ROSSI, Pellegrino. — Statesman, born in Carrara on 13 July 1787, assassinated in Rome on 15 November 1848. A pupil of the Piarists in Correggio, he graduated in law in 1806 at Bologna. He briefly served in the judiciary of the Kingdom of Italy as secretary to the general prosecutor of the Royal Court of Bologna, until, barely twenty years old, he was appointed to the chair of criminal law at Bologna itself.
In 1815 he applauded Murat’s attempted coup. It appears that he was the author of the so-called Proclamation of Rimini, and, acting in the name of King Joachim, he assumed the civil commissionership of the four Emilia departments. After Murat’s defeat, he withdrew to Switzerland, and after giving free lectures at the University of Geneva, he was appointed in 1819 to the official chair of criminal law, despite the university statutes expressly requiring professors to profess Calvinism. Having obtained Swiss citizenship, in 1820 he was elected to the Federal Council and then to the Federal Diet in Lucerne, where he was tasked with drafting the constitutional charter of the Confederation that still governs Switzerland today, with only minor subsequent modifications. Meanwhile, he published his classic treatise *Du droit pénal* and, together with Sismondi, founded the *Annales de législation et d’économie politique*, which quickly secured him international renown. Invited to teach political economy in Paris in 1833, the following year he became a full professor of constitutional law at the Collège de France. A free-trader in economics and a liberal in politics, his lectures drew widespread attention, and King Louis-Philippe, who attended them on numerous occasions, offered the young and famous professor French citizenship so that he might assume official positions. Rossi accepted: in 1839 he was installed as a Peer of the Kingdom, and in 1845 he was sent to Rome as ambassador to Gregory XVI. After the fall of the July Monarchy, he remained in Rome as a private citizen while actively participating in political life, and he supported and advised the early stages of Pius IX’s constitutional experiment, convinced of the need to revitalize the Papal States through wise reforms.
Pius IX would have wanted him to head the government immediately after the fall of the Mamiani cabinet (July 1848), but Rossi found insufficient support in the Roman political environment, and the position was then given to Fabbri; however, at the Pope’s insistence, after Fabbri’s resignation, Rossi finally accepted the mandate (10 September). After dismissing Cardinal Soglia-Ceroni as President of the Council and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Rossi took the portfolio of the Interior along with that of Finance and entrusted the other ministries to Cardinal Vizzardelli (Education), Cicognani (Justice), Abbot Montanari (Commerce), the Duke of Rignano (War and Public Works), Galletti (Police), with Guerini as minister without portfolio, and Righetti replacing him at Finance. It was a liberal ministry but, as one might say today, leaning to the right in the sense and with the federalist aspirations of neo-Guelphism. Rossi was especially determined to curb the demagoguery of the left, whose leading figure was Sterbini: hence the campaign of hatred that led to the tragedy of 15 November.
The ministry was formed during the parliamentary recess, so Rossi governed without the support of the Chambers, much to the scandal of the press and democratic circles; yet this did not prevent him from taking important measures, such as the suppression of the Ministry of Police, the beginning of telegraph installations, the imposition of a tax on ecclesiastical property, the issuance of Treasury bonds guaranteed by mortgages on ecclesiastical property, and the creation of a Court of Cassation; he also planned the construction of railways, reform of the judicial and penitentiary systems, the establishment of a statistical office, the creation of schools of economics and commercial law, and other far-reaching reforms. To ensure public order, he took severe measures against agitators, replaced numerous officials at various levels, entrusted leadership positions to trusted individuals, and decided to send the “Roman Legion,” i.e., the volunteers returning from the spring campaign in Veneto, to Romagna, whose factional and undisciplined behavior posed a constant threat to public tranquility. Hence, after the hesitant and conciliatory policies of Mamiani and Fabbri, the firm and honest government of Rossi was branded as a dictatorship.
A convinced federalist in foreign policy, Rossi feared, especially after Pius IX’s vain attempts to form a league among the princes, the enlargement of the Kingdom of Sardinia at the expense of the other Italian states. He therefore energetically opposed the plan, of which Rosmini was the interpreter in Rome, for a military league between Piedmont, Tuscany, and the Papal States, which he saw as a device to secure military support for Charles Albert from the Tuscan and Roman armies. Instead, he proposed a confederation of the peninsula’s princes, including the Emperor of Austria as King of Lombardy-Venetia, under the presidency of the Pope. The confederation was to have a coordinating and propulsive body in a congress to be convened in Rome, with the task of ensuring the independence of the contracting states, settling any disputes, safeguarding the maintenance of liberal institutions, and promoting the gradual and orderly progress of prosperity and civilization, of which the Catholic religion was a fundamental part. This program made Rossi enemies of the Piedmontese supporters and all who wished Pius IX to abandon the neutrality policy of 29 April and declare war on Austria, as well as all the demagogues of the extreme Mazzinian left. Scornful of the hostile campaign in the democratic press, on 15 November 1848 Rossi went to the reopening of the Chamber at the Palazzo della Cancelleria, where, surrounded by a group of conspirators and without the public force intervening to protect him, he was brutally assassinated.
The material perpetrators of the heinous crime remained unknown, and strong suspicions fell on Luigi Brunetti, son of Ciceruacchio; the instigators and masterminds were Ciceruacchio himself, Sterbini, Colonel Luigi Grandoni of the Roman Legion, and Luciano Bonaparte, Prince of Canino. The assassination sparked the insurrection that, with the assault on the Quirinal on 16 November, forced the formation of the Muzzarelli-Galletti-Sterbini ministry and soon afterward induced the Pope to leave Rome for Gaeta.
Rossi was buried, by the wish of Pius IX, who held him in great affection, in S. Lorenzo in Damaso, in the tomb erected for him by Tenebrani, with the fine epitaph: *“Causam optimam mihi tuendum assumpsi. Miserebitur Deus.”*