MINGHETTI, MARCO. – Politician, born in Bologna on 8 November 1818, died in Rome on 10 December 1886. He was one of the most significant representatives of the educated, prosperous, conservative, and liberal bourgeoisie of nineteenth-century Italy.
By taking part in the Congresses of Scientists at Pisa in 1839 and Florence in 1841, and by making the acquaintance, in Italy and abroad (especially in Paris and London), of the leading representatives of educated and liberal European society, he developed a solid, practical, and realistic culture through the study of the economic sciences, of which, following Sismondi’s example, he considered above all the social aspect. As early as his essay 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 argued for the necessity of subordinating political economy to ethical and juridical imperatives: thus moving away from orthodox liberalism, he criticized the conception of the police-state and the predominance of individual and material interests over social and moral ones.
In 1846, by then close to neo-Guelph ideals, though rendered more realistic by his economist’s understanding of current problems, M. promoted and drafted a petition to Pius IX calling for provincial councils to be granted the power to collect and present the wishes of the populations. Pius IX was supported and encouraged in his reforming activity by the moderate Bolognese (Audinot, Montanari, Berti Pichat, etc.) who rallied around the Felsineo, directed by M., who secured the publication of the proceedings of the Council of State, of which he had been appointed a member. Minister of Public Works in the Recchi–Antonelli cabinet, he resigned after the allocution of 29 April and went to fight in the Piedmontese army. Elected deputy, in November 1848 he left the Chamber and Rome in protest against the Galletti ministry, which left the assassins of Pellegrino Rossi unpunished. With the pamphlet Della restaurazione pontificia (1849), he made another attempt to save the constitution and the agreement concerning representative orders. In the years that followed, however, his thought changed, especially with regard to the problem of relations between Church and State; in the Dodici lettere della libertà religiosa (1855), those liberal and separationist principles were already set forth which would reappear in his intervention on the Law of Guarantees and in Stato e Chiesa (1878), placed on the Index by decree of 8 April 1878: the abandonment of every form of jurisdictionalism and the State’s incompetence in religious and ecclesiastical matters are advocated therein. He supported the propaganda of the National Society in Romagna and was Cavour’s valuable collaborator at the Congress of Paris in 1856. After unsuccessfully attempting in 1857 to lead Pius IX back onto 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 Romagna. From 31 December 1860 to 1 September 1861, in the Cavour and Ricasoli cabinets, he held the portfolio of the Interior, which he relinquished because of his disagreement with the latter over the Roman question and the question of the regions, advocated by M. as administrative districts governed by a prefect.
From 8 December 1862 he headed the Ministry of Finance together with Farini, initiating the work of reconstruction which, through his and Sella’s efforts, was to lead to a balanced budget in 1876. From March to September 1864 he was president of the
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Among M.’s works, in addition to those cited, the following should 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).