Red Triumvirate

The Red Triumvirate (Italian: Triumvirato rosso), formally the Governing Commission of the State (Commissione governativa di Stato), was a group of three cardinals who governed the Papal States after the suppression of the revolutionary Roman Republic of 1849, from 1 August 1849 until the return of Pope Pius IX from Gaeta on 12 April 1850. Its members, named by the pope on 21 July 1849, were Gabriele della Genga Sermattei, Lodovico Altieri, and . The popular title "Red Triumvirate" contrasted them with the triumvirate of Armellini, Mazzini, and Saffi that had ruled the republic, and referred to both the colour of the robes worn by cardinals and their purportedly bloody persecution of their opponents. rdf:langString