FARINI, LUIGI CARLO. - Physician and statesman, b. at Russi on 22 Oct. 1812, d. at Quarto on 1 Aug. 1866.
A medical student at Bologna, he took part in the risings of 1831; then, for some years, he devoted himself chiefly to medicine. His works on pellagra, on malarial fevers and on the rice fields gained European renown.
In 1845 he had a part in the events of Rimini (the well-known proclamation calling upon the papal government to reform the state administration is probably his), and the following year the new pope, Pius IX, appointed him secretary-general of the Ministry of the Interior, entrusting him with the preparation of the sanitary laws. In 1848 he was in Piedmont, at Charles Albert's camp, on an official mission; then deputy for Russi and Ravenna and subsequently director-general of Public Health under the Rossi ministry. F. did not adhere to the Roman Republic and went to settle in Turin, where he wrote a Storia dello Stato romano dal 1815 al 1850 in a liberal-moderate vein, though not without inaccuracies and anticlerical touches. Having assumed Sardinian citizenship, he was a deputy in the Subalpine Chamber and a follower of Cavour, who, on becoming minister, entrusted to him the direction of the Risorgimento; he then entered the d'Azeglio ministry with the portfolio of Education. From 1852 to 1859 he took little part in public affairs, returning to his historical studies; but Cavour, during the second war of independence, sent him as the king's commissioner to Modena after the flight of the Este sovereign. Following the armistice of Villafranca, in agreement with Cavour he did not leave Modena, but had himself proclaimed dictator there, subsequently extending his powers over the whole of Emilia. He thus prepared the plebiscites and the annexation to the Kingdom of Sardinia. Minister of the Interior in 1860, he undertook a vast legislative plan based on regional autonomy, which he interrupted in order to go to Napoleon III and wrest from him consent to the occupation of the Marches and Umbria and then to follow Victor Emmanuel II in the brief autumn campaign. As the king's lieutenant at Naples, he did not achieve the results of his Emilian dictatorship, and preferred to withdraw. After Aspromonte he was charged with forming the new government, but he held office there only briefly, owing to his now shattered health: in March 1863 he handed over power to Minghetti, and after more than three years of suffering he died when barely fifty-four. His correspondence was published under the editorship of L. Rava.
Bibliography6 works
Renzo U. Montini