SPAVENTA, SILVIO. - Patriot and jurist, b. at Bomba (Chieti) on 10 May 1822, d. at Rome on 21 June 1893, brother of the idealist philosopher Bertrando, whose influence he felt greatly.

He studied at Chieti, then at Montecassino and at Naples, where he took up legal studies. Hostile to the Bourbon government, he advocated, through his newspaper Il Nazionale and a sect founded by him, federalism as the first step toward the unity of Italy. For this activity of his he was condemned to death, later commuted to life imprisonment. After seven years at the penal colony of Ventotene (1848), he was exiled. In London he aroused in the minds of leading liberal figures a keen interest in Italian affairs. Having returned to Italy, after the union of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies with Italy, he was given the task of directing the police in Naples (1860-61). Elected a deputy to Parliament, through his thinking he helped to strengthen the position of the Historical Right. He held very important government posts, among them that of secretary general of the Interior (1864), councillor of State, minister of Public Works (1876).

By F. Crispi, a leading figure of the Left, he was appointed president of the 4th Section of the Council of State, to whose creation he had contributed with his thinking on administrative justice. He indeed advocated the institution of a jurisdictional defense for that vast number of rights and interests, harmed by acts of the government, held by those concerned to be illegitimate, which had remained deprived of any such protection with the reform effected by the law of 20 March 1865, invoking the example of other countries, which had found protection in the courts of contentious jurisdiction, specially instituted. Thus the IV Section of the Council of State was created with jurisdictional functions; a Section which, through his work, acquired great prestige and on which the organism of administrative justice still in force is founded. He was appointed senator on 15 Dec. 1889.

Bibliography4 works

BIBL.: R. de Cesare, S. S. e i suoi tempi, in Nuova Antologia, 3rd series, 46 (1893), pp. 29-60; F. P. Gabrieli, s. v. in Enc. Ital., XII, pp. 709-710; F. Battaglia, s. v. in Dizionario politico ital., IV, p. 331; P. Romano, S. S., Bari 1942.

Francesco Ercolani

@incollection{ec11_spaventa_silvio, author = {Ercolani, Francesco}, title = {Spaventa, silvio}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {XI}, pages = {1091--1092}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1953}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/spaventa-silvio} }

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Spaventa, Silvio

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