Unification of Italy: Background and Mazzini

Background: a divided peninsula

Today we see Italy as one country with one flag. Two hundred years ago it was like a mohalla where every house has a different owner, and the strongest neighbour, Austria, holds the keys to half of them. The Austrian minister Metternich mocked Italy as ‘a geographical expression’, meaning just a name on a map, not a nation.

After the Congress of Vienna (1815), the meeting where Europe’s kings redrew the map after Napoleon, Italy was split into about seven states, most under Austrian control or influence.

What woke Italian national feeling?

• Napoleon’s rule: he had briefly united much of Italy and brought his Code, with equal laws. People remembered that taste of unity.
• Risorgimento: the word means “resurgence”, or rising again. Writers and poets reminded Italians of Rome’s glory and their shared language and culture.
• Secret societies: groups such as the Carbonari (“charcoal burners”) plotted against foreign rule. They led revolts in 1820–21 and 1831, but these failed because they were small and had no mass support.
• Economic needs: merchants wanted one market, without customs posts at every border.

Mazzini: the soul of unification

Giuseppe Mazzini is called the “soul” of unification because he gave Italians the idea and the emotion. He spent much of his life in exile, writing and organising.

A triumvir is one of three joint rulers. In 1849 Mazzini was one of the three who led the short-lived Roman Republic, until French troops restored the Pope.

Why Mazzini failed, and why he still mattered

Every rising he planned was crushed, and he wanted a republic, while Italy finally became a kingdom. So in a sense he lost. But without his writings, ordinary Italians might never have felt they were one people. Later leaders built on the feeling he created.

The India link

Mazzini’s ideals deeply inspired Indian nationalists. Lala Lajpat Rai wrote biographies of Mazzini, Garibaldi, Shivaji and Shrikrishna, and V. D. Savarkar translated Mazzini’s life into Marathi (1907). Young Indian revolutionaries saw in Italy proof that a divided land under foreign control could become free and united.

Common doubts

Why was Austria the main obstacle? Austria ruled Lombardy and Venetia directly and backed the rulers of the duchies. Any move towards unity meant fighting Austria, which had one of Europe’s biggest armies.

Why did Piedmont, not another state, lead? Its kings, the House of Savoy, were Italian, not foreign. After 1848 it kept a constitution, so liberals from all over Italy looked to it. It also had a decent army and a growing economy.

What did the Pope have to do with it? The Pope ruled the Papal States in central Italy as a king. Uniting Italy meant taking his land, which upset Catholics across Europe and made France protect him.

What UPSC asks

Prelims: Young Italy 1831, the Carbonari, Metternich’s “geographical expression” line, and Mazzini’s influence on Indian leaders. Mains: the role of ideas and leaders in Italian unification, often compared with Germany.