SELLA, QUINTINO. — Minister of Institutional Finance, b. at Sella di Mosso (Vercelli) on 7 July 1827, d. at Biella on 14 March 1884. Son of a woollen manufacturer, he graduated in engineering at Turin in 1847 and then specialised in mineralogy in Paris.
In 1862 he became Minister of Finance and faced unpopularity with strict economies and heavy taxes; particular reactions were aroused by those on the wealth of the dead and on milling. A theist in religion and jurisdictionalist in ecclesiastical policy, he was one of the most representative members and at the same time one of the most hostile to the Church among the last ministers of the Right. In 1870, convinced of Prussian victory, he opposed armed intervention, already decided upon by the Council of Ministers, in favour of France. He was therefore, in the face of Lanza’s uncertainties and Visconti Venosta’s opposition, a firm advocate of the occupation of Rome and the immediate transfer of the capital. He wished to promote in Rome the cult of the sciences. This was, in his opinion, to be the new universal mission of Rome.
With the fall of the Right (1876), he promoted the moderate Constitutional Associations and vainly attempted, in June–July 1879 and in April 1881, to form a ministry composed of men from the Right and the Left.
His *Discorsi Parlamentari* (5 vols., Rome 1887–88) and his unpublished *Epistolario* (Turin 1930) survive. Important too are some of his works on chemical crystallography and mineralogy. He was one of the founders of the Italian Geological Society (1881). He founded the Italian Alpine Club in 1863. He reconstituted the Accademia dei Lincei in 1875.