CRISPI, FRANCESCO. — Statesman, born at Ribera (Girgenti) on 4 October 1818, died at Naples on 11 August 1901.
A doctor of law and magistrate, he practised 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 travelled to Malta, London, Paris, and Athens. In London he met Mazzini and adopted his unitarian ideas. In 1859 he was among the organizers of the Expedition of the Thousand alongside Garibaldi. A deputy at Turin, he opposed Cavour and Ricasoli, but he also separated from Mazzini and in 1865 adhered to the monarchy. Fiercely hostile to the papacy, he urged Garibaldi to undertake the Mentana expedition and opposed the Law of Guarantees because he considered it too favourable 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 previous year, under the Depretis ministry, there had been much discussion of the possibility of a conciliation, but the head of Freemasonry, A. Lemmi, had resolutely opposed II.
Although C. was a highly active Freemason, he showed himself favourable to the thesis of a solution to the Roman question and made use of Abbot L. Tosti, who seemed to him an excellent interpreter of the thought of Leo XIII. The repudiation of Tosti’s famous pamphlet La Conciliazione demonstrated that this was not correct. The clamorous end of the “conciliatorist dream,” on which foreign pressures must have had an influence, provoked a hardening of positions on both sides. The Pope appointed Cardinal M. Rampolla Secretary of State; as C.’s fellow countryman, he seemed a more effective opponent, and C., supported by Freemasonry, embarked upon an anticlerical policy of reprisals, culminating in the law against charitable institutions (1890) and the dismissal of the mayor of Rome, Leopoldo Torlonia (1 January 1888), for having paid homage to Leo XIII on the occasion of the jubilee. Having returned to office in 1893, C. resumed dealings on ecclesiastical questions in a no longer hostile spirit, making use of his personal friendships with Cardinals G. Sanfelice and G. A. Hohenlohe, with Monsignor Di Marzo, with Baron Pezzana, Cardinal Rampolla’s brother-in-law, and especially with Monsignor Isidoro Carini, his fellow countryman. Two delicate and difficult questions could thus be resolved: the granting of the exequatur to the Patriarch of Venice, Monsignor G. Sarto (later Pius X), and the dispatch to Eritrea of Italian Capuchins to replace the French religious. It was rumoured, not without some foundation, that C. cherished the hope of achieving conciliation; it is certain, from an admission he made to Monsignor Carini, that he would have aspired to link his work to so important an end; and it is likewise certain that his break with Freemasonry dates from this period.
For some time already, C.’s pro-German policy had provoked the schism of the pro-French Freemasons. Thus it happened that the most tenacious opposition to C. was led by Freemasons such as Nicotera and Cavallotti: the accusation of bigamy was levelled against him (and in fact, after marrying Rosalia Montmasson in Malta according to the religious rite alone—she had been his companion in exile and in the war—C. married another woman in Italy, according to the civil rite alone), and a moral question was stirred up against him, implying accusations of inadequate political propriety. As for his attitudes towards the Church, it must be acknowledged that, even during his Masonic solidarity with Lemmi’s obedience, he took care to distance himself from the most fervent sectors. He refused to adhere to an initiative of the G. Bruno Association (established “in front 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 stand for freedom of conscience.” In response 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 shall never abandon the State to the appetites of temporal power.” An excessive sense of self, for which many accused him of megalomania, seriously disturbed his activity. His ministry fell with the defeat at Adwa (1896).
Principal works: Discorsi parlamentari, Rome 1915; Lettere dall'esilio, there 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.