COUNT PELLEGRINO

See also:

• LUIGI

LUIGI EDOARDO

See also:

• ROSSI, LUIGI DE
• COUNT PELLEGRINO LUIGI EDOARDO ROSSI (1787-1848)

ROSSI (1787-1848)  , Italian economist and statesman, was born at Carrara on the 13th of July 1787 . He was educated at Pavia and Bologna, and in 1812 became professor of law at the latter university . In 1815 he gave his support to Joachim Murat, and after his fall escaped to France, whence he proceeded to Geneva . There he began a course of jurisprudence applied to Roman law, the success of which gained him the unusual honour of natural-ization as a citizen of Geneva . In 182o he was elected as a deputy to the cantonal council, and was a member of the extra-ordinary diet of 1832 . He was entrusted with the task of drawing up a revised constitution, which was known as the Pacte Rossi . This was rejected by a majority of the diet, a result which deeply affected Rossi, and induced him to look with favour on the suggestions of Guizot and the duc de Broglie that he should settle in France . He was appointed in 1833 to the chair of political economy in the College de France, vacated by the death of J . B . Say . He was naturalized as a French citizen in 1834, and in the same year became professor of constitutional law in the faculty of law at Paris . In 1836 he was elected a member of the Academie des sciences politiques et morales, was raised to the peerage in 1839 and in 1843 became doyen of the faculty of law .

In 1845 he was sent to

Rome by Guizot to discuss the question of the Jesuits, being finally appointed ambassador of France at Rome . The revolution of 1848 severed his connexion with France, and he remained at Rome and became minister of the interior under Pius IX . He was unpopular, however, owing to his conservative views, and was assassinated on the 15th of November, as he was alighting at the steps of the House of Assembly . As a statesman, Rossi was a man of signal ability and intrepid character, but it is as an economist that his name will be best remembered . His Cours d'economie politique (1838–54) gave in classic form an exposition of the doctrines of Say, Malthus and Ricardo . His other works were Traite de droit penal (1829) ; Cours de droit constitutionnel (1866-67), and Melanges d'economie politique, d'histoire et de philosophie (2 vols., 1857) . His widow left a sum of 100,000 francs to the Institut de France, to found in his memory scholarships in political economy or law . Carrara erected a statue to his memory In 1876, and in 1887 the Societe d'economie politique celebrated his centenary with a notice of his life and works . See also le Comte Fleury d'Ideville, Le Comte Pellegrino Rossi, sa vie, ses oeuvres, sa mort (1887) .