MINGHETTI, MARCO. - Political figure, born in Bologna on 8 Nov. 1818, died in Rome on 10 Dec. 1886. He was one of the most significant representatives of the cultured, wealthy, conservative, and liberal bourgeoisie of 19th-century Italy.
Participating in the Congresses of Scientists in Pisa in 1839 and in Florence in 1841, and associating in Italy and abroad (especially in Paris and London) with the leading representatives of European cultured and liberal society, he developed a solid practical and realistic culture through the study of economic sciences, of which, following the example of Simondi, he considered above all the social aspect. Already in the writing *Intorno alla tendenza agli interessi materiali che è nel secolo presente* (1841), and later in *Dell'economia pubblica e delle sue attinenze con la morale e col diritto* (1858), he maintained the necessity of subordinating political economy to ethical and juridical imperatives: thus distancing himself from orthodox liberalism, he criticized the concept of the "police state" and the predominance of individual and material interests over social and moral ones.
In 1846, now close to the Neoguelf ideals, but rendered more adherent to reality by his spirit as an economist versed in current problems, M. promoted and drafted a petition to Pius IX to invoke the faculty for provincial councils to collect and express the wishes of the populations: Pius IX was supported and spurred, in his reforming activity, by the Bolognese moderates (Audinot, Montanari, Berti Pichat, etc.) who were connected to the *Felsineo*, directed by M., who obtained the publication of the acts of the State Consultation, of which he had been called to be part. Minister of Public Works in the Recchi-Antonelli cabinet, he resigned after the allocution of 29 Apr. and went to fight in the Piedmontese army. Elected deputy, in Nov. 1848 he left the Chamber and Rome in protest against the Galletti ministry, which left unpunished the assassins of Pellegrino Rossi. With the pamphlet *Della restaurazione pontificia* (1849) he still attempted to save the constitution and the agreement on representative orders. But in the following years, his thought changed, especially regarding the problem of relations between State and Church; in the *Twelve letters on religious freedom* (1855) those liberal and separatist principles were already enunciated that would reappear in his intervention on the Law of Guarantees and in *Stato e Chiesa* (1878; on the Index, decree of 8 Apr. 1878): it is argued there for the abandonment of any jurisdictionalism and the incompetence of the State in religious and ecclesiastical matters. He supported the propaganda of the National Society in the Romagna and was a valuable collaborator of Cavour at the Congress of Paris in 1856. After vainly attempting in 1857 to bring Pius IX back to the path of constitutional reforms, he went to Piedmont and became secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. After Villafranca he was president of the Assembly of the Romagna. From 31 Dec. 1860 to 1 Sept. 1861 he held the portfolio of the Interior in the cabinets of Cavour and Ricasoli, which he left due to the clash with the latter over the Roman question and that of the regions, advocated by M. as administrative districts governed by a governor.
From 8 Dec. 1862 he directed, with Farini, the Finance Department, initiating that work of reconstruction which, thanks to him and Sella, was to lead in 1876 to the balancing of the budget. From March to Sept. 1864 he was president of the Council and obtained, with the September Convention (v.), the withdrawal of French troops from Rome on condition of transferring the Italian capital to Florence; this provoked lively and bloody reactions from the democrats and the Turinese. The ecclesiastical policy he implemented in this, as in the subsequent ministry (1873-76), was very different from that outlined in his writings: he in fact left to the Justice Department the jurisdictionalist Pisanelli, arrested bishops, and took various subversive measures (draft law of 18 Jan. 1864 on religious orders, etc.). After the parliamentary revolution of 1876, he became leader of the opposition, attacking in Parliament the foreign policy of Cairoli and Mancini. In his last years he adhered to the Stradella program and to transformist politics.
Among M.'s works, besides those cited, are to be remembered: *I partiti politici e la loro ingerenza nella giustizia e nell'amministrazione* (1881); *Miei ricordi* (1888-89); *Discorsi parlamentari* (8 vols., 1888-90).
MINGHETTI, Saint, Martyr
Detail of the mosaic in the apse of the church of the same name (1297) - Florence, church of S. Miniato al Monte.