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Giuseppe La Farina

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GIUSEPPE LA FARINA (1815-1863), Italian author and politician, was born at Messina. On account of the part he took in the insurrection of 1837 he had to leave Sicily, but returning in 1839 he conducted various newspapers of liberal tendencies, until his efforts were completely interdicted, when he removed to Florence. In 1840 he had published Messina ed i suoi monumenti, and after his removal to Florence he brought out La Germania coi suoi monuments (1842), L' Italia coi suoi monumenti (1842), La Svizzera storica ed artistica (1842-1843), La China, 4 vols. (1843-1847), and Storia d'Italia, 7 vols. (1846-1854). In 1847 he established at Florence a democratic journal, L' Alba, in the interests of Italian freedom and unity, but on the outbreak of the revolution in Sicily in 1848 he returned thither and was elected deputy and member of the committee of war. In August of that year he was appointed minister of public instruction and later of war and marine. After vigorously conducting a campaign against the Bourbon troops, he was forced into exile, and repaired to France in 1849. In 1850 he published his Storia documentata della Rivoluzione Siciliana del 1848-1849, and in 1851-1852 his Storia d'Italia dal 1815 al 1848, in 6 vols. He returned to Italy in 1854 and settled at Turin, and in 1856 he founded the Piccolo Corriere d'Italia, an organ which had great influence in propagating the political sentiments of the Societa Nazionale Italiana, of which he ultimately was chosen president. With Daniele Manin, one of the founders of that society, he advocated the unity of Italy under Victor Emmanuel even before Cavour, with whom at one time he had daily interviews, and organized the emigration of volunteers from all parts of Italy into the Piedmontese army. He also negotiated an interview between Cavour and Garibaldi, with the result that the latter was appointed commander of the Cacciatori delle Alpi in the war of 1859. Later he supported Garibaldi's expedition to Sicily, where he himself went soon after the occupation of Palermo, but he failed to bring about the immediate annexation of the island to Piedmont as Cavour wished. In 1860 he was chosen a member of the first Italian parliament and was subsequently made councillor of state. He died on the 5th of September 1863.

See A. Franchi, Epistolario di Giuseppe La Farina (2 vols., 1869) and L. Carpi, Il Risorgimento Italiano, vol. i. (Milan, 1884).