Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Massimo Taparelli, Marquis d'Azeglio

AZEGLIO, MASSIMO TAPAKELLI, MARQUIS D , an emi nent Italian author and statesman, was born in October 1798, at Turin. He was descended from an ancient and noble family of Piedmont, and was the son of a military officer, who, when the subject of this notice was in his fifteenth year, was appointed ambassador to Rome. The boy went with him, and, being thus introduced to the mag nificent works of art for which the Eternal City is famous, contracted a love for painting, as well as for music. He desired to become a painter, and, although his studies were for a time interrupted by his receiving i commission in a Piedmontese cavalry regiment, and by ;. .ubsequent illness, brought on by the severity of his scientific investigations and resulting in his quitting the service, he eventually returned to Rome, and, with some difficulty, obtained his father s permission to devote himself to art. He remained at the Papal capital eight years, and acquired great skill and some fame as a landscape-painter. At the close of that period events directed his mind into other channels. His father died in 1830, and the younger Azeglio then removed to Milan, where he became acquainted with Alessandro Manzoni, the poet and novelist, whose daughter he married. In this way his thoughts were turned towards literature and politics. At that time, Italy was profoundly agitated by the views of the national and liberal party. The country was divided into several distinct states, of which the greater number, even of those that were nominally independent, were under the influence of Austria. Lombardy and Venetia formed parts of the Austrian dominions. The petty monarchies of the north were little better than vassals to the house of Haps- burg ; the Papacy, in the centre, was opposed to all national aspirations ; and the kingdom of the Two Sicilies, in the south, was a despotism, which for cruelty and mental darkness could not have been exceeded in Asia itself. The French revolution of July 1830 gave additional force to the movements of the Italian liberal party, and the young men of the day threw themselves with fervour into the crusade against old abuses and foreign domination. Mazziui was just beginning his career as an agitator, and the whole air was surcharged with revolu tionary enthusiasm. This was especially the case in the north of Italy, where Massimo d Azeglio was now settled. Art was abandoned by him for literature, and literature was practised with a view to stimulating the sense of national independence and unity. In 1833, M. d Azeglio published a novel called Ettore Fieramosca, which was followed in 1841 by another, entitled Niccolo di Lapi. Both had a political tendency, and, between the two dates at which they appeared, M. d Azeglio visited various parts of Italy,diffusing those liberal principles which he saw were the only hope of the future. His views, however, were very different from those of the republican party. He was a constitutional monarchist, and strongly opposed to the insurrections and secret conspiracies which Mazzini and others so frequently fostered at that time, and which always resulted in failure and renewed oppression. His treatise Degli Ultimi Casi di Romagna (Of the Last Events in the Romagna), published in 1846, before the death of Pope Gregory XVI., was at once a satire on the Papal Govern ment, a denunciation of the republican, attempts at insur rection, and an exhortation to the Italian princes to adopt a national policy. M. d Azeglio returned to Rome in 1846, after the death of Pope Gregory, in June, and, it is thought, had considerable influence in persuading the new Pope (Pius IX.) to conduct his government in accordance with liberal principles. He supported measures relating to the freedom of the press, the reform of the Papacy, and the emancipation of the Jews. In 1848 he accompanied the Papal army of observation sent from Rome to watch the insurgent forces in Lombardy and Venetia, which had temporarily discomfited the Austrians, and were being supported by Charles Albert, king of Sardinia. General Durando, who had the command of the Papal army, actively assisted the rebels, in defiance, it is said, of his instructions ; and Azeglio was severely wounded in the leg at the battle of Vicenza, where he commanded a legion. In the same year (184S), he published a work on the Austrian Assassinations in Lombardy ; and on the opening of the first Sardinian parlia ment he was chosen a member of the chamber of deputies. After the crushing defeat of the Sardinians at Novara, March 23, 1849, a defeat which brought the second of the two brief wars with Austria to a disastrous close, D Azeglio was made president of the cabinet by Victor Emmanuel, in whose favour his father, Charles Albert, had just resigned. In this position the marquis used his high powers with great advantage to the progress and consolida tion of the Sardinian kingdom. His occupation of the office lasted from the llth of May 1849 to the 20th of October 1852, when he was replaced by Count Cavour. At the termination of the war of 1859, when a large portion of the States of the Church shook off the dominion of the Pope, and declared for annexation to the kingdom of Northern Italy, Azeglio was appointed general and com missioner-extraordinary, purely military, for the Roman States a temporary office, which he administered in a conciliatory and sagacious spirit. He died on the llth of January 1866, leaving a reputation for probity and wisdom, which his countrymen will not forget to cherish. His writings, chiefly of a polemical character, were numer ous. In addition to those already mentioned, the most noteworthy was a work on The Court of Home and the Gospels, of which an English translation, with a preface by Dr Layard, appeared in 1859. A volume of personal recollections was issued, in 1867, after M. d Azeglio s death.