Manin, Daniele

Manin, Daniele

(dänyĕ`lā mänēn`) 1804–57, Venetian leader of the movement to free N Italy from Austrian rule. His father, a Jew, was converted to Christianity and took the name of his patrons, the illustrious Venetian family of Manin. A successful lawyer, Manin was active in revolutionary agitation against Austrian rule in Venice and was imprisoned in Jan., 1848, with the poet Niccolò Tommaseo. Released two months later after the outbreak of the Revolution of 1848, he became head of the Venetian republic. Despite his opposition, Venice voted (July, 1848) its union with the kingdom of Sardinia, and Manin, an ardent republican, resigned. However, he soon returned to power as head of a triumvirate, and in Mar., 1849, he was given dictatorial powers. He won great prestige for organizing the heroic resistance of Venice to its Austrian besiegers. After famine and disease forced Venice to surrender (Aug., 1849), Manin went into exile in Paris. He subsequently supported the leadership of Sardinia in the movement for Italian unification and helped found the National Society, which played an important part in organizing support for Sardinia in 1859–60.

Bibliography

See G. M. Trevelyan, Manin and the Venetian Revolution of 1848 (1923) and P. Ginsborg, Manin and the Venetian Revolution of 1848–49 (1979).

Manin, Daniele

 

Born May 13, 1804, in Venice; died Sept. 22, 1857, in Paris. Figure in the Italian Risorgimento.

Manin was a lawyer by profession. In 1846 and 1847, when Venice was under Austrian rule, Manin led the bourgeois liberal movement that called for Venetian autonomy within the Austrian Empire. During the Revolution of 1848-49, he directed the anti-Austrian rebellion in Venice. After the victory of the rebellion and the proclamation of a republic, he headed the republican governments. Manin was extremely popular among the Venetian poor. However, during the Austrian intervention, Manin failed to rely on the masses. He appealed to the governments of Great Britain, France, and Piedmont for assistance and rejected the demand of the left republicans for a shift to a policy of active defense. After the fall of the republic in August 1849, he emigrated. In 1854 he renounced his republican ideals and supported the struggle for the national independence and unity of Italy under the aegis of the Piedmont monarchy.