Italian patriot and politician, born in Venice, Veneto, NE Italy. He was arrested by the Austrians in January 1848 but freed in March when a popular insurrection established the Republic of San Marco. He was appointed president and promoted a number of reforms. After the Piedmontese defeat at Custoza he organized the city's resistance, and when Venice was forced to surrender to the Austrian army (1849), he went into exile in France.
Daniele Manin (May 13, 1804 - September 22, 1857) was an Italian patriot and statesman.
Biography
Daniele Manin was born at Venice, the son of a converted Jew who took the name of Manin because that patrician family stood sponsors to him, as the custom then was.
The heroic but hopeless attempt of the Bandiera Brothers, Venetians who had served in the Austrian navy against the Neapolitan Bourbons in 1844, was the first event to cause an awakening of Venetian patriotism, and in 1847 Manin presented a petition to the Venetian congregation, a shadowy consultative assembly tolerated by Austria but without any power, informing the emperor of the wants of the nation. He was arrested on a charge of high treason (January 18, 1848), but this only served to increase the agitation of the Venetians, who were beginning to appreciate Manin.
Two months later, when all Italy and half the rest of Europe were in the throes of revolution, the people forced Count Palify, the Austrian governor, to release him (March 17). The Austrians soon lost all control of the city: the arsenal was seized by the revolutionists and, under the direction of Manin, a civic guard and a provisional government were instituted. The Austrians evacuated Venice on March 26, and Manin became president of the Venetian republic. But after the Piedmontese defeat at Custoza, and the armistice by which King Charles Albert abandoned Lombardy and Venetia to Austria, the Venetians attempted to lynch the royal commissioners, whose lives Manin saved with difficulty; an assembly was summoned, and a triumvirate formed with Manin at its head.
Towards the end of 1848 the Austrians, having been heavily reinforced, reoccupied all the Venetian mainland. Early in 1849 Manin was again chosen president of the Republic, and conducted the defence of the city with great ability.
Meanwhile the Austrian forces closed round the city. Manin showed a good capability of organization, in which he was ably seconded by the Neapolitan general, Guglielmo Pepe, who led the Neapolitan army to defend Venice against his king order.
At last, on August 24 1849, when all provisions and ammunition were exhausted, Manin, who had courted death in vain, succeeded in negotiating an honorable capitulation, on terms of amnesty to all save Manin himself, Pepe and some others, who were to go into exile. On the 27th Manin left Venice for ever on board a French ship.
In Paris he maintained himself by teaching and became a leader among the Italian exiles.
His last years were embittered by the terrible sufferings of his daughter, who died in 1854, and he himself died on the 22nd of September 1857, and was buried in Ary Scheffer's family tomb. Manin was a man of the greatest honesty, and possessed genuinely statesmanlike qualities.
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
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