Costantino, count Nigra (11 June 1828 – 1 July 1907) was an Italian

diplomat A diplomat (from grc, δίπλωμα; romanized ''diploma'') is a person appointed by a state or an intergovernmental institution such as the United Nations or the European Union to conduct diplomacy with one or more other states or internati ...

Biography

Costantino_Nigra,_Vanity_Fair,_1886-03-06

Nigra was born at

Villa Castelnuovo Castelnuovo Nigra is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Turin in the Italian region Piedmont, located about north of Turin. It is formed by the union of two villages: Sale Castelnuovo and Villa Castelnuovo Castelnuovo Nigra i ...

, in the

province of Turin The former Province of Turin ( it, Provincia di Torino; pms, Provinsa ëd Turin; french: Province de Turin) was a province in the Piedmont region of Italy. Its capital was the city of Turin. The province existed until 31 December 2014, when it wa ...

. During the war of 1848 he interrupted his studies to serve as a volunteer against Austria, and was wounded at the

battle of Rivoli The Battle of Rivoli (14–15 January 1797) was a key victory in the French campaign in Italy against Austria. Napoleon Bonaparte's 23,000 Frenchmen defeated an attack of 28,000 Austrians under General of the Artillery Jozsef Alvinczi, en ...

. On the conclusion of peace he entered the

Piedmont it, Piemontese , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...

ese foreign office; he accompanied Victor Emmanuel and Cavour to

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

and

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

in 1855, and in the following year he took part in the conference of Paris by which the

Crimean War The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the de ...

was brought to an end. After the meeting at

Plombières Plombières (; german: Bleyberg or ''Bleiberg'', nl, Blieberg; wa, So-on-Mont-d'-Plomb) is a municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium. On 1 January 2006, Plombières had a total population of 10,401. The total are ...

between Cavour and

Napoleon III Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A nephew ...

Nigra was sent to Paris again to popularize a Franco-Piedmontese alliance, Nigra being, as Cavour said, the only person perhaps who knows all my thoughts, even the most secret. He was instrumental in negotiating the marriage between Victor Emmanuel's daughter Clothilde and Napoleon's nephew, and during the war of 1859 he was always with the emperor. He was recalled from Paris when the occupation of the

Marche Marche ( , ) is one of the twenty regions of Italy. In English, the region is sometimes referred to as The Marches ( ). The region is located in the central area of the country, bordered by Emilia-Romagna and the republic of San Marino to the ...

and

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by the Piedmontese caused a breach in Franco-Italian relations, and was appointed secretary of state to the prince of Carignano, viceroy of the Neapolitan provinces. When Napoleon recognized the kingdom of Italy in 1861, Nigra returned to France as minister-resident, and for many years played a most important part in political affairs. In 1876 he was transferred to

St Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

with the rank of ambassador, in 1882 to London, and in 1885 to

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

. In 1899 he represented Italy at the

first Hague Peace Conference The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 are a series of international treaties and declarations negotiated at two international peace conferences at The Hague in the Netherlands. Along with the Geneva Conventions, the Hague Conventions were amon ...

. pp. 534-535 He was created count in 1882 and senator in 1890. In 1904 he retired, and he died at Rapallo on 1 July 1907. Nigra was a sound classical scholar, and published translations of many

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

and

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

poems with valuable comments; he was also a poet and the author of several works of folk-lore and popular poetry, of which the most important is his ''Canti popolari del Piemonte''. In February 1860, Nigra joined the regular

Masonic Lodge A Masonic lodge, often termed a private lodge or constituent lodge, is the basic organisational unit of Freemasonry. It is also commonly used as a term for a building in which such a unit meets. Every new lodge must be warranted or chartered ...

"Ausonia" of Turin.Paolo Russo,
Nasce a Firenze un museo che racconta la massoneria
', in ''

La Repubblica ''la Repubblica'' (; the Republic) is an Italian daily general-interest newspaper. It was founded in 1976 in Rome by Gruppo Editoriale L'Espresso (now known as GEDI Gruppo Editoriale) and led by Eugenio Scalfari, Carlo Caracciolo and Arnoldo ...

'', Florence, 27 February 2017. Shortly after the death of Cavour, he was elected as Great Master of the

Grand Orient of Italy The Grand Orient of Italy (GOI) ( it, Grande Oriente d'Italia) is an Italian masonic grand lodge founded in 1805; the viceroy Eugene of Beauharnais was instrumental in its establishment. It was based at the Palazzo Giustiniani, Rome, Italy fr ...

Honors

Grand cordon of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus

Works

* 1861, ''La rassegna di

Novara Novara (, Novarese: ) is the capital city of the province of Novara in the Piedmont region in northwest Italy, to the west of Milan. With 101,916 inhabitants (on 1 January 2021), it is the second most populous city in Piedmont after Turin. It is ...

'' published in 1875 * 1863, ''La gondola Veneziana (barcarola)'' * 1872, ''Le reliquie Celtiche'' * 1888, ''Canti popolari del

Piemonte it, Piemontese , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...

'' * 1891, ''La chioma di Berenice (Callimaco)'', elegy by

Callimachus Callimachus (; ) was an ancient Greek poet, scholar and librarian who was active in Alexandria during the 3rd century BC. A representative of Ancient Greek literature of the Hellenistic period, he wrote over 800 literary works in a wide variety ...

with text in

Catullus Gaius Valerius Catullus (; 84 - 54 BCE), often referred to simply as Catullus (, ), was a Latin poet of the late Roman Republic who wrote chiefly in the neoteric style of poetry, focusing on personal life rather than classical heroes. His s ...

, 1891 * 1892, ''Inni di Callimaco su Diana e sui lavacri di Pallade'' (traduzione, recensione e commento da Callimaco) * 1903, ''Idillii''

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Nigra, Costantino, count 1828 births 1907 deaths People from Castelnuovo Nigra 19th-century Italian politicians Folklorists 19th-century Italian poets Ambassadors of Italy to Russia Ambassadors of Italy to France Ambassadors of Italy to the United Kingdom Ambassadors of Italy to Austria-Hungary 19th-century Italian diplomats