


Illustration of the assassination of Canovas by J Passos, J. Cuchy and V. Gines
   .
It was in one mild summer in the spa Santa Águeda, in Mondragón, Guipúzcoa, (the Basque region of Spain) when Prime Minister Antonio Cánovas del Castillo met his brutal end.  The assassin,  Michele Angiolillo, an Italian anarchist, posing as a tourist and traveling with a false identity, was able to approach Canovas and shot the Prime Minister point-blank. Angiolillo was subsequently arrested and during the investigation claimed that he acted alone and that the killing was an act of vengeance for the execution and torture of the Montjuich prisoners involved in the Barcelona 1896 Corpus Christi procession bomb attack and for the execution of Filipino patriot Jose P. Rizal.

 Angiolillo was sentenced to die by "garrotte," which was carried out on August 20, 1897. During the execution, he was calm and showed no remorse. Canovas del Castillo would then be succeeded by Manuel Azcarraga -- Born in the Philippines to a Spanish father and Bicolana mother)


Michele Angiolillo

The trial of Angiolillo in a military court.
An artist drawing describing the Corpus Christi bomb attack of 1896
Execution of  individuals involved in the Corpus Christi bomb attack



The execution of Angiolillo in prison in Vergara, Guipúzcoa.

Antonio Cánovas del Castillo- Six term Prime Minister of Spain. His government was in power when Rizal was sentenced to die via musketry. There were attempts in Madrid to lighten the sentence on Rizal. It is said that even Pi y Margall (somewhat a political rival of the Canovas government) even approached Canovas del Castillo to save Rizal and warned the government on the consequences that might happen.


 Philippine-born Marcelo Azcarraga, a UST alumnus, would succeed  Canovas as Prime Minister.
       





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