CAPO D'ISTRIA, GIOVANNI ANTONIO (JOAN NES), COUNT (1776-1831), Russian and Greek statesman, son of Count Antonio Capo d'Istria, the head of an old Corfiot family, was born in Corfu on Feb. II, 1776, and studied at Padua. In 1800 he became secretary to the legislative council of the septinsular republic (Ionian Islands), and in 1807 he organised the defence of Santa Maura against Ali Pasha. A profound admirer of Russia, he entered her service in 1809 and became attaché at Vienna in 181I. After serving on a mission to the principalities in 1812, Capo d'Istria was attached to Barclay de Tolly's staff during the cam paign in 1 813 and, after a mission to Switzerland, was present in Paris and later at the Congress of Vienna. At that Congress he exercised great influence and prepared a memorandum for Alex ander on German policy in which he advocated keeping Germany in dependence upon Russia. He also opposed the dismemberment of France, and was largely responsible for the treaty of Nov. 20, 1815, in which year he was made secretary of state, sharing the ministry of foreign affairs with Nesselrode, and assuming control of Bessarabia. After attending the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818, Capo d'Istria paid a visit to Corfu where he listened to the complaints of the Corfiots against English rule. On his return to Russia, he visited England to lay their complaints before the British Cabinet by whom he was somewhat coldly received. He was responsible for drafting the protest of the Tsar against the Carlsbad Decrees (see Alexander I.) and in October 182o at tended the Congress at Troppau. Metternich did his utmost to detach the Tsar's confidence from Capo d'Istria, and was success ful in bringing about his resignation in 1822. Five years later the Greek national assembly elected Capo d'Istria to the presidency of the republic. Nicholas I. had succeeded Alexander upon the Russian throne, and the count hastened to Tsarskoye Selo from Geneva, where he had been living, in order to obtain the Tsar's permission to take up his new post. This was readily granted him, and he set forth as virtually a Russian agent in Greece. After a tour of Europe, during which he endeavoured to secure the sup port of the Governments for his new work, Capo d'Istria landed at Nauplia on Jan. 19, 1828.
From the outset he had to face immense difficulties in Greece— a land with a bankrupt treasury, a half-barbarian population, and with its soil not yet freed from the presence of Ibrahim Pasha's army in the Morea. His international reputation was appreciated by the Greeks, but his aristocratic outlook and want of human sympathy soon alienated a democratic and turbulent people. Yet he fought against the restrictive policy of the European states in regard to Greece, and it was not until his marked preference for Phanariotes (q.v.) and Corfiots together with the promotion of his brothers to high commands had earned him widespread dislike that the incipient fires of revolt blazed up into open rebellion. By calling in Russian aid to suppress the revolt, Capo d'Istria gave it the character of a national and patriotic rising; and his imprison ment of the leader of the Mavromichales clan aroused the fury of the Mainots. The Russian minister sought to make peace, and might have succeeded, but for Capo d'Istria's insolent treatment of the old Mavromichales chief, Petrobey, who gave the signal to his son and a cousin to wipe out the insult. On the following day (Oct. 9, 1831), Capo d'Istria was assassinated by these two men as he went into church.