Solaro della Margarita, Clemente

SOLARO DELLA MARGARITA, CLEMENTE. - Piedmontese politician and diplomat, b. 21 Nov. 1792 at Cuneo, d. 12 Nov. 1869 at Turin. From Oct. 1803 to 1806 he was at the Tolomei College of Siena, then directed by the Scolopi.

The events of those years, culminating in the French occupation of Piedmont and then in the deportation of Pius VII, inspired in him a deep and heartfelt attachment to his own dynasty and a vivid religious sentiment, and contributed to that decided aversion to the new ideas, to which he opposed, until his death, with programmatic constancy, the union of throne and altar. He continued his studies at Turin and there took his degree in both laws in 1812. Attached to the General Prosecution of the imperial court of Turin, he let no occasion pass to manifest his opposition to the Napoleonic regime, and in that same year he became the promoter of that Società italiana, a meeting center for all those, mostly young, who wished to react against the Frenchification of culture. Under the statute of the Association the members assumed, at the moment of their admission, the names of Italians illustrious in the field of letters and the arts, any Roman name being excluded, not only because the classical age of the « liberty of the fatherland » was considered by the statute to be that following the fall of the Lombard Kingdom, but also probably as a natural reaction to the custom of the Revolution and the Empire of abusing the names of Roman antiquity. Art. 4 of the same statute provided that « the aim of the Society is Italian culture; every language other than Italian is excluded ». This activity, so to speak national, was a clear and decided opposition to French usurpation and domination, a profession of legitimism toward the Savoy dynasty. After the restoration, in 1816 he was secretary at the legation of Naples, directed by the Marquis of S. Saturnino, whose daughter Carolina, very religious, he married in 1825.

During the Revolution of 1820-21, he was given the task of directing the legation during a temporary leave of the Minister. Having returned to Turin in 1825 for his marriage, in 1826 he received the appointment as minister plenipotentiary at Madrid. Convinced of the necessity that only a thorough struggle against liberalism could check that danger for absolute governments, during his Madrid mission he drew close to the Carlists, and became a fervent supporter of them at his own court and at the Holy See, with whose Secretariat of State he was in correspondence, from the time when the pro-nuncio Card. Giustiniani, in 1827, entrusted him with the task of temporarily handling pontifical interests. Bound in friendship with the bishop of León, one of the most representative figures of Carlism, S. found himself in conflict with the new nuncio Tiberi, whose action seemed to him prejudicial to the aims of an energetic struggle against the liberals, and he remained very displeased at the failure to restore the Inquisition of Spain. At the same time he also took issue with the policy of Metternich, considered mild and hesitant, and he lamented the ambiguous conduct of all monarchical Europe, which did not support absolutism against constitutionalism with sufficient energy. His support for the Carlist cause intensified after the death of Ferdinand VII and when, in Feb. 1835, S. became Minister of Foreign Affairs, it conditioned the whole Sardinian policy toward the foreign powers. In full accord with the thought and will of King Charles Albert, he defended legitimism against liberalism in every part of Europe where the monarchy of « divine right » was threatened by usurpers. For this reason he helped the Carlists of Spain, the Miguelists of Portugal and the Bourbons of France, deprived of the throne in 1830. Even the struggles between the radical and the Catholic Cantons of neighboring Switzerland attracted his attention with particular regard to the adjoining Valais, not without the intention of drawing a particular advantage from it by extending the king's sovereignty over that region. Toward Austria relations were marked, if not by coldness, by distrust, both because he could not forgive Metternich his excessively "diplomatic" manner in European legitimist questions, and because he ill tolerated the veiled tutelage that Austria sometimes tended to assume toward Piedmont. S., however, understood very well that Austria was the only ally on which Piedmont could confidently rely in case of danger. In relations with the Holy See, S. promoted in 1839 the reestablishment of the nunciature at Turin, which had been suspended since 1753. Although he did not succeed in obtaining the formal promise of the conferral of the purple upon nuncios at the end of their office, S. nevertheless received assurances on the matter. Having left the Ministry in Oct. 1847, in order to react to the attacks and criticisms leveled at him, S. set to work on a book in which he set out the principles followed during his ministry, describing analytically the events from 1835 to 1847, and published it in 1851 under the title Memorandum storico-politico. In the Avvedimenti politici of 1853 he returned more extensively to the premises that had guided his action, with the intent of demonstrating "how (happy fortunes) are maintained in any State, when the principles of sound politics are followed," how he had placed "religion as the basis of politics," because "everything derives from God... Outside His law there is nothing but falsehood and error; outside His will there is found nothing but confusion and disorder"; a thesis he reaffirmed in the Questioni di Stato of 1854. He was not elected in the polls for the V legislature of 8 Dec. 1853 in the constituencies of Borgomanero and Pontestura. He entered the Chamber in Feb. 1854 for the constituency of S. Quirico, which had remained vacant, and his mandate was confirmed also for the VI legislature in Nov. 1857. In the Chamber he spoke several times, opposing Cavour's anticlerical and foreign policy. Having been defeated in the elections of 1860 in the constituency of Dogliani, he did not cease his activity as a publicist, and gave to the press the Risposta del conte C. S. d. M. all'opuscolo «Il Papa e il Congresso» (1860); against the cession of Nice and Savoy: Sulla annessione di alcuni Stati alla Monarchia e sulla cessione della Savoia e di Nizza alla Francia (1860); against the September Convention: Sguardo politico del conte C. S. d. M. sulla Convenzione italo-franca del 15 sett. 1864 (1864). Finally, in the four books of L'Uomo di Stato indirizzato al governo della cosa pubblica (Turin 1863-64) he sought to demonstrate the possibility of a Catholic government in modern times.

Silvio Furlani.