III. Cavour and Parliament

Extract

Constitutional history has not bulked large in risorgimento studies, because events of greater dramatic impact take precedence on this particular stage. The 1848 constitution of Piedmont has been studied, but this was a haphazard document drawn up hurriedly by inexperienced lawyers and open to either liberal or illiberal interpretation. Far more important was the formative period after 1848, during which first the Marquis Massimo d'Azeglio and then Count Camille de Cavour created traditions of parliamentary and cabinet rule. Cavour was the most successful and authoritative parliamentarian in Italian history. On his development of the constitution, however, we possess little more than the provocative but fragmentary essays of Adolfo Omodeo, largely because for nearly a century his papers have been inaccessible. The modern Italian parliament grew directly out of Cavour's theory and practice, and what he understood by liberal government is therefore highly important. There is room, at any rate, for enquiring whether he was the straightforward liberal that a dozen biographers make out.