Silvio Spaventa (12 May 1822 – 20 June 1893) was an Italian

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...

and

statesman A statesman or stateswoman typically is a politician who has had a long and respected political career at the national or international level. Statesman or Statesmen may also refer to: Newspapers United States * ''The Statesman'' (Oregon), a n ...

who played a leading role in the unification of Italy, and subsequently held important positions within the newly formed Italian state.

Early life

Younger brother of the Italian philosopher

Bertrando Spaventa Bertrando Spaventa (26 June 1817 – 20 September 1883) was a leading Italian philosopher of the 19th century whose ideas had an important influence on the changes that took place during the unification of Italy and on philosophical thought in th ...

, Silvio was born into a middle-class family of limited means. His mother, Maria Anna Croce, was the great-aunt of philosopher

Benedetto Croce Benedetto Croce (; 25 February 1866 – 20 November 1952) was an Italian idealist philosopher, historian, and politician, who wrote on numerous topics, including philosophy, history, historiography and aesthetics. In most regards, Croce was a lib ...

. When Croce's parents died in an earthquake, in 1883, Silvio became his guardian, an experience that had a deep influence on Croce. In 1836, Silvio joined his brother at the Diocesan Seminary in

Chieti Chieti (, ; , nap, label= Abruzzese, Chjïétë, ; gr, Θεάτη, Theátē; lat, Theate, ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in Central Italy, east by northeast of Rome. It is the capital of the province of Chieti in the Abruzzo region. ...

. In 1838 he moved, along with Bertrando to

Montecassino Monte Cassino (today usually spelled Montecassino) is a rocky hill about southeast of Rome, in the Latin Valley, Italy, west of Cassino and at an elevation of . Site of the Roman town of Casinum, it is widely known for its abbey, the first h ...

, to study at the Benedictine seminary. It is probable they were sent to Montecassino because new political and religious ideas were allowed to flourish there. Silvio befriended the philosopher

Antonio Tari Antonio is a masculine given name of Etruscan origin deriving from the root name Antonius. It is a common name among Romance language-speaking populations as well as the Balkans and Lusophone Africa. It has been among the top 400 most popular mal ...

. In 1840, in collaboration with two other seminary students, he began his political career by writing a petition to the king of Naples, Ferdinand II, demanding a constitution. In 1843, he moved to Naples to work as tutor to the children of the magistrate Benedetto Croce, his maternal uncle, and grandfather of the famous philosopher of the same name. Like his elder brother, Silvio became interested in liberalism and the thought of

Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (; ; 27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a German philosopher. He is one of the most important figures in German idealism and one of the founding figures of modern Western philosophy. His influence extends a ...

, and soon had to leave Naples on account of his political views. Moving to Tuscany, he forged strong links with a number of local moderate politicians. After returning to Naples in February 1848, and following the granting of a constitution, he founded ''Il Nazionale''. After the newspaper's first issue, on 1 March 1848, within a short time it became a point of reference for the liberal middle class, and even found favour in more conservative and royalist circles. During this period he also founded, with the help of

Luigi Settembrini Luigi Settembrini (17 April 1813, Naples – 3 November 1877, Florence) was an Italian man of letters and politician. Biography Born in Naples, his paternal grandfather was an immigrant from Bollita (the actual Nova Siri), in the province of ...

and Filippo Agresti, a secret society named the ''Grande Società dell'Unità Italiana'', the aim of which was the overthrow of the Bourbon dynasty. Spaventa was elected to parliament, where he joined the effort to give Neapolitan patriotism a national dimension. This included lending strong support to the sending of troops of the

Kingdom of the Two Sicilies The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies ( it, Regno delle Due Sicilie) was a kingdom in Southern Italy from 1816 to 1860. The kingdom was the largest sovereign state by population and size in Italy before Italian unification, comprising Sicily and a ...

to fight in the

First Italian War of Independence The First Italian War of Independence ( it, Prima guerra d'indipendenza italiana), part of the Italian Unification (''Risorgimento''), was fought by the Kingdom of Sardinia (Piedmont) and Italian volunteers against the Austrian Empire and other ...

Exile

Shortly after granting the constitution, the Bourbon king of Naples,

Ferdinando II of the Two Sicilies Ferdinand II ( it, Ferdinando Carlo; scn, Ferdinannu Carlu; nap, Ferdinando Carlo; 12 January 1810 – 22 May 1859) was King of the Two Sicilies from 1830 until his death in 1859. Family Ferdinand was born in Palermo to King Francis I of the ...

, promptly abolished it on 15 May 1848 and proceeded to bombard the anti-royalist strongholds of Naples. Spaventa, accused of supporting General

Guglielmo Pepe Guglielmo Pepe (13 February 1783 – 8 August 1855) was an Italian people, Italian general and patriot. He was brother to Florestano Pepe and cousin to Gabriele Pepe. He was married to Mary Ann Coventry, a Scottish woman who was the widow ...

's resistance movement, was arrested on 19 March 1849 and held in the prison of San Francesco. On being found guilty of conspiracy against the state, and sedition, he was sentenced on 8 October to hang. This punishment was then commuted to life imprisonment (as often happened under the Bourbons). He spent the next six years in Santo Stefano prison, dedicating his time to studying politics and philosophy. On 11 January 1859 his sentence was commuted once again, this time to exile for life. In all, he spent 11 years in prison, the chains used to shackle him leaving scars on his legs and affecting his gait for the rest of his life. Spaventa was put on a boat to America with 68 other exiles, including

Filippo Agresti Filippo is an Italian male given name, which is the equivalent of the English name Philip, from the Greek ''Philippos'', meaning "amante dei cavalli".''Behind the Name''"Given Name Philip" Retrieved on 23 January 2016. The female variant is Fili ...

and

, both also condemned for their political activities. During the voyage a mutiny was organised by Settembrini's son, an officer in the British Merchant Navy who had talked his way onto the crew of the ship. The mutineers landed in Ireland on 6 March 1859 and Spaventa and his comrades returned to Turin via London. In Turin, Spaventa contacted Cavour, becoming a staunch supporter of the statesman and a leading advocate of his political ideas.

Political activity after Italian unification

In July 1860, Spaventa was sent to Naples by Cavour and the Savoy monarchy (who were already planning an invasion of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, possibly under the leadership of

Garibaldi Giuseppe Maria Garibaldi ( , ;In his native Ligurian language, he is known as ''Gioxeppe Gaibado''. In his particular Niçard dialect of Ligurian, he was known as ''Jousé'' or ''Josep''. 4 July 1807 – 2 June 1882) was an Italian general, patr ...

). His mandate was to prepare for the annexation of the South of Italy to the future

Kingdom of Italy The Kingdom of Italy ( it, Regno d'Italia) was a state that existed from 1861, when Victor Emmanuel II of Kingdom of Sardinia, Sardinia was proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy, proclaimed King of Italy, until 1946, when civil discontent led to ...

. He unsuccessfully tried to achieve this without waiting for Garibaldi to reach Naples. On arriving there, Garibaldi, adopting the title of Dictator expelled Spaventa from the city on 25 September. He returned in October to take up the post of Minister for Police in the provisional government (from November 1860 to July 1861), dealing vigorously with the difficult situation in the city, at times with the help of

Rodrigo Nolli Rodrigo is a Spanish, Portuguese and Italian name derived from the Germanic name ''Roderick'' (Gothic ''*Hroþareiks'', via Latinized ''Rodericus'' or ''Rudericus''), given specifically in reference to either King Roderic (d. 712), the last Vis ...

, a landowner from the same region of Italy as Spaventa. Silvio Spaventa was a member of the Chamber of Deputies, for the

Destra storica The Right group ( it, Destra), later called Historical Right ( it, Destra storica) by historians to distinguish it from the right-wing groups of the 20th century, was an Italian conservative parliamentary group during the second half of the 19th ...

(a liberal alliance based around Cavour), from 1861 to 1889. He was appointed Under-Secretary to the Ministry of the Interior in the governments of

Luigi Carlo Farini Luigi Carlo Farini (22 October 1812 – 1 August 1866) was an Italian physician, statesman and historian. Biography Farini was born at Russi, in what is now the province of Ravenna. After completing a brilliant university course at Bologna ...

and

Marco Minghetti Marco Minghetti (18 November 1818 – 10 December 1886) was an Italian economist and statesman. Biography Minghetti was born at Bologna, then part of the Papal States. He signed the petition to the Papal conclave, 1846, urging the electio ...

, becoming the principal architect of the State's policy on internal security. He organised the repression of banditry in southern Italy, and of the disturbances in Turin, in 1864. These took place in response to the

September Convention The September Convention was a treaty, signed on 15 September 1864, between the Kingdom of Italy and the French Empire, under which: * French Emperor Napoleon III would withdraw all French troops from Rome within two years. * King Victor Emmanuel ...

, which resulted in the capital of Italy being moved from Turin to Florence. In 1868 Spaventa was appointed a member of the

Council of State A Council of State is a governmental body in a country, or a subdivision of a country, with a function that varies by jurisdiction. It may be the formal name for the cabinet or it may refer to a non-executive advisory body associated with a head o ...

where, on 6 May 1880, he delivered has famous speech on “justice in government”. From July 1873 to March 1876, he was Minister for Public Works in the second Minghetti cabinet. While in this post, he promoted the law to nationalise the railways. The resulting withdrawal of support from Tuscan members of parliament led to the fall of the government in March 1876 and the demise of the

political alliance. Silvio Spaventa became a Senator in 1889 and, through the good offices of

Francesco Crispi Francesco Crispi (4 October 1818 – 11 August 1901) was an Italian patriot and statesman. He was among the main protagonists of the Risorgimento, a close friend and supporter of Giuseppe Mazzini and Giuseppe Garibaldi, and one of the architect ...

was also appointed to the IV section of the

Italian Council of State The Consiglio di Stato ( en, Council of State) is a legal-administrative consultative body that ensures the legality of public administration in Italy. The council has jurisdiction on acts of all administrative authorities, except when these author ...

Political and philosophical thought

There is evidence that Silvio was the first to propose that “classical” German philosophy descended directly from Italian philosophy of the 16th century. This idea was to become of key importance in Bertrando Spaventa's Hegelian theory of history and the state. Strongly influence by

's philosophy of the state, Silvio Spaventa's theory of

liberalism Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality and equality before the law."political rationalism, hostility to autocracy, cultural distaste for c ...

was one of the most original of 19th century Italy. He wrote that the state should be strong, but not authoritarian. He also fought tenaciously for a rigorous separation of the political and administrative spheres of government, and argued against

Agostino Depretis Agostino Depretis (31 January 181329 July 1887) was an Italian statesman and politician. He served as Prime Minister of Italy for several stretches between 1876 and 1887, and was leader of the Historical Left parliamentary group for more than a de ...

's ''

trasformismo ''Trasformismo'' is the method of making a flexible centrist coalition of government which isolated the extremes of the political left and the political right in Italian politics after the Italian unification and before the rise of Benito Mussoli ...

'', in favour of a British-style two-party system. Spaventa died in Rome on 20 June 1893. He was given a state funeral and buried in the cemetery of Verano in Rome.

Main works

*''La politica della Destra'', writings and speeches, ed. Benedetto Croce, Laterza,

Bari Bari ( , ; nap, label= Barese, Bare ; lat, Barium) is the capital city of the Metropolitan City of Bari and of the Apulia region, on the Adriatic Sea, southern Italy. It is the second most important economic centre of mainland Southern Italy a ...

1910; *''Dal 1848 al 1861. Lettere scritti documenti'', ed. Benedetto Croce, Bari 1923; *''Lettere politiche (1861-1893)'', ed. G. Castellano, Laterza, Bari, 1926.

Bibliography

*R. De Cesare, ''Silvio Spaventa e I suoi tempi'', in ''Nuova Antologia'', Vol. XLVI,

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...

1893; *

, ''Scritti filosofici'', ed. G. Gentile, Ditta A. Morano & Figlio, Napoli, 1901; *Paolo Romano, ''Silvio Spaventa, biografia politica'', Laterza, Bari, 1942; *Giulio M. Chiodi, ''La giustizia amministrativa nel pensiero politico di Silvio Spaventa'', Laterza,

1969; *Elena Croce, ''Silvio Spaventa'', Adelphi,

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 ...

1969; *Saverio Ricci, ''Silvio Spaventa'', Rivista Bergomum, LXXX,

Bergamo Bergamo (; lmo, Bèrghem ; from the proto- Germanic elements *''berg +*heim'', the "mountain home") is a city in the alpine Lombardy region of northern Italy, approximately northeast of Milan, and about from Switzerland, the alpine lakes Como ...

1990; *

Domenico Losurdo Domenico Losurdo (14 November 1941 – 28 June 2018) was an Italian historian, essayist, Marxist philosopher, and communist politician. Life and career Born in Sannicandro di Bari, Losurdo obtained his doctorate in 1963 from the University ...

, ''Dai fratelli Spaventa a Gramsci'', La Città del Sole, Naples 1997. *Luigi Gentile, ''Coscienza nazionale e pensiero europeo in Bertrando Spaventa'', Edizioni Noubs,

2000; * Raffaele Aurini, ''Spaventa Silvio'', in ''Dizionario bibliografico della gente d'Abruzzo'', Ars et Labor,

Teramo Teramo (; nap, label= Abruzzese, Tèreme ) is a city and ''comune'' in the Italian region of Abruzzo, the capital of the province of Teramo. The city, from Rome, is situated between the highest mountains of the Apennines (Gran Sasso d'Italia) ...

1958, now in Nuova Edizione, Andromeda editrice, Colledara 2002; *Carlo Ghisalberti, ''Silvio Spaventa tra Risorgimento e stato unitario'', Vivarium, 2003.

Notes

External links