Francesco Salata
Francesco Salata (17 September 1876 – 10 March 1944) was a Dalmatian Italian senator, politician, journalist, historian and writer. Salata was an irredentist, although he had a more legalistic approach than other contemporaries, as well as being more liberal. He was panned and attacked by the fascists, although, after they took power, he was employed by the fascist government, and wrote books apologizing for the fascist politics. Very fond of his native Istria, Salata opposed what he saw as the slavicisation carried out by Croatian priests in Istria, the Kvarner and Dalmatia. He accused the Slovenian and Croatian clergy of carrying out the slavicisation of Istria and the Kvarner. Salata upheld the idea that Dalmatia, Istria and the Kvarner were, historically, Italian lands. Among his best-known works are Guglielmo Oberdan secondo gli atti segreti del processo: carteggi diplomatici e altri documenti inediti (1924), republished in a reduced version as Oberdan in 1932, Il patto Mussolini: storia di un piano politico e di un negoziato diplomatico (1933), and Il nodo di Gibuti: storia diplomatica su documenti inediti (1939). Biography Salata was born on 17 September 1876 in Ossero, on the island of Cres, which at the time was part of the Austro-hungarian empire. His family wasn't hereditary aristocratic but nonetheless was well-to-do. His father was podestà of Ossero from 1883 until 1901. In 1911 Salata married Ilda Mizzan, from a Pisino family. They had a daughter together, Maria, born in 1911. Salata toured Istria with Gabriele D'Annunzio, who, years before she engaged to Salata, became acquainted with his future wife in Pisino, where she designed a tribute paid to the poet upon his entry in the Istrian town, with D'Annunzio dedicating to her a copy of his Francesca da Rimini. As early as in his high school years, Salata risked to be expelled from all the schools of the empire because of his attempts to found a branch of the Lega Nazionale in Ossero, which promoted the Italian language and culture in territories inhabited by Germans, Croatians and Slovenians, that is Trentino and the Adriatic coast. After attending high school in Capodistria (Koper), Salata studied law at the University of Vienna (a total of seven semesters). He also studied two semesters at the University of Graz. Salata interrupted his studies to dedicate himself first to journalism and then to his studies on history. In 1888 he was the editor of Pola's (Pula) Il popolo istriano, and later a collaborator of Trieste's "Il Piccolo". He participated in conferences of the Italian society of archaeology in Istria (Società istriana di archeologia e storia patria). His first intervention was on Francesco Patrizi, and it was published under the name Nel terzo centenario della morte di Francesco Patrizio – negli Atti e memorie della Società istriana di archeologia e storia patria. With his works L’antica diocesi di Ossero e la liturgia slava: pagine di storia patria (1897) and Nuovi studi sulla liturgia slava (1897), he joined the debate against the exploitation of the paleoslavic liturgy