''La Perseveranza'' was a daily newspaper founded in

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

, the capital of

Lombardy Lombardy ( it, Lombardia, Lombard language, Lombard: ''Lombardia'' or ''Lumbardia' '') is an administrative regions of Italy, region of Italy that covers ; it is located in the northern-central part of the country and has a population of about 10 ...

, on 29 November 1859 and published till 20 May 1922. It was generally representative of the centre-right political establishment, though there were occasions when it proved more than capable of taking an independent position.

History and profile

The paper was founded by a group of liberals and monarchists a few days after the annexation of Lombardy to

Piedmont-Sardinia The Kingdom of Sardinia,The name of the state was originally Latin: , or when the kingdom was still considered to include Corsica. In Italian it is , in French , in Sardinian , and in Piedmontese . also referred to as the Kingdom of Savoy-S ...

in the wider context of

Italian unification The unification of Italy ( it, Unità d'Italia ), also known as the ''Risorgimento'' (, ; ), was the 19th-century political and social movement that resulted in the consolidation of different states of the Italian Peninsula into a single ...

. Its founders were wealthy members of the city's leading families, politically supportive of the Piedmontese First Minister,

Count Cavour Camillo Paolo Filippo Giulio Benso, Count of Cavour, Isolabella and Leri (, 10 August 1810 – 6 June 1861), generally known as Cavour ( , ), was an Italian politician, businessman, economist and noble, and a leading figure in the movement towa ...

's unification strategy. Three of the most prominent of them, Giovanni Visconti Venosta,

Gaetano Negri Gaetano Negri (July 11, 1838 – July 31, 1902) was an Italian geologist, writer and politician. He was the 3rd mayor of Milan. He served in the Chamber of Deputies of the Kingdom of Italy The Kingdom of Italy ( it, Regno d'Italia) was a st ...

and

Stefano Jacini Count Stefano Jacini (Casalbuttano, 20 June 1826 – Milan, 15 March 1891) was an Italian statesman and economist. Born at Casalbuttano, Jacini was descended from an old and wealthy Lombard family. He studied in Switzerland, at Milan, and in ...

were members of the "Constitutional Association".Maria Assunta De Nicola, ''Mario Borsa. Biografia di un giornalista'', 2012, Università della Tuscia, p. 28. The starting paid up share capital of 300,000 lire was considered lavish at the time. Beneath its title early editions of La Perseveranza carried the motto "Usque ad finem" (''"On to completion" / "On to the end"''). ''La Peresveranza'' was produced in a

broadsheet A broadsheet is the largest newspaper format and is characterized by long Vertical and horizontal, vertical pages, typically of . Other common newspaper formats include the smaller Berliner (format), Berliner and Tabloid (newspaper format), ta ...

format, and had a cover price of 20 cents, which was four times the price of most competitor newspaper. Created to support unification, it quickly became the newspaper of reference for the middle class moderates and supporters of the nationalist monarchism within Milan's ruling class. The first managing editor, who remained in the post till 1866, was . Valussi handed over control to

Ruggero Bonghi Ruggero Bonghi (20 March 1826 – 22 October 1895) was an Italian scholar, writer and politician. Ruggero Bonghi was born in Naples and after being widowed his mother remarried in 1840 to Saverio Baldacchini, a major influence on Bonghi. Exi ...

, who on occasion displayed a formidable capacity for polemical journalism, and who demonstrated no great respect for

Umberto I of Italy Umberto I ( it, Umberto Rainerio Carlo Emanuele Giovanni Maria Ferdinando Eugenio di Savoia; 14 March 1844 – 29 July 1900) was King of Italy from 9 January 1878 until his assassination on 29 July 1900. Umberto's reign saw Italy attempt colo ...

after 1878. Bonghi presided over a period of expansion, raising circulation to ten thousand copies. In the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War, in 1870, Bonghi used ''La Perseveranza'' to insist that the inhabitants of Alsace-Lorraine must be permitted to vote in a referendum before any decision could be taken to transfer the territories from France to

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. On the home front he was an acute observer of Italian political trends, and sought in the newspaper's columns to oppose the crushing of the political right in the region threatened between 1862 and 1864 by conflict between the ''haut bourgeois'' "Pietmontese party" and the more aristocratically focused "Tuscan Party" centred on Florence, and the tendency to respond to crises outside parliament, in ways that he believed caused major damage to the new representative institutions of the Italian constitution. In this respect "La Perseveranza" helped to make the more moderate and modern conservatism of Lombardy more mainstream within Italian conservatism generally, sustaining understanding of the need to overcome historically based internal divisions. ''La Perseveranza'' also took good care of the arts and culture. Contributors included Diego Sant'Ambrogio (arts criticism) and Francesco Novati (literary criticism).

References

1859 establishments in Italy 1922 disestablishments in Italy Defunct newspapers published in Italy Italian-language newspapers Newspapers published in Milan Newspapers established in 1859 Publications disestablished in 1922 Daily newspapers published in Italy {{italic title