Cesare Balbo

Kingdom of Sardinia state institutions Liberalism and republicanism 1789–1853 ○ Natural causes

Piedmontese historian who urged an Italian confederation led by Piedmont and became Sardinia's first constitutional premier in 1848

Born in Turin in 1789 into a noble Piedmontese family, he served the Napoleonic empire from 1808 to 1814 in Florence, Rome, Paris and Illyria. After Napoleon's fall he entered the Sardinian army and undertook political missions to Paris and London, but suspected of sympathy with the revolution of 1821 he was forced into exile, and after his return was denied all public service. Turning to writing to secure Italy's independence from foreign control, he argued in Delle speranze d'Italia (1844) for a confederation led not by the Pope but by Piedmont. Wanting reform rather than revolution, he led a moderate party opposed to both despotism and democracy. When the Statuto Albertino was granted in 1848 he became Piedmont's first constitutional prime minister, holding office for only a few months. He died in 1853.