Saverio Fava
{{Short description|Italian diplomat}}
{{Infobox officeholder
|name = Francesco Saverio Fava
|image = Il barone Saverio Fava, gia ministro italiano a Washington (xilografia).jpg
|caption =
|office =
|primeminister =
|term_start =
|term_end =
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|birth_date = {{birth date |1832|07|03|}}
|birth_place = Salerno
|death_date = {{Death date and age|1913|10|02|1832|07|03|df=y}}
|death_place = Salerno
|party =
|alma_mater = University of Naples
}}
Baron Francesco Saverio Fava (1832–1913) was known for his founding of the Italian Ministry in Washington, D.C. He served as the first Italian Ambassador of the then recently unified Italy to the United States from 1881 to 1893.{{cite book|last=Gray|first=Robert M.|title=Amy Heard Letters from the Gilded Age|year=2005|url=http://www-ee.stanford.edu/~gray/amy.pdf|accessdate=19 December 2011|page=22}}
Biography
As Ambassador, Baron Fava served as the Dean of the Diplomatic Corps. Prior to his service for Italy in the United States of America, Baron Fava served in Brazil and Romania.{{cite book |last= Università degli Studi di Lecce|date= 1987|title= La formazione della diplomazia nazionale (1861-195) Repertorio bio-bibliografico dei funzionari del Ministero degli Affari Esteri|trans-title= |url= |language=IT |location=Roma |publisher=Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca della Stato |isbn=}} pp. 316-317. He began his career under the House of Bourbon governments of Italy but as Italian unity formed under Garibaldi, he continued to serve Italian interests under the Savoy.
His greatest challenge as US ambassador consisted of the "New Orleans Affair" in which eleven Italians were lynched by a New Orleans mob on 15 Mar 1891. Lodging a protest with Secretary of State James Blaine and eventually negotiating directly with President Benjamin Harrison, the Baron requested federal action to address a lynching of the eleven Italian citizens being managed as a State of Louisiana criminal event.{{cite news|title=Baron Fava's Protest|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1891/03/19/103299481.pdf|accessdate=19 December 2011|newspaper=New York Times|date=19 March 1891}} Several Italians were lynched in a New Orleans jail after being falsely accused of a murder.{{cite web|last=Haas|first=Edward|title=Guns, Goats, and Italians|url=http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~lamadiso/articles/lynchings.htm|accessdate=19 December 2011}} The local and state government failed to act in a test of federal treaties. The Ambassador withdrew from the US in protest and returned to Italy. His return a year later to the US was celebrated as a demonstration of Italian-US relations being restored to "full harmony" {{cite news|title=BARON FAVA BACK AGAIN |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F00911F63D5515738DDDAF0994DD405B8285F0D3|newspaper=New York Times|year=1893}} Despite resolution of the New Orleans affair, the Ambassador again faced similar circumstances later in his career with the lynching of Italian citizens at Tallulah, LA with strong protests to then Secretary of State John Hay and President William McKinley.{{cite web|title=Foreign Relations with the United States 1900, Italy|url=http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~lamadiso/articles/lynchings2.htm|accessdate=19 December 2011}}
In 1898 he was named by king Umberto I senator of the kingdom.[http://notes9.senato.it/Web/senregno.NSF/ed2182d507919709c12571140059a266/c599166a1a9a703c4125646f005b98ce?OpenDocument] From Italian senate website
Honors
See also
References
{{Reflist}}
- Sidney SONNINO, Diario, 1866–1912, I, Bari: Laterza, 1972: 407
{{Portal bar|Biography|Italy}}
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Category:Ambassadors of Italy to the United States
Category:Ambassadors of Italy to Romania
Category:Ambassadors of Italy to Argentina
Category:Members of the Senate of the Kingdom of Italy
Category:19th-century Italian diplomats
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