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 Costanza of the marquises Sommi of Cremona. He completed his early studies in his native city, at the College of Nobles directed by the Jesuits. In 1839 he was granted the Bussi prelature, founded in 1707 by mons. Giovanni Giuseppe Bussi, and, in accordance with the obligations of the foundation, he adopted the Bussi coat of arms and surname. On 30 Sept. 1840 he was ordained to the priesthood, and in Rome he soon gave proof of his fine qualities through apologetic-historical dissertations, commended in the Annali di scienze religiose, and as secretary of the Society for the Assistance of the Orphans of the 1837 Cholera. Subsequently appointed to various offices, on 24 June 1845 he was promoted to secretary of the S. Congregazione Concistoriale and of the S. Collegio.
After Tsar Niccolò I's visit to Gregorio XVI, C.-B. was entrusted with negotiating, together with the Russian plenipotentiaries Count Bloudoff and A. Bouténeff, concerning the burdens suffered by the Catholic Church in the countries subject to Russia. The fruit of lengthy and arduous negotiations was the Concordat concluded on 22 July (3 Aug.) 1847. During the vacancy of the Holy See following the death of Gregorio XVI (1 June 1846), as secretary of the S. Collegio he exercised the functions of secretary of state, and the new pontiff Pio IX (elected on 16 June) confirmed him in the same office; but at the end of that same month of June, when the special temporary Congregation of State was created, he entrusted to him the office
of secretary. Pio IX was immediately attracted by the charm of the young prelate, who soon became his trusted man. As secretary of the extraordinary Congregation of State, he cooperated in drafting the programme of reforms of the new pontificate (amnesty, railways, finances, courts, militias), attended the sessions held from 1 July to Sept. 1846, and drew up 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 S. Congregazione degli Affari ecclesiastici, and on the 13th of the same year he received the delicate mission of negotiating, at the various courts of Italy (Austria excluded), a customs league that was to be transformed into a political one. He obtained prompt adherence from Tuscany and, after difficult negotiations, from Piedmont as well; but at Modena he found the ground already occupied by Austria. Duke Francesco V, after exploiting C.-B.'s cooperation in settling the matters pending between himself and Tuscany concerning possession of Fivizzano, refused to join the league and rudely dismissed the negotiators. According to C.-B.'s conception, the league was to oblige Austria to establish in Lombardy-Venetia “an independent sovereignty,” Italian in interests and in heart (A. Manno, p. 238).
Without being discouraged by this setback, he displayed all his activity at Florence, on his return from Modena, and then at Rome, in order to prepare the ground for a defensive and political “Italian league.” To this end Pio IX, after availing himself of C.-B.'s intelligent work in drafting the Statute, which he published on 14 March 1848, entrusted him with a new mission to Lombardy, to the headquarters of Carlo Alberto, 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 place the war against Austria, being fought in Lombardy, on a truly national footing, thereby making it possible for the Pope also to take part in II. But given Piedmont's inflexible obstinacy, Pio IX believed himself bound to put an end to the many misunderstandings occasioned by this indecision through the celebrated allocution of 29 Apr., by which he declared that it had never been, and was not, his intention to wage war on Austria. At Carlo Alberto's headquarters, C.-B.'s presence 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 assumption, for fear of worse consequences (“... I do not contest this assumption,” he wrote to the Pope on 18 Apr., “because I should come under suspicion of acting against the intention of Your Holiness, or, if I were believed sincere, I should cause Your Holiness to lose the Italians without regaining the Germans for her”). After the allocution he therefore found himself in an extremely painful situation, exposed to criticism and suspicion. He consequently left the headquarters precipitately and asked Pio IX to relieve him of the offices he held, so that he might withdraw into 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 confined his activity, as secretary of the S. Congregazione degli Affari ecclesiastici, to the religious sphere. He collaborated with Rosmini on his project for an Italian confederation. During Pio IX's stay at Gaeta, he maintained an assiduous and affectionate correspondence with the Pope, regretting that his failing health prevented him from being at his side; but at the Pope's behest he performed offices and tasks of the highest confidence. He remained devoted to Pio IX until his death, and devoted his last strength to dictating memoirs, published by A. Manno together with the correspondence, in order to vindicate the Pope's political conduct against the malevolent and self-interested accusations of partisan historians. His remains, together with those of his mother, rest in the church of the Concezione in Rome.