Francesco Crispi
Encyclopedia
Francesco Crispi was a 19th-century Italian
politician of Arbëreshë
ancestry. He was instrumental in the unification of Italy
and was its 17th and 20th Prime Minister
from 1887 until 1891 and again from 1893 until 1896.
, in south-western Sicily. It had been founded in later fifteenth century by Catholic Albanians
(later Arbëreshë
), who settled in Sicily after the Ottoman occupation of Albania. Crispi himself was born in Ribera, Sicily and baptized
in the Italo-Albanian Catholic Church.
He assumed an active role in the Sicilian uprising against the rule of Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies
at Palermo
in 1848. The uprising ended in failure and the government was restored in May 1849. Unlike many, Crispi was not granted amnesty and was forced to flee the country. He lived next in Piedmont where he worked as a journalist. He was implicated in the Mazzini conspiracy at Milan
in 1853 and was expelled from Piedmont. He took refuge first on Malta
, then in Paris and, even he had not done so before, met up with Giuseppe Mazzini
in London.
In 1860 he, alongside Giuseppe Garibaldi
, led the "expedition of the thousand" which disembarked on Sicily on May 11, 1860. On the 13th, Crispi drew up the Proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy. After the fall of Palermo, Crispi was appointed minister of the interior and of finance in the Sicilian provisional government, but was shortly afterwards obliged to resign on account of the struggle between Garibaldi and the emissaries of Count Camillo Benso di Cavour on the question of timing of the annexation of Sicily by Italy.
Appointed secretary to Garibaldi, Crispi secured the resignation of Agostino Depretis
, whom Garibaldi had appointed pro-dictator, and would have continued his fierce opposition to Cavour at Naples
, where he had been placed by Garibaldi in the foreign office, had not the advent of the Italian regular troops and the annexation of the Two Sicilies to Italy brought about Garibaldi’s withdrawal to Caprera and Crispi’s own resignation.
district, Crispi acquired the reputation of being the most aggressive and most impetuous member of the Republican Party. In 1864, however, he announced he was a monarchist, because as he put it in a letter to Mazzini: The monarchy unites us; the republic would divide us.
In 1866 he refused to enter Baron Bettino Ricasoli
’s cabinet; in 1867 he worked to impede the Garibaldian invasion of the papal states, foreseeing the French occupation of Rome and the disaster of Mentana
. By methods of the same character as those subsequently employed against himself by Felice Cavallotti
, he carried on the violent agitation known as the Lobbia affair, in which sundry conservative deputies were, on insufficient grounds, accused of corruption. On the outbreak of the Franco-German War he worked energetically to impede the projected alliance with France, and to drive the Giovanni Lanza
cabinet to Rome. The death of Urbano Rattazzi
in 1873 induced Crispi’s friends to put forward his candidature to the leadership of the Left; but Crispi, anxious to reassure the crown, secured the election of Depretis.
In 1876 he was elected President of the Chamber. During the autumn of 1877 he went to London, Paris and Berlin on a confidential mission, establishing cordial personal relationships with British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone
and Foreign Minister Lord Granville and other English statesmen, and with Otto von Bismarck
, by then Chancellor of the German Empire
.
In December 1877 he replaced Giovanni Nicotera
as minister of the interior in Depretis’s cabinet. Although his short term of office lasted just 70 days, they were instrumental in establishing a unitary monarchy. On January 9, 1878, the death of Victor Emmanuel II of Italy
and the accession of King Umberto enabled Crispi to secure the formal establishment of a unitary monarchy, the new monarch taking the title of Umberto I of Italy
instead of Umberto IV of Savoy. On the February 9, 1879, the death of Pope Pius IX necessitated a conclave, the first to be held after the unification of Italy. Crispi, helped by Mancini and Cardinal Pecci (afterwards Leo XIII), persuaded the Sacred College to hold the conclave in Rome, establishing the legitimacy of the capital.
. When he remarried, a woman he had married in 1853 was still living. But a court ruled that Crispi’s 1853 marriage on Malta
was invalid because it was contracted while another woman he had married yet earlier was also still alive. By the time of his third marriage, his first wife had died and his marriage to his second wife was legally invalid. Therefore his marriage to his third wife was ruled valid and not bigamous. He was nevertheless compelled to resign office.
For nine years Crispi remained politically under a cloud, but in 1887 returned to office as minister of the interior in the Depretis cabinet. Following Depretis’s death on July 29, 1887 Crispi assumed the premiership of his country.
. Basing his foreign policy upon the alliance, as supplemented by the naval entente with Great Britain negotiated by his predecessor, Count Robilant, Crispi assumed a resolute attitude towards France, breaking off the prolonged and unfruitful negotiations for a new Franco-Italian commercial treaty, and refusing the French invitation to organize an Italian section at the Paris Exhibition of 1889. At home Crispi secured the adoption of the Sanitary and Commercial Codes, and reformed the administration of justice. Forsaken by his Radical friends, Crispi governed with the help of the right until he was overthrown by Giovanni Giolitti
in 1891.
, gave rise to a general demand that Crispi should return to power. Although Giolitti tried to put a halt to the manifestations and protests of the Fasci Siciliani
, his measures were relatively mild. It was with the second Crispi regime that the repression of the Fasci turned into outright persecution. The government arrested not just the leaders of the movement, but masses of poor farmers, students, professionals, sympathizers of the Fasci, and even those simply suspected of having sympathized with the movement at some point in time, in many cases without any evidence for the accusations. After the declaration of the state of emergency, condemnations were issued for the paltriest of reasons. Many rioters were incarcerated for having shouted things such as "Viva l’anarchia" or "down with the King". At Palermo, in April and May 1894, the trials against the central committee of the Fasci took place and this was the final blow that signaled the death knell of the movement of the Fasci Siciliani
.
Crispi steadily supported the energetic remedies adopted by Barone Sidney Sonnino
, minister of finance, to save Italian credit, which had been severely shaken the financial crisis of 1892–1893.
In 1894 he was threatened with expulsion from the Masonic
Grande Oriente d'Italia
for being too friendly towards the Catholic Church. He had previously been strongly anticlerical but had become convinced of the need for rapprochement with the Papacy.
Crispi’s uncompromising suppression of disorder, and his refusal to abandon either the Triple Alliance or the Eritrean colony
, or to forsake his colleague Sidney Sonnino
, caused a breach with the radical leader Felice Cavallotti
. Cavallotti began a pitiless campaign of defamation against him. An unsuccessful attempt upon Crispi’s life by the anarchist Lega brought a momentary truce, but Cavallotti’s attacks were soon renewed more fiercely than ever. They produced little effect and the general election of 1895 gave Crispi a huge majority.
In 1896 the humiliating defeat of the Italian army at Adwa in Ethiopia during First Italo-Ethiopian War, brought about his resignation. The ensuing Antonio di Rudini
cabinet lent itself to Cavallotti’s campaign, and at the end of 1897 the judicial authorities applied to the Chamber of Deputies for permission to prosecute Crispi for embezzlement. A parliamentary commission of inquiry discovered only that Crispi, on assuming office in 1893, had found the secret service coffers empty, and had borrowed money from a state bank to fund it, repaying it with the monthly installments granted in regular course by the treasury. The commission, considering this proceeding irregular, proposed, and the Chamber adopted, a vote of censure, but refused to authorize a prosecution. Crispi resigned his seat in parliament, but was re-elected by an overwhelming majority in April 1898 by his Palermo constituents. For some time he took little part in active politics, chiefly on account of his growing blindness. A successful operation for cataract
restored his eyesight in June 1900, and notwithstanding his 81 years he resumed to some extent his former political activity. Soon afterward, however, his health began to give way and he died at Naples on August 11, 1901.
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Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
politician of Arbëreshë
Arbëreshë
The Arbëreshë are a linguistic and ethnic Albanian minority community living in southern Italy, especially the regions of Apulia, Basilicata, Molise, Calabria and Sicily...
ancestry. He was instrumental in the unification of Italy
Italian unification
Italian unification was the political and social movement that agglomerated different states of the Italian peninsula into the single state of Italy in the 19th century...
and was its 17th and 20th Prime Minister
Prime minister of Italy
The Prime Minister of Italy is the head of government of the Italian Republic...
from 1887 until 1891 and again from 1893 until 1896.
Sicily
Crispi’s paternal family came originally from the small agricultural community of Palazzo AdrianoPalazzo Adriano
Palazzo Adriano is a town and comune in the province of Palermo, Sicily, southern Italy.-History:The first mentions of one casale Arianum date from before 1060 under the reign of the Norman Roger I of Sicily. More reliable are the data on the hamlet of Palazzo Adriano reported in a document 1243...
, in south-western Sicily. It had been founded in later fifteenth century by Catholic Albanians
Albanians
Albanians are a nation and ethnic group native to Albania and neighbouring countries. They speak the Albanian language. More than half of all Albanians live in Albania and Kosovo...
(later Arbëreshë
Arbëreshë
The Arbëreshë are a linguistic and ethnic Albanian minority community living in southern Italy, especially the regions of Apulia, Basilicata, Molise, Calabria and Sicily...
), who settled in Sicily after the Ottoman occupation of Albania. Crispi himself was born in Ribera, Sicily and baptized
Baptism
In Christianity, baptism is for the majority the rite of admission , almost invariably with the use of water, into the Christian Church generally and also membership of a particular church tradition...
in the Italo-Albanian Catholic Church.
He assumed an active role in the Sicilian uprising against the rule of Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies
Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies
Ferdinand II was King of the Two Sicilies from 1830 until his death.-Family:Ferdinand was born in Palermo, the son of King Francis I of the Two Sicilies and his wife and first cousin Maria Isabella of Spain.His paternal grandparents were King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies and Queen Marie...
at Palermo
Palermo
Palermo is a city in Southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Province of Palermo. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old...
in 1848. The uprising ended in failure and the government was restored in May 1849. Unlike many, Crispi was not granted amnesty and was forced to flee the country. He lived next in Piedmont where he worked as a journalist. He was implicated in the Mazzini conspiracy at Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
in 1853 and was expelled from Piedmont. He took refuge first on Malta
Malta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
, then in Paris and, even he had not done so before, met up with Giuseppe Mazzini
Giuseppe Mazzini
Giuseppe Mazzini , nicknamed Soul of Italy, was an Italian politician, journalist and activist for the unification of Italy. His efforts helped bring about the independent and unified Italy in place of the several separate states, many dominated by foreign powers, that existed until the 19th century...
in London.
In 1860 he, alongside Giuseppe Garibaldi
Giuseppe Garibaldi
Giuseppe Garibaldi was an Italian military and political figure. In his twenties, he joined the Carbonari Italian patriot revolutionaries, and fled Italy after a failed insurrection. Garibaldi took part in the War of the Farrapos and the Uruguayan Civil War leading the Italian Legion, and...
, led the "expedition of the thousand" which disembarked on Sicily on May 11, 1860. On the 13th, Crispi drew up the Proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy. After the fall of Palermo, Crispi was appointed minister of the interior and of finance in the Sicilian provisional government, but was shortly afterwards obliged to resign on account of the struggle between Garibaldi and the emissaries of Count Camillo Benso di Cavour on the question of timing of the annexation of Sicily by Italy.
Appointed secretary to Garibaldi, Crispi secured the resignation of Agostino Depretis
Agostino Depretis
Agostino Depretis was an Italian statesman.-Biography:Depretis was born at Mezzana Corte, near Stradella, in the province of Pavia ....
, whom Garibaldi had appointed pro-dictator, and would have continued his fierce opposition to Cavour at Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
, where he had been placed by Garibaldi in the foreign office, had not the advent of the Italian regular troops and the annexation of the Two Sicilies to Italy brought about Garibaldi’s withdrawal to Caprera and Crispi’s own resignation.
Parliament and government
Entering parliament in 1861 as deputy of the Extreme Left for the CastelvetranoCastelvetrano
Castelvetrano is a town and comune in the province of Trapani, Sicily, Italy. The archeological site of Selinunte is located within the territory of the comune. It was the birthplace of Giovanni Gentile, the key philosopher of the Fascist movement in Italy.The town is predominantly a farming town,...
district, Crispi acquired the reputation of being the most aggressive and most impetuous member of the Republican Party. In 1864, however, he announced he was a monarchist, because as he put it in a letter to Mazzini: The monarchy unites us; the republic would divide us.
In 1866 he refused to enter Baron Bettino Ricasoli
Bettino Ricasoli
Bettino Ricàsoli, 1.º Barone Ricàsoli, 1.º Conte di Brolio was an Italian statesman.-Biography:...
’s cabinet; in 1867 he worked to impede the Garibaldian invasion of the papal states, foreseeing the French occupation of Rome and the disaster of Mentana
Battle of Mentana
The Battle of Mentana was fought on November 3, 1867 between French-Papal troops and the Italian volunteers led by Giuseppe Garibaldi, who were attempting to capture Rome, then the main centre of the peninsula still outside of the newly unified Kingdom of Italy....
. By methods of the same character as those subsequently employed against himself by Felice Cavallotti
Felice Cavallotti
Felice Cavallotti was an Italian politician, poet and dramatic author.- Early career :Born in Milan, Cavallotti fought with the Garibaldian Corps in their 1860 and 1866 campaigns during the Italian Wars of Independence....
, he carried on the violent agitation known as the Lobbia affair, in which sundry conservative deputies were, on insufficient grounds, accused of corruption. On the outbreak of the Franco-German War he worked energetically to impede the projected alliance with France, and to drive the Giovanni Lanza
Giovanni Lanza
Domenico Giovanni Giuseppe Maria Lanza was an Italian politician and the tenth Prime Minister from 1869 to 1873.Lanza was born in the Piedmontese city of Casale Monferrato...
cabinet to Rome. The death of Urbano Rattazzi
Urbano Rattazzi
Urbano Pio Francesco Rattazzi was an Italian statesman.-Biography:He was born in Alessandria . He studied law at Turin, and in 1838 began his practice, which met with marked success at the capital and Casale. In 1848, Rattazzi was sent to the Sardinian chamber of deputies in Turin as...
in 1873 induced Crispi’s friends to put forward his candidature to the leadership of the Left; but Crispi, anxious to reassure the crown, secured the election of Depretis.
In 1876 he was elected President of the Chamber. During the autumn of 1877 he went to London, Paris and Berlin on a confidential mission, establishing cordial personal relationships with British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone FRS FSS was a British Liberal statesman. In a career lasting over sixty years, he served as Prime Minister four separate times , more than any other person. Gladstone was also Britain's oldest Prime Minister, 84 years old when he resigned for the last time...
and Foreign Minister Lord Granville and other English statesmen, and with Otto von Bismarck
Otto von Bismarck
Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg , simply known as Otto von Bismarck, was a Prussian-German statesman whose actions unified Germany, made it a major player in world affairs, and created a balance of power that kept Europe at peace after 1871.As Minister President of...
, by then Chancellor of the German Empire
German Empire
The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
.
In December 1877 he replaced Giovanni Nicotera
Giovanni Nicotera
Giovanni Nicotera was an Italian patriot and politician. His surname is pronounced , with the stress on the second syllable.-Biography:Nicotera was born at Sambiase, in Calabria....
as minister of the interior in Depretis’s cabinet. Although his short term of office lasted just 70 days, they were instrumental in establishing a unitary monarchy. On January 9, 1878, the death of Victor Emmanuel II of Italy
Victor Emmanuel II of Italy
Victor Emanuel II was king of Sardinia from 1849 and, on 17 March 1861, he assumed the title King of Italy to become the first king of a united Italy since the 6th century, a title he held until his death in 1878...
and the accession of King Umberto enabled Crispi to secure the formal establishment of a unitary monarchy, the new monarch taking the title of Umberto I of Italy
Umberto I of Italy
Umberto I or Humbert I , nicknamed the Good , was the King of Italy from 9 January 1878 until his death. He was deeply loathed in far-left circles, especially among anarchists, because of his conservatism and support of the Bava-Beccaris massacre in Milan...
instead of Umberto IV of Savoy. On the February 9, 1879, the death of Pope Pius IX necessitated a conclave, the first to be held after the unification of Italy. Crispi, helped by Mancini and Cardinal Pecci (afterwards Leo XIII), persuaded the Sacred College to hold the conclave in Rome, establishing the legitimacy of the capital.
Bigamy scandal
The statesmanlike qualities displayed on this occasion were insufficient to avert the storm of indignation of Crispi’s opponents in connection with a charge of bigamyPolygamy
Polygamy is a marriage which includes more than two partners...
. When he remarried, a woman he had married in 1853 was still living. But a court ruled that Crispi’s 1853 marriage on Malta
Malta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
was invalid because it was contracted while another woman he had married yet earlier was also still alive. By the time of his third marriage, his first wife had died and his marriage to his second wife was legally invalid. Therefore his marriage to his third wife was ruled valid and not bigamous. He was nevertheless compelled to resign office.
For nine years Crispi remained politically under a cloud, but in 1887 returned to office as minister of the interior in the Depretis cabinet. Following Depretis’s death on July 29, 1887 Crispi assumed the premiership of his country.
First term
One of his first acts as premier was a visit to Bismarck, whom he desired to consult upon the working of the Triple AllianceTriple Alliance (1882)
The Triple Alliance was the military alliance between Germany, Austria–Hungary, and Italy, , that lasted from 1882 until the start of World War I in 1914...
. Basing his foreign policy upon the alliance, as supplemented by the naval entente with Great Britain negotiated by his predecessor, Count Robilant, Crispi assumed a resolute attitude towards France, breaking off the prolonged and unfruitful negotiations for a new Franco-Italian commercial treaty, and refusing the French invitation to organize an Italian section at the Paris Exhibition of 1889. At home Crispi secured the adoption of the Sanitary and Commercial Codes, and reformed the administration of justice. Forsaken by his Radical friends, Crispi governed with the help of the right until he was overthrown by Giovanni Giolitti
Giovanni Giolitti
Giovanni Giolitti was an Italian statesman. He was the 19th, 25th, 29th, 32nd and 37th Prime Minister of Italy between 1892 and 1921. A left-wing liberal, Giolitti's periods in office were notable for the passage of a wide range of progressive social reforms which improved the living standards of...
in 1891.
Return to power and second term
In December 1893 the impotence of the Giolitti cabinet to restore public order, menaced by disturbances in Sicily and in LunigianaLunigiana
The Lunigiana is an historical territory of Italy, which today falls within the provinces of La Spezia and Massa Carrara. Its borders derive from the ancient Roman settlement, later the medieval diocese of Luni, which no longer exists....
, gave rise to a general demand that Crispi should return to power. Although Giolitti tried to put a halt to the manifestations and protests of the Fasci Siciliani
Fasci Siciliani
The Fasci Siciliani, short for Fasci Siciliani dei Lavoratori , were a popular movement of democratic and socialist inspiration, which arose in Sicily in the years between 1889 and 1894...
, his measures were relatively mild. It was with the second Crispi regime that the repression of the Fasci turned into outright persecution. The government arrested not just the leaders of the movement, but masses of poor farmers, students, professionals, sympathizers of the Fasci, and even those simply suspected of having sympathized with the movement at some point in time, in many cases without any evidence for the accusations. After the declaration of the state of emergency, condemnations were issued for the paltriest of reasons. Many rioters were incarcerated for having shouted things such as "Viva l’anarchia" or "down with the King". At Palermo, in April and May 1894, the trials against the central committee of the Fasci took place and this was the final blow that signaled the death knell of the movement of the Fasci Siciliani
Fasci Siciliani
The Fasci Siciliani, short for Fasci Siciliani dei Lavoratori , were a popular movement of democratic and socialist inspiration, which arose in Sicily in the years between 1889 and 1894...
.
Crispi steadily supported the energetic remedies adopted by Barone Sidney Sonnino
Sidney Sonnino
Baron Sidney Costantino Sonnino was an Italian politician.Sonnino was born in Pisa to an Italian father of Jewish heritage and a Welsh mother...
, minister of finance, to save Italian credit, which had been severely shaken the financial crisis of 1892–1893.
In 1894 he was threatened with expulsion from the Masonic
Freemasonry
Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...
Grande Oriente d'Italia
Grande Oriente d'Italia
The Grand Orient of Italy is a masonic organization based at Palazzo Giustiniani, Rome, Italy. It was founded in 1805.Past grand masters included:*Giuseppe Garibaldi,*the sculptor Ettore Ferrari,*the mayor of Rome Ernesto Nathan and...
for being too friendly towards the Catholic Church. He had previously been strongly anticlerical but had become convinced of the need for rapprochement with the Papacy.
Crispi’s uncompromising suppression of disorder, and his refusal to abandon either the Triple Alliance or the Eritrean colony
Eritrea
Eritrea , officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa. Eritrea derives it's name from the Greek word Erethria, meaning 'red land'. The capital is Asmara. It is bordered by Sudan in the west, Ethiopia in the south, and Djibouti in the southeast...
, or to forsake his colleague Sidney Sonnino
Sidney Sonnino
Baron Sidney Costantino Sonnino was an Italian politician.Sonnino was born in Pisa to an Italian father of Jewish heritage and a Welsh mother...
, caused a breach with the radical leader Felice Cavallotti
Felice Cavallotti
Felice Cavallotti was an Italian politician, poet and dramatic author.- Early career :Born in Milan, Cavallotti fought with the Garibaldian Corps in their 1860 and 1866 campaigns during the Italian Wars of Independence....
. Cavallotti began a pitiless campaign of defamation against him. An unsuccessful attempt upon Crispi’s life by the anarchist Lega brought a momentary truce, but Cavallotti’s attacks were soon renewed more fiercely than ever. They produced little effect and the general election of 1895 gave Crispi a huge majority.
In 1896 the humiliating defeat of the Italian army at Adwa in Ethiopia during First Italo-Ethiopian War, brought about his resignation. The ensuing Antonio di Rudini
Antonio Starabba, Marchese di Rudinì
Marquis Antonio Starabba di Rudinì was the 18th and 21st Prime Minister of Italy between 1891 and 1892 and from 1896 until 1898.-Biography:...
cabinet lent itself to Cavallotti’s campaign, and at the end of 1897 the judicial authorities applied to the Chamber of Deputies for permission to prosecute Crispi for embezzlement. A parliamentary commission of inquiry discovered only that Crispi, on assuming office in 1893, had found the secret service coffers empty, and had borrowed money from a state bank to fund it, repaying it with the monthly installments granted in regular course by the treasury. The commission, considering this proceeding irregular, proposed, and the Chamber adopted, a vote of censure, but refused to authorize a prosecution. Crispi resigned his seat in parliament, but was re-elected by an overwhelming majority in April 1898 by his Palermo constituents. For some time he took little part in active politics, chiefly on account of his growing blindness. A successful operation for cataract
Cataract
A cataract is a clouding that develops in the crystalline lens of the eye or in its envelope, varying in degree from slight to complete opacity and obstructing the passage of light...
restored his eyesight in June 1900, and notwithstanding his 81 years he resumed to some extent his former political activity. Soon afterward, however, his health began to give way and he died at Naples on August 11, 1901.
Legacy
Crispi was a colourful and intensely patriotic character. Although he began life as a revolutionary and democratic figure, his premiership was authoritarian and he showed disdain for Italian liberals.Books by Crispi
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