With all the news about the Americans winning the Nobel prize for economics, I decided to see how Italy has done since the honors were established over a century ago. Of all the categories, Peace remains my favorite despite it being rather tainted by past recipients because they were questionable (Gore) or outright Orwellian (Kissenger, every Israelian PM). The man in the title is Italy’s only recipient and sadly he fell into the same company of hypocrites near the end of his life.
But let me start at the beginning…
Moneta was born in 1833 to an aristocratic-in-name only family (they had very little money). When he was 15, Moneta participated in the brief war against Austria which would become the start of his long military career devoted to fighting for Italian Unification. Obviously he campaigned along with the movement’s primary hero Garibaldi but he was more loyal to fellow Milanese General Giuseppe Sirtori to the end.
Disillusioned about war and/or the movement, Moneta retired to civilian life around 1866 to write/edit in Il Secolo (The Century) where he pushed for reforms at all levels of Italian life: the army, the Church, technology, etc. The major topic he promoted though was peace while being hyper-nationalist. Seems like a contradiction due to the latter being a major motivator with wars breaking out. Resolving differences by peaceful means did become his calling card through multiple International Peace Conferences: preventing disputes’ transformations into armed conflicts, conventions on war and laying down the groundwork for the future League of Nations and eventually the UN.
Thus he was co-awarded the 1907 Nobel Peace Prize with France’s Louis Renault.
The credibility the prize gave him evaporated during WWI when Moneta endorsed Italy entering the war because his hate of Austria-Hungary trumped his love of peace.
And yet people criticize the recipients of today.