(Angelo Paratico) I confess that I have always thought the Italian statesman most similar to Winston Churchill was Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour (1810–1861).
The two men shared a strong passion for politics, both national and international; both had been undisciplined students and soldiers; they came from high-ranking and powerful families, and both saw democracy as a tool to achieve their goals, regardless of the general will.
For example, Cavour amended the electoral law several times to exclude those he did not like from parliament.
Both their mothers were foreign and had brought money into the family; both were lovers of good food and alcoholic beverages; both were atheists. Churchill, for example, drank champagne with his meals, not water, and both were attracted to risk and gambling. The young Cavour was saved from bankruptcy several times by his father, the governor of Turin and close to the king, after losing large sums at the gaming table.
Cavour visited England in 1835 and was impressed by the Industrial Revolution and the development of the railways. He spoke English well and subscribed to The Times of London, which he read every morning to understand how the greatest economic and military power of his time was acting.
However, there is one point where the parallel lives of the two figures diverge significantly: Cavour’s passion for women, which was of little interest to the English statesman.
Cavour and Churchill were physically similar, of average height and tending towards corpulence. In his youth, Cavour had red cheeks, like a mountain man, but he was a great charmer and storyteller. With women, a simple “no” was often not enough to stop him. He had many lovers, but perhaps his most significant and profound relationship occurred at the age of twenty, in 1830, while he was in Genoa for military service, for which he had no inclination or interest.
There, he began an intense relationship with Anna (Nina) Giustiniani Schiaffino, three years his senior. This beautiful but very unhappy woman was already married to Marquis Stefano Giustiniani, and they had three children. Nina was the daughter of Baron Giuseppe Schiaffino di Polanesi and Maddalena Corvetto, known as Manin, and the granddaughter of Luigi Emanuele Corvetto, economist and French finance minister, state councilor, and count by the will of Napoleon Bonaparte, formerly a leading figure in the Ligurian Republic. She spent the first years of her life in Paris, where her father was in the service of Louis XVIII, and at the age of ten, she arrived in Liguria with her family because her father was appointed Consul General of France and moved to Palazzo Andrea e Gio. Batta Spinola – Doria, the consulate’s headquarters.
The Giustiniani family, which Nina joined, was one of the most prominent in Genoa and very close to the court of Savoy. As the adulterous relationship continued for a long time, with her visiting Turin and him visiting Genoa and Milan, the scandal was huge. Nina’s husband was not only cuckolded but also a very intelligent man who was in love with his wife. Unable to make her see reason, he decided to adopt the tactic of leaving Genoa as soon as Cavour arrived in the city, thus leaving the field open to the two lovers.
Theirs was not only a physical relationship but also a spiritual one. In one year, the marquise, who had a great poetic spirit, sent him 150 letters, which Camillo kept carefully, implicitly recognising their literary and poetic value.
Cavour’s mother, a Genevan and descendant of St Francis de Sales, questioned him about his flame, and her son hid nothing from her, telling her that the rumors were true and that they often exchanged letters. She asked to see one. Cavour took one out of his jacket, received the day before, and handed it to her.
His mother read it quickly and then burst into tears in front of him, sensing the genuine suffering of that woman.
Cavour did not cry but consoled himself with other women, among whom Clementina Guasco, married to Count Carlo Guasco di Castelletto, is worth mentioning. Nina Giustiniani, who had always sensed that she could not have him all to herself, found out about this but did not pay any attention to it. However, after they said goodbye, she sent him one last letter with a lock of her blonde hair.
You say that I was created for you, but you are sufficient for my happiness, while I cannot make yours complete. You see me as perfect and attribute to me qualities I do not possess. If the illusion fades, if time – my enemy more than yours – cools your feelings for me, you will need other objects to love. The restlessness of your heart will not be easily calmed; disappointments may even await you; in any case, Nina, without being completely banished from your affections, she will no longer be the beloved. You have nothing of the sort to fear from me: to forget you would be, for me, to fall back into nothingness. Our positions are different, and we cannot change them. For me, your love is the beginning and end of all my thoughts, the sole purpose of my life, while the feelings I inspire in you will sooner or later have to be subordinated to others. I see this as nothing more than a law that must triumph despite ourselves.
Truly noble words, devoid of any resentment. After Guasco, Cavour fell into the arms of Emilia Gazzelli di Rossana, who married a friend of the Cavour family, Count Nomis di Pollone. As can be seen, in those years he showed a marked preference for married women older than himself, without any moral qualms, and Carlo Alberto had behaved in the same way before his accession to the throne.
