MUZZARELLI, Carlo Emanuele dei Conti. - Scholar and politician, b. in Bologna to a noble Ferrarese family on 3 April 1797, d. 10 April 1856. He enlisted at eighteen in the city's civic militia, then turned to the ecclesiastical career, took his degree in law in Rome in 1820, was deputy of Ferrara at the Roman court, and on 12 January 1824 auditor of the Rota and domestic prelate.
He was a member of various literary academies, published several eulogies and poems in journals and pamphlets; his Inni sacri went through several editions and appeared (at Pisa in 1833) together with those of Manzoni, Arici, etc. He was in contact with the leading men of letters of the time, especially of the classical school (Strocchi, Muzzi, Costa, etc.). For several years he worked at collecting autobiographical notices of his contemporaries, intending to publish them under the title Biografie degli illustri italiani viventi. The material he gathered was used by De Tipaldo's Dizionario biografico and by various journals. It was finally assembled and brought to light by D. Diamilla Müller (op. cit. in bibl.), and it is a useful repertory of information on not a few individuals today for the most part forgotten.
Above all the name of M. remained linked to the Roman political events of the years 1848-49. When an Alto Consiglio of sovereign appointment was instituted by the Statute granted by Pius IX, M., who since 1847 had become dean of the S. Rota, was elected its first president (June 1848), it is said on the suggestion of L. C. Farini. When later, following the assassination of Pellegrino Rossi, the abbot Rosmini refused to assume the presidency of the Council, Pius IX, amid the enormous difficulties pressing upon him from every side, had to entrust the high office to M., although he knew him to hold very risky ideas, and had to rebuke him for the cynicism with which, in his presence, he spoke of the murder of the statesman from Carrara (G. Pasolini, Memorie raccolte dal figlio, I, Turin 1915, p. 217). This first M.-Galletti ministry lasted from 17 Nov. to 22 Dec. 1848, and left the moderates greatly disappointed. When Pius IX had left Rome on 24 Nov. to take refuge at Gaeta, a Suprema Giunta di Stato assumed power and reconstituted the government, again placing M. at its head. He retained Education and the interim of Foreign Affairs. The task of the new cabinet was to prepare the ground for the Roman Constituent Assembly, for which it called elections on 22 Jan. 1849. M. was elected deputy for Rome and Comarca with a flattering vote. Following the vote of the Constituent Assembly, which declared the temporal power lapsed in law and in fact and proclaimed the Republic, M. announced the event to the citizens with a proclamation, extolling the sovereignty of the people. Another important act of M., as minister of Foreign Affairs, was the rejection of the invitation of V. Gioberti, minister of Charles Albert, to recognize "the constitutional rights of the Holy Father" and to recall him to Rome. He replied that the people abhorred the papal government and wanted a clean separation of the two powers. This is the last significant act of the cabinet presided over by M., soon swept away by more advanced currents and which gave rise on 8 March 1849 to a cabinet presided over by Aurelio Saffi, with ministers of the same complexion, and then to the Triumvirate. In the last months of the Republic, M. remained in the shadows; on 4 July he left Rome, and, banished from Tuscany, he took refuge in Corsica, then at Genoa, at Turin, at Voltri on the western riviera, and blind, poor, with darkened mind, he ended his days in a nursing home, at Villa Cristina near Turin.