Rossi, Pellegrino Luigi Edoardo (1787–1848)

Abstract

Italian economist, jurist and statesman; born at Carrara in 1787, died at Rome in 1848. Rossi was a multi-national and a multi-talent. Expelled from his homeland for his zealous support of Italian unification, he emigrated to Switzerland, where he taught Roman history, championed constitutional reform, and became a naturalized citizen. After a major setback in his reform efforts he moved to France, and began lecturing on economics in 1827. In 1833 he succeeded J.B. Say in the chair of political economy at the Collège de France, winning the appointment over strong competition from Say’s son-in-law, Charles Comte. The following year, Rossi became a naturalized French citizen. New honours followed quickly. In 1836 he was elected to the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques; he was elevated to the peerage in 1839; and in 1845, was named French Ambassador to Rome. The Revolution of 1848 cut him off from France, whereupon he became the semi-official adviser of Pope Pius IX, until an assassin’s dagger took his life in the same year.