Crispi, Francesco

CRISPI, FRANCESCO. - Statesman, b. at Ribera (Girgenti) on 4 Oct. 1818, d. at Naples on 11 Aug. 1901.

A doctor of law and a magistrate, he practiced law at Naples and took part in the constitutional movement. In Sicily in 1848 he was a member of the provisional government. Expelled for his republican ideas, he wandered to Malta, London, Paris, Athens. In London he met Mazzini and adopted his unitary ideas. In 1859 he was among the organizers of the expedition of the Thousand alongside Garibaldi. A deputy at Turin, he was against Cavour and Ricasoli, but he also separated from Mazzini and in 1865 adhered to the monarchy. Fiercely opposed to the papacy, he incited Garibaldi to the enterprise of Mentana and fought the Law of Guarantees because he considered it too favorable to the Holy See. He was president of the Council when, in 1887, an attempt at conciliation between the Holy See and the Italian State took place. The year before, under the Depretis ministry, there had been much talk of the possibility of a conciliation, but the head of Freemasonry, A. Lemmi, had opposed it flatly.

Although C. was a very active Freemason, he showed himself favorable to the thesis of a solution of the Roman question and availed himself of Abbot L. Tosti, who seemed to him an excellent interpreter of the thought of Leo XIII. The disavowal of Tosti's famous pamphlet on La Conciliazione demonstrated that this was not accurate. The clamorous end of the "conciliationist dream," on which foreign pressures must have had an influence, provoked a stiffening of positions on both sides. The Pope appointed as Secretary of State Card. M. Rampolla, who as a fellow countryman of C. seemed a more effective antagonist, and C., supported by Freemasonry, devoted himself to an anticlerical policy of reprisals culminating in the law against the Opere pie (1890), and in the dismissal of the mayor of Rome, Leopoldo Torlonia (1 Jan. 1888), for having paid homage to Leo XIII on the occasion of the jubilee. Returning as minister in 1893, C. resumed dealing with ecclesiastical questions in a no longer hostile spirit, availing himself of his personal friendships with Cardinals G. Sanfelice and G. A. Hohenlohe, with Msgr. Di Marzo, with Baron Pezzana, brother-in-law of Card. Rampolla, and especially with Msgr. Isidoro Carini, his fellow countryman. Thus two delicate and difficult questions could be resolved: the granting of the exequatur to the patriarch of Venice, Msgr. G. Sarto (later Pius X), and the sending to Eritrea of Italian Capuchins in place of the French religious. There was a rumor, to be considered not entirely unfounded, that C. cherished the hope of reaching conciliation; it is certain, by his own confession to Msgr. Carini, that he would have aspired to link his work to so important a goal; and it is likewise certain that his break with Freemasonry dates from this time.

Already for some time C.'s pro-German policy had provoked the schism of the pro-French Freemasons. Thus it happened that the most stubborn opposition against C. was led by Freemasons, such as Nicotera and Cavallotti: the accusation of bigamy was launched against him (and in fact, after having married at Malta with only the religious rite Rosalia Montmasson, who had been his companion in exile and in war, C. married in Italy another woman, with only the civil rite) and a moral question was stirred up against him which implied charges of scant political propriety. As for his attitudes toward the Church, it must be recognized that, even during his Masonic solidarity with the obedience of Lemmi, he took care to distance himself from the most heated sectors. He refused to join an initiative of the G. Bruno Association (constituted "in the face of the Vatican"), writing: "I am not an atheist. I fight neither those who believe in God nor those who do not believe in him. I am for freedom of conscience." To the anticlerical accusations, C. replied: "... Belief in God is the fundamental basis of the sound life of the people, whereas atheism sows the irreparable seed of corruption. This is what I believe. It is ridiculous to say that I have gone to Canossa: I want peace with the Church, but I will never abandon the State to the appetites of temporal power." An excessive sense of self, for which many accused him of megalomania, gravely disturbed his action. His ministry fell with the defeat of Adua (1896).

Principal works: Discorsi parlamentari, Rome 1915; Lettere dall'esilio, ibid. 1918; Politica interna (diary and documents collected by T. Palamenghi Crispi), Florence 1924; La prima guerra d'Africa (documents and memoirs collected by T. Palamenghi Crispi), Milan 1939.

Egilberto Martire