Diego Tajani

Diego Antonio Tajani (Cutro, 8 June 1827 – Rome, 2 February 1921) was an Italian magistrate and politician. He served as a senator of the Kingdom of Italy and as Minister of Justice in the of the third, seventh and eighth Depretis governments.

Early life and career
Son of Giuseppe Tajani and Teresina Fattizza, he graduated in law in 1850 and practiced as a lawyer; in 1858, he agreed to take on the defense of Giovanni Nicotera and the other survivors of the Sapri expedition, managing to reduce their sentences. For this reason, Tajani was persecuted by the Bourbon police and had to go into exile in Piedmont where he became part of the judiciary. In 1859, he volunteered in the Second Italian War of Independence, initially as a private soldier, before being promoted to military auditor with the rank of colonel.

Tajani made rapid progress in his career after the unification of Italy, becoming general prosecutor of the Court of Appeal of Catanzaro from 1867 to 1869, and of that of Palermo from 1867 to 1871. In Palermo, Tajani was one of the first magistrates to fight the Sicilian mafia, trying to deal with the collusion between the police and organized crime and denouncing the cover provided to mafia members by local and national politics.

Political and later legal career
Elected deputy in 1874 for the constituency of Amalfi for the historical Left, he was Minister of Justice in the two-year period 1878 - 1879 and again from 1885 to 1887 in the Depretis cabinets. He proposed the abolition of single-member constituencies and served twice as vice-president of the Chamber of Deputies, from 1876 to 1880 and from 1882 to 1885. In 1886 he also proposed a bill reforming Italy’s judicial system. With the fall of the Depretis government however his proposed reforms failed. He was made a senator on 25 January 1896 by decree of King Umberto I.

While serving as a politician Tajani took part in numerous trials: in 1875 he defended it:Raffaele Sonzogno in the trial against Giuseppe Luciani; in 1878 he defended Francesco Crispi, accused of bigamy; in 1879 he obtained sovereign pardon for Giovanni Passannante Umberto I's would-be assassin, and finally he dealt with the divorce of Giuseppe Garibaldi from Countess it:Giuseppina Raimondi.

Tajani’s final act as a senator took place on May 21, 1915, Wehr at the age of eighty-eight, he was assisted into the Senate session to vote for confidence in and full powers to the second Salandra government in view of Italy's entry into the war. He died in Rome on 2 February 1921, aged 93.