Cavour, COUNT CAMILLO BENSO DI, the restorer of Italian unity and nationality, was born at Turin, August 10, 1810. He was descended from one of the ancient noble families of Piedmont, and being the younger son was destined for a military career. At the military school he distinguished himself by his mathematical talent, and at an early age was appointed to a post in the engineers. But as his liberal opinions proved unfavourable to his stay in the army, he left it in 1831. His good sense, however, taught him that the deliverance of Italy could not be accomplished by secret conspiracy and spasmodic revolutionary outbreaks. There was nothing for him therefore but to retire into private life. Here he devoted himself to agriculture, introducing great improvements in the cultivation of the family estates; and his efforts generally to raise the economic condition of Piedmont were thorough and enlightened. But he had a further end in view; he saw that economic improvement must be the basis for a better social and political order. And he widened his knowledge of economic and political questions by foreign travel, especially in France and England. Constitutionalism as established and practised in England was on the whole the form of government he most admired. During a residence in England he made himself intimately acquainted with the political organisation of the country, and also with its industrial institutions; knowledge of which he made good use on his return to his own country.
In this way for sixteen years Cavour energetically laboured as a private gentleman. No opportunity presented itself for any effective influence in politics, and he wisely abstained. It was very different when the spirit of freedom and innovation once more awoke towards the revolutionary period of 1848. In conjunction with Count Cesare Balbo, he in 1847 established a newspaper, Il Risorgimento, in which he advocated a representative system, somewhat after the pattern of the English constitution, as opposed alike to absolutism on the one hand, and mob rule on the other. On his suggestion, the king was petitioned for a constitution, which was granted in February 1848. In the Chamber of Deputies, during the stormy period which succeeded Charles Albert's declaration of war against Austria in March, Cavour strenuously opposed the ultra-democrats, and counselled an alliance with England as the surest guarantee for the success of the Italian arms. In the Marquis d'Azaglio's ministry, formed soon after the fatal battle of Novara, Cavour was successively Minister of Agriculture and Commerce, Minister of Marine, and Minister of Finance. In 1852 he was appointed to succeed D'Azaglio as premier. From this time until his resignation in 1859, in consequence of the conclusion of the peace of Villafranca, Cavour was the originator as well as the director of the Sardinian policy. Taking upon himself at different times, in addition to the premiership, the duties of the Ministers of Finance, Commerce, and Agriculture, and latterly of Home and Foreign Affairs, he greatly improved the financial condition of the country, introduced measures of free trade, consolidated constitutionalism, weakened clerical influence, and made Sardinia a power of some account in Europe.
Hitherto the work of Cavour had been to reform Piedmont, and place its affairs on a sound basis. The Crimean war afforded him an opportunity to begin the task of restoring the unity and national independence of Italy. It was through his advice and influence that Sardinia took part in the war, and as a result of this he managed to bring the Italian question before the Congress of Paris in 1856. In 1858 Cavour had with the Emperor Napoleon a secret meeting, at which the programme for driving Austria out of Italy was drawn up, and during the early part of 1859 there followed a diplomatic contest with Austria, which Cavour conducted with masterly tact and astuteness. The peace of Villafranca, coming after the successful war of 1859, and leaving Austria in possession of Venetia, was a bitter disappointment to Cavour. He resigned his office; yet he had no reason for despair, as the power of Austria in the Italian peninsula was now really broken. On returning to office in 1860 he resumed his great undertaking, but by new methods. Popular feeling in central Italy declared itself in favour of union with the north, and thus Parma, Modena, and Tuscany came under the sway of Victor Emmanuel. It was the part of Cavour to guide opinion towards this end, gaining time for it while he negotiated with the great powers; but he had to purchase the acquiescence of France by the surrender of Nice and Savoy. He secretly encouraged the expedition of Garibaldi, which in 1860 achieved the deliverance of Sicily and southern Italy. When a Sardinian army marched southwards and on the plains of Campania met the volunteers of Garibaldi, the unity of Italy was already an accomplished fact. In 1861 an Italian parliament was summoned, and Victor Emmanuel was declared king of Italy. For the completion of Italian unity only Rome and Venetia were wanting; with a little patience they too could be won.
Thus had Cavour achieved the task of his life. But it had not been accomplished without a fearful strain on his health. He had to manage the Sardinian parliament, to meet the artifices, protests, and reproaches of many of the great powers, to prevent revolutionary parties from upsetting the practical mission on which he was engaged, and to direct a great popular and national movement towards a reasonable and attainable goal by methods involving the minimum of delay and violence. For the real power of Sardinia was comparatively limited, and a false step might have been serious. The constant strain was too much for him, and he died June 6, 1861, only a few months after the unity of Italy had been proclaimed. The last words he was heard to utter were those so familiar as expressing an important feature of his policy: 'Brothers, brothers, the free church in the free state.' Cavour is admitted to be the beau idéal of a practical and constructive statesman, who, aiming at just and reasonable ends, seeks to achieve them by effectual and legitimate methods. He made a reformed Piedmont the basis for attaining the unity and regeneration of Italy. The ambition of Napoleon, the military gallantry of the king, the enthusiasm of Garibaldi, were all made to co-operate towards his plan for satisfying the national aspirations of Italy under a lasting constitutional rule. Through his early death much of the work necessary for a sound and healthy national life was left unfinished, yet the subsequent history of Italy proves that Cavour had built on a solid foundation. He deserves a place among the greatest statesmen of modern times.
The title is taken from the small Piedmontese town of Cavour, 28 miles SW. of Turin. See De la Rive, Le Comte de Cavour (1863; trans. 1877); Bianeli, La Politique de Cavour (Turin, 1885); his Lettre, edited by Chiala (6 vols. 1883-87); also Lives by Massari (Turin, 1873), Mazade (Paris, 1877; trans. 1877), and the Countess E. M. Cesaresco (1899).