Born in Carrarc, Italy in 1787, he became a supporter of liberal ideas in Italy until he fled the Austrian control in 1805. In Geneva he became professor of criminal law and Roman law.
He was elected to the Representative Council, and later to the Federal Government, where he proposed, unsuccessfully, a constitutional bill called the “Rossi Pact”, which is the origin of the Federal State of 1848.
Disappointed, he went to live in France where he became professor at the “Collège de France” before being sent to Rome as Ambassador. In 1848 the new Pope Pious IX named him Prime Minister of the Papal States. He was assassinated two months later by Italian revolutionaries.