Sidney Sonnino

Sidney Sonnino
19th Prime Minister of Italy
In office 8 February 1906 – 29 May 1906
Monarch	Victor Emmanuel III
Preceded by	Alessandro Fortis
Succeeded by	Giovanni Giolitti
In office 11 December 1909 – 31 March 1910
Monarch	Victor Emmanuel III
Preceded by	Giovanni Giolitti
Succeeded by	Luigi Luzzatti
Personal details
Born	Sidney Costantino Sonnino (1847-03-11)11 March 1847 Pisa, Italy
Died	24 November 1922(1922-11-24) (aged 75)
Political party	Liberal (Historical Right)
Religion	Anglicanism

Baron Sidney Costantino Sonnino (11 March 1847 – 24 November 1922) was an Italian politician.

Life and career

Sonnino was born in Pisa to an Italian father of Jewish heritage (Isach Sonnino, who converted himself to Anglicanism) and a Welsh mother. He was raised as a Protestant.

In 1876, Sonnino traveled to Sicily with Leopoldo Franchetti to conduct a private investigation into the state of Sicilian society. In 1877, the two men published their research on Sicily in a substantial two-part report for the Italian Parliament. In the first part Sonnino analysed the lives of the island's landless peasants. Leopoldo Franchetti's half of the report, Political and Administrative Conditions in Sicily, was an analysis of the Mafia in the nineteenth century that is still considered authoritative today. Franchetti would ultimately influence thinking about the Mafia more than anyone else until Giovanni Falcone over a hundred years later. Political and Administrative Conditions in Sicily is the first convincing explanation of how the Mafia came to be.

In 1878, Sonnino started a newspaper (La Rassegna Settimanale), which changed from weekly economical reviews to daily political issues. In 1893, after working in several governmental positions, he became Finance Minister of Italy and tried to resolve the Banca Romana scandal. Sonnino envisaged to establish a single bank of issue, but the main priority of his bank reform was to rapidly solve the financial problems of the Banca Romana, as well as to cover up the scandal which involved the political class, rather than to design a new national banking system. Regional interests were still strong; hence the compromise of plurality of note issuance.

He worked in the opposition after the fall of his party from power as a result of the lost Battle of Adwa. He served twice briefly as Prime Minister, in 1906 and again from 1909 to 1910. On April 16, 1909 Sonnino and Wilbur Wright went on a flight at Centocelle field, Rome, making Sonnino one of the earliest of statesmen to fly in an airplane.

After the events in 1914, Sonnino was initially supportive to the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary, but after becoming foreign minister in November 1914, he sided with the Allied forces, and signed the Treaty of London in 1915. Italy consequently declared war on Austria-Hungary on May 23, 1915.

When his territorial ambitions towards Austria-Hungary were shattered during the Paris Peace Conference, his party lost power again, and Sonnino retired from politics.

His family live at the Castello Sonnino in Montespertoli.

References

• Dickie, John (2004). Cosa Nostra. A history of the Sicilian Mafia, London: Coronet ISBN 0-340-82435-2
• Seton-Watson, Christopher (1967). Italy from liberalism to fascism, 1870-1925, New York: Taylor & Francis, 1967 ISBN 0-416-18940-7

External links

• (Italian) Centro Studi Sidney Sonnino

Preceded by Alessandro Fortis	Prime Minister of Italy 1906	Succeeded by Giovanni Giolitti
Preceded by Alessandro Fortis	Italian Minister of the Interior 1906	Succeeded by Giovanni Giolitti
Preceded by Giovanni Giolitti	Prime Minister of Italy 1909–1910	Succeeded by Luigi Luzzatti
Preceded by Giovanni Giolitti	Italian Minister of the Interior 1909–1910	Succeeded by Luigi Luzzatti
Preceded by Antonino Paternò-Castello di San Giuliano	Foreign Minister of Italy 1914–1919	Succeeded by Tommaso Tittoni