Ernesto Teodoro Moneta


Ernesto Teodoro Moneta was an Italian journalist, nationalist, revolutionary soldier and later a pacifist and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. He adopted the motto In varietate unitas! which later inspired the motto of the European Union.
At age 15, Moneta participated in the Five Days of Milan. He later attended the military academy in Ivrea. In 1859 he joined Garibaldi's Expedition of the Thousand, and also fought in the ranks of the Italian army [Third Italian people|Italian War of Independence|against the Austrians in 1866].
Subsequently, he became an international peace activist.
Between 1867 and 1896 he was editor of the Milan democratic paper Il Secolo, published by Edoardo Sonzogno.
In 1890 he founded the Lombard Association for Peace and Arbitration, which called for disarmament and envisaged the creation of a League of Nations and Permanent Court of Arbitration. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1907.