Cavour

            Cavour, Count Camillo Benso di (1810-1861) .
             The figure who forged the Kingdom of Italy, designe d the constitutional structure of the unitary state and served as its first prime minister was the second son of an aristocratic Piedmontese family. Born in Turin when it was under French control, he was sponsored in baptism by Napoleon's sister Pauline, and her husband, Prince Camille Borghese, after whom Camillo was named. Both Camillo and his older brother Gustavo were initially educated at home. Whereas Gustavo, as the first son could expect a position in the administration or the diplomatic corps in Piedmont, Camillo, as the second son of a nobleman, was earmarked for a career in the army, even though his interests were more political than military. In 1820 he enrolled in the military academy of Turin, and in July 1824 was named a page to Charles Albert, the king of Piedmont (1831-1849), who opened the first war of independence against Austria. Camillo resigned from the army at the end of 1831. .
             He administered the family estate at Grinzane, some forty kilometers outside the capital, ser ving as mayor there from 1832 to the revolutionary upheaval of 1848. He traveled widely in Europe, though not much in Italy, visiting France, Switzerland and Great Britain. Convinced that economic reconstruction had to proceed political change, he stressed the advantages of free trade and railroad construction in the peninsula. Suspicious of the Papacy, he did not support the Neo-Guelph program which dreamed that the pope would play a leading role in the unification movement. Instead, Cavour in the 1840s jo ined the ranks of those who looked to Charles Albert to effect the liberal and national program in Italy. Following the election of Pius IX in 1846, the Piedmontese monarch allowed the congress of scientists meeting in Genoa in September to issue a series of patriotic pronouncements. .
             In 1847, when Carlo Alberto introduced a series of reforms, Cavour took advantage of the revised press law to establish the newspaper Il Risorgimento.