Rudinì, Antonio Starabba, marchese di

▪ premier of Italy

born April 16, 1839, Palermo, Sicily, Kingdom of the Two Sicilies [now in Italy]

died Aug. 7, 1908, Rome, Italy

      Italian statesman, premier of Italy (1891–92, 1896–98).

      A member of an aristocratic but liberal Sicilian family, Rudinì joined the revolutionaries of 1860, and, in 1864, following the Piedmontese annexation, he was appointed mayor of Palermo. In that post Rudinì successfully resisted the opponents of national unity who for a week besieged him in the town hall. As a reward, he was promoted to prefect with the task of suppressing brigandage in western Sicily. In 1869 he served briefly as minister of the interior before entering parliament, where he in time became leader of the Right. In 1891 he became premier for a year, surprising many by forming a coalition with the Left.

      His second term as premier (and minister of the interior) followed a crisis brought on by the defeat of an Italian army at Adwa, Ethiopia, in March 1896. He concluded peace with Ethiopia, and to satisfy the anticolonial party he ceded Kassala to Great Britain, thus provoking much indignation in Italy. His domestic policy was not sufficiently elastic to avoid serious rioting, which broke out in 1898; nor was he sufficiently forceful in putting down an incipient Socialist revolution. His government fell in June.

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