CAVOUR, CAMILLO BENSO DI

Italian statesman, leader in the risorgimento; b. Turin, Aug. 10, 1810; d. there, June 6, 1861. Camillo, Count of Cavour, was the son of Michele, a marquis and Turin's police chief, and of Adele (de Sellon) Cavour, a devout convert from Calvinism. During his youth Cavour developed a rationalistic attitude toward religion, influenced by visits to his mother's family and perhaps by his travels in England and France. Cavour was educated for a military career but resigned his commission in 1831 and then occupied himself for several years in the successful management of his family's properties. The July Revolution of 1830 in France greatly influenced Cavour's political outlook and led him to hope that a constitutional

monarchy could be established also in Piedmont. In 1847 he founded in Turin the newspaper Il Risorgimento to represent the moderate liberal party and wrote for it chiefly on economic and financial questions. He was elected to the legislature in 1848. In the cabinet of Massimo d'Azeglio he served as minister of agriculture, industry, and commerce, and later as minister of finance. He broke with d'Azeglio in 1852 and traveled in France and England for several months. As premier of Piedmont (1852–59, 1860–61) Cavour distinguished himself for his financial and economic reforms and diplomatic maneuvers against Austria to promote the power of Piedmont and then to unite Italy politically.

Ecclesiastical Policies in Piedmont. Cavour was secular in mentality and believed that in Church-State conflicts the interests of the latter must prevail. In 1850 he joined the radical deputies in support of the Siccardi laws, which were contrary to the concordat of 184l between the Holy See and Piedmont, and sought to abolish clerical immunities in civil courts, to suppress certain feast days of obligation (which were also civil holidays), to restrict the property rights of religious congregations, and to introduce civil marriage. As premier he defended the Rattazzi bill of 1855 to suppress all religious communities except those dedicated to preaching, teaching, or care of the sick. The bill proposed also to utilize the revenue derived from the sale of confiscated religious properties to increase the stipend for the lower clergy. Cavour claimed that religious orders might have been useful during the Middle Ages but had no utility in his day. As proof he contrasted the progress of England, France, and Prussia with the stagnation of Naples and Spain where religious were numerous. To defeat the Rattazzi bill, the bishops offered to contribute money to increase the stipend of the lower clergy. Cavour resigned as premier because of his cabinet's hesitancy, but he soon returned to office, and the Rattazzi bill was enacted. Cavour was excommunicated for his promotion of the legislation.

Italian Unification. As Cavour's ambitions widened, he sought to unify all Italy under victor emmanuel ii. To gain help against Austria he allied Piedmont with France. At Plombières, France, napoleon iii and Cavour agreed to wage a joint military campaign in Lombardy against Austria. Cavour resigned as premier in 1859 when France withdrew from the war, but he continued, through the Italian National Society, to encourage the revolutionaries in the central duchies and the Romagna district of the states of the church to seek annexation to Piedmont. When Cavour returned to the premiership in 1860, he annexed Romagna and the duchies after plebiscites. The action against Romagna caused Cavour to be excommunicated anew. To prevent an advance on Rome by garibaldi, Cavour dispatched Piedmontese troops into the Marches and Umbria. After the papal forces were defeated at Castelfidardo, these papal lands were also annexed.

In 1861 the new Kingdom of italy was officially proclaimed, with Victor Emmanuel II as king, Cavour as premier, and Rome as capital. pius ix, however, still retained the government of Rome and the surrounding territories under the protection of a French garrison. Cavour sought to win this prize through diplomatic negotiation. His representatives, Diomede Pantaleoni and Carlo Passaglia, offered the pope complete freedom of spiritual jurisdiction, the right to maintain diplomatic relations, possession of the Roman basilicas, an annual income, and protection. Pius IX refused to abdicate his temporal power, and Cavour's previous attitudes toward the Church and his extension of the Rattazzi laws to all the Italian states created suspicion concerning his future actions. Negotiations abruptly broke off. In June Cavour died, and the roman question remained a major problem until 1929.

Mystery continues to surround Cavour's deathbed religious sentiments. It was stated officially that he received the last rites of the Church. Father Giacomo da Poirino was summoned from the local parish church shortly before Cavour's death. Later Pius IX questioned the priest, but the latter did not explain the details of his ministrations, nor did he reveal whether Cavour was conscious and went to confession, or merely received conditional absolution while unconscious.

Cavour never shared the extreme anticlericalism of the leftists and seemed often to be motivated by political expediency in his ecclesiastical policies. He was fond of justifying his actions by quoting the phrase, "a free Church in a free State," but he interpreted this motto to justify unilateral despoliations of Church rights guaranteed by concordats. Cavour was the outstanding figure in the Risorgimento.

Bibliography: a. c. jemolo, Church and State in Italy, 1850–1950, tr. d. moore (Philadelphia 1960). d. mack smith, Cavour and Garibaldi, 1860: A Study in Political Conflict (Cambridge, Eng. 1954); Italy: A Modern History (Ann Arbor 1959). e. passerin d'entrÈves, L'ultima battaglia politica di Cavour: I problemi dell'unificazione italiana (Turin 1956). r. aubert, Le Pontificat de Pie IX (Fliche-Martin 21; 2d ed. 1964). r. grew, A Sterner Plan for Italian Unity: The Italian National Society in the Risorgimento (Princeton 1963). m. mazziotti, Il conte di Cavour e il suo confessore (Bologna 1915).

[m. l. shay]