Manuel Máximo Alberti (28 May 1763 – 31 January 1811) was a priest from Buenos Aires, in the time the city belonged to the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata. He was part of the Primera Junta, the first national government after the spanish rulers were removed during the May Revolution.

Biography

Manuel Alberti was born in Buenos Aires on 28 may 1763, his parents being Antonio Alberti and Juana Agustina Marín. He study theology at the National University of Cordoba, getting a degree on 16 july 1785. He became priest the following year.

He was sent to Concepción del Uruguay as cleric, and in 1790 he was designated as cleric of Magdalena. He was later priest in the city of Maldonado, currently part of Uruguay. Alberti was jailed by the british during the British invasions of the Río de la Plata, accused of having mailing contacts with leaders of the spanish forces. He was freed after the defeat of the british troops, and resumed his functions.

He returned to Buenos Aires in 1808 and worked in the chapel "San Benito de Palermo", of recent construction. In 1810 he joined the political movements that gave place to the May Revolution. He was present in the open Cabildo that decided the fate of Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros, voting for his removal.

He was one of the members of the Primera Junta, which took control of the government after Cisneros's departure. In here, he was aligned with most of the reformist proposals of Mariano Moreno. However, he rejected to sign the death penalty for Santiago de Liniers due to his religious formation.

He was also a journalist of the Gazeta de Buenos Ayres, even after the departure of its founder Mariano Moreno. From there he supported all of the actions took by the Junta, save the mentioned execution of Liniers.

Like most other members of the Junta, he voted for the incorporation of the deputies from the other other cities into the Junta, which turned it into the Junta Grande. He did this breaking his usual support for Mariano Moreno, the sole member of the Junta to reject the incorporation; however, he told that he supported the proposal just out of political convenience.

He was the first member of the First Junta to die. He died 31 january 1811, because of a heart attack.

Commemoration

The government of Buenos Aires decided in 1822 to name a street after his name, and in 1910 a statue of him was erected in Barrancas de Belgrano. The district of Manuel Alberti in the Buenos Aires Province is also named after him.

External links

• El Historiador (in spanish)
• Educar - Argentina