Gioberti, Vincenzo 1801-52
Italian (Piedmontese) writer and politician

Born in Turin, he was ordained in 1825 and expelled from Piedmont in 1833 because of his outspoken defence of the Polish cause. He wrote extensively on Italian history and politics. His most important work, Del primato morale e civile degli italiani ('On the Moral and Civil Primacy of the Italians'), written in exile in Brussels and published in 1843, called for an Italian confederation under papal presidency. His dreams seemed to have been realized with the election of the apparently liberal Pius IX in 1846 and the outbreak of revolution in 1848. Briefly Prime Minister of Piedmont (1848-49), he became disillusioned with, and retired from, politics and was condemned by an increasingly reactionary Pius.