Educated by the Scolopi Fathers, he entered the judiciary at an early age and was a judge in Chieti in 1848 when the Sicilian revolution broke out. Elected deputy, he collaborated in drafting the Statute of Sicily and served as 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 left his name to distinguished legal publications.
He served in the Italian Chamber of Deputies for three successive legislatures (VIII, IX, and X), taking an active part in parliamentary debates. He advocated granting extensive administrative autonomy 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 Pope. A skilled orator and polemicist, a facile writer, he was, so to speak, the acknowledged leader of the Catholic right in the Carignano and Vecchio palaces, particularly in opposing anticlerical laws.
No longer a deputy after 1870, he did not cease his political activity, and was envisaged as one of the leaders of that Catholic party which was to be formed in 1879, should Leo XIII have lifted the *non expedit*. He devoted all his energies to the defense of religion and the papacy, promoting his ideal through the press, speech, and action, so as to be regarded as one of the preeminent figures of Italian Catholicism in the 19th century.