Giovanni Giolitti - Early Career

Early Career

Giolitti was born at Mondovì (Piedmont). His father Giovenale Giolitti had been working in the avvocatura dei poveri, an office assisting poor citizens in both civil and criminal cases. He died in 1843, a year after Giovanni was born. The family moved in the home of his mother Enrichetta Plochiù in Turin. At sixteen he entered the University of Turin and earned a law degree in 1860. Subsequently, he pursued a career in public administration. That choice prevented him to participate in the decisive battles of the Risorgimento (the unification of Italy), for which his temperament was not suited anyway, but this lack of military experience would be held against him as long as the Risorgimento generation was active in politics.

After a rapid career in the financial administration he was, in 1882, appointed councillor of state and elected to the Chamber of Deputies (the lower house of Parliament) for the Liberal Left. As deputy he chiefly acquired prominence by attacks on Agostino Magliani, treasury minister in the cabinet of Agostino Depretis, and on 9 March 1889 was himself selected as treasury minister by Prime Minister Crispi. On the fall of the Antonio di Rudinì cabinet in May 1892, Giolitti, with the help of a court clique, succeeded to the premiership.