BALBO, CESARE. - Italian historian and politician, b. in Turin on 21 Nov. 1789, d. there on 3 June 1853. Born of a noble family, he was first educated by his father, Prospero, minister of Sardinia in Paris and, from 1798 to 1802, an exile in Spain and Tuscany. From the home school, in which C. and his brother Ferdinando had as companions Luigi Provana, Luigi Ornato and other contemporaries, was born the Accademia dei Concordi, in which, besides embracing "the whole of human knowledge," much thought was given to Italy, under the inspiration of Alfieri, and political opinions and attitudes were clarified. At that time B. dreamed of becoming a Christian Voltaire, and from the idea of a civilizing religion he drew the elements of his future doctrine of "Christian progress."
Appointed by Napoleon I auditor to the Council of State (1807) and secretary of the Tuscan Junta (1808), the reproaches of the "concorde" Carlo Vidua led him to love meditation, and his transfer from Florence to Rome as secretary of the Consulta (1809) troubled him. "Cast down, sorrowful, desperate" at having a hand in the usurpations against Pius VII, he was struck by the "reproachful spectacle of the fortitude of those priests." His inner crisis matured, watched over by the faithful friendship of Vidua, whose letters followed him to Paris, to Ljubljana, wherever his duties drove him. The death of his brother Ferdinando in Russia, the catastrophe of Leipzig, which he witnessed, and his conversations with Gifflenga and other Italian officers impressed a more liberal and patriotic meaning on his thought. At the fall of the Empire he took part in the campaign of Grenoble, felt the unease of the closed environment of the Restoration, with Provana foresaw in Piedmont "the hinge of the future salvation of Italy," and formed a bond with a new friend, Santorre di Santarosa. Then came new studies and new meditations, especially of history, and an unfinished attempt at a novel on the Lombard League. From 1816 to 1819 he followed his father, Sardinian ambassador, to Madrid, and here he carried out research on the war of independence of Spain and Portugal, which he would publish in '47, insisting on the priority of the idea of independence over that of liberty. Back in Piedmont, he returned to arms; absent from the drama of '21, but suspected, he was punished with exile and then with confinement.
By now wholly taken up with historical studies, he published in '30 the two volumes of the Storia d'Italia dal 476 al 774. In the Christian Middle Ages he recognized the origin of modern civilization, in the action of the Popes the defense of liberty: the neo-Guelph ideal is already present in this inseparability of Christianity and civilization. Disappointed in his aspirations for public life, also by Charles Albert, anguished by the death of his wife (1833), his studies became ever more his comfort and his reason for living. From '33 to '38 he was among the promoters of the Piedmontese historiographical revival; in '39 he published the Vita di Dante, so warm and effective even in the idealization of its protagonist ("the most Italian Italian who ever was"); between '40 and '41 he sketched the Pensieri sulla storia d'Italia; in '42 he wrote the Meditazioni storiche, an attempt at a philosophy of history inspired by the concept of historia magistra. A representative of the Catholic-liberal school, B. took part in the great debate on the functions of the Pontiff in the hoped-for Italian revival. La Speranza d'Italia (1844), in which independence is felt as the porro unum and the mission of a warrior Piedmont is set forth with passion, made B. one of the major representatives of moderate liberalism. The admirable Sommario della storia d'Italia (1846) aims to be, not without effort, the demonstration throughout the centuries of the necessity of independence and union against the foreigner. At the hour of action he became a political journalist and collaborated on Cavour's Risorgimento, for which he had written the program (15 Dec. 1847).
As president of the first constitutional ministry (16 March 1848), it fell to his lot to declare the first war for independence. But events were stronger than he, and after Custoza he resigned. As Valeri has pointed out, the contradiction between the moralistic demand of the conservative and the free mind of the son of the century could not be healed in him. With the recent grief of the loss of a son at Novara, he went, on the commission of his cousin M. D'Azeglio, to negotiate with the Pope and with Antonelli at Gaeta (May-July 1849), but the hope of winning Pius IX back to the constitutional cause failed. As rapporteur on the peace treaty with Austria (1850) and on measures concerning ecclesiastical and cultural matters (he was in favor of absolute freedom of teaching), he resolutely opposed the Siccardi laws, maintaining the advisability of new negotiations with Rome and the necessity of its consent. Having vainly attempted to form a right-wing ministry after Azeglio's resignation (Nov. 1852), he shut himself up until his death in the field of his favorite studies. His son Prospero oversaw the publication of the new works and the reprinting of the older ones.