BRIGNOLE SALE, ANTONIO

BRIGNOLE SALE, ANTONIO. — Marquis of Groppoli. Diplomat and politician, b. 22 May 1786 in Genoa, d. there 14 Oct. 1863. After the annexation of the Ligurian Republic to France, in 1807 he was appointed auditor to the Council of State. Prefect of Montenotte, in 1813 he was head of the department including Savona, where Pius VII was imprisoned. Full of reverence for the Pope, Brignole treated him with every consideration and affection, so much so that the Pope, speaking of him, called him “my good jailer.” In Aug. 1814 he was appointed Genoa’s representative at the Congress of Vienna to plead the cause of the Republic’s independence. When this mission failed due to the intransigence of the great powers and Genoa was annexed to the Kingdom of Sardinia, Brignole entered the Sardinian diplomatic corps. He represented the court of Turin with the Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1816 to 1819, then became ambassador to Madrid, where he remained until 1821. Returning from the Spanish capital, he served as mayor of Genoa and embellished his native city with various public works. He also founded there the ecclesiastical college for foreign missions. During his mayoral years, he was entrusted with a special embassy to St. Petersburg, where he went in 1826 for the accession of Tsar Nicholas I. Ambassador to Paris from 1836 to 1848, he left the diplomatic career a few years later because he did not share the ecclesiastical policy of the Piedmontese government. As a senator, he opposed in debate the bill for the suppression of religious communities and establishments, deeming it “hostile to the Church, contrary to justice, and ruinous to society.” In 1860 he proposed reconciliation with the Holy See, the restoration of the princes of Central Italy, and the preservation of the Pope’s temporal power; after the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy, he resigned his senatorial seat.