BALBO, PROSPERO di VINADIO. - Son of Cesare, b. in Paris on 5 March 1824, d. in Turin on 2 March 1894, he left the Military Academy as a lieutenant of artillery and professor of mathematics at the officers’ school. He took part in the war of 1848 and at Salionze, on 27 July, valiantly checked the enemy advance, earning the gold medal. With the rank of captain he fought at Sforzesca and Novara, earning a silver medal; in the war of ’59 he was attached to the siege train. He lived and worked in ardent communion of ideas and purposes with his father; and when, in 1860, he was called to join the troops that were to invade the Papal States, he resigned from military service and office, devoting himself entirely to the education of his children and to works of charity. On the occasion of the crisis in the policy of conciliation with Italy attempted by Leone XIII (1887), B. wrote a pamphlet:
On the Conciliation between the Kingdom of Italy and the Pope, (Turin 1887), in support of the civil principate of the pontiffs. He gave proof of his ardent religious apostolate by arranging for the following inscription to be placed upon his tomb: “Prospero Balbo of Jesus.”