Niccolo Bravanatti (Napoleon's World)

Niccolo Carlo Luigi Bravanatti, Duke of Rome (14 May 1890 - 3 October 1944) was an Italian nobleman and politician, and the last member of the House of Bravanatti to reign as Duke of Rome in the Papal States. Known as a corrupt, ineffectual and paranoid leader, he is often directly blamed for the decline and fall of the secular dukedom in the Papal States and the rise of the absolute pontificate that governed most of Italy from the mid-1940's until the early 1970's. Bravanatti and his family were overthrown during a popular revolt in March of 1944 when the populace overthrew the ducal dynasty so that Pope Innocent XVII could sue the Turks for peace before they could enter Rome during the Roman Revolution at the end of the French Civil War. Bravanatti was later executed by the Revolutionary Government along with his three sons and brother Guiseppe on October 3, 1944.