Tommaso Villa

Tommaso Villa (Canale d'Alba, 29 January 1832 – Turin, 24 July 1915) was an Italian lawyer and politician.

Early life and career He was able to apply for university thanks to the scholarship from the College of the Provinces and in 1849 he enrolled in the faculty of law in Turin, from where he graduated in 1853. While still a student he collaborated with the periodical l'Eco delle provinciale, directed by Agostino Depretis.

As soon as he graduated, he interned at the office of the lawyer Angelo Brofferio, a prominent figure in the Turin political environment, a republican, opponent of Cavour and deputy. The marriage with Brofferio's daughter strengthened the relationship between the two.

He combined his activity as a lawyer with that of a political journalist, writing for two republican-area periodicals, Goffredo Mameli and Il Mago.

Deputy and minister In 1865 he entered politics and ran for election in the constituency of Villanova d'Asti, in opposition to Carlo Bon Compagni di Mombello. His candidacy wss supported by the Permanent Liberal Association, of which he was the founder and one of the most active members. On 22 October 1865 he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies of the Kingdom of Italy, where he was confirmed in 1867 and 1870 and where he aligned himself with the historical Left. He suffered an electoral defeat in November 1874, but in January of the following year he won the by-election held in San Daniele del Friuli to replace Federico Seismit-Doda. The victory of the left in the 1876 elections marked Villa's return to the constituency of Villanova d'Asti, where he would be re-elected until 1904. The reshuffle which saw the rapprochement of Depretis and Cairoli took him, on 25 November 1879, from the Interior to Justice (25 November 1879-29 May 1881).

In 1905, together with Herbert Asquith and Raymond Poincaré, he drafted a brief for the Cairo District Court in support of a claim by descendants of the Khedive Ismail for a share in the proceeds from the sale of his property.

A Freemason, he was expelled from the Grand Orient of Italy with :it:Edoardo Daneo and others in 1906 "because he had sponsored a liberal-Catholic bloc to stem the advance of the socialists in Turin."

Villa played a leading role in organizing and promoting national and international exhibitions in his later years. These included the General Italian Exhibition held in Turin in 1884, General Italian Exhibition of 1898 and the Turin International in 1911.

Honours