Cesare Battisti and the Trentino
a little more than that can be obtained in the Alto Adige. This calculation was made before the war when the price of coal was infinitely lower than at the present time, so that the financial advantage of the transformation of the hydraulic power into electric power is now greatly increased.
The Venezia Tridentina constitutes the principal door opening from Italy northward, and a formidable bridge-head in the very body of the Italian peninsula. If this should remain in foreign hands, Italy will never be secure. Sixty-six times the barbarians invaded Italy through this passageway, thanks to the control they happened to have on both the Alto Adige and the Trentino. The absolute possession of these regions is therefore for Italy an undeniable necessity. And this does not clash with any principle of nationality, inasmuch as about seven-tenths of the entire population of the Venezia Tridentina is Italian or Latin.
The Trentino is a country that has given Italy many men who have made history, such as Alessandro Vittoria, a sculptor that could well be compared to Bernini, a painter such as Giovanni Segantini, the greatest of Italian landscape painters of the past century; Giovanni Prati, the poet; the living musician, Antonio Zandonai; Antonio Rosmini, the great philosopher of the past century, and Mr. Caproni, the inventor and constructor of the famous aeroplanes which aided so efficiently in winning the war.
In the present war the Trentino has given Italy about three thousand volunteers, one hundred and fifty of whom were killed on the battlefield and five hundred were wounded. We are still uncertain about the number of those who shared the fate of our great hero and martyr, Cesare Battisti.
All the political parties of the Trentino have always been staunch defenders of the national principle. For having refused to bow to Austria's will, which amounted to renouncing his ideals, the Prince Bishop of Trento, Monsignor Endrici, who can be compared to Cardinal Mercier for nobility and loftiness of character, was interned in a monastery near Vienna, and forbidden to correspond with the members of his Diocese.
