MASSIMO TAPARELLI D’AZEGLIO

(1798-1866)

Massimo Taparelli, Marquis d’Azeglio, like his greater colleague and sometime rival in the Sardinian Ministry, Cavour, wielded a graceful and forcible pen, and might have won no slight distinction in the peaceful paths of literature and art as well, had he not been before everything else a patriot.  Of ancient and noble Piedmontese stock, he was born at Turin in October, 1798.  In his fifteenth year the youth accompanied his father to Rome, where the latter had been appointed ambassador, and thus early he was inspired with the passion for painting and music which never left him.  In accordance with the paternal wish he entered on a military career, but soon abandoned the service to devote himself to art.  But after a residence of eight years (1821-29) in the papal capital, having acquired both skill and fame as a landscape painter, D’Azeglio began to direct his thoughts to letters and politics.

After the death of his father in 1830 he settled in Milan, where he formed the acquaintance of the poet and novelist Alessandro Manzoni, whose daughter he married, and under whose influence he became deeply interested in literature, especially in its relation to the political events of those stirring times.  The agitation against Austrian domination was especially marked in the north of Italy, where Manzoni had made himself prominent; and so it came to pass that Massimo d’Azeglio plunged into literature with the ardent hope of stimulating the national sense of independence and unity.

In 1833 he published, not without misgivings, ‘Ettore Fieramosca,’ his first romance, in which he aimed to teach Italians how to fight for national honor.  The work achieved an immediate and splendid success, and unquestionably served as a powerful aid to the awakening of Italy’s ancient patriotism.  It was followed in 1841 by ‘Nicolo de’ Lapi,’ a story conceived in similar vein, with somewhat greater pretensions to literary finish.  D’Azeglio now became known as one of the foremost representatives of the moderate party, and exerted the potent influence of his voice as well as of his pen in diffusing liberal propaganda.  In 1846 he published the bold pamphlet ‘Gli Ultimi Casi di Romagna’ (On the Recent Events in Romagna), in which he showed the danger and utter futility of ill-advised republican outbreaks, and the paramount necessity of adopting thereafter a wiser and more practical policy to gain the great end desired.  Numerous trenchant political articles issued from his pen during the next two years.  The year 1849 found him a member of the first Sardinian parliament, and in March of that year Victor Emmanuel called him to the presidency of the Council with the portfolio of Foreign Affairs.  Obliged to give way three years later before the rising genius of Cavour, he served his country with distinction on several important diplomatic missions after the peace of Villafranca, and died in his native city on the 15th of January, 1866.