Bettino Ricasoli

Baron Bettino Ricasoli ( born March 9, 1809 in Florence, † October 23, 1880 in Brolio ) was an Italian statesman.

Ricasoli came from an old Tuscan family. He received his academic education in Florence and Prati, among others on the Convitto Nazionale Statale Cicognini, and devoted himself to his life, agricultural studies, from 1834 as a member of the Accademia dei Georgofili of Florence. On Brolio, the estate of his family in Gaiole in Chianti, he pursued, inter alia, sericulture, agriculture and especially viticulture ( Chianti).

In 1846 sent to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Leopold II, who was against liberal thought as open-minded, a memorandum with proposals for reform and founded in 1847 the newspaper La Patria as the voice of moderate democratic forces of Florence. On December 12, 1847, he was appointed Gonfaloniere of Florence. In the revolutionary years of 1848/49 he did not join the radical Republicans and instead worked with in the moderate government, which allowed the return of the temporarily displaced Habsbugers Leopold II. Disgusted with his now verflogenen reform will and the following Austrian occupation of Florence, Ricasoli but then withdrew into private life.

The refusal of Leopold II, in the invitation Victor Emmanuel II to gather troops against Austria in the Second Italian War of Independence to follow, led again in 1859 to revolt and the final expulsion of Leopold II Ricasoli joined the movement and founded the same year the newspaper La Nazione that still appears in Florence. As minister of the interior of Tuscany, he supported also from 1859, the union of Tuscany with Piedmont, and the further efforts of the Risorgimento to the unification of the Kingdom of Italy.

On March 26, 1860 Ricasoli of Victor Emmanuel II was appointed governor-general of Tuscany, on April 6 as Director in the Ministry of Internal Affairs and eventually, after the death of Cavour in June 1861 the Prime Minister. He reached the recognition of the young Italian Union by a number of European countries and the integration of the volunteer corps of Garibaldi in the regular army, and he tried in vain as a devout Catholic, a reconciliation with the Vatican. His failure in this matter, which was considered a prerequisite for a peaceful integration of Rome in the Italian Kingdom, led in March 1862 to withdraw Ricasoli to the Ministry Rattazzi.

In June 1866, the beginning of the Third Italian War of Independence Ricasoli again took over the head of government. However, he failed as before on the issue of reconciliation with the Vatican, this time the resistance anticlerical forces in parliament. He saw himself in April 1867 again obliged to resign.

Ricasoli took very little since then in public life and went back to the wine at Castle Brolio. 1872 gained his work once more historical significance by writing in its view, the ideal blend of different grape varieties for a Chianti in a letter to Professor Cesare Studiati of the University of Pisa. This should be a binding model for several generations of Italian winemakers. Ricasoli died on October 23, 1880 in Brolio.