page_title: Francesco Crispi
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Francesco Crispi / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: English: Italian Prime Minister Francesco Crispi (1818-1901). Italiano: Presidente del Consiglio italiano Francesco Crispi (1818-1901).
context_page_description: Francesco Crispi was an Italian patriot and statesman. He was among the main protagonists of the Italian Risorgimento and a close friend and supporter of Giuseppe Mazzini and Giuseppe Garibaldi, and one of the architects of the unification of Italy in 1860.
  Crispi served as Italy's Prime Minister for six years, from 1887 until 1891 and again from 1893 until 1896; he was the first Prime Minister from Southern Italy. Crispi was internationally famous and often mentioned along with world statesmen such as Bismarck, Gladstone and Salisbury.
  Originally an enlightened Italian patriot and democrat liberal he went on to become a bellicose authoritarian Prime Minister and ally and admirer of Bismarck. He was indefatigable in stirring up hostility toward France. His career ended amid controversy and failure: he got involved in a major banking scandal and fell from power in 1896 after the devastating loss of the Battle of Adwa, which repelled Italy's colonial ambitions over Ethiopia.
  Due to his authoritarian policies and style, Crispi is often regarded as a strongman and seen as a precursor of the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.
context_section_description: Crispi was a colourful and intensely patriotic character. He was a man of enormous energy but with a violent temper. His whole life, public and private, was turbulent, dramatic and marked by a succession of bitter personal hostilities. According to some Crispi's "fiery pride, almost insane touchiness and indifference to sound methods of government" were due to his Albanian inheritance. Although he began life as a revolutionary and democratic figure, his premiership was authoritarian and he showed disdain for Italian liberals. He was born as a firebrand and died as firefighter. At the end of the 19th century, Crispi was the dominant figure of Italian politics for a decade. He was saluted by Giuseppe Verdi as 'the great patriot'. He was a more scrupulous statesman than Cavour, a more realistic conspirator than Mazzini, a more astute figure than Garibaldi. His death resulted in lengthier obituaries in Europe's press than for any Italian politician since Cavour.
  As prime minister in the 1880s and 1890s, Crispi was internationally famous and often mentioned along with world statesmen such as Bismarck, Gladstone and Salisbury. Originally an enlightened Italian patriot and democratic liberal, he went on to become a bellicose authoritarian prime minister and ally and admirer of Bismarck. He is often seen as a precursor of Benito Mussolini. Mussolini portrayed the Liberal era (1861–1922) as a perversion of the idealist vision of Mazzini and Garibaldi, and Crispi was the lone prime minister of the Liberal era whom Il Duce depicted in favorable terms. In particular, Mussolini praised Crispi as the inventor of an "Italian imperialism" as opposed to "western imperialism", presenting his foreign policy as the inspiration for Fascist foreign policy, and the period after 1896 was excoriated as a period of decline caused by the alleged pusillanimous policy of Giolitti.  Mussolini presented his foreign policies such as conquering Ethiopia to "avenge Adawa" and making an alliance with Third Reich as a continuation of Crispi's foreign policy who likewise tried to conquer Ethiopia and made an alliance with the Second Reich.  His reputation was a victim of Italian Fascism, which awarded him an abundance of street names, most erased after 1945. With the collapse of Fascism, Crispi's reputation was left fatally tarnished.
  Historian R.J.B. Bosworth says that Crispi:
  pursued policies whose openly aggressive character would not be equaled until the days of the Fascist regime. Crispi increased military expenditure, talked cheerfully of a European conflagration, and alarmed his German or British friends with this suggestions of preventative attacks on his enemies. His policies were ruinous, both for Italy's trade with France, and, more humiliatingly, for colonial ambitions in East Africa. Crispi's lust for territory there was thwarted when on 1 March 1896, the armies of Ethiopian Emperor Menelik routed Italian forces at Adowa ... In what has been defined as an unparalleled disaster for a modern army. Crispi, whose private life (he was perhaps a trigamist) and personal finances...were objects of perennial scandal, went into dishonorable retirement.
caption: Crispi during his last years.
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