Francesco Crispi - Legacy

Legacy

Crispi was a colourful and intensely patriotic character. He was a man of enormous energy but with a violent temper. His whole life, public and private, was turbulent, dramatic and marked by a succession of bitter personal hostilities. Although he began life as a revolutionary and democratic figure, his premiership was authoritarian and he showed disdain for Italian liberals. At the end of the 19th century, Crispi was the dominant figure of Italian politics for a decade. He was saluted by Giuseppe Verdi as 'the great patriot'. He was a more scrupulous statesman than Cavour, a more realistic conspirator than Mazzini, a more astute figure than Garibaldi. His death resulted in lengthier obituaries in Europe's press than for any Italian politician since Cavour.

As prime minister in the 1880s and 1890s, Crispi was internationally famous and often mentioned along with world statesmen such as Bismarck, Gladstone and Salisbury. Originally an enlightened Italian patriot and democrat liberal he went on to become a bellicose authoritarian prime minister and ally and admirer of Bismarck. He is often seen as a precursor of Benito Mussolini. His reputation was a victim of Italian Fascism, which awarded him an abundance of street names, most of which were erased after 1945. With the collapse of Fascism Crispi's reputation was left fatally tarnished.