Luigi Lucheni
Luigi Lucheni was an Italian anarchist who killed Empress Elisabeth of Austria. He was born Louis Lucheni on April 22, 1873, in Paris. Orphaned as a child, he spent his early years in a foundling hospital and in Italian foster homes. He did various jobs, served in the Italian army for a few years, and later moved to Switzerland, where he met other anarchists.
On September 10, 1898, in Geneva, Elisabeth was traveling with her companion after leaving a hotel. Lucheni approached her and stabbed her below the breast with a small, four-inch file because he wanted to kill a sovereign as an example for anarchists. Elisabeth, though badly wounded, walked a short distance before being carried back to her hotel; she died about an hour later. Lucheni was arrested soon after and admitted he was an anarchist.
His trial began in October 1898. He hoped to be executed, but Geneva had abolished capital punishment, so he received a life sentence. While in prison in Geneva, he wrote his childhood memoirs, though he faced harassment and had his notebooks stolen.
Lucheni hanged himself in his cell on October 19, 1910. His head was preserved in formaldehyde and later sent to Vienna in 1986. It was shown at Vienna’s Narrenturm until 2000, when the remains were buried at the Wiener Zentralfriedhof.
Elisabeth’s murder helped prompt the International Conference of Rome on the defense against anarchists, which led to stronger surveillance of suspected anarchists and allowed capital punishment for killing a sovereign. Elisabeth’s life has been depicted in plays and films, and Lucheni’s childhood memoirs were published in 1998.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 17:27 (CET).