Pellegrino Rossi, 1787-1848.

Pellegrino Luigi Eduardo Rossi was an Italian-born Swiss-French legal scholar, statesman and economist of the French Liberal School.

Born in Carrara, Pellegrino Rossi studied at Pavia and Bologna, and embarked on a career as a prominent lawyer. His association with Joachim Murat, the Napoleon-installed King of Naples, forced him to flee Italy after the defeat of Murat in 1815, and take refuge in Switzerland. Rossi settled in Geneva, focusing on legal studies.  Despite his Catholicism, Rossi became a naturalized citizen of the Republic of Geneva, and went on to be appointed professor of civil law at the Academy of Geneva in 1820. During the early 1820s, Rossi was a close friend of Jane Marcet, then residing in Geneva, after the death of her husband.  Possibly by her influence, Rossi began teaching political economy at the University of Geneva in 1827. Rossi published his first book, on penal law, in 1829.

The Swiss Revolution of 1830, Rossi was asked to draft a new constitution for the Swiss Confederation. His draft - known as the Pacte Rossi - was submitted in 1832 and approved by the Swiss federal diet, but it was rejected by the cantons in July 1833.  Disappointed, Rossi decided to accept an invitation to move to France.

In November 1833, Pellegrino Rossi succeeded Jean Baptiste Say in the economics chair at the Collège de France, beating out Say's more natural heir Charles Comte. Although Comte had been nominated by the Academie des Sciences Morales, Rossi had the support of the powerful French minister François Guizot.   He became a naturalized French citizen and was appointed professor of constitutional law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Paris in August 1834, despite initially strong opposition from French students and professors. 

Rossi was elected a member of the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques in 1836, his former rival Comte, then deathly ill, making sure to be come and cast a vote in his favor.  Rossi was ennobled in 1838 and elevated to a peer of France in 1839 by the July monarch Louis-Philippe I of France.

Student notes were taken from Pellegrino Rossi's courses in economics professed at the Collège de France in 1836-37 (on production) and 1837-38 (on distribution).  The first were published as the Cours d'economie politique under Rossi's supervision in 1840-41.  The latter were published posthumously by his son in 1851 and 1854.  Notes were not taken on the third course delivered 1838-39 (on history of economic thought), although fragments of notes were later published in Melanges (1857).

Pellegrino Rossi was the founder and first president of the Société d'Économie Politique, the first French society of political economy in 1842, although the  original organization was absorbed by the society founded by Joseph Garnier, Guillaumin, et al.

Interrupting his academic career, Pellegrino Rossi was dispatched to Italy by the July Monarchy in 1845 as the French ambassador to Rome.  He was instrumental in the election of Pope Pius IX in 1846 and stayed on in Rome semi-officially as a favorite papal advisor.  Pope Pius IX relied on Rossi's guidance during the Springtime of the Peoples, and Rossi helped the pope introduce liberal reforms and constitutional government into the Papal States.  Pope Pius IX finally appointed Pellegrino Rossi as minister of interior and finance, and de facto prime minister of Papal States in September 1848.  However, Rossi's commitment to maintain a constitutional monarchy and avoid war with Austria roused opposition from radical republicans. 

Pellegrino Rossi was assassinated by Roman republicans at the opening of the papal parliament on November 15, 1848.  Rossi was stabbed to death in the atrium of the Palazzo della Cancelleria, in full view of the public and guard, who did not intervene, and let him bleed to death and his assassins escape.  The circumstances of Rossi's assassination frightened Pope Pius IX, and prompted the pope to makes his escape from Rome one week later.  A severe constitutional crisis followed that ended up with the deposition of the Pope and the proclamation of the Roman Republic in 1849.

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