Too Many Italies

Napoleon Bonaparte launched Italian nationalism when he invaded in 1796. For the next century, many famous men with different political ideas fought and argued with each other to define what “Italy” should mean. However, this is your story. You are an unnamed woman who lived through this history.

You were born a Venetian, yet you will die an Italian. In between, you’ll be many things.

Your parents lived in the Republic of Venice. At the time of your birth in 1805, the city had been conquered three times: first by the French under Napoleon, then by the Austrians, then by Napoleon again. When you were ten, Napoleon was defeated, and your parents hoped for a free Venice. However, at the Congress of Vienna, the great powers handed Venice back to Austria.

Before 1861, the last people to rule a unified Italy called themselves Roman emperors. For the next 1,200 years, the Italian peninsula was filled with Florentines, Milanese, Genoese, Neapolitans, and Venetians—not Italians. They spoke in different dialects. In many places, French, Spanish, or Latin were more common than Italian dialects.

For centuries, Italy was Europe’s battlefield. France, Spain, and Austria fought over the Italian city-states. The Italian city-states played along, using these wars to increase their own power. Venetians would rather pay tribute to Paris than be conquered by Naples.

Napoleon’s invasion changed everything. French, and later Austrian, occupation gave Italians a common enemy and launched Italian nationalism. This is where your story begins.

A Risorgimento Life

Three famous men shaped your political life. They disagreed on politics, but united under the cause of Italian unification—Risorgimento or “revival.” These men were:

• Count Cavour was a liberal monarchist who wanted a united Italy ruled under a constitution by the king of Piedmont-Sardinia.
• Giuseppe Mazzini was a republican who wanted an Italian republic.
• Giuseppe Garibaldi was a true radical. After a failed 1834 uprising in Genoa he was sentenced to death but fled to South America where he became famous as a general.

These men were all Italian nationalists. Across Italy, people of every political ideology took up the tri-color flag in support of Italian nationalism. Conservative Catholics, monarchists, liberals, republicans, and socialists all called themselves nationalists.

When you were a young girl, your father joined a secret society devoted to resisting Austrian control. Revolts in the south inspired uprisings in northern Italy in 1820. Your father headed to Milan, where he died fighting against the Austrians in 1821. Several years later, you met your husband and moved to Genoa. Genoa is a city in the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia.

During the 1830s, rebellions erupted all over Europe. Garibaldi led a failed uprising in Genoa and the Austrian army crushed the dream of a united Italy. Yet the nationalist fervor didn’t die. Many Italian nationalists went into exile in the Americas or in Europe, where many lived comfortable lives as celebrities. You stayed in Italy.

A Fire Across Europe

In 1848, Europe erupted in revolution. In cities across Italy, revolutionaries took to the streets. King Charles Albert of Piedmont-Sardinia marched to Milan and Venice, where he fought against Austria in the hopes of uniting northern Italy. This convinced you to support Garibaldi.

In the autumn of 1848, you joined Garibaldi’s volunteer army. They fought a guerilla war on their way from Venice to Rome. Just after your arrival, the revolutionaries—including Mazzini—declared a new Roman Republic. It was in Rome that you met Anita, Garibaldi’s wife and comrade, who fought alongside him in Brazil and Italy.

The Roman Republic lasted a few months. However, the disunity of the Italian revolutionaries caused their downfall. Florentines failed to cooperate with Romans, and republicans failed to cooperate with monarchists. The dream of a united Italy crumbled. In the north, the Austrians defeated Charles Albert and crushed rebellions across Italy. The last two cities to remain free were Venice and Rome.

After pressure from French Catholics, the French army marched to Rome to return the Pope to power. Garibaldi’s army, which included you, won two victories against larger armies, but the counter-revolutionary forces were too strong. The republic fell, and you fled the city with Garibaldi and a few hundred others. Two months later, Venice fell to the Austrians. In 1849, you fled from Rome to Genoa. Garibaldi and other revolutionary leaders fled to exile in New York and Switzerland.

The Kingdom of Italy

Like Mazzini, you spent the Second War of Italian Independence on the sidelines. You were older, and the disappointments of 1848 lingered. However, your children were full of patriotism. When Prime Minister Cavour and King Victor Emmanuel of Piedmont-Sardinia decided to unify Italy in 1859, your sons marched to war.

Cavour was a skilled diplomat, so in 1859 Piedmont- Sardinia had French allies against the Austrians, unlike in 1848. In exchange for their support, the French received Nice and Savoy in northern Italy. And unlike in 1848, many revolutionaries learned to make compromises. The biggest compromise was that Italy would be a kingdom, not a republic. Victor Emmanuel would be the king. Your sons served in his army.

You would later read a book with an account of the battle that killed your oldest son:

“[I]t is a sheer butchery; a struggle between savage beasts, maddened with blood and fury. Even the wounded fight to the last gasp…almost crazed with suffering.”

from A Memory of Solferino, by Harry Dunant

You reflect back on your life. In 1861, you became an Italian. Victor Emmanuel, Cavour, and Garibaldi waged another war against Austria, and they united the Italian Peninsula. By 1871, Victor Emmanuel II sat on a throne in the capital of Rome as the first king of a united Italy since the Romans. The nationalist dream became reality. But this is not the Italy you imagined. You bled for Italy and wanted an Italy free of kings. You should have seen this coming. The nationalists who fought for a united Italy spoke of a “Fatherland”. Italy was not becoming a nation for women. In this new Italy, women are not allowed to vote. King Victor Emmanuel took an old Roman title: “Father of the Fatherland.”

A Calatafimi Obituary

The same day as Garibaldi dies quietly in his bed, you die quietly in yours. While countless books will tell his story, only your children and grandchildren will tell yours. But your story is a “Risorgimento” story as much as his.

You never meet any of your great-grandchildren, and many won’t live long. Most of the boys die in the trenches of the First World War. The ones who survive will resent how little Italy receives after the war—how little their brothers died for. They join a leader promoting a new, extreme form of Italian nationalism, called fascism. His name is Benito Mussolini, and his ideas will help inspire some of the world’s greatest horrors, and its deadliest war.