MANIN, DANIELE. - Patriot and statesman, b. in Venice on 13 May 1804, d. in Paris on 22 Sept. 1857. He devoted himself to legal, historical and philological studies; in 1831 he proclaimed his fierce patriotism, urging his fellow citizens in a proclamation to rise up against the foreigner.
His action had more effective results a few years later, when he undertook what he himself defined as a "legal struggle" against Austrian despotism, denouncing with irrefutable proofs Austria's continuous and open violations of the Constitution that it had itself granted to the Lombard-Venetian populations. The arrest of M. in Jan. 1848 brought about the revolt of the Venetians, who loudly demanded his release from prison. Once freed, he worked to realize the idea, matured in prison, of proclaiming the Republic of St. Mark, in order to enable Venice to take an active part in the great movement of national union. This proclamation took place on 22 March 1848, and M. was acclaimed its president, an office he retained until the painful moment of the capitulation, which occurred on 22 Aug. 1849, when, after the Piedmontese defeat at Novara (23 March), Venice had remained alone in resisting the Austrians. M. then had to go into exile, but from Paris, where he had taken refuge, he always followed the fortunes of his homeland, and in 1855 he once again asked the Republican Party of Venice to sacrifice its own ideals for the triumph of the national cause, which required the united forces of all Italian patriots under the Savoy monarchy. In religion he was indifferent, if not openly hostile: it seems he was enrolled in Freemasonry.
Bibliography3 works
Niccolò Del Re