BALBO, CESARE. – Italian historian and politician, born in Turin on 21 November 1789, died there on 3 June 1853. Born into a noble family, he was first educated by his father, Prospero, Sardinian minister in Paris, and, from 1798 to 1802, an exile in Spain and Tuscany. From the domestic school, in which C. and his brother Ferdinando had as companions Luigi Provana, Luigi Ornato, and other contemporaries, there arose the Accademia dei Concordi, in which, besides embracing “all 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 religion as a civilizing force 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 reprimands of his “concordant” friend Carlo Vidua led him to serious reflection, while his transfer from Florence to Rome as secretary of the Consulta (1809) disturbed him. “Overcome, grieved, 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 was maturing, watched over by Vidua’s faithful friendship; Vidua’s letters followed him to Paris, Ljubljana, and wherever his offices took him. The death of his brother Ferdinando in Russia, the catastrophe of Leipzig, which he witnessed, and conversations with Gifflenga and other Italian officers gave his thought a more liberal and patriotic character. At the fall of the Empire he took part in the Grenoble campaign, felt the discomfort of the constricted atmosphere of the Restoration, foresaw with Provana in Piedmont “the pivot of Italy’s future salvation,” and formed a bond with a new friend, Santorre di Santarosa. He then undertook new studies and new reflections, especially in history, and made an unfinished attempt at a novel on the Lombard League. From 1816 to 1819 he accompanied his father, the Sardinian ambassador, to Madrid, where 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 military service; absent from the events of ’21 but under suspicion, he was punished with exile and then confinement.
By now wholly absorbed in historical studies, in ’30 he published the two volumes of Storia d’Italia dal 476 al 774. In the Christian Middle Ages he recognized the origin of modern civilization, and 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 to public life, even by Carlo Alberto, and distressed by the death of his wife (1833), he found in his studies an ever greater consolation and raison d’être. From ’33 to ’38 he was among the promoters of the historiographical revival in Piedmont; in ’39 he published the Vita di Dante, so warm and effective despite its distortion of the protagonist (“the most Italian Italian who ever lived”); between ’40 and ’41 he sketched the Pensieri sulla storia d’Italia; in ’42 he composed the Meditazioni storiche, an attempt at a philosophy of history inspired by the concept of historia magistra. An exponent 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 understood as the porro unum and the mission of a warlike Piedmont is expounded with passion, made B. one of the leading representatives of moderate liberalism. The admirable Sommario della storia d’Italia (1846) seeks, not without effort, to demonstrate throughout the centuries 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 wrote the program (15 December 1847).
President of the first constitutional ministry (16 March 1848), he was charged with declaring the first war for independence. But events proved stronger than he, and after Custoza he resigned. As Valeri has pointed out, the contradiction between the moralistic demands of the conservative and the free mind of the child of the century could not be resolved within him. Still grieving over the recent loss of a son at Novara, he went, at the request of his cousin M. D’Azeglio, to negotiate with the Pope and Antonelli at Gaeta (May–July 1849), but the hope of winning Pius IX back to the constitutional cause failed. Rapporteur on the peace treaty with Austria (1850) and on measures concerning ecclesiastical and cultural matters (he favored absolute freedom of education), he firmly opposed the Siccardi laws, arguing for the advisability of new negotiations with Rome and the necessity of its consent. Having unsuccessfully attempted to form a right-wing ministry after Azeglio’s resignation (November 1852), he withdrew until his death into the field of his favorite studies. His son Prospero arranged for the publication of the new works and the reprinting of the older ones.