Daniele Manin

Daniele Manin 1804-57, Venetian leader of the movement to free N Italy from Austrian rule. His father, a Jew, was converted to Christianity and took the name of his patrons, the illustrious Venetian family of Manin. A successful lawyer, Manin was active in revolutionary agitation against Austrian rule in Venice and was imprisoned in Jan., 1848, with the poet Niccolò Tommaseo. Released two months later after the outbreak of the Revolution of 1848, he became head of the Venetian republic. Despite his opposition, Venice voted (July, 1848) its union with the kingdom of Sardinia, and Manin, an ardent republican, resigned. However, he soon returned to power as head of a triumvirate, and in Mar., 1849, he was given dictatorial powers. He won great prestige for organizing the heroic resistance of Venice to its Austrian besiegers. After famine and disease forced Venice to surrender (Aug., 1849), Manin went into exile in Paris. He subsequently supported the leadership of Sardinia in the movement for Italian unification and helped found the National Society, which played an important part in organizing support for Sardinia in 1859-60.

Bibliography: See G. M. Trevelyan, Manin and the Venetian Revolution of 1848 (1923) and P. Ginsborg, Manin and the Venetian Revolution of 1848-49 (1979).