Pasquale Villari was an Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 historian and politician.

Early life and publications

Villari was born in Naples

Naples

Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

 and took part in the risings of 1848 there against the Bourbon

House of Bourbon

The House of Bourbon is a European royal house, a branch of the Capetian dynasty . Bourbon kings first ruled Navarre and France in the 16th century. By the 18th century, members of the Bourbon dynasty also held thrones in Spain, Naples, Sicily, and Parma...

s and subsequently fled to Florence

Florence

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

. There he devoted himself to teaching and historical research in the public libraries with the object of collecting new materials on Girolamo Savonarola

Girolamo Savonarola

Girolamo Savonarola was an Italian Dominican friar, Scholastic, and an influential contributor to the politics of Florence from 1494 until his execution in 1498. He was known for his book burning, destruction of what he considered immoral art, and what he thought the Renaissance—which began in his...

. He published the fruits of his researches in the Archivio Storico Italiano in 1856, and in 1859 he published the first volume of his Storia di Girolamo Savonarola e de' suoi tempi, in consequence of which he was appointed professor of history at Pisa

Pisa

Pisa is a city in Tuscany, Central Italy, on the right bank of the mouth of the River Arno on the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa...

. A second volume appeared in 1861, and the work, which soon came to be recognized as an Italian classic, was translated into various foreign languages.

It was followed by a work of even greater critical value, Niccolò Machiavelli

Niccolò Machiavelli

Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli was an Italian historian, philosopher, humanist, and writer based in Florence during the Renaissance. He is one of the main founders of modern political science. He was a diplomat, political philosopher, playwright, and a civil servant of the Florentine Republic...

 e i suoi tempi (1877–82). In the meanwhile Villari had left Pisa and was transferred to the chair of philosophy of history at the Institute of Studii Superiori in Florence, and he was also appointed a member of the council of education (1862). He served as a juror at the international exhibition of that year in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, and contributed an important monograph on education in England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 and Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

.

Enters politics

In 1869 he was appointed under-secretary of state for education, and shortly afterwards was elected member of parliament, a position which he held for several years. In 1884 he was appointed senator, and became vice-president of the senate in 1887. In 1891-1892 he was minister of education in the Marchese di Rudini

Antonio Starabba, Marchese di Rudinì

Marquis Antonio Starabba di Rudinì was the 18th and 21st Prime Minister of Italy between 1891 and 1892 and from 1896 until 1898.-Biography:...

's first cabinet, and introduced valuable reforms into the curriculum of the schools. In 1893-1894 he collected a number of essays on Florentine history, originally published in the Nuova Antologia, under the title of I primi due secoli della storia di Firenze, and in 1901 he produced Le Invasioni barbariche in Italia, a popular account in one volume of the events following the dissolution of the Roman empire

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

.

Other works

Among his other literary works may be mentioned: Saggi Critici (1868); Arte, Storia, e Filosofia (Florence, 1884); Scritti varii (Bologna, 1894); another volume of Saggi Critici (Bologna, 1896); and a volume of Discussioni critiche e discorsi (Bologna, 1905), containing his speeches as president of the Dante Alighieri Society. His most important political and social essays are collected in his Lettere Meridionali ed altri scritti sulla questione sociale in Italia (Turin, 1885), and Scritti sulla questione sociale in Italia (Florence, 1902). The Lettere Meridionali (originally published in the newspaper L'Opinione in 1875) produced a deep impression, as they were the first exposure of the real conditions of southern Italy. Many of his works were translated into English by his wife, Linda White Mazini Villari

Linda White Mazini Villari

Linda White Mazini Villari was an author and translator. She translated many of the works of her second husband, Pasquale Villari, into English. She was the widow of Vicenzo Mazini and the daughter of James White.-Publications:...

.

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