THAON DI REVEL, OTTAVIO. - Statesman, b. in Turin on 26 June 1803, d. there on 9 February 1868.
Son of Count Ignazio, who - viceroy of Sardinia, lieutenant general of Charles Felix at the beginning of the reign, marshal of Savoy, collar of the Annunziata - was one of the most distinguished personalities of the Savoyard State during the Restoration, Ottavio inherited from his father a profound religious piety and absolute devotion to the sovereign. Having entered the administration at a very young age, at twenty-eight he was deputy intendant general (minister) of Finance and a few years later secretary of the Council of Conference of Ministers, then directly presided over by the King. Particularly dear to Charles Albert, he sought to dissuade him from granting the Statute, only to change his mind and urge the King to bestow the constitutional Charter once he learned that the King of Naples had set out on the path of reforms. He sat in the first Sardinian parliamentary ministry, holding the portfolio of Finance throughout the duration of the 1848 campaign, in order in turn to form a government (Alfieri-Revel ministry) after the armistice of Salasco with the program of delaying the resumption of hostilities with Austria and defending the prerogatives of the crown: a program bitterly attacked by the "democrats" led by Gioberti. T. di R., who already since 1847 had been negotiating with the Holy See to stipulate the Italian Customs League proposed by Pius IX, worked in Rome to obtain the sending of pontifical troops to Lombardy upon the denunciation of the armistice, according to the Rosmini plan, postponing instead to the end of the war the projected Italian league and the stipulation of a concordat. The negotiations failed, first because of the opposition of Pellegrino Rossi, then because of the fall of the Alfieri-Revel ministry.
From that time he was one of the spokesmen of the Catholic opposition to the governments that succeeded one another in Piedmont before and after Novara. In the debate on the Siccardi laws (1850) he asked that the ministry withdraw the measure that seemed to him destined to divide the country spiritually; he took a resolute stand in 1852 against the legislation on civil marriage, and when the d'Azeglio ministry fell, he was mentioned as a candidate to form a new government, together with Cesare Balbo. Instead Cavour came to power, and T. di R. resumed his noble battle, resolutely opposing the bill on the registration of ecclesiastical property and the suppression of religious corporations. Also in 1852 he negotiated on behalf of the State a loan with the Hambro bank of London. Again designated for the presidency of the Council in 1857 after the result, favorable to the Catholics, in the general elections of that year, in 1860, while accepting the senatorial toga, he voted against the proclamation of Rome as capital of Italy, which he considered injurious to the rights of the Holy See, and later against the transfer of the capital to Florence. In the Senate too he raised his voice against the secularization of the institution of marriage (1865) and every other de-Christianizing measure of the State, while granting his suffrage instead to the financial and economic policy of the new Kingdom.
Alongside his political activity, he concerned himself, with competence and zeal, with the municipal and provincial administration of Turin, and presided over numerous charitable institutions, whose needs he generously provided for with his own means.
His brother GENOVA (1817-1910), a valiant soldier and equally fervent Catholic, who was minister of war with Rattazzi in 1867, found in him the most affectionate and enlightened counselor during the difficult period in which the crisis of Mentana was being prepared. From his third marriage (to Carolina Clermont de Vars) was born in 1859 the future great admiral PAOLO, duke of the Sea (d. in 1948).
Bibliography5 works
Renzo U. Montini