CORBOLI-BUSSI, GIOVANNI. - Prelate and diplomat, b. at Urbino on 29 Sept. 1813, d. at Rome on 9 July 1850. He was the son of Curzio and of Costanza of the marquises Sommi of Cremona. He completed his early studies in his native city, at the College of Nobles run by the Jesuits. In 1839 the Bussi prelature was conferred on him, founded in 1707 by Msgr. Giovanni Giuseppe Bussi, and in accordance with the obligations of the foundation he took the coat of arms and the surname Bussi. On 30 Sept. 1840 he ascended to the priesthood, and he did not delay in Rome in giving proof of his fine qualities, with apologetic-historical dissertations, recalled with praise in the Annali di scienze religiose, and as secretary of the Society for the assistance of the orphans of the cholera of 1837. Appointed therefore to various offices, on 24 June 1845 he was promoted to secretary of the Sacred Congregation Consistorial and of the Sacred College.
After the visit of Tsar Nicholas I to Gregory XVI, C.-B. was charged with negotiating, together with the Russian plenipotentiaries Count Bloudoff and A. Bouténeff, on the burdens that the Catholic Church suffered in the countries subject to Russia. The fruit of long and laborious negotiations was the Concordat concluded on 22 July (3 Aug.) 1847. In the vacant see after the death of Gregory XVI (1 June 1846), as secretary of the Sacred College he exercised the functions of secretary of State, and the new pontiff Pius IX (elected on 16 June) confirmed him in the same office: but toward the end of the same month of June, the special temporary Congregation of State having been created, he entrusted to him the post of secretary. Pius IX was immediately drawn by the charm of the young prelate, who did not delay in becoming his man of trust. As secretary of the extraordinary Congregation of State, he cooperated in elaborating the program of reforms of the new pontificate (amnesty, railways, finances, tribunals, militias), attended the sessions that were held from 1 July to Sept. 1846 and drafted their minutes. He prepared the decree of amnesty, which was published on 16 July 1846, and wrote its edict.
On 24 July 1847 he was appointed secretary of the Sacred Congregation of Ecclesiastical Affairs, and on the 13th of the same month he had the delicate mission of negotiating, at the various courts of Italy (excluding Austria), a customs league, which was to have been converted into a political one. He obtained prompt adherence from Tuscany and, after difficult negotiations, also from Piedmont; but at Modena he found the ground already occupied by Austria. Duke Francis V, after having exploited C.-B.'s cooperation to settle the affairs pending between him and Tuscany over the possession of Fivizzano, refused adherence to the league and dismissed the negotiators rudely. According to C.-B.'s conception, the league was to have obliged Austria to establish in Lombardy-Venetia « an independent sovereignty », Italian in interests and heart (A. Manno, p. 238).
Without losing heart at such a refusal, he exerted all his activity, at Florence, on his return from Modena, and then at Rome, in order to clear the ground for a defensive and political « Italic league ». To this end Pius IX, after having availed himself of C.-B.'s intelligent work for the drafting of the Statute, which he published on 14 March 1848, entrusted him with a new mission in Lombardy, at the headquarters of Charles Albert, with instructions to request a loan and to persuade the Sardinian king to take part in a congress of the Italian princes for the league, in order to bring the war against Austria, which was being fought in Lombardy, onto a truly national plane, so as to make it possible also for the Pope to take part in it. But given the inflexible obstinacy of Piedmont, Pius IX believed it his duty to put an end to so many misunderstandings, to which such indecision gave rise, with the famous allocation of 29 Apr., with which he declared that it had never been and was not his intention to make war on Austria. At Charles Albert's headquarters the presence of C.-B. was understood as a sign of the Pope's adherence to the war; and, although this was not in accordance with his instructions, he did not wish to deny the false supposition, for fear of worse («... I do not combat this supposition — he wrote on 18 Apr. to the Pope — because I would come under suspicion of acting against the intention of Your Holiness, or if I were believed sincere, I would make Your Holiness lose the Italians without regaining the Germans »). After the allocation he therefore found himself in an extremely painful situation, exposed to criticisms and suspicions. He therefore departed precipitously from the headquarters, and asked Pius IX to be relieved of the offices he held, in order to retire to private life. But the Pope did not wish to deprive himself of his collaboration.
In the second half of 1848, although appointed a member of the high legislative council (13 May), he preferred to remain apart, and limited his activity, as secretary of the Sacred Congregation of Ecclesiastical Affairs, to the religious sphere. He collaborated with Rosmini on his project of an Italian confederation. During the stay of Pius IX at Gaeta, he maintained with the Pope an assiduous, affectionate correspondence, grieved, because of his now declining health, at not being able to be at his side: but he fulfilled on his behalf offices and works of the highest trust. He remained devoted to Pius IX until death, and dedicated his last strength to dictating memoirs, published by A. Manno together with the correspondence, in order to justify his political conduct against the malicious and interested accusations of partisan historians. His body, together with that of his mother, rests in the church of the Concezione in Rome.
Bibliography12 works
Pietro Pirri