Giuseppe Pisanelli
Giuseppe Pisanelli was an Italian jurist and politician.
Early life
He was born in Tricase to Michelangelo Pisanelli and Angela Mellone. In 1830 he moved to Naples, where he studied law at the University of Naples, graduating in 1832. He also frequented the literary salons of the city, in particular that of Carlo Poerio, a proponent of constitutional liberalism who had just returned from exile, and he formed friendships with many figures at the heart of the Risorgimento, such as :it:Giuseppe Massari, Pasquale Stanislao Mancini and :it:Antonio Scialoja.Political career
During the Sicilian revolution of 1848 he served in the Sicilian Parliament as a representative of the province of Terra d'Otranto and later fled into exile in Turin, Paris, and London. He was Minister of Justice in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in the government of Giuseppe Garibaldi in 1860.After Italian unification, he was a deputy of the Kingdom of Italy in the IX, X, XI, XII and XIIIth legislatures. Together with senator :it:Cataldo Nitti he fought for construction of the Naval Arsenal of Taranto as a key development in building the naval power of the country. He also served as Minister of Justice in the Farini government and the first Minghetti government.
He contributed to the drafting of the Italian Civil Code of 1865 and drafted a draft Code of Civil Procedure, the first to come into force in the newly formed kingdom.
From the last part of the IXth legislature to the end of the XIth he was vice-president of the Chamber and president of the elections board. In 1867–69 he was president of the parliamentary commission of inquiry into the conditions of the province of Palermo, established following the Palermo revolt of 1866. He was, finally, president of the parliamentary commission of inquiry into the operations of the Tobacco Registry, established in summer of 1869, investigating corruption among parliamentarians in the contracting of the tobacco monopoly to a consortium of financiers, decided by the government led by Luigi Federico Menabrea in 1868. The final report of the commission exonerated the deputy involved, Giuseppe Civinini.