Ruggero Bonghi 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...

 scholar, writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

 and politician

Politician

A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...

.

Biography

Ruggero Bonghi was born at 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...

.

Exiled from his native city in consequence of the movement of 1848, he took refuge in Tuscany

Tuscany

Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....

, whence he was compelled to flee to Turin

Turin

Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...

 on account of a pungent article against the Bourbons. At Turin he resumed his philosophic studies and his translation of Plato

Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...

, but In 1858 refused a professorship of Greek at Pavia

Pavia

Pavia , the ancient Ticinum, is a town and comune of south-western Lombardy, northern Italy, 35 km south of Milan on the lower Ticino river near its confluence with the Po. It is the capital of the province of Pavia. It has a population of c. 71,000...

, under the Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

n government, only to accept it in 1859 from the Italian government after the liberation of Lombardy

Lombardy

Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe...

.

In 1860, with the Cavour

Cavour

-Places:Italy* Cavour, Piedmont in Italy* Cavour in ItalyUnited States* Cavour, South Dakota, United States* Cavour, Wisconsin, United States-Other:* Italian aircraft carrier Cavour* the Italian dreadnought Conte di Cavour...

 party, he opposed the work of Giuseppe Garibaldi

Giuseppe Garibaldi

Giuseppe Garibaldi was an Italian military and political figure. In his twenties, he joined the Carbonari Italian patriot revolutionaries, and fled Italy after a failed insurrection. Garibaldi took part in the War of the Farrapos and the Uruguayan Civil War leading the Italian Legion, and...

, Francesco Crispi

Francesco Crispi

Francesco Crispi was a 19th-century Italian politician of Arbëreshë ancestry. He was instrumental in the unification of Italy and was its 17th and 20th Prime Minister from 1887 until 1891 and again from 1893 until 1896.-Sicily:Crispi’s paternal family came originally from the small agricultural...

 and Agostino Bertani

Agostino Bertani

Agostino Bertani was an Italian revolutionary and physician during Italian unification.-Revolutionary:Bertani was born at Milan on October 19, 1812. He took part in the revolutions of 1848, but he was opposed to the fusion of Lombardy with the Kingdom of Sardinia...

 at Naples, and became secretary of Luigi Carlo Farini

Luigi Carlo Farini

Luigi Carlo Farini was an Italian statesman and historian.-Biography:Farini was born at Russi, in what is now the province of Ravenna....

 during the latters lieutenancy, but in 1865 assumed contemporaneously the editorship of the Perseveranza of Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

 and the chair of Latin literature

Latin literature

Latin literature includes the essays, histories, poems, plays, and other writings of the ancient Romans. In many ways, it seems to be a continuation of Greek literature, using many of the same forms...

 at 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....

. Elected deputy in 1860 he became celebrated by the biting wit of his speeches, while, as journalist, the acrimony of his polemical writings made him a redoubtable adversary. Though an ardent supporter of the historic Right, and, as such, entrusted by the Lanza

Giovanni Lanza

Domenico Giovanni Giuseppe Maria Lanza was an Italian politician and the tenth Prime Minister from 1869 to 1873.Lanza was born in the Piedmontese city of Casale Monferrato...

 cabinet with the defence of the Law of Guarantees

Law of Guarantees

After the occupation of the Papal States in 1870, Italy's Law of Guarantees accorded the Pope certain honors and privileges similar to those enjoyed by the King of Italy, including the right to send and receive ambassadors who would have full diplomatic immunity, just as if he still had temporal...

 in 1870, he was no respecter of persons, his caustic tongue sparing neither friend nor foe.

Appointed minister for public instruction in 1873, he, with feverish activity, reformed the Italian educational system, suppressed the privileges of the university of Naples, founded the Vittorio Emanuele library in Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

, and prevented the establishment of a Catholic university in the capital. Upon the fall of the Right from power in 1876 he joined the opposition, and, with characteristic vivacity, protracted during two months the debate on Baccellis University Reform Bill, securing, single-handed, its rejection. A bitter critic of King Humbert, both in the Perseveranza and in the Nuova Antologia, he was, in 1893, excluded from court, only securing readmission shortly before his death.

In foreign policy a Francophil, he combated the Triple Alliance

Triple Alliance (1882)

The Triple Alliance was the military alliance between Germany, Austria–Hungary, and Italy, , that lasted from 1882 until the start of World War I in 1914...

, and took considerable part in the organization of the inter-parliamentary peace conference.