VISCONTI VENOSTA, EMILIO. — Statesman, born in Milan on 22 January 1829, died in Rome on 28 November 1914.
He began his political activity in 1848, taking part in the Five Days of Milan and then enlisting among Garibaldi’s volunteers. Having taken refuge in Lugano after the Salasco armistice, he there became friendly with Mazzini; this did not, however, prevent him from opposing the latter’s insurrectionary plans, which had designated him to lead the Milanese revolt of 1853. Suspected by the police on account of his liberal activity, he suffered no serious harassment until February 1859, when, having compromised himself in the demonstration that followed the funeral of Emilio Dandolo, he considered it advisable to move to Turin. He returned to Lombardy in the wake of the Franco-Sardinian troops and briefly assumed the office of royal commissioner of Milan, subsequently carrying out delicate diplomatic missions in the Duchies and in the South: in Naples he unsuccessfully attempted to provoke an insurrection that would proclaim the annexation of the Kingdom to Sardinia before the arrival of Garibaldi’s army. Three years later (24 March 1863) he assumed the portfolio of Foreign Affairs for the first
time in the Minghetti ministry: he held this office six more times, until February 1901, and was thus, for approximately half a century, the inspiration behind Italian foreign policy.
His name is therefore associated with events of particular importance, such as the conclusion of the September Convention, the diplomatic conduct of the war of 1866, the capture of Rome, and the promulgation of the so-called Law of Guarangi, which he would have wished to make more favorable to the Holy See. Minister until the fall of the Right (18 March 1876), he initiated Italy’s rapprochement with the Central Empires and created the premises for that “policy of clean hands” which Cairoli and Corti followed at the time of the Balkan crisis of 1878.
A senator from 1886, he returned to power with Rudini in 1896, in the aftermath of Adua, and concluded peace with the Negus, while at the same time concluding agreements with France concerning the status of Italians in Tunisia. Following the Milanese uprising of 1898, he opposed the Minister of Justice Zanardelli, who was urging a special law aimed at striking the clergy (unjustly accused of having promoted the insurrectionary disturbances), and brought about the fall of the ministry by resigning. Pelloux and Saracco again wanted him at the Consulta between 1900 and 1901, in the difficult early years of the reign of Vittorio Emanuele III, and he thus headed Italian foreign policy during the Chinese Boxer crisis, obtaining from the powers recognition of the Italian concession at Tien-Tsin.
His final service to the country was his assumption and skillful conduct of the presidency of the International Conference of Algesiras (1906), held for the peaceful resolution of the Franco-German dispute over Morocco: as representative of Italy, which was bound to the Triple Alliance, he supported the French demands, thereby anticipating the evolution of Italian policy toward the Triple Entente, which took shape in 1914. He hoped for this evolution and saw its realization approaching, having died at the end of 1914, when Italy had already proclaimed its neutrality and was moving toward the Pact of London and intervention.
His brother GIOVANNI (GINO), born in Milan on 4 October 1831, died there on 1 October 1906, took part with him in the Five Days of 1848 and maintained a constant patriotic activity in Milan until 1859, when—in order to escape arrest after the funeral of Emilio Dandolo, which had turned into a demonstration of Italian identity—he took refuge in Piedmont. There he was called to join the advisory commission appointed by Cavour from among the Lombard émigrés, with the aim of preparing the provisional legislation of Lombardy in anticipation of the imminent war and the hoped-for annexation. After this, he was sent to Valtellina to direct the popular insurrection against the Austrians and assumed the government of the region once liberation had taken place. A municipal councillor of Milan from the first municipal administration elected after the departure of the Austrians, he continued to hold provincial and municipal offices in Valtellina and Milan until advanced age. A deputy in the Subalpine Parliament, after only one legislative term he withdrew from political life, preferring to devote his activity to his native city, where, among other things, he was school superintendent (today, provveditore agli studi), president of the General Workers’ Association, president of the Risorgimento Museum, and president of many other institutions. An agile and polished writer and an excellent journalist—he was among the founders of La Perseveranza, to which he contributed assiduously—he left an interesting autobiographical volume (Ricordi di gioventù: cose vedute o sapute, Milano 1904), as well as novellas, verse, and stories, of which the finest is the novel Il curato d'Orobio (ivi 1886), of Manzonian derivation. He was also the author of the immensely popular poetic jeu d’esprit Il prode Anselmo. For several years he served as president of the Society of Authors.
in Rass. st. del Risorg., 29 (1942), p. 5 sgg. Numerous critical essays have been written on his literary production. Renzo U. Montini