STERBINI, PIETRO. - Politician, b. at Sgurgola on 25 Jan. 1793, d. at Naples on 30 Sept. 1863.
A physician and man of letters, an active Carbonaro, he took part in the risings of 1831, went into exile in France, and became attached to Mazzini, at whose side he carried on a political activity that presents certain unclear aspects: see, for example, the accusations of Fr. G. Boero: La rivoluzione romana al giudizio degli imparziali. Florence 1850, and those of Gualtiero: Gli ultimi rivolgimenti italiani, 4 vols., ibid. 1850-51, certainly not entirely without foundation. Having returned to Rome in 1846, after the accession of Pius IX, he was one of the most followed "tribunes," moderate in appearance but extremist in the clandestine press he directed. A tenacious opponent of Pellegrino Rossi, he was morally responsible for the tragedy of 15 Nov. 1848, if for no other reason than the campaign of hatred conducted against the minister. Included in the "democratic" cabinet of Muzzarelli with the portfolio of Public Works, Industry and Commerce, an unbridled demagogue who, in order to preserve popular favor, made himself hated both by the "constitutionalists" and by the republicans, who made him a dictator. Removed from the government in March 1849, he held offices of various kinds, for the sole purpose of not displeasing the Circolo popolare, of which S. was a much-heeded president: curator of the museums, director of the committee of public surveillance, extraordinary commissioner of the Republic at Frosinone, charged with organizing popular resistance in the Borghi toward the end of the siege, he was always the rabid anticlerical who had roused the piazza against Rossi.
After another decade of exile in Switzerland and France, in 1860 he settled at Naples as director of the newspaper Roma, advocating there "the accord of democracy with monarchy and of liberty with religion." In his last years S. returned to the faith of his fathers and died reconciled with it.
Bibliography
Renzo U. Montini