Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour
Camillo Paolo Filippo Giulio Benso, Count of Cavour, Isolabella and Leri (Italian pronunciation: [kaˈmillo ˈbɛnso]; 10 August 1810 – 6 June 1861), generally known as the Count of Cavour (/kəˈvʊər/ kə-VOOR; Italian: Conte di Cavour [ˈkonte di kaˈvur]) or simply Cavour, was an Italian politician, statesman, businessman, economist, and noble, and a leading figure in the movement towards Italian unification.[1] He was one of the leaders of the Historical Right and Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Sardinia, a position he maintained (except for a six-month resignation) throughout the Second Italian War of Independence and Giuseppe Garibaldi's campaigns to unite Italy. After the declaration of a united Kingdom of Italy, Cavour took office as the first Prime Minister of Italy; he died after only three months in office and did not live to see the Roman Question solved through the complete unification of the country after the Capture of Rome in 1870.
This article is about the 19th-century Italian statesman. For ships bearing his name, see Italian battleship Conte di Cavour and Italian aircraft carrier Cavour (550).
The Count of Cavour
Himself as Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Sardinia
Victor Emmanuel II
Himself as Prime Minister of Italy
Victor Emmanuel II
Alfonso Ferrero La Marmora
Victor Emmanuel II
Massimo D'Azeglio
Massimo D'Azeglio
Giuseppe Natoli (1861)
6 June 1861
Turin, Kingdom of Italy
Italian
Cavour put forth several economic reforms in his native region of Piedmont, at that time part of the Kingdom of Sardinia, in his earlier years and founded the political newspaper Il Risorgimento. After being elected to the Chamber of Deputies, he quickly rose in rank through the Piedmontese government, coming to dominate the Chamber of Deputies through a union of centre-left and centre-right politicians. After a large rail system expansion program, Cavour became prime minister in 1852. As prime minister, Cavour successfully negotiated Piedmont's way through the Crimean War, the Second Italian War of Independence, and Garibaldi's Expedition of the Thousand, managing to manoeuvre Piedmont diplomatically to become a new great power in Europe, controlling a nearly united Italy that was five times as large as Piedmont had been before he came to power.
English historian Denis Mack Smith says Cavour was the most successful parliamentarian in Italian history, but he was not especially democratic. Cavour was often dictatorial, ignored his ministerial colleagues and parliament, and interfered in parliamentary elections. He also practised trasformismo and other policies which were carried over into post-Risorgimento Italy.[2][3]
Biography[edit]
Early life[edit]
Cavour was born in Turin during Napoleonic rule, into a family which had acquired estates during the French occupation. He was the second of two sons of Michele Giuseppe Francesco Antonio Benso, 4th Marquess of Cavour and Count of Isolabella and Leri, Lord of Corveglia, Dusino, Mondonio, Ottiglio and Ponticelli, Co-Lord of Castagnole, Cellarengo and Menabi, Cereaglio, Chieri, San Salvatore Monferrato, Santena and Valfenera, 1st Baron of the French Empire (1781–1850), and his wife (1805) Adélaïde (Adèle) Suzanne, Marchioness of Sellon (1780–1846), herself of French origin. His godparents were Napoleon's sister Pauline, and her husband, Prince Camillo Borghese, after whom Camillo was named.[4]
Camillo and his older brother Gustavo were initially educated at home. He was sent to the Turin Military Academy when he was only ten years old. In July 1824 he was named a page to Charles Albert, the King of Piedmont (1831–1849). Cavour frequently ran afoul of the authorities in the academy, as he was too headstrong to deal with the rigid military discipline. He was once forced to live three days on bread and water because he had been caught with books that the academy had banned. He was found to be apt at the mathematical disciplines, and was therefore enlisted in the Engineer Corps in the Royal Sardinian Army in 1827. While in the army, he studied the English language as well as the works of Jeremy Bentham and Benjamin Constant, developing liberal tendencies which made him suspect to police forces at the time.[5] He resigned his commission in the army in November 1831,[4] both because of boredom with military life and because of his dislike of the reactionary policies of King Charles Albert. He administered the family estate at Grinzane, some forty kilometres outside the capital, serving as mayor there from 1832 to the revolutionary upheaval of 1848.