Carlo Petronelli (Napoleon's World)

Carlo Guiseppe Petronelli (28 December 1891 - 30 October 1950) was an Italian general and politician active in the Italian Campaign of the French Civil War, and later served as one of the Papal States' most influential leaders following the Roman Revolution as part of the New Triumvirate.

A staunch opponent of the participation of the Papal States in the Italian Alliance, Petronelli was a reactionary conservative within the Holy See and was one of the early proponents of overthrowing the Bravanattis as the war began to wind down to an inevitable conclusion. Petronelli led the initial military coup against Niccolo Bravanatti and later maneuvered himself to a position of near-absolute power in Rome through most of 1944 and 1945, ordering the executions of Bravanatti and loyalists, and later his own political enemies. Petronelli came to odds with Luigi Pampini, the chief of the Roman police and another ranking member of the caretaker government, about the nature of the new Papal States which included former Neapolitan territory. Petronelli also clashed with Pope Innocent XVII over the role of the Catholic Church in the new Papal States, which included the previously secular Naples and was in serious need of reform.

This clash eventually tore apart the Pampini-Petronelli coalition within the government, alienated the powerful Church from Petronelli's political programs and made Petronelli the unpopular and embattled military dictator of Rome from 1945 until 1948, when a cabal of officers demanded his resignation after choosing to throw their side in with the papacy. Petronelli retired to his apartment in a Roman suburb and died in bankruptcy in 1950.