MUZZARELLI, CARLO EMANUELE dei conti. — A man of letters and politician, born in Bologna to a noble Ferrarese family on 3 April 1797, died on 10 April 1856. At the age of eighteen he enlisted in the city civic militia; he then turned to an ecclesiastical career, obtained a degree in law at Rome in 1820, was deputy for Ferrara at the Roman court, and on 12 January 1824 became an auditor of the Rota and a domestic prelate.
He was a member of various literary academies and 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, and others. He was acquainted with the principal men of letters of his time, especially those of the classical school (Strocchi, Muzzi, Costa, etc.). For several years he devoted himself to collecting autobiographical information about his contemporaries, intending to publish it under the title Biografie degli illustri italiani viventi. The material he collected 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 the bibliography), and constitutes a useful repertory of information on quite a number of individuals now for the most part forgotten.
Above all, M.’s name remained connected with the Roman political events of 1848–49. When the Statute granted by Pius IX established a High Council appointed by sovereign authority, M., who in 1847 had become dean of the S. Rota, was elected its first president (June 1848), it is said at the suggestion of L. C. Farini. When, 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 highly hazardous views, and had to reprimand him for the cynicism with which, in his presence, he spoke of the murder of the Carrara statesman (G. Pasolini, Memorie raccolte dal figlio, I, Turin 1915, p. 217). This first M.–Galletti ministry lasted from 17 November to 22 December 1848 and left the moderates deeply disappointed. When Pius IX left Rome on 24 November to take refuge in Gaeta, a Supreme State Junta assumed power and reconstituted the government, again placing M. at its head. He retained the portfolio of 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 January 1849. M. was elected deputy for Rome and its District by a flattering majority. Following the vote of the Constituent Assembly, which declared the temporal power legally and de facto terminated and proclaimed the Republic, M. announced the event to the citizens in a proclamation, hailing the sovereignty of the people. Another important act of M., as foreign minister, was his rejection of the invitation from V. Gioberti, minister of Carlo Alberto, to recognize “the constitutional rights of the Holy Father” and recall him to Rome. He replied that the people abhorred papal government and desired a clear separation of the two powers. This was the last significant act of the cabinet presided over by M., which was soon swept away by more advanced currents and gave way on 8 March 1849 to a cabinet presided over by Aurelio Saffi, with ministers of the same political hue, and subsequently to the Triumvirate. During the final months of the Republic, M. remained in the shadows; on 4 July he left Rome and, banished from Tuscany, took refuge in Corsica, then in Genoa, Turin, and Voltri on the western Riviera; blind, impoverished, and with his mind clouded, he ended his days in a sanatorium at Villa Cristina near Turin.