SANTAROSA-DEROSSI, PIETRO di. — Statesman, born in Turin on 12 April 1805, died there on 5 August 1850.
A student of politics and economics, he travelled extensively throughout Europe. A member, from as early as 1840, of the Turin municipality and a founder—with Cavour, Balbo, and Alfieri—of the Risorgimento, on 5 February 1848 he promoted the address of the city of Turin to Carlo Alberto calling for the promulgation of the Statute. Deputy for Savigliano in the Subalpine Parliament from the very first legislature, he became Minister of Public Works in the Pinelli-Revel ministry. In 1849 he assumed the portfolio of Agriculture and Commerce in the d’Azeglio ministry and supported in the council the Siccardi bill for the abolition of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. For this reason, when he fell seriously ill in the summer of 1850 and requested religious consolation, the archbishop of Turin, mons. Franzoni—who had already protested against the Siccardi law and had consequently served a month in prison—ordered that the Viaticum not be brought to the dying man unless he had first withdrawn his support for the anti-ecclesiastical legislation. The parish priest, Fr. Pittavino, a Servite, communicated the archbishop’s decision to him, and the minister—after a prolonged crisis of conscience—refused to disavow his political activities and died without the Sacraments. The consequence of this painful episode was a popular demonstration outside the archbishopric, the arrest and trial of Franzoni and Pittavino, and the expulsion of the Servants of Mary from the city.
Cavour replaced S. in the ministry, thus beginning his political career.
p. 263; S. Jacini, La politica eccles. ital., Bari 1938, V. indici; P. Pirri, Pio IX e Vitt. Emanuela II dal loro carteggio privato, II, Rome 1951, V. indici; W. De La Rive, Vita di Cavour, Milan 1951, pp. 151–61. Renzo U. Montini