C552 Conte di Cavour Namesake
The name of the naval unit gives homage to one of the fathers of the Native land. It was Cavour, moreover, who organized the birth of the Marine Direction in 1861. And godmother of the launching ceremony was Augusta Saint Antonella Martino di San Germano, moglie of the president of combined the Cavour Foundation and of the family of the illustrious minister.
Initially it was projected that the Nuove Unità Maggiore would be named after Luigi Einaudi, an Italian political figure who served as the first President of the Italian Republic, between 1948 and 1955. After graduating from the University of Turin (1895), Einaudi contributed economic articles to La Stampa, Turin's leading newspaper. A noted economist, a senator for life from 1919 as a member of the Partito Liberale Italiano, and an opponent of Fascism after 1924, Einaudi taught at the Univ. of Turin until 1943. Between 1900 and 1935, his articles also appeared in Corriere della sera and Riforma sociale, of which he became director in 1908. On the 8th of September 1943, Einaudi abandoned Turin, which was occupied by the Wehrmacht, and fled to Switzerland. It was "the flight of the people in the face of the barbarians", he wrote in his Diary of Exile. After the collapse of the party system in 1994, the conservative liberal Italian Liberal Party was continued by the Federation of Italian Liberals (Federazione dei Liberali Italiani), an observer at Liberal International, while the the right-wing formed the conservative Liberal Party (Partito Liberale).
Nuova Unitá Maggiore (New Major Unit) then inherited the name the Andrea Doria, that of a missile launching cruiser commissioned in 1965. One second unit of that class, Caio Duilio, also entered in service in 1965. Those two ships, as well as the Vittorio Veneto, that entered in service in 1969, were endowed with surface-to-air missiles launchers, for missiles of Standard Terrier/Standard Extended Range, and hangars for organic anti-submarine helicopters.
Andrea Doria was a Genoese admiral and statesman, b. at Oneglia, Italy, 1468; d. at Genoa, 1560. He had an active, adventurous career that made Andrea Doria one of the most important personages of Europe in the sixteenth century. During the years 1507 to 1519 he traversed the Western Mediterranean with his fleet, and, having overpowered the Barbary Corsairs and captured several of their chiefs, among them the famous Cadolin, returned to Genoa laden with booty. He entered the service of Francis I, who appointed him "governor-general of the galleys of France". In 1524 he raised the blockade of Marseilles, then besieged by Charles V, and, after the battle of Pavia, gathered together the remnants of the French army (1525). He then became commander of the galleys of Clement VII; in 1527 re-entered the service of France and compelled Genoa to acknowledge the authority of Francis I. But in 1528 he quarrelled with the King of France, who did not pay him faithfully. Andrea agreed to enter the service of Charles V, and began to re-establish order in Genoa, where he was received with enthusiasm (12 September, 1528). After breaking up the ancient noble clans, he set up a new social division and an aristocratic constitution which continued in force, with but few modifications until 1798. Absolute head of the naval forces of the house of Austria, he directed the maritime struggle against the Turks and the Barbary pirates in 1532. In 1536 as head of the united squadron, made up of the ships of the pope, Venice, and the Knights of Malta, he surprised the famous Barbarossa in the Gulf of Arta and then allowed him to escape. Doria retired to the territory of Genoa. his colossal statue, which was erected in 1540, was overthrown and broken in 1797.
Finally the Nuove Unità Maggiore was named after Camillo Benso, Conte di Cavour, who was born, raised and educated in Turin, Piemonte (Piedmont). In 1847 he co-founded "Il Risorgimento" (The Resurgence), a nationalist newspaper that called for Italy's unification and expulsion of the Austrians. In 1848 Cavour became a member of the Sardinian chamber of deputies and became prime minister in 1852. Cavour resigned as prime minister in protest of the king's (Victor Emmanuel II) agreement to the peace treaty of Zuerich (November 1859) which allowed Austria's strong presence in Northern Italy. Cavour became prime minister again in 1860 after Tuscany, Romagna, Parma and Modena voted in favor of annexation to Sardinia. Cavour is regarded as one of Europe's most able politicians and statesmen of his times.
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