Francesco Crispi, Italian/Arberesh Politician.
Francesco Crispi (October 4, 1819–August 12, 1901) was a 19th century Italian politician. He was instrumental in the formation of the united country and was its Premier from 1887 until 1891 and again from 1893 until 1896.
Crispi's family came originally from the small agricultural community of Palazzo Adriano, in south-western Sicily. It had been founded in later fifteenth century by Eastern Orthodox Albanians (later Arbëreshë) fleeing from the Turks.[1] Crispi himself was born in Ribera, Sicily and baptized in the Byzantine Rite. He assumed an active role in the Sicilian uprising against the rule of Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies at Palermo in 1848. The uprising ended in failure and the government was restored in May 1849. Unlike many, Crispi was not granted amnesty and was forced to flee the country. He lived next in Piedmont where he worked as a journalist. He was implicated in the Mazzini conspiracy at Milan in 1853 and was expelled from Piedmont. He took refuge first on Malta, then in Paris and, even he had not done so before, met up with Giuseppe Mazzini in London.
In 1860 he, alongside Giuseppe Garibaldi, led the "expedition of the thousand" which disembarked on Sicily on 11 May 1860. On the 13th, Crispi drew up the Proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy. After the fall of Palermo, Crispi was appointed minister of the interior and of finance in the Sicilian provisional government, but was shortly afterwards obliged to resign on account of the struggle between Garibaldi and the emissaries of Count Camillo Benso di Cavour on the question of timing of the annexation of Sicily by Italy.
Appointed secretary to Garibaldi, Crispi secured the resignation of Agostino Depretis, whom Garibaldi had appointed pro-dictator, and would have continued his fierce opposition to Cavour at Naples, where he had been placed by Garibaldi in the foreign office, had not the advent of the Italian regular troops and the annexation of the Two Sicilies to Italy brought about Garibaldi's withdrawal to Caprera and Crispi's own resignation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesco_Crispi
Furthermore we should not forget that some of them have been eminent elements of the political panorama of “Risorgimental” Italy, (as Francesco Crispi, who described himself as an " Albanian in his blood and his heart ",) and that they have often bravely fought for the national unity of Italy. The poetry and the novelistic production of the Albanianss of Italy , are in prevalence of popular nature, and they often celebrate some historical episodes or emphasize the love for their abandoned native land. The works of the Arbëreshë (and of all the other ethnic minorities) represent a cultural patrimony that we should carefully safeguard because they are the testimony of the vitality of the Albanian people, a people that is still little known.
Nearly all merchants in Montenegro were originally from this nation. The same may be said regarding merchants in many Romanian cities. In Italy, too, the Albanians have played an important role in various domains (Crispi,' for one, is of Albanian origin) and in Greece, the most courageous soldiers were of Albanian descent.
http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/Kosovo/juka.htm