The various attempts at moderate reform (1818-1821)

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In reality, more lucid conservatives were aware that proceeding with a comprehensive reform of the Piedmont school system was now inevitable. The most convinced were Galeani Napione and Balbo. Galeani Napione worked towards this from 1814, even if cautiously, since the climate was not particularly favourable to reform measures. Since Balbo remained in Spain as an ambassador, he could only work marginally on operations of reflection and gathering material. 

Then in 1818 he was recalled to Piedmont, to hold the office of Magistrate of the Reform, in place of Brignole, and at that point work was able to proceed at greater speed.

The two had of a series of effective co-workers, the most active of which was Giuseppe Anselmi, who had been made to transfer from the College of Casale to the Royal Academy of Turin, thus offering a broader margin for manoeuvre. 

How do we explain the importance of Anselmi in the reform strategy of Balbo and Galeani Napione?
Anselmi had always called for an overall reform of the Piedmont school system: in 1803, on the occasion of the adoption of the law of reform with which Napoleon had tried to give a new structure to the education of the Empire, including Piedmont, Anselmi had published a Corso d’istruzione analogo al Decreto degli 11 fiorile anno X². The Corso proposed to perfect and to make the legal requirements applicable, adapting them to the Piedmont situation.
 
In 1807, while printing textbooks for all the orders of school, he published an ode All’Invitto Imperatore e Re Napoleone I³; then in 1814, he turned to Balbo, this time testing the water informally, first in 1817 by printing another ode: De prospero Balbo, reduce ex Hispania legatione⁴.

In the period in which he worked with the men at the heads of the Magistrate of the Reform, Anselmi served as a collector of materials that colleagues went around collecting in Italy and abroad, or rather textbooks, study plans, regulations and designs. He had the task of analysing them beforehand, selecting them and summarising them, in order to make them easily accessible to the group of people who were working with Balbo and Galeani Napione⁵.

For this reason, Anselmi had extensive correspondence with other collaborators, such as the Abbot Incisa, he had returned to running the College of the Provinces in 1814, the Abbot Leone, head of the school of Turin, the Count of Cardenas, head of a school of mutual teaching, and Anton Maria Vassalli Eandi, Professor of Physics at the University, a drafter of what is the most innovative and interesting draft reform of those years, but which of course, was not taken into consideration. 

² G. Anselmi, Corso d’istruzione analogo al Decreto degli 11 fiorile anno X, Stamperia Nazionale, Turin, 1803.
³ G. Anselmi, All’Invitto Imperatore e Re Napoleone I. Canzone sullo stato d’Europa in fine dell’anno 1806, stamperia Paolo Corrado, Casale, 1807.
⁴ G. Anselmi, De prospero Balbo, reduce ex Hispania legatione, Stamperia Nazionale, Turin, 1817.
⁵ Several documents are kept at AST, Corte, Istruzione pubblica, Scuola per geometri e carte varie relative all’istruzione pubblica, testiment to Anselmi's role in the working group. In particular, besides the numerous letters and the material to be viewed that he received from Galeani Napione, is a Primo catalogo de’ libri raccolti presso il sig. Anselmi, d’ordine avuto da S.E. il conte P.B. (Prospero Balbo) all’uopo di veder norme di pubblica istruzione, not dated, which indicates all the texts that Anselmi had received to view or that he had procured independently.
 

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