Carmelo Borg Pisani

The art academy where he had studied in Rome was for a brief time rechristened La Regia Accademia di Belle Arti Borg Pisani, and streets in Rome, Turin, Bari and Legnano are still named after him. A neo-fascist group commemorated his death in front of Malta's embassy in Rome in 2010.

A person similar to Pisani appears in the 1953 film, Malta Story.

Benito Mussolini called him a "Maltese Martyr" and in November 1943 created in his honour in Liguria the blackshirts Battaglione Borg Pisani in which other Maltese irredentists fought.

On 18 May 1942, Borg Pisani volunteered for an espionage mission to Malta, to check British defences and help prepare for the planned Axis invasion of the island (Operation Herkules). He disembarked at the Dingli Cliffs in Ras id-Dawwara, and transferred all his rations to a cave that he knew well from his youth. Unusually inclement weather and a rough sea, however, washed all his possessions away within 48 hours, and he proved unable to climb the cliffs. He was forced to wave down a local boat. Upon rescue by a British patrol boat, he was brought to the naval hospital RNH Mtarfa.

There, Borg Pisani was recognized by one of his childhood friends, Cpt. Tom Warrington, who denounced him. British Intelligence kept him under arrest in a house in Sliema till August. He was then transferred to Corradino prison, accused of treason. On 12 November 1942 he stood trial under closed doors in front of three judges, headed by Chief Justice of Malta Sir George Borg, and defended by two lawyers. His plea that he had renounced British citizenship by returning his passport and acquisition of Italian citizenship (which would have granted him status of prisoner of war) was not upheld by the military court. On 19 November 1942 he was publicly sentenced to death for espionage, for taking up arms against the Government and forming part of a conspiracy to overthrow the government. His execution by hanging took place at 7:30AM on Saturday, 28 November, after rejection of pleas for reversal and for clemency. His remains, initially buried inside Corradino Prison, are now in the ossuary of the cemetery of Paola.

After the entry of Italy in the Second World War on 10 June 1940, Borg Pisani renounced his British citizenship, returning his British passport through the American embassy (which represented British interests in Rome). Yet he never formally requested nor obtained Italian citizenship, despite later serving in the Italian army.

Between 1939 and 1940, he joined the Gruppi Universitari Fascisti and then the Partito Nazionale Fascista.

Borg Pisani was a supporter of fascism. In 1935, he unsuccessfully tried to embark as a volunteer for the fascist war in Ethiopia.

Carmelo Borg Pisani (10 August 1915 – 28 November 1942) was a Maltese artist and Italian Fascist spy, condemned to death for treason in 1942.

Born into a Maltese Nationalist family in Senglea on 10 August 1915, Borg Pisani enrolled as a student at the pro-Italian Umberto I art lyceum in Valletta. In his teens he attended the network of pro-Italian and pro-fascist organisations in Malta: Valletta's Casa del Fascio (headed by professor Umberto Biscottini) and OGIE (Organizzazioni Giovanili Italiane all'Estero), through which he attended youth camps in Italy, such as Campo Dux in Viareggio in 1930 and another camp in Rome in 1932.