Giuseppe Lechi
Giuseppe Lechi (5 December 1766 – 9 August 1836) was an Italian general who served during the Napoleonic Wars. He was born in San Zeno Naviglio in the Republic of Venice and died in Montirone, near Brescia.
He came from a notable family. His father was Faustino Lechi and his mother Doralice Bielli. He had brothers and sisters, including Teodoro Lechi and Francesca Lechi. People described him as a man of light and shadows—ambitious, sometimes reckless, similar to his uncle Count Galliano Lechi.
Lechi began his military career in the Austrian army, where he reached the rank of captain. When Napoleon arrived in Italy, he and his brothers Teodoro and Angelo, along with friends, helped organize the Brescia uprising of 18 March 1797 and formed the Brescian Legion. Napoleon sent this unit to fight in Emilia, the Marche, and Central Italy. In 1798, the city council of Città di Castello reportedly donated Raphael’s painting The Marriage of the Virgin to Lechi.
In 1799 he fought in Valtellina to suppress anti-French revolts, retreated after heavy pressure from Austro-Russian forces, and joined the Italian Legion led by General Pietro Teulié in Dijon. He returned to Italy with Napoleon and fought at the Battle of Marengo in 1800, where he was promoted on the battlefield to division general. After the Peace of Lunéville in 1801, he became a division commander under Murat and joined the Italian Republic’s legislature.
Lechi grew closer to Murat and joined the Scottish Rite Freemasonry, eventually becoming a leader in Naples. He supported the idea of Italian unification. In 1806 he helped conquer the Kingdom of Naples, and in 1805–1806 he was in Naples with Murat and Joseph Bonaparte, maintaining strong loyalty to them.
From 1808 to 1809 he served in Spain with Joseph Bonaparte and briefly governed Barcelona. In 1809 he faced a trial in France for alleged abuses but avoided punishment and returned to Naples to serve Murat. He was involved in conspiracies led by General Domenico Pino, likely as a link to Murat. On 31 January 1814 he became governor of Tuscany, handing Livorno over to the English fleet as Murat sought a separate peace with Austria.
In 1815 Lechi followed Murat in the Battle of Tolentino, where he was captured. He refused to swear loyalty to the Austrian rulers and remained a prisoner in Ljubljana until 1818. After being freed, he settled at his family villa in Montirone, married Eleonora, and lived there until his death from cholera in 1836.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 19:44 (CET).