In 1849 he fought against the Austrian Empire during the First Italian War of Independence and after the Battle of Novara he was forced to leave his hometown to live in exile in the Kingdom of Sardinia where he was, for a brief time, a minister.
From 1849 to 1859 he was elected as member of chamber of deputies the lower house of the Italian parliament.
In 1866, after the Third Italian War of Independence, he was named senator by king Victor Emmanuel II.
In the 1870s he was also president of the appeal court of Venice, the highest judiciary body in the region of Veneto.
In 1876 he was elected president of the Senate and was forced to resign from this post due to his strong support to the irredentismo.