VISCONTI VENOSTA, EMILIO. - Statesman, b. in Milan on 22 Jan. 1829, d. in Rome on 28 Nov. 1914.
He began his political career in 1848, participating in the Five Days of Milan and then enlisting among Garibaldi’s volunteers. After the Salasco armistice, he took refuge in Lugano, where he formed a friendship with Mazzini; this did not, however, prevent him from opposing the latter’s insurrectional designs, for which he had been designated to lead the Milanese revolt of 1853. Suspected by the police for his liberal activities, he suffered no serious harassment until February 1859, when, having compromised himself in the demonstration following the funeral of Emilio Dandolo, he deemed it advisable to move to Turin. He returned to Lombardy with the Franco-Sardinian troops and briefly assumed the office of royal commissioner for Milan, subsequently undertaking delicate diplomatic missions in the Duchies and in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. In Naples, he attempted in vain to provoke an insurrection that would proclaim the annexation of the Kingdom to Sardinia before Garibaldi’s army arrived.
Three years later (24 March 1863), he first assumed the portfolio of Foreign Affairs in Minghetti’s ministry, a position he held six more times until February 1901, so that for about fifty years he was the guiding spirit 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. As minister until the fall of the Right (18 March 1876), he initiated Italy’s rapprochement with the Central Empires and laid the groundwork for the “policy of clean hands” later pursued by Cairoli and Corti during the Balkan crisis of 1878.
A senator from 1886, he returned to power with Rudinì in 1896, following the disaster at Adua, and concluded peace with the Negus while simultaneously negotiating agreements with France regarding the status of Italians in Tunisia. After the Milanese insurrection of 1898, he opposed the guard-siege Zanzarelli, who sought a special law to punish the clergy (unjustly accused of fomenting the insurrectionary movements), and his resignation brought about the fall of the ministry. Pelloux and Saracco again called him to the Consiglio dei Ministri between 1900 and 1901, during the difficult early years of Victor Emmanuel III’s reign, and he thus led Italian foreign policy during the Boxer Rebellion in China, securing from the powers recognition of Italy’s concession at Tien-Tsin.
His final service to the nation was his assumption and skillful conduct of the presidency of the International Conference of Algeciras (1906) for the peaceful resolution of the Franco-German dispute over Morocco. Representing Italy, bound by the Triple Alliance, he supported French demands, thus anticipating the evolution of Italian policy toward the Triple Entente, which came to fruition in 1914. An evolution he both hoped for and saw approaching, dying at the end of 1914 when Italy had already declared 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 19 Oct. 1906, took part with him in the Five Days of 1848 and carried on constant patriotic activity in Milan until 1859, when—after the funeral of Emilio Dandolo turned into a demonstration of Italianism—he fled to Piedmont to escape arrest. There he was called to serve on the advisory commission appointed by Cavour among Lombard exiles to draft provisional legislation for Lombardy in anticipation of the imminent war and hoped-for annexation. He was then sent to Valtellina to direct the popular insurrection against the Austrians and, upon liberation, assumed the government of the region. As municipal assessor of Milan from the first administration elected after the Austrians’ departure, he continued to hold provincial and municipal offices in Valtellina and Milan into old age. A deputy to the Subalpine Parliament, after a single term he withdrew from political life, preferring to devote himself to his native city, where he served, among other roles, as school superintendent (now provincial director of education), 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 *La Perseveranza*, to which he contributed assiduously—he left an interesting autobiographical volume (*Ricordi di gioventù: cose vedute o sapute*, Milan 1904), as well as novels, verse, and short stories, the best of which is the novel *Il curato d’Orobio* (ibid. 1886), with Manzonian influences. Also popular is his humorous poem *Il prode Anselmo*. For several years he served as president of the Society of Authors.