D'ONDES REGGIO, VITO. - Magistrate and statesman, b. in Palermo on 12 Nov. 1811, d. in Florence on 24 Feb. 1885.
Educated by the Scolopi, he entered the magistracy at a very young age and was a judge in Chieti in 1848 when the Sicilian revolution broke out. Elected deputy, he collaborated in the drafting of the Statute of Sicily and was minister of the Interior and of Education. Forced into exile, he took refuge in Piedmont, held the chair of constitutional law at the University of Genoa for twelve years and made his name through valuable legal publications.
He was a member of the Italian Chamber for three successive legislatures (VIII, IX and X), taking a large part in parliamentary debates. He advocated the granting of broad administrative autonomies to the individual regions, defended the alliance with France, but above all maintained the necessity of resolving the Roman question in full agreement with the Pontiff. A prolific orator, a most skillful polemicist, a writer of easy fluency, he was, so to speak, the recognized head of the Catholic right in Palazzo Carignano and Palazzo Vecchio, especially in combating the anti-Catholic laws.
No longer a deputy after '70, he did not for that reason cease his political activity, so much so that he was spoken of among the leaders of that Catholic party which it was intended to constitute in '79, had Leo XIII removed the «non expedit». To the defense of religion and of the papacy he devoted all his strength, upholding his ideal through the press, the spoken word and action, so as to be regarded as one of the preeminent figures of Italian Catholicism in the 19th century.
Bibliography
Renzo U. Montini