The final character we have to introduce is Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, usually just called Cavour. He was the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Piedmont Sardinia from 1852 to 1861, when he became the first Prime Minister of a united Italy, though he would only hold that position for a mere two and a half months before his untimely death. Cavour was the man pulling the strings behind the eventual Italian unification - he made the secret deals with France and cooked up the excuses that led to war with Austria. His particular brand of liberal conservatism would dominate the early Italian state.