Count Camillo Cavour
(1810-1861)

The Italian nationalist politician Camillo Benso Cavour was born in Turin and served in the army in early life. He entered politics in 1847. From 1848 he sat in the Piedmontese parliament and held cabinet posts 1850-1852. As prime minister, he sought to secure French and British sympathy for the cause of Italian unification by sending Piedmontese troops to fight in the Crimean War. In 1858 he had a secret meeting with Napoléon III at Plombières, where they planned the war of 1859 against Austria, which resulted in the union of Lombardy with Piedmont. The central Italian states also joined the kingdom of Italy, although Savoy and Nice were to be ceded to France. With Cavour’s approval Garibaldi overthrew the Neapolitan monarchy, but to prevent him from marching on Rome, Cavour occupied part of the Papal States, which with Naples and Sicily were annexed to Italy.