D’Azeglio, Massimo Taparelli

(1798–1866)

   The fourth son of a prominent nobleman who was the legate of the Sardinian throne at the court of Pope Pius VII, Massimo D’Azeglio initially followed a literary and artistic career. He studied painting in Florence and Milan, where he met and married Giulia, the daughter of the novelist Alessandro Manzoni. D’Azeglio himself dabbled in literature. In 1833, he published Ettore Fieramosca, a novel of no lasting literary value, whose ardently nationalist and anti-Austrian content nevertheless make it an important historical document. In 1845, with the encouragement of his cousin Cesare Balbo, D’Azeglio made a tour of the Papal States (Tuscany, Emilia-Romagna, the Marches). Upon his return, he wrote a celebrated expose of the misgovernment prevailing in the regions under the Church’s control, Degli ultimi casi di Romagna (On the Recent Incidents in Romagna, 1846), which established him as a national political figure. D’Azeglio was a moderate and a constitutionalist. After the disasters of the war of 1848–1849 (in which he fought and was wounded), he became prime minister of Piedmont-Sardinia and negotiated the peace agreement with the Austrians. D’Azeglio remained as prime minister until 1852, when he was replaced by Camillo Benso di Cavour. Thereafter he held no office, but was a trusted counselor to King Victor Emmanuel II. During the second war with Austria in 1859, he was an active publicist on behalf of the Italian cause. The extension of Piedmontese authority to southern Italy left him perplexed, however. He was convinced that no good could come of fusion with Naples. He died in Turinin 1866. Today, he is chiefly remembered for his aphorism about the Risorgimento: “We have made Italy: now we must make the Italians.”