Severino Guscetti

Severino Guscetti (born June 24, 1816 in Milan , † April 20, 1871 in Victoria , Australia ), resident in Quinto , was a Swiss politician and doctor . From 1849 to 1851 he was a member of the National Council, then until 1854 of the State Council of the Canton of Ticino .

biography

Guscetti was born in Milan, where his father worked as a milkman and ran a grocery store. He completed a medical degree at the Universities of Vienna and Pavia . After receiving his doctorate in 1840, Guscetti worked as a doctor for the poor in his home town of Quinto for around a decade. In the Levantine unfolded a variety of philanthropic and popular educational activities with which he liberal spread ideas. Guscetti was involved in the abstinence movement and sponsored a public library. He translated educational and historical writings by Heinrich Zschokke as well as non-fiction books on forestry into Italian , and he also wrote geography school books.

At the suggestion of his friend Stefano Franscini , Guscetti began to get involved in politics. In 1848 he was elected to the Grand Council of the Canton of Ticino . After Franscini was elected to the Federal Council, Guscetti ran successfully in February 1849 for his vacant seat in the National Council. In 1851 he did not stand for re-election, instead he was elected to the Ticino State Council. As the head of the education and health department, he campaigned for agricultural reforms, the secularization of secondary school teaching and the organization of the cantonal grammar school in Lugano .

Due to differences of opinion with his counterpart, Guscetti resigned as State Councilor in 1854 and then emigrated with his family to Australia . He settled in the Ballarat area in what was then the British colony of Victoria , the center of the Victorian gold rush . Guscetti continued to practice medicine and tried his hand at agricultural speculation. In 1864 he was a member of a commission that secured mineral-rich springs and thus contributed to the establishment of the health resort of Hepburn Springs .

literature

• Raffaello Ceschi: Severino Guscetti. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . May 11, 2004 , accessed December 9, 2019 .

Web links

• Severino Guscetti (Italian) on ti.ch/can/oltreconfiniti

Individual evidence

1. ^ A corner of Switzerland in the Australian countryside. Swissinfo , July 6, 2009, accessed on November 25, 2014 (English).