CRISPI, kr6'spe, FRANCESCO ( 1S ] 9-1901 ). An Italian statesman, horn at Ribera, in Sicily. Octo ber 4. 1819. He studied law at Palermo and was admitted to the bar there, and in 1846 at Naples. He took an active part in the Sicilian uprising of 184S, and after its disastrous issue engaged in journalism in Piedmont. In 1860 he aided Gari baldi in his expedition for the deliverance of the Two Sicilies. Ile became the first representative of Palermo in the Italian Parliament, began immediately to play a prominent ride, and after having been the leader of the radical Left, be came an exponent of monarchical constitutional ism. In 1876 he was elected president of the Chamber of Deputies. To promote the interests of his country. he visited the European courts in the following year. and soon after was made Min ister of the Interior. Denounced by his opponents OD a charge of bigamy, he was obliged to resign in 1878, and, although acquitted. did not take office again until 1887, in the Cabinet of Depretis, after whose death, in the same. year, he became head of the Cabinet and Minister of Foreign Affairs. He was an earnest advocate of the Triple Alliance (q.v.) between Germany. Italy, and Austria, and in his endeavor to strengthen it visited Bismarck at Friedrichsruhe in )887, and accompanied King Humbert to Berlin in 1889. conferring also with Caprivi at Milan in the following year. His policy was approved by an overwhelming majority of the electors in 1890., but his _Ministry was over
thrown on a matter of financial policy in Febru ary, 1891. He now resumed his law practice in Rome, and, in the Chamber of Deputies, led the Opposition against his successor in office, the Marquis di Rudiui. In 1893 he resumed the office of Premier. and held it till the defeat of the Italians in Abyssinia in 1896, when lie was again succeeded by Rndini (q.v.). In March, 1898, he resigned his scat in the Lower Chamber as a result of the charges brought against him in con nection with extensive swindles perpetrated on the Banca d'ltalia. Save for a few articles NI hieh he published in favor of the Triple Alliance, he took no further active interest in affairs, and he died on Align-A, 1], 1901, at. Naples. Crispi was the greatest statesman that southern Italy gave to the united kingdom. In his lifetime lie was nmeh misunderstood and maligned. Dist rusted by the Conservatives as a Radical and Republican, he incurred the hostility of the Republicans by his famous dictum in his letter to Mazzini, March IS, 1865. "Monarchy unites us, while a republic would separate us." From that time he was a firm supporter of the monarchy, but never a friend of the Court. Consult: Stillman, Fran cesco Crispi, Insurgent, Exile, Revolutionist, and Statesman ( London, 1S99), which contains an estimate as just as a contemporary estimate of a complex character can well be.