STERBINI, PIETRO. — Political figure, born at Sgurgola on 25 January 1793, died at Naples on 30 September 1863.
A physician and man of letters, and an active Carbonaro, he took part in the uprisings of 1831, went into exile in France, and attached himself to Mazzini, at whose side he pursued a political activity presenting certain obscure aspects: see, for example, the accusations of Fr. G. Boero: La rivoluzione romana al giudizio degli imparziali. Firenze 1850, and of Gualtiero: Gli ultimi rivolgimenti italiani, 4 vols., ivi 1850–51, which certainly were not entirely without foundation. Returning to Rome in 1846, after the accession of Pius IX, he was one of the most influential “tribunes,” moderate in appearance but extremist in the clandestine press he directed. A tenacious adversary of Pellegrino Rossi, he was morally responsible for the tragedy of 15 November 1848, if only because of the campaign of hatred conducted against the minister. Included in Muzzarelli’s “democratic” cabinet with the portfolio of Public Works, Industry and Commerce, an unrestrained demagogue seeking to retain popular favor, he became unpopular both with the “constitutionalists” and with the republicans, who accused him of aspiring to dictatorship. Removed from the government in March 1849, he was given various offices, solely in order not to displease the Circolo popolare, of which S. was the highly influential president: curator of the museums, director of the committee of public surveillance, extraordinary commissioner of the Republic in Frosinone, and charged with organizing popular resistance in the Borghi toward the end of the siege, he always remained the rabid anticlerical who had stirred up the crowds against Rossi.
After another decade of exile in Switzerland and France, in 1860 he settled in Naples as director of the newspaper Roma, where he advocated “the agreement of democracy with monarchy and of liberty with religion.” S. returned to the faith of his ancestors in his final years and died reconciled with II.