ALBÈRI, EUGENIO. - Historian, b. in Padua on 1 October 1807, d. at Vichy in June 1878. He studied law at Bologna, but his temperament naturally inclined him to letters and history.
The first fruits of this interest in the past were a Quadro strategico delle guerre d'Italia del principe Eugenio di Savoia published in 1830 and the Vita di Caterina de' Medici in 1838. He then began the two works that still today constitute a precious and indispensable aid for the historian: the Relazioni degli Ambasciatori Veneti al Senato durante il sec. XVI, Florence 1839-63, in 15 vols., and the edition of the works of Galileo, published from 1842 to 1856. Accustomed to the pontifical support of Pius IX, the A. in a pamphlet Del Papato e dell'Italia manifested his faith in reforms, maintaining that «the papacy not only has not been the cause of maintaining the division of Italy, but that no one has more effectively than it contributed to preserving it from a total servitude».
He took part as a volunteer in the war of '48 in the militias of General Durando and was present at the defense of Vicenza, negotiating the capitulation with the Austrians and obtaining by his shrewdness equitable and honorable conditions from the victor. After '59 he was opposed to the unitary policy of Piedmont and, attached to the old state of things, he was suspected, as Tommaso writes, of being subsidized by the former grand duke of Tuscany. He always remained deferential to Catholicism, accepting without restrictions the Syllabus and the Decrees of the Vatican Council.
Bibliography2 works
Silvio Purlani