Domenico Giovanni Giuseppe Maria Lanza (15 February 1810 9 March 1882) was an Italian politician and the eighth

prime minister of Italy The Prime Minister of Italy, officially the President of the Council of Ministers ( it, link=no, Presidente del Consiglio dei Ministri), is the head of government of the Italian Republic. The office of president of the Council of Ministers is ...

from 1869 to 1873.

Biography

Lanza was born in the

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

ese city of

Casale Monferrato Casale Monferrato () is a town in the Piedmont region of Italy, in the province of Alessandria. It is situated about east of Turin on the right bank of the Po, where the river runs at the foot of the Montferrat hills. Beyond the river lies the ...

. He studied medicine at

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese language, Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital ...

, capital of the

Kingdom of 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 ...

, then returned to Casale where he divided his energies between practising medicine and developing his 33 hectare estate in nearby Roncaglia. He studied and wrote on agricultural developments in both the practical and social aspects. Lanza was among the first in

Monferrato Montferrat (, ; it, Monferrato ; pms, Monfrà , locally ; la, Mons Ferratus) is part of the region of Piedmont in northern Italy. It comprises roughly (and its extent has varied over time) the modern provinces of Alessandria and Asti. Mon ...

to introduce such modern equipment as iron ploughs and seed drills, and also involved himself in the agricultural education of poor children, hoping to achieve at once “the betterment of our agriculture and the moral and intellectual betterment of our agricultural workers.” Lanza was also an active member of the Subalpine Agricultural Association of Turin and became its secretary. The association was concerned about reforming the political and economic spheres, as well as agriculture, and its identification with the cause of liberal nationalism—with the ''

Risorgimento 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 ...

''—was underlined at the September 1847 agrarian congress in Casale, when Lanza raised the cry of "Viva l'Italia libera ed indipendente!" Later he commented on that event: "I did not join the association purely to improve the cultivation of cabbages."^,

Parliamentary collaboration with Cavour

Lanza took an active part in the uprising of 1848 and was elected to the Piedmont Parliament that same year. He attached himself to the party of Cavour and devoted his attention chiefly to questions of the economy and finance. He became minister of education in 1855 in the Cavour cabinet, and in 1858 minister of finance. Endnote: See Enrico Tavallini, ''La Vita ed i tempi di Giovanni Lanza'' (2 vols., Turin and Naples, 1887). Chamber. He was minister of the interior (1864–1865) in the La Marmora cabinet, and arranged the transfer of the capital to

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 ...

. He maintained a resolute opposition to the financial policies of Menabrea, who resigned in 1869 when Lanza was elected for the second time as President of the Chamber.

Prime Minister of Italy

Lanza formed a new cabinet in which he appointed himself minister of the interior. With

Quintino Sella Quintino Sella (; 7 July 1827 – 14 March 1884) was an Italian politician, economist and mountaineer. Biography Sella was born at Sella di Mosso, in the Province of Biella. After studying engineering at Turin, he was sent in 1843 to study ...

as minister of finance he sought to reorganize the Italian budget and resigned office when Sella's projects were rejected in 1873.

Legacy in the Unification of Italy

His cabinet had seen the accomplishment of Italian unity and the installation of an Italian government in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus ( legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

after the defeat of the

Papal States The Papal States ( ; it, Stato Pontificio, ), officially the State of the Church ( it, Stato della Chiesa, ; la, Status Ecclesiasticus;), were a series of territories in the Italian Peninsula under the direct sovereign rule of the pope fro ...

in late 1870.

Notes

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