This is a recap of the first chapter of the book risorgimento By Lucy Riall. Risorgimento is the Italian word for resurrection, and it’s the Italian term for the unification of the country. In case you didn’t know, Italy was the name for the Italian peninsula, but it had not been a united country since the Romans took over each of the tribes under the name of Rome. But after the fall of the western Roman empire in 476 AD, the peninsula was open to whoever could assert control over an area. That happened to be a wide variety of players: Germany, France, Spain, the Byzantine empire, and Muslim armies were some of the bigger players- and in the north and center of Italy, a host of cities took the surrounding areas and became what we know as city states. In the 1800s, there was a push to unite the entire peninsula, with Sicily and Sardina, into a single country. The first chapter outlines the basic history of how this happened. The subsequent chapters of the book detail what this meant to historians and Italians in the years afterward.
1 Risorgimento, Reform and Revolution
Towards the end of the 18th century, many of Europe’s most powerful monarchies had suffered setbacks. It is in this Europe-wide crisis of the eighteenth century that we must look for the origins of the changes in nineteenth century Italy. Italy had been ravaged by war and repeated foreign invasion during the 1600s. Alongside that were repeated famines, plagues and popular revolts. Governments throughout Italy attempted to introduce economic and social improvements, and construct more efficient government, but they encountered serious difficulties. Especially in Naples, implementing reform was opposed by the local power-holders, and the poor bore the brunt of the efforts. Outbreaks of violence became commonplace, and were even encouraged by the nobles and the Church in an effort to undermine proposed reforms.
Many in the peninsula recognized the need for reforms, but successful or not, they unleashed instability throughout Italy. Reformers had weakened the entrenched political system, but had been unable to build new bases of support. There was widespread disillusionment and distrust of the political interests towards the end of the 1700s.
In 1793, the French revolution invaded Piedmont. In 1796, Napoleon invaded northern Italy and in the treaty of Campoforno with Austria in 1797, gained control of the all Italy. The first of the French occupations led to three republics being established: the Cisalpine republic in the North, the Roman Republic in central Italy, and the Parthenopan or Neopolitan republic in the south. But a longer period of occupation from 1801-14 reflected a more conservative direction taken by Napoleon in France.
This occupation turned out to be extremely important for future developments in Italy. The breakdown of the old states challenged the traditional authority of the old regime. The French rule also prepared the ground for a more uniform national identity in Italy. It helped spread revolutionary ideas and organizations. The idea of an independent Italian republic gained support as did democratic forms of government. Italian patriots began planning uprisings all over Italy. The French army and centralized government became models that reform minded Italians wanted to see in their country. The peasants however bitterly resented military conscription, and they, encouraged by the Church, fought back against such reforms.
After Napoleon was defeated by the Austrians in 1815, the Habsburg Empire sought to restore the old order. But restoration in Italy meant different things to different people, from liberal reforms to the reaction. The carbonarist uprisings in 1820-21 were easily put down by the Austrians, but the revolutionaries themselves were at odds with each other.
In 1831, Giovine italia, Young Italy, caused a series of disturbances, but again, the mass of people remained indifferent or even hostile to the idea of open revolt. But this group was led by Giuseppe Mazzini. The disastrous experiences of these years taught him that an entirely new kind of leadership was necessary to prepare the battle ahead. He was inspired by romanticism and an emotional engagement with the past. Italy’s geography destined it to be united and free. It was time for a resurrection, a risorgimento. Mazzini managed to create a broad network of like-minded liberals across Europe to the notion of Italian unification. In the mid 1840’s he attracted Giuseppe Garibaldi, an Italian exile in Uruguay, as the one who could unite and lead Italian forces. But he was at the same time losing ground in the bigger picture.
In 1848-49, a major revolt broke out in Palermo. The government was easily overcome and the apparent ease of the revolt caused some real concern among conservatives. But the victory also masked some grave weaknesses. Many of the liberals who gained a foothold in the power, proceeded to halt the progress of the revolution in order to keep the masses marginalized. Their general refusal to address the causes of the mass unrest had grim consequences. At the same time, Italian monarchs didn’t want to give an inch to even the most moderate of reformers, and with the church, the piedmont government and other factions jealously guarding their own interests, things came to a near halt of progress. But here Mazzini seized the initiative back from the moderates. He arrived in Rome in 1849 and a republic was declared in Rome. Yet circumstances were no more favorable in 1849 than they had been 50 years earlier. While Garibaldi was a capable general, his forces were too weak and ill-equipped. Austrian domination was reaffirmed with the defeat of the Piedmontese army at Novara. After the defeat, Carlo Alberto, the monarch of Piemonte, abdicated in favor of his son Vittorio Emanuele II.
The revolution frightened the Italian rulers though and this led to ten years of severe repression. Pope Pius IX and Leopoldo II in Tuscany turned their backs on liberalism. The Austrians in Lombardy-Venetia policed with heightened censorship and crackdowns on political dissent or discontent. Political dissent in the Two Sicilies was even worse, where even the most moderate liberals were arrested and condemned to long sentences. There were, nonetheless a series of failed insurrections: Milan in 1853, Massa in 1854, Palermo in 1856, and Sapri in 1857. Each of these was poorly prepared and under-armed. Mazzini’s reputation suffered at home with an air of failure, though his network abroad, centered in London, survived intact.
The Italian National Society was established in 1857, created by three ex-democrats: Daniele Manin (ex-leader of the Venetian republic), Giorgio Pallavicino Trivulzio, and Giuseppe La Farina. Their belief was that the only way forward for Italian nationalism was through an alliance with Piedmont. After 1849, Piedmont alone took a more liberal direction, confirming the power of the crown and Church, but guaranteeing freedom of the press and of association. From this, the moderate liberals were able to reform the economy and transform political life. This was a marked contrast to the political reaction in the rest of Italy. Much of the credit goes to one man, Camilo Benso di Cavour. Cavour wanted to steer a middle path between revolution and reaction. Economic progress, he saw, would result from free trade, liberal policies, and political stability. This model became the goal for Italian nationalism and eventual unification. Even king Vittorio Emanuele II was persuaded of an alliance with the nationalists.
Cavour learned from the defeats of 1849 that diplomacy would be the only way to gain allies and isolate Austria. In 1858, an ex-Mazzini operative had thrown a bomb at the French emperor Napoleon III’s carriage, and Cavour saw his opportunity. He traveled to France and met with the emperor to expel Austria from northern Italy. They divided up the map of Italy into areas they would rule. This would free Italy of Austrian rule, but not unite Italy in the sense the nationalists had wanted. But Piedmont and France agreed and provoked Austria into a war. The French-Piedmontese won and Piedmont gained Lombardy and central Italy in the process, but failed to get control of Venice. But Piedmont was largely in control of Italy at this point.
Austrian allies in Italy were greatly destabilized by the change. It had a particularly devastating impact on the kingdom of the Two Sicilies. The power vacuum left opportunities and Garibaldi stepped in as the most popular leader of the risorgimento movement. His hometown of Nice had been surrendered to France in Cavour’s deal. So he set sail from Genoa and landed in Sicily with a thousand volunteers to overthrow the Bourbon king and unite the south with the rest of Italy. His expedition exceeded all expectations and in less than six months, Garibaldi had defeated the Bourbon army in both Sicily and on the mainland. He assembled an army of 20,000 volunteers, proclaimed himself dictator and reorganized the government.
His conquest in the south gave democrats a solid power base, and in September 1860, he entered Naples on a train to a triumphant welcome. In October, he defeated the Bourbon army on the Volturno river, which gave him an open road to Rome.
Cavour decided to stop him from taking Rome and sent the Piedmontese army south to meet Garibaldi’s volunteers. A plebiscite in Sicily and the south voted in favor of annexation by Piedmont, and in November, Garibaldi handed power over to Piedmont. In February 1861, Italy was formally united with Vittorio Emanuele II as king and Turin as the capital.
Venice was still under Austrian control and the Pope in Rome was protected by a French garrison. It was in 1866 that Italy finally gained control over Venice. It wasn’t until 1870 that Napoleon withdrew his troops and Rome became the capital of Italy. Pius IX remained implacable and proclaimed himself ‘a prisoner of the Vatican’.