SELLA, QUINTINO. – Minister of the Italian Finances, b. at Sella di Mosso (Vercelli) on 7 July 1827, d. at Biella on 14 March 1884. Son of a wool manufacturer, he graduated in engineering at Turin in 1847 and subsequently pursued advanced studies in mineralogy in Paris.
In 1862 he became Minister of Finances and confronted unpopularity with strict economies and heavy taxes; those imposed on movable wealth and on milling aroused particularly strong reactions. A theist in religion and a jurisdictionalist in ecclesiastical politics, he was one of the most representative and, at the same time, most hostile to the Church members of the final ministries of the Right. In 1870, convinced of the Prussian victory, he opposed an armed intervention in favor of France, which had already been decided upon by the Council of Ministers. Thus, faced with Lanza’s uncertainties and Visconti Venosta’s opposition, he became a determined supporter of the occupation of Rome and of the immediate transfer of the ca-
When the Right fell (1876), he promoted moderate constitutional associations and unsuccessfully attempted, in June–July 1879 and in April 1881, to form a ministry composed of men from the Right and the Left.
His Parliamentary Speeches (5 vols., Rome 1887–88) and the Unpublished Correspondence (Turin 1930) were published. Several of his works on chemical crystallography and mineralogy are also important. He was one of the founders of the Italian Geological Society (1881). He founded the Italian Alpine Club in 1863. In 1875 he reconstituted the Accademia dei Lincei.