Historical Right

Historical Right Destra Storica
Historical leaders	Massimo d'Azeglio Camillo Benso di Cavour Quintino Sella Bettino Ricasoli Alfonso La Marmora Luigi Federico Menabrea Giovanni Lanza Marco Minghetti Antonio Starabba di Rudinì
Founded	1861
Dissolved	1913
Preceded by	Moderate Party
Merged into	Liberal Union
Headquarters	Palazzo Montecitorio, Rome
Ideology	Conservatism (Italian)[1] Internal factions:  • Classical liberalism  • Royalism  • Laissez-faire
Political position	Right-wing
Politics of Italy Political parties Elections

The Historical Right (Italian: Destra Storica), officially known as The Right (Italian: La Destra) and sometimes called Liberal Constitutional Party (Italian: Partito Liberale Costituzionale, PLC),^[2] was a conservative and royalist parliamentary group in Italy during the second half of the 19th century.^[3] The members of The Right were also known as Moderates, from the name of the Moderate Party, the Piedmontese parliamentary organization which preceded it. It was founded in 1849 under the Piedmontese government of Massimo d'Azeglio to distinguish the Cabinet coalition from its opposition, the Historical Left. It was not a structured party but simply a parliamentary group.

History

The Right was founded as a parliamentary group in the Piedmontese Parliament in 1861, under the premiership of Massimo D'Azeglio, as heir of the Sardinian Moderate Party.

The Historical Right, known as the heir of Count Cavour and the expression of the liberal bourgeoisie, won the Italian general elections from 1861 to 1874. Its members were mostly large landowners, industrialists and people related to the military, supporting free trade market and centralism. In foreign relations, their goal was the unification of Italy, primarily searching an alliance with the British Empire and the French Empire, but sometimes also with the German Empire against Austria.^[4]

The Right dominated the political life in Italy until 1876, when the right-wing government of Marco Minghetti collapsed shortly after achieving the budget parity. The overthrown of Minghetti's government was called "Parliamentary Revolution". However, Depretis immediately began to look for support among Rightists MPs, who readily changed their positions, in a context of widespread corruption. This phenomenon, known in Italian as Trasformismo (roughly translatable in English as "transformism"—in a satirical newspaper, the PM was depicted as a chameleon), effectively removed political differences in Parliament, which was dominated by an undistinguished liberal bloc with a landslide majority until after World War I.

Ideology and platform

The Right was represented the interests of the Northern liberal bourgeoisie and the Southern nester aristocracy, like also military officers. It supported free trade and laissez-faire, strong central government, pragmatic foreign policy and obligatory conscription. In 1860s, the Right governments adopted modernization policies, supported by high taxation, to make Italy competitive with other European countries. Under Marco Minghetti, Italy had its first balanced budget,^[5] realised by Finance Minister Quintino Sella. However, in 1868 the Right became more umpopular when increaed indirect taxes, like the cereal tax, causing several revolts, that were repressed by police.

The Right was also more secular and anti-clerical than the Left, and supported the law of Papal Guarantees, causing Pope Pius IX's Non Expedit.

There were two factions in the Historical Right:

• The Permament Liberal Association (Italian: Associazione Liberale Permanente), commonly named Permanent, composed by the Sardinian-Piedmontese old liberal members, that supported free market and law and order policies. Its leaders were Quintino Sella and Giovanni Lanza.
• The Clique (Italian: Consorteria, as derogatory nickname from the Piedmontese), was a strong bloc that supported liberal conservative policies, composed mainly by Emilia-Romagnoli, Tuscans and Lombards with the support of Southern politicians. Its notable members were Marco Minghetti, Bettino Ricasoli, Luigi Carlo Farini and Silvio Spaventa.

Electoral results

Chamber of Deputies
Election year	# of overall votes	% of overall vote	# of overall seats won	+/–	Leader
1861	unknown (#1)	46.1	342 / 443	–	Camillo Benso di Cavour
1865	unknown (#1)	41.2	183 / 443	159	Alfonso La Marmora
1867	84,685 (#2)	39.2	151 / 493	32	Bettino Ricasoli
1870	110,525 (#1)	37.2	233 / 508	82	Giovanni Lanza
1874	156,784 (#1)	53.6	276 / 508	43	Marco Minghetti
1876	97,726 (#2)	28.2	94 / 508	182	Marco Minghetti
1880	135,797 (#2)	37.9	171 / 508	77	Marco Minghetti
1882	unknown (#2)	28.9	147 / 508	24	Marco Minghetti
1886	unknown (#2)	27.9	145 / 508	2	Antonio Starabba di Rudinì
1890	unknown (#2)	9.4	48 / 508	97	Antonio Starabba di Rudinì
1892	unknown (#2)	18.3	93 / 508	45	Antonio Starabba di Rudinì
1895	263,315 (#2)	21.6	104 / 508	11	Antonio Starabba di Rudinì
1897	unknown (#2)	19.4	99 / 508	5	Antonio Starabba di Rudinì
1900	271,698 (#2)	21.4	116 / 508	17	Antonio Starabba di Rudinì
1904	212,584 (#3)	13.9	76 / 508	20	Tommaso Tittoni
1909	108,029 (#4)	5.9	44 / 508	32	Sidney Sonnino

References

1. "Destra Storica Italiana". Treccani.
2. La Stampa historical archive
3. Nations and Nationalism: A Global Historical Overwiev
4. Italy: a Reference Guide from the Renaissance to the Present
5. XII/elenco