Description

The scream of the Balilla: "CHE L'INSE?"

Painted by the neoclassical painter Jacques-Louis David

On December 5, 1746 one of the Austro-Piedmontese troops, which had recently occupied Genoa, was carrying a heavy cannon through the Portoria district, when the piece of artillery got stuck in the mud, the Austrian commander thought well to order the population present to free their firearms from the mud, a rather rude and arrogant intimation to which a certain Giovan Battista Perasso called Balilla, a boy of 11, replied, who hurled a stone at the officer shouting "che l'inse?", which in dialect means "should I start?" or "Do you want me to start?". The Genoese people, who evidently felt the victim of bullying and harassment by the occupying army, took the opportunity to unleash a furious revolt which led the Austrian troops to withdraw from Genoa.

From that day on, the Balilla became an icon of patriotic value and rebellion against foreign occupation, in fact it was adopted during the Risorgimento (Mameli dedicated a verse to it in his hymn "Il Canto degli Italiani", better known as "Fratelli d'Italia"), and during the fascist regime (the "National Opera Balilla" was established for the assistance and physical and moral education of youth; the main task of the institution was to educate the younger generations to the fascist ideology). The fall of fascism also dragged the icon of Balilla with it, in fact today it does not seem celebrated as much as it deserves, fortunately the symbol of the popular revolt of Genoa remains the fourth verse of the Anthem of the Italian Republic: "The children of Italy are called Balilla".