Pellegrino Rossi, count, an Italian statesman, born in Carrara, July 13, 1787, assassinated in Rome, Nov. 15, 1848. Until the overthrow of the French rule in Italy he taught law at Bologna. Removing to Geneva in 1814, he became professor of law there, and a member of the council and of the diet, where he advocated centralization. While on a mission in Paris he found a patron in Guizot, and in 1834 received the chair of political economy in the collége de France and of public law in the faculty of law. Louis Philippe made him a peer in 1839, and in 1845 sent him as ambassador to Rome. He first favored and then, by order of Louis Philippe, endeavored to check the reformatory policy of Pius IX. During the revolution of 1848 the pope appointed him prime minister (Sept. 16), and he aimed to establish a confederation of Italian states. While going to attend the opening of parliament, he was surrounded by a crowd, and killed with a stiletto. His principal work is a Traité du droit pénal (3 vols., Paris, 1829).