ARCONATI VISCONTI, GIUSEPPE. - Politician, b. in Milan on 9 Apr. 1797, d. there 1 Mar. 1873. Of noble family, a student of philosophical and religious problems, he married his cousin Costanza Trotti, with whom he shared such profound communion of feeling and action that their biographies are inseparable. Their drawing room soon became a centre of national propaganda of European importance. As conspirators with Confalonieri in the constitutional movement, they fled to Brussels (1821), where they formed relations with French and Belgian scholars and patriots and with Italian exiles, especially Berchet, Scalvini, and Arrivabene. In Berlin they worked for the liberation of Confalonieri from Spielberg. With the amnesty of Ferdinand I they moved to Tuscany, then, after the Five Days, to Milan, whence they took refuge in Piedmont (1850). After the annexation of Lombardy, A. V. was elected deputy and sat on the right. He was made a senator in 1865.
The A.’s were intimate with Manzoni and maintained a living faith in the harmony between Church and liberty. Giuseppe was admired by Pellico as an exemplary “liberal of Christian fibre.” The only time he spoke in the Senate was to express his reluctance about the conquest of Rome. No less fervent was Costanza, who also devoted herself to religious studies with Giobertian tendencies and in a certain way opposed the intemperance of the Belgioioso. In works of charity they both set an example of generosity and feeling.