The Risorgimento

II Risorgimento (The Resurgence) was an ill-defined movement that flourished on-and-off in Italy in the years immediately following the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte.The movement sought a reinvigoration of art and literature in the country but more importantly it wanted a greater understanding of what it meant to be an Italian. Within a few years it had turned political.

Italian nationalism was in large part a reaction to foreign rule and occupation. Its main protagonist was the Hapsburg Austrian Empire which dominated much of northern Italy and ruled elsewhere also through its various satellites and surrogates. Indeed, the Austrian Chancellor Count Metternich whilst attending the Congress of Vienna which was to determine the shape of post-Bonapartist Europe, had somewhat arrogantly referred to Italy, “as no more than a geographical expression,” and in many respects he was right. Italy had long been divided up into City States, individual Republics, and small Kingdoms, and as a result the Italians were an equally divided people. They owed their loyalty or allegiance not to a country but to a region, a city, sometimes even a village. So the cause of Italian unification was never a movement of the people. There was never any great national uprising in support of independence and unification. It was always the movement of a small educated elite.

One of the first groups to form were the Carbonari (Charcoal Burners) who can be said to have kept the flame of Italian independence alight in the early years. They were a conspiratorial organisation which took part in a series of abortive uprisings throughout Italy against French and Austrian occupation and one of their early adherents whilst he was in exile in Italy, was Louis Bonaparte, the young nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, who was himself to become Emperor Napoleon III, and this was to be of huge significance in the future.

Three men were to play pivotal roles in the Risorgimento, one intellectually, the other militarily, and the third politically. Without any one of them Italian unification may never have occurred, at least not in the way it did.

Giuseppe Mazzini

Giuseppe Mazzini, the Genoese lawyer and the “Soul of Italy” was born on 22 June, 1805, to a privileged family. His comfortable background provided him with the opportunity to dream and what he dreamed of was a unified Italy. In his early years he was willing to channels his energies into the writing of romanticised historical dramas but in 1830, whilst on a sojourn in Tuscany, he joined the Carbonari. This not only hardened his views but the failures of the Carbonari made him realise that it would take more than conspiratorial talk in dark places to bring about Italian unification. Having been briefly placed under arrest he moved abroad so he could work more openly.

In 1831, he formed the secret society La Giovine Italia (Young Italy). Mazzini, however, did not seek Italian unification for its own sake, what he wanted was a Liberal Republic, he was driven as much by his politics as he was by nationalism. By 1833, La Giovine Italia could boast 60,000 members. In the same year Mazzini initiated an insurrection in Genoa, it was brutally crushed and 12 of the rebels were executed. Mazzini, who had escaped but been sentenced to death in absentia, was riven with guilt, and for time he was uncertain whether he wanted to be responsible for sending others to their death. Even so, a well-organised movement for Italian unification with a philosophy, specific aims, and an intellectual rigour, had at last been established and Mazzini was to remain at its heart for the next 35 years.

Giuseppe Garibaldi