The Nobel Peace Prize 1907 Ernesto Teodoro Moneta, Louis Renault
Teodoro Moneta (September 20, 1833-February 10, 1918) had a
personality as paradoxical as the term «militant pacifist» which
was so often applied to him. He was a nationalistic
internationalist, a deeply religious anticlerical propagandist,
a crusader for physical fitness who daily took a tram to avoid
walking across a square to lunch in a restaurant opposite his
office. Born of aristocratic Milanese parents, he spent his
childhood in two country houses where his impoverished family
could still live on a patriarchal scale, although without
luxury. He was profoundly affected by his experiences in the
uprising against Austria when, at the age of fifteen, he fought
next to his father to defend his family home and saw three
Austrian soldiers die nearby. It was probably then that Moneta's
dual advocacy of peace and yet of fighting for his own kind of
nationalism was born. From 1848 to 1866 he spent a great deal of
his time in efforts for Italian inde