Visconti Venosta, Emilio

VISCONTI VENOSTA, EMILIO. - Statesman, b. in Milan on 22 Jan. 1829, d. in Rome on 28 Nov. 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 formed a friendship there with Mazzini: which did not, however, prevent him from opposing the latter's insurrectionary designs, since Mazzini had designated him as head of the Milanese revolt of 1853. Suspected by the police for his liberal activity, he suffered no serious harassment until Feb. 1859, when, having compromised himself in the demonstration that followed the funeral of Emilio Dandolo, he deemed 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 attempted in vain 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 for the first time the portfolio of Foreign Affairs in the Minghetti ministry: an office he held six more times, until Feb. 1901, so that for about half a century he was the inspirer of Italian foreign policy.

His name is thus linked to events of particular importance, such as the stipulation 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 Guarantees, which he would have wished more favorable to the Holy See. A minister until the fall of the Right (18 March 1876), he initiated Italy's rapprochement with the Central Empires and created the premises of 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 Adwa, and concluded peace with the Negus, at the same time as he stipulated with France the agreements concerning the status of Italians in Tunisia. Following the Milanese insurrection of 1898, he opposed the Minister of Justice Zanardelli, who was urging a special law to strike at the clergy (unjustly accused of having promoted the insurrectionary riots), and brought about the fall of the ministry with his resignation. Pelloux and Saracco again wanted him at the Consulta between 1900 and 1901, in the difficult early days of the reign of Victor Emmanuel III, and he was thus at the head of Italian foreign policy during the Chinese Boxer crisis, obtaining from the powers recognition of the Italian concession of Tientsin.

A last service rendered to his country was his having assumed and ably presided over the international Conference of Algeciras (1906) for the peaceful settlement of the Franco-German dispute over Morocco: as representative of Italy, bound to the Triple Alliance, he supported the French demands, thus anticipating the evolution of Italian policy toward the Triple Entente, which matured in 1914. An evolution he hoped for and saw close to being realized, having died at the end of '14, when Italy had already proclaimed its neutrality and was moving toward the Pact of London and intervention.

His brother GIOVANNI (GINO), b. in Milan on 4 Oct. 1831, d. there on 1 Oct. 1906, took part with him in the five days of 1848 and carried on 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 patriotism - he took refuge in Piedmont. There he was called to be part of the consultative commission appointed by Cavour among the Lombard émigrés for the purpose of preparing the provisional legislation of Lombardy in anticipation of the imminent war and the hoped-for annexation: after which he was sent to the Valtellina to direct there the popular insurrection against the Austrians and assumed the government of the region once liberation had been achieved. A municipal councilor of Milan from the very first municipal administration elected after the departure of the Austrians, he continued to hold provincial and municipal offices in the Valtellina and in Milan until a late age. A deputy in the Subalpine Parliament, after a single legislature he withdrew from political life, preferring to devote his activity to his native city, where he was, among other things, school superintendent (today, provveditore agli studi), president of the General Workers' Association, president of the Museum of the Risorgimento and of many other institutions. A nimble and polished writer, an excellent journalist - he was among the founders of the Perseveranza, to which he contributed assiduously - he left an interesting autobiographical volume (Ricordi di gioventù: cose vedute o sapute, Milan 1904), as well as novellas, verses, and tales, the best of which is the novel Il curato d'Orobio (ibid. 1886), of Manzonian derivation. His too is the very popular poetic jest Il prode Anselmo. For some years he held the presidency of the Society of Authors.

Renzo U. Montini