Paolo Boselli

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Paolo Boselli

Paolo Boselli (born June 8, 1838 in Savona , † March 10, 1932 in Rome ) was an Italian financial scientist and politician . He was minister several times and from June 18 to October 30, 1916 President of the Council of Ministers (Prime Minister) of his country.

Life and academic career

Boselli came from a liberal family who were among the notables of his hometown. After attending a Piarist school , he (like his father) studied law in Turin from 1856 to 1860 and during this time already made many connections to the political and cultural circles of the then capital of Sardinia-Piedmont . After completing his studies he married Corinna Cambieri, the sister of one of his lecturers. He had three children with her: their son Silvio and their daughters Maria and Luisa.

Boselli settled down as a lawyer and, alongside others, wrote a commentary on the new local and provincial administration law in 1865. He has also published a number of articles on political, economic and administrative issues in prestigious journals in the country. As early as 1862 he was assigned to the State Council of the new, united Kingdom of Italy as an auditor , which practically meant the end of his legal practice. In 1865 he also became an advisor to the prefecture in Milan . In 1867 he became a curator at the Museum of Industry in Turin and began to teach industrial economics. That year he was also general secretary of the Italian delegation to the 1867 World's Fair in Paris. In 1869 he became a professor of political economy at the newly founded commercial college in Venice . It was during this time that he dealt with the issues of higher education and vocational training for the first time, with Boselli emphatically emphasizing the need to also conduct technical training up to a university level. In 1871 he was appointed professor of finance at the University of Rome , but did not give up teaching in Venice until 1874.

Political career

In 1869 Boselli first became a member and then chairman of the Permanent Council of Finances, a body that dealt with the reorganization of property taxes , various municipal taxes and pension funds. In addition to himself and others, members of the committee were also some other later Prime Ministers such as Agostino Depretis , Luigi Luzzatti and Antonio Starabba di Rudinì .

In 1870 Boselli was elected councilor in his hometown and in November of the same year as a representative of his university in the Italian parliament , where he supported the right- wing liberals of the historical right group . The next few years were characterized by intense parliamentary activity, especially on financial and economic issues. This also included the beginnings of Italian social legislation and worker protection . In contrast to the theory of classical Manchester liberalism, Boselli advocated a greater role for the state.

In the 1880s he also dealt with various aspects of the Italian transport system, such as the nationalization of the railways, the expansion of the merchant navy and shipbuilding , whereby he gradually switched to a position that emphasized the role of the state approached the left liberals. He was actively involved in the creation of the Italian Commercial Code and in 1885 was an Italian delegate to the International Congress of Trade and Maritime Law in Antwerp .

After his predecessor had resigned because of student unrest, Boselli was Minister of Education under Prime Minister Francesco Crispi on February 17, 1888 and remained so until February 6, 1891. During this time, various school reforms were his main area of ​​work. His goals - a standardization of the school system and a stronger inclusion of technical education in the classroom - he was only able to partially implement because of the resistance in parliament. On December 15, 1893 - again under Crispi - he became Minister of Agriculture, Industry and Trade and on June 14, 1894, he moved to the finance department. The fight against the severe economic crisis of the time and the consolidation of the state budget were the focus of his activities. The tax and tariff increases for which he is responsible, etc. a. on town gas and electricity, sugar and cotton, although they rehabilitated the state budget, but made the government extremely unpopular, so that it had to resign after the lost battle of Adua in March 1896. Since the parliamentary election in 1893, Boselli was no longer elected for the university, but for the constituency of Avigliana .

Between May 1899 and June 1900, Boselli was again Minister of Finance, this time in the Pelloux cabinet , and between February and May 1906 again Minister of Education in the Sonnino government (1st) . After that, Boselli's career in "big politics" seemed to be over: He was given public honors and honorary posts, but no longer played a role in day-to-day politics, which was meanwhile dominated by younger politicians. He supported Italy's entry into the First World War and became Prime Minister after Antonio Salandra's resignation due to military failures on June 18, 1916 at the age of 78, after two other politicians had refused the office. Boselli turned out to be a not particularly capable war prime minister and had to resign on October 30, 1917 after the defeat of Karfreit .

In 1921 he left parliament and was appointed senator. In later years, Boselli showed a tendency to fascism , with which he shared his aversion to socialism .

Others

In October 1907, Boselli became President of the Dante Alighieri National Society and remained so until his death. From 1914 he was a member of the Accademia della Crusca in Florence . After his death, Boselli received a state funeral at which the king was present, and there was a funeral and memorial service in the Senate in his honor.

Publications

  • Guida amministrativa (1865)
  • Relazione d'inchiesta sulla marina mercantile (1882)
  • Le droit maritime en Italie (French) (1885)
  • Carlo Alberto e l'ammiraglio Des Geneys nel 1825 (1892)
  • Il ministro Vallesa e l'ambasciatore Dalberg nel 1817 (1893)
  • Discorsi e scritti (4 volumes, 1915ff.)
  • La patria negli scritti e nei discorsi (1917)
  • Discorsi di guerra preceduti da un profilo dettato dal senatore Valli (1917)
  • Per la Dante e per la Vittoria (1924)

literature

Web links

  • Entry in the Portale storico of the Camera dei Deputati

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Article "BOSELLI, Paolo" in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani , Volume 13, 1971., accessed on March 6, 2016.
  2. ↑ a b Article "BOSELLI; Paolo" in: Enciclopedia Italiana, Turin: Treccani, 1929ff., Accessed on March 6, 2016.
  3. ^ Membership list of the Crusca
personal data
SURNAME Boselli, Paolo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian politician, member of the Camera
DATE OF BIRTH June 8, 1838
PLACE OF BIRTH Savona
DATE OF DEATH March 10, 1932
Place of death Rome