as prime minister in the 1880s and 1890s, crispi was internationally famous and often mentioned along with world statesmen such as bismarck, gladstone and salisbury. originally an enlightened italian patriot and democratic liberal, he went on to become a bellicose authoritarian prime minister and ally and admirer of bismarck. he is often seen as a precursor of benito mussolini. mussolini generally portrayed the liberal era (1861–1922) as a perversion of the idealist vision of mazzini and garibaldi, and crispi was the lone prime minister of the liberal era whom "il duce" depicted in favorable terms. in particular, mussolini praised crispi as the inventor of an "italian imperialism" as opposed to "western imperialism", presenting his foreign policy as the inspiration for fascist foreign policy, and the period after 1896 was excoriated as a period of decline caused by the alleged pusillanimous policy of giolitti. his reputation was a victim of italian fascism, which awarded him an abundance of street names, most erased after 1945. with the collapse of fascism, crispi's reputation was left fatally tarnished.