Daniele Manin

Manin from the 1875 monument by Luigi Borro in Venice.

Daniele Manin (13 May 1804 - 22 September 1857) was a Venetian patriot and statesman. He is regarded as one of the heroes of Italian unification (Risorgimento).

Early life

Daniele Manin was born Daniele Fonseca, the son of a Jew in Verona. He took the name of Manin when he converted to Christianity when still a child, because Pietro Manin of that patrician family stood sponsor to him, as the custom then was. The Doge Lodovico Manin was his uncle. The other uncle, Giovanni Manin, was married with the daughter of the most noble Israelite Venitian family de Pesaro, Caterina. He studied law at Padua, and then practised at the bar of Venice, his native city. A man of great learning and a profound jurist, he was inspired from an early age with a deep hatred for Austria.

Revolutionary Leader

The heroic but hopeless attempt of the Bandiera Brothers, Venetians who had served in the Austrian navy against the Neapolitan Bourbons in 1844, was the first event to cause an awakening of Venetian patriotism, and in 1847 Manin presented a petition to the Venetian congregation, a shadowy consultative assembly tolerated by Austria but without any power, informing the emperor of the wants of the nation. He was arrested on a charge of high treason (18 January 1848), but this only served to increase the agitation of the Venetians, who were beginning to appreciate Manin.

Two months later, when all Italy and half the rest of Europe were in the throes of revolution, the people forced Count Pallfy (Erdődy Pállfy Alajos gróf), the Austrian governor, to release him (17 March). The Austrians soon lost all control of the city: the arsenal was seized by the revolutionists and, under the direction of Manin, a civic guard and a provisional government were instituted. The Austrians evacuated Venice on 26 March and Manin became president of the re-created Repubblica di San Marco. He was already in favour of Italian unity, and though not anxious for annexation to Piedmont (he would have preferred to invoke French aid), he gave way to the will of the majority, and resigned his powers to the Piedmontese commissioners on 7 August. But after the Piedmontese defeat at Custoza, and the armistice by which King Charles Albert abandoned Lombardy and Venetia to Austria, the Venetians attempted to lynch the royal commissioners, whose lives Manin saved with difficulty; an assembly was summoned, and a triumvirate formed with Manin at its head.

Towards the end of 1848 the Austrians, having been heavily reinforced, reoccupied all the Venetian mainland. The citizens, however, hard-pressed and threatened with a siege, showed the greatest devotion to the cause of freedom, all sharing in the dangers and hardships and all giving what they could afford to the state treasury. Early in 1849 Manin was again chosen president of the Republic, and conducted the defence of the city with great ability.

After the defeat of Charles Albert's folorn hope at Novara in March the Venetian assembly voted "Resistance at all costs!" and granted Manin unlimited powers.

Daniele Manin - "Emporio Pittoresco" n.31 - 1865.

Meanwhile the Austrian forces closed round the city. Manin showed a good capability of organization, in which he was ably seconded by the Neapolitan general, Guglielmo Pepe, who led the Neapolitan army to defend Venice against his king's order. But on 26 May the Venetians were forced to abandon Fort Marghera, half-way between the city and the mainland; food was becoming scarce, on 19 June the powder magazine blew up, and in July cholera broke out. The Austrian batteries, subsequently, began to bombard Venice itself, and when the Sardinian fleet withdrew from the Adriatic the city was also attacked by sea, while demagogues caused internal trouble.

At last, on 24 August 1849, when all provisions and ammunition were exhausted, Manin, who had courted death in vain, succeeded in negotiating an honorable capitulation, on terms of amnesty to all save Manin himself, Pepe and some others, who were to go into exile. On the 27th Manin left Venice forever on board a French ship.

Exile and last years

His wife died at Marseilles, and he himself reached Paris broken in health and almost destitute, having spent all his fortune for Venice.

In Paris he maintained himself by teaching and became a leader among the Italian exiles. There he became a convert from republicanism to monarchism, being convinced that only under the auspices of King Victor Emmanuel could Italy be freed, and together with Giorgio Pallavicini and Giuseppe La Farina he founded the Società Nazionale Italiana with the object of propagating the idea of unity under the Piedmontese monarchy.

His last years were embittered by the terrible sufferings of his daughter, who died in 1854, and he himself died on 22 September 1857, and was buried in Ary Scheffer's family tomb.

In 1868, two years after the Austrians finally departed from Venice, his remains were brought to his native city and honoured with a public funeral.

Evaluation

Manin was a man of the greatest honesty, and possessed genuinely statesmanlike qualities. He believed in Italian unity when most men, even Cavour, regarded it as a vain thing. For example, during the 1856 Congress of Paris, Manin met with Cavour to discuss the unification of Italy. After the meeting, Cavour wrote that Manin had talked about "l'unità d'Italia ed altre corbellerie" ("the unity of Italy and other nonsense").^[1] Manin's work of propaganda by means of the Italian National Society greatly contributed to the success of the cause.

Notes

Sources

• Keates, Jonathan (2005). The Siege of Venice. 

External links

• Daniele Manin and the Venetian revolution of 1848-49 By Paul Ginsborg

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

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