The Making of Italy, 1796–1866

443 Pages·1988·44.84 MB·English

by  Denis Mack Smith (auth.)

By the same author
A HISTORY OF SICILY (with M. I. Finley and C. J. H. Duggan)
BRITISH INTERESTS IN THE MEDITERRANEAN AND MIDDLE EAST
CAVOUR
CAVOUR AND GARIBALDI: I860
CENTO ANNI DIVITA ITALIANA ATTRA VERSO IL 'CORRIERE
DELLA SERA'
DA CAVOUR A MUSSO LIN/
E. QUINET, LE RJVOLUZJONI D'ITALIA (editor)
G. LA FARINA, SCRITTI POLJTICI (editor)
GARIBALDI
ITALY: A MODERN HISTORY, I86I-I969
L'ITALIA DEL VENTESIMO SECOLO
MEDIEVAL SICILY
MODERN SICILY
MUSSO LIN/'S ROMAN EMPIRE
UN MONUMENTO AL DUCE
VICTOR EMANUEL, CAVOUR AND THE RISORGIMENTO
MUSSO LIN/
G. BAND/, I MILLE, DA GENOVA A CAPUA (editor)
The Making of Italy
1796-1866
THE MAKING OF ITALY
1796-1866
DENIS MACK SMITH
Senior Research Fellow
All Souls College, Oxford
pal grave
Preface, introduction, acknowledgements, editorial notes,
general bibliography, translations by the editor,
and compilation
© Denis Mack Smith 1968, 1988
First edition (Macmillan; Walker; Harper & Row) 1968
Reissued with a new preface (Macmillan; Holmes & Meier) 1988
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
The Making of Italy, 1796-1866.
1. Italy-History-1790-1870
I. Mack Smith, Denis
945'08 DG467
ISBN 978-0-333-43808-4 ISBN 978-1-349-19189-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-19189-5
Transferred to digital printing 2001
Contents
vii
PREFACE To THE 1988 RErssuE
ix
AcKNOWLEDGMENTs
xi
MAPS
1
INTRODUCTION
l. THE NAPOLEONIC PERIOD, 1796-18I5 I3
2. THE RESTORATION, I8I5-20 I8
3· THE REVOLUTIONARIES, I820-32 37
4· VARious VIEWS AMoNG THE MoDERATES, I 83 I-43 56
5· OB'iERVATIONS ON SociETY AND THE EcoNOMY, I844-46 84
6. AGITATION AND SuBvERsioN, 1845-48 I IO
7· THE REVOLUTION OF I8f8 I25
8. THE WARS OF 1848 AND 1849 145
9· VIcToR EMMANUEL, AzEGLio, AND CAvouR, 1849-52 I66
10. CoNSTITUTIONAL DIFFI..:::ULTIES AND THE CRIMEAN WAR 184
ll. A Bm FoR BRITISH SuPPORT, I856 20I
I 2. MAZZINI AND THE NATIONAL SociETY 214
I 3· THE PREss LAws AND ORsiNI, 1857-58 227
If. PLOMBIERES AND NEGOTIATIONS WITH FRANCE, I858 234
15. How CAvouR BROUGHT ABOUT WAR IN I859 256
I6. THE AcQUISITION oF LoMBARDY 277
I 7• TuscANY, THE RoMAGNA, ANn THE DucHIES 291
18. GARIBALDI CoNQUERS NAPLES AND SICILY, I86o 3°7
19. THE UNIFICATION OF NoRTH AND SouTH 323
20. CAvouR's FINAL PRoBLEMs, 1860-61 336
2 I. ITALY AFTER CAVOl:R 352
22. THE SouTHERN PRoBLEM 364
23. WAR, DEFEAT, AND THE AcQUISITION oF VENICE, I866 379
24- RoME 396
GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY fi6
INDEX 417
Maps
The Main Regions of Italy
I.
1. Napoleonic Italy circa I8IO
3· The States of Italy after 8 5
I I
4· The North Italian Plain
facing page 1
Preface to the 1988 Reissue
Anyone interested in the history of Europe during the nineteenth
century must sooner or later be drawn to the study of contemporary
documents. For some people this may be an acquired taste, but few will
fail to discover in the end that there is nothing to equal the drama and
the authenticity when events are studied at first hand rather than
through the eyes of some later historian. The main difficulty is to thread
one's way through the overwhelming amount of material, much of it
very hard to find; and this is especially true for the study of foreign
countries, because published books are not easily available and
unpublished sources are inaccessible.
The process of nation-building took place more quickly in Italy than
elsewhere, and in few other countries has the history of the patriotic
movement been more spectacular as well as controversial. That is why
the risorgimento has always aroused such widespread interest in the
outside world. In Italy itself this collection of documents has gone
through a number of editions in translation and has been adopted as a
textbook in schools, partly because much of the material is unfamiliar,
but mainly because it deals with one of the most fascinating periods in
the whole of Italian history.
Documents are of course only the raw material that goes to make up
history. Taken one by one they tell only part of the truth and sometimes
may be a distortion of reality. Even the most ample collection of
documents, however objective the choice, cannot entirely explain the
course of events, but is bound to be partial, subjective, and allusive
rather than conclusive. All one can do is try to make the selection as
comprehensive as possible within the space available.
Where the documents selected for this volume are in English, or
where an already existing translation has been available, a few very
minor changes have occasionally been made in punctuation and
spelling, purely in the interests of clarity and uniformity. Far the greater
number of these documents are here translated for the first time. Each
one is an excerpt and hence removed from its detailed context, but an
attempt has been made to minimize the distortions and establish the
essential background. Where passages have been omitted in the course
viii PREFACE
of one of these excerpts, the fact is indicated: such breaks have been
made only to reduce repetition, digression, and overcomplication.
Brackets have been used for occasional explanations. The source of
every document is cited. Commentaries have been provided not only to
give the general context of each document, but also as link passages
which may enable this volume to be used as an outline history of the
making of Italy.
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to many publishing houses and editors who made
documents available for this volume. In particular I would like to
thank Zanichelli of Bologna for permission to use their fine series
of Cavour's letters:-the Carteggio Cavour-Nigra dal 1858 al J861,
Cavour e J'lnghilterra, La Questione Romana negli anni J86o-J86J,
the Carteggio Cavour-Salmour, La liberazione del mezwgiorno e Ia
formazione del regno d'ltalia. This edition has by now become the
most important of all available sources for the political history of
the central years of the risorgimento. The individual editors of
these volumes hide modestly behind the Commissione per Ja pub
blicazione dei carteggi di Camillo Cavour, but Maria Avetta, Ales
sandro Luzio, and Gian Carlo Buraggi should in particular be men
tioned.
Another fundamental source for the life of Cavour is the diary of
Giuseppe Massari. An incomplete and extremely inaccurate edition
of this diary was published in I9JI, but Professor Emilia Morelli
with immense pains has now produced a correct version, published
by Cappelli of Bologna with the title of Diario dalle cento voci,
I8J8-J86o. I am grateful to Cappelli and to Professor Morelli for
permission to quote from this edition, and to Cappelli also for a let
ter from their Edizione nazionale degli scritti di Giuseppe Garibaldi.
Paolo Galeati of Imola allowed publication of several documents
from the national edition of Mazzini's writings by Professor
Menghini-Scritti editi ed inediti di Giuseppe Mazzini. Five docu
ments come from the French archives and are published by courtesy
of the Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres; four come from Crown
Copyright.material in the Public Record Office, quoted by permis
sion of Her Majesty's Stationery Office; and two have been taken
from the Clarendon Papers in the Bodleian Library with permission
of Lord Clarendon.
Acknowledgment is also made to Noel Blakiston and Chapman
and Hall for Odo Russell's interview with Pope Pius IX taken from
The Roman Question; to the Oxford University Press and Pro
fessor E. R. Vincent for the latter's translation of Azeglio's Things