CAMILLO BENSO COUNT OF CAVOUR

One of the well-known protagonist of Italian Unification

Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour was born on 10th August 1810 in Turin.
His father was a noble from Piedmont, Michele Benso di Cavour, friend of the governor, Prince Camillo Borghese who became godfather to the little Benso transmitting him his own name. Camillo's mother, Adele de Sellon, belonged instead to a wealthy family in Geneva , a native of France, who had reached a good position in bourgeois circles in the Swiss city .
At the age of twenty-two he was appointed mayor of Grinzane Cavour,where the family had possessions, and held that positon until 1848.
He chose to study the economic development of industrialized countries like France and Great Britain.
During this period the young count developed the conservative tendency that accompanied him throughout his life, but at the same time his interest and enthusiasm for the progress of industry, for political economy and free trade strongly increased. He was the star of the Risorgimento as a supporter of liberal ideas of civil and economic progress, of anti national movements and the expansion of the Kingdom of Sardinia against Austria and the Papal State.
In economics, he promoted free trade, major industrial investments (especially in the railway) and the cooperation between public and private sectors.
In politics he supported the enactment and defense of the Albertine Statute. He was the head of the moderate right, and signed an agreement with the Left of Urban Rattazzi, aimed at designing reforms that excluded the extreme wings of Parliament. He clearly violated the republican ideals of Giuseppe Mazzini and often found himself in a collision with Giuseppe Garibaldi about actions wtha a fearful revolutionary potential.
In foreign policy, he skillfully cultivated the friendship with France by which he obtained the territorial expansion of Piedmont in northern Italy and Tuscany.
He died in Turin on 6th June 1861, after becoming the first Prime Minister of the newborn Kingdom of Italy.