In the summer of 1901, after suffering his third stroke, with his wife Lina trying to convince him to take his last rites, Crispi cut her short: “I'll settle things with Jesus Christ myself.” And that was the end of it.

Allegedly.

Crispi, like few others in Italian history, tempts one to cross the line between historical reconstruction and anecdote. The man himself, so deeply imbued with all the traits of a certain Italian political tradition, a “personality” walking the line between legend and caricature: a hero of the Italian unification, patriot with Garibaldi, bizarrely branded a coward for never facing a duel, a republican of progressive ideals, involved in countless scandals, married twice, allegedly at the same time, supporter of social reforms and author of authoritarian repressions, admirer and belated imitator of Bismarck, surrounded by a true court of relatives, postulants seeking protection and liberalities, immensely proud, nonchalant with money and always in need of money, honest and corrupt, immensely suspicious and infinitely credulous.

The man who had conspired to make Italy – Crispi's entire political action remained subordinate to his own concept of Italy, of what the unified nation was, of what it required to grow and be safe, as if Crispi had been made somehow the warden of the young unified state. Very few men of political stature could embody so many of the fatal flaws of the Italian Risorgimento, and live with them for over eighty years. Perhaps, he refused to let them get in the way of greatness.

And it's true that among the many things that Crispi did in his fifty years of political life, he came to be a central figure – if not the only one, the most infamous one – in the Italian colonial adventures during the last two decades of the XIX Century.

Nonetheless, for the first part of his life – that dedicated to the making of Italy (a role which the future Prime Minister, like many others, had a certain inclination in overemphasising), Crispi had displayed very little interest or attention for colonial problems (not for international politics though, since the Italian unification had been indissolubly tied with the relations between the great European powers, and Crispi looked at foreign politics as the “great politics”). Things had begun to change with the affirmation of the so called “historical left” – of which Crispi was a notable exponent – in the 1876 elections, that had brought to power the careful and patient Agostino Depretis; the dominant figure of the Italian political system from 1876 until his death in 1887.

In 1876 Crispi had hoped for a designation as Prime Minister; his relations with Depretis were poor – Crispi had poor relations with many of his colleagues – and the King's choice had made them worse, but he received a small compensation nonetheless by gaining the Presidency of the Italian Chamber. Crispi took it as an opportunity: while Depretis favoured a very cautious approach to international politics – in fact he would have avoided it altogether, since he felt no inclination for it and believed that Italy was still too weak to take a more proactive role without incurring in excessive risks – Crispi believed, perhaps even beyond the routinary statement, that Italy had unified to be something, or to become something. That Italy was destined to grow into a great European power, but in order to do so it was necessary to act, as the men who had unified Italy had done before.

In August 1877 Crispi, left the country for a European tour – thanks to both his political stature and his official role as an authority of the state – but the specific purpose was to negotiate with German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, in the remote eventuality that the tensions related to the war between Russia and Turkey would result in a German intervention. Austria – it was widely believed – was going to gain Bosnia and Herzegovina. Italy was interested in the final rounding up of her eastern borders.

Crispi met with Bismarck in Bad Gastein. The German statesman was fairly explicit: Germany would have protected Italy from a French aggression, but wanted above all good relations with Austria-Hungary. If the Austrians had gained Bosnia-Herzegovina, Italy could have taken Albania. The Germans were open to an agreement with Italy, but only if the Italians found a modus vivendi with the Austrians. He returned two months later, after meeting the British Foreign Ministry, Lord Derby, the opposition leader, Gladstone (an old friend of the Italian patriots) and the Austrian Foreign Ministry, Count Andrassy.

Crispi had gained very little of what he had hoped for, but he had not lost his confidence. Back in Italy, he wrote to Depretis:

I hope we won't have war, but since we can't restrain the course of the European events, and we need Europe to believe us strong enough […] in case of complications deriving from the war in the east, then it is necessary to prepare ourselves to join the military operations. […] It is necessary for Italy to prepare its military, at all costs.

A few weeks later, the first Government of Depretis was forced to resign: the Ministry of Interior, Giovanni Nicotera, a man of the south like Crispi, and like him a hero of the Risorgimento, resigned on Christmas day – Crispi was his natural replacement. On the 26^th of December 1877 the second Government of Depretis swore in, with Crispi as Ministry of Interior.

It was for him an unfortunate parenthesis, dominated by the need to arrange for the King's funerary service and burial (in the Roman Pantheon – the first of the Italian Kings buried there), and ended with the infamous trial for bigamy. Allegedly a retaliation from Nicotera, who had spread the news that Crispi had married again in a private ceremony on October 1875 – the first marriage was in all likelihood not a valid one, and Crispi was acquitted after a brief trial – the accusation forced Crispi to resign (which he did offering polemically his place back to Nicotera) and caused the crisis of the second Depretis Ministry and the succession of another man of the left, Benedetto Cairoli – eight months later, Depretis had returned to power – within six months Cairoli was back as Prime Minister, a position he would hold until 1881, through the contentious elections of 1880. Meanwhile, Crispi was growing into the leader of the “left” opposition to the government of the left.