Enrico Di Brocchetti

Enrico Di Brocchetti, Baron (Naples, 8 November 1817 – Torre del Greco, 18 November 1885) was an Italian admiral and politician, Senator of the Kingdom of Italy, and Minister of the Navy in the first Cairoli government.

Early life Enrico was the son of Baron :it:Giuseppe Di Bronchetti, Minister of War of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and his wife Elisabetta Baccuet. On 3 September 1827 he was admitted to the Naval Academy of Naples from which he graduated on 9 August 1834 with the rank of ensign in the royal navy of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

Navy of the Two Sicilies Four years later, on 13 February 1838, he became a brigadier midshipman. He was promoted to warrant officer on 24 October 1840, and lieutenant on 11 May 1848, shortly before he took part in the First Italian War of Independence. On 8 April 1857 he was promoted to frigate captain and two years later he assumed command of the frigate Ettore Fieramosca escorting the corvette Stromboli which carried Silvio Spaventa, Luigi Settembrini, Carlo Poerio and other political prisoners into exile in America. The Westminster Review commented that “to the ordinary reader, with nothing but common sense to guide him, it seems little else than a miserable attempt to conceal a miserable failure.”

Superior Council of the Navy and Senate

After the war Di Brocchetti was President of the Maritime Administrative Commission for the Venetian Provinces from 10 October 1866 to 24 February 1867. For two years he was a member of the Superior Council of the Navy (6 January 1868 - 31 January 1870) the body supervising technical and strategic choices established after the failures of 1866 by Minister Agostino Depretis.

Ministerial career In March 1878, following a political crisis in the cabinet led by Depretis, he was appointed Minister of the Navy in the new first government of Benedetto Cairoli. The king favoured Di Brocchetti over the leading candidates Benedetto Brin or rear admiral :it:Federico Martini, as he did not want radicals in the key ministries of government. Of these, only the first was approved. He remained at the ministry only from 24 March-24 October 1878, so he had little chance to make his mark, but he did send Benedetto Brin and Felice Mattei on a mission to investigate the state of the fleets in France and Great Britain. They had another son called Giuseppe.