This paper intends to trace the intellectual and political thinking that guided Marco Minghetti and his group of moderate liberal supporters. His ideas were pragmatic rather than dogmatic, and driven by the desire to employ his liberal project to modernize society whilst keeping his focus on developing a social model suited to the Italian context. What proved to be a determining factor was the Bo lognese statesman’s formative development, and into the newlyfounded Società Agraria di Bologna he brought together his reading of English liberalism classics with the experience gained from his travels to industrial revolution England and his encounters with friendly societies. This paper aims to demonstrate how his work enabled the development of an original pathway towards liberalism or rather, what could be defined a "mixed liberalism", or "liberal pluralism", capable of modernizing Italian society.
Keywords: Liberalism, modernization, nation