Villa Rudio in Sala Di Cusighe

Not far from the historic center of Belluno sits Villa Rudio, built by Count Pietro Rudio between the end of the 1700s and the beginning of the 19th century in Veneto’s Palladian style - with pronaos and columns – mixed with that of the local rural houses- exhibiting a portico surmounted by a loggia.

The villa also has a large garden with a small circular-shaped church, coeval with the villa, which resembles the Pantheon in Rome.

This villa is the place where one of the most incredible figures in the history of the 19th century in Veneto spent his childhood: Count Carlo Rudio.

Born on 26 August 1832, Rudio was fascinated by the ideals of the Risorgimento since his childhood. He took part in the revolution of 1848 in Venice, after which he fled to Rome and then was exiled in France, where he continued his patriotic activity. In 1858 he took part in the failed attempt to assassinate the emperor Napoleon III, an act for which he was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Locked up in the prison of Cajenna, the French penal colony in South America, he miraculously survived a terrible yellow fever epidemic and managed to escape in 1859. He reached London and then, in 1864, advised by Mazzini, New York where he enlisted as a simple soldier in the United States Army.  During the civil war, he was appointed as a second lieutenant.

After the war, in 1869 he was assigned to the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the USA, under the command of Lieutenant colonel George Armstrong Custer. The two did not get on very well and this meant that during the famous battle of Little Bighorn (25 June, 1876), which saw the defeat of the US army at the hands of the natives commanded by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, General Custer dispatched him to another department, this way saving his life. Carlo Rudio was in fact one of the very few survivors of the battle.

He died peacefully in his villa in Pasadena, California, on November 1, 1910, assisted by his three daughters Italy, Rome and America.

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