Anthony House
History 141-01
Prof. Miller
23 November 1999

The Rise and Fall of Mazzinian Nationalism on the Italian Peninsula

The irony inherent to the Italian Risorgimento is rarely unrecognized. Indeed, that irony is subtle, and it took nearly a century to develop. It began with the Enlightenment, an intellectual movement focused in Bourbon France. By 1790, Enlightenment ideals had provided the impetus for the French Revolution. Eventually, though, the revolutionary character of the period gave way to reactionary governments bent on reestablishing the ancien régime. Coinciding with this period of political backlash was an ideological reaction to the Enlightenment. Romanticism seemed certain to "sweep into oblivion the prodigious intellectual achievements of the eighteenth century" (Salvemini 14). The Risorgimento blossomed from Europe’s Romanticism, a means of uniting Italy. In the process, it freed the peninsula from the stranglehold of reactionary Austria.

Few Risorgimento leaders embraced Romanticism as fully as Giuseppe Mazzini. Mazzini’s life ran parallel to the movement for unification, experiencing both victory and defeat along with the Italian people. His complex doctrines exerted significant pressure on the course of the unification movement. Still, he is often overlooked as one of the fundamental contributors to the Risorgimento. Admittedly, Mazzini’s vision—a republican Italy—was not realized in his lifetime. Nevertheless, understanding Mazzini and Mazzinian nationalism is important to understanding the Risorgimento as a whole. Mazzini developed an ideology that, despite the brevity of its popular appeal, affected the formation of the unified Italian state.

Mazzini was, in the deepest sense of the word, an ideological man. Over the course of his life, he proved unwilling to compromise on the basic tenets of his philosophy. Nevertheless, he was "a man of the heart rather than head" (Smith 151). Mazzini never published any work that systematically defined his sociopolitical agenda. The current understanding of Mazzinian ideology is simply an aggregate of his brief letters and articles. It is a patchwork of tenets which takes specific shape only when considered in conjunction with Mazzini’s deeds, since "only action could satisfy the intense realism of Mazzini’s idealism" (Lloyd 30). Any consideration of Mazzinian principles should, therefore, be considered in the larger context of his role as agitator.

At the forefront of Mazzini’s sociopolitical ideology was the double-edged sword of responsibility, realized first and foremost by the individual. Mazzini vocally critiqued Bentham’s utilitarianism for "affirming only rights and not duties" (Salvatorelli 90). The notion of duty, in fact, "was at the centre of his political creed" (Smith 15). For Mazzini, the duty embraced by the individual served to counterbalance the liberty he saw as an integral part of any legitimate political system. Without duty, rights are tenuous at best; history manifested man’s "tendency to usurp the rights of others" (Mazzini qtd. in Salvemini 50). Duty worked at liberty’s side in creating the Mazzinian political system, effecting a balance of individualism and community. While individualism "tended to help the strong," Mazzini believed that "superior claims of duty and morality" would bring societal discord to a minimum (Smith 29). Mazzini generalized his expectations of the individual, applying them to the nations of the world. Duty’s demands on an individual were paralleled by mission’s demands on a nation. Just as the duty of any one person is a function of his circumstances, so, too, was the concept of mission tailored to each specific nation. Holistically, each nation’s mission fit into the collective destiny of humanity. As Mazzini saw it, Italy’s mission was "to take the lead in producing a community of nations in Europe" (219). Clearly, Mazzini tended to see each nation—and, likewise, each individual—in the context of its larger community. Mazzini stressed the nation as the organizational structure of choice, though, and explained his political theories in terms of the sovereign state.

Religion played a prominent role in the Mazzinian state. He saw duty as "obedience to God’s will" (Latimer 29). By tying the notion of duty to the notion of God, Mazzini definitively linked his ideal nation to the divine. Such a stance distinguished Mazzini from the majority of his contemporary radicals, who espoused "the liberal belief in a lay and secular state" (Smith 194). Mazzini believed that politics was little more than the practical application of religious ideals. In his thoughts, one was absurd without the other. Mazzini encountered more resistance in his attempts to relate his ideals to the established religious structure of Europe. He was thoroughly opposed the "anticlericalism of Garibaldi" (Smith 193). This, of course, cleaved him from the general body of Risorgimento leaders, who advocated the separation of church from state. His affinity for religious principles was not, however, based in respect for "aging papal Catholicism" (Salvatorelli 171). Christianity, by Mazzini’s standards, had outlived its usefulness. The corrupt Church had abdicated spiritual legitimacy to maintain secular authority. Moreover, "Catholicism was incompatible with democratic republicanism" (Lovett 101). Mazzini sought to replace the hierarchical Church with a simpler formula, which Mazzini applied to both religion and revolution: God and the People. Under Mazzini’s progressive religion, "popular will, with no need for intermediaries, would be the means of transmitting divine will" (Salvemini 62). Mazzini, then, returns to his starting point by identifying citizens as both means of communicating God’s will and subjects of that will through the notion of duty. More generally, Mazzini envisioned the unified Italy, defined by its cyclic popular theocracy, seeking "to bind earth to heaven" as a fulfillment its mission (Wicks 183). Regardless of the realism of his goals, Mazzini clearly saw religion and politics as equally necessary in the unified Italian state

Mazzini realized, like most other political agitators, that elaborate theories were futile if they were never applied to the world outside the mind. The foremost responsibility of Mazzini’s followers was, therefore, "bringing about realization of the new way of life" (Salvemini 68). Despite the revolutionary nature of Mazzini’s ideals, Mazzini avoided advocating revolution in and of itself. In fact, he personally saw "social progress by evolution as in England" as far preferable to "self-destructive revolution" (Smith 217). Revolutionary activity was, to Mazzini, a last resort. He cautioned strongly against any revolution that replaced one economically dominant group with another. Such a revolution, he contended, would not serve the interest of the whole. Mazzini went further by purporting that insurrection "not accompanied by the positive work of reconstruction" lacked legitimate authority (Salvemini 71). Such a concrete stance reinforced Mazzini’s opposition to violent revolt "except as a very last result (Smith 216). Nevertheless, Mazzini recognized the probable necessity of armed insurrection to bring about a united Italy. He was therefore wont to express more ambivalent attitudes toward revolutionary activity. He described all previous revolutions as "incomplete" and insisted that "another revolution must come to recall them to work" (Lloyd 21, 22). Moreover, he closely associated religion with revolution, using terms like "regeneration, redemption, and salvation" when discussing revolt. Certainly, Mazzinian ideology necessitated both thought and action to be realized on the Italian peninsula.

The goal of Mazzinian revolution—or, preferably and less likely, evolution—was a unified state stretching from Sicily to the Alps. The new government, however, was not to be "only for the people, but by the people" (Salvatorelli 96). The reconstruction of the political structure on the peninsula could only be along republican lines. In one of his more outspoken moments, Mazzini declared "constitutional monarchy" to be "the most immoral form of government in the world" (Salvatorelli 154). In the long run, Mazzini proved more pragmatic. While he never denied "his personal republican preferences," he remained willing to "subordinate them to any monarchist regime that would undertake a truly patriotic revolution" (Smith 59). Mazzini trusted no Italian monarch enough to sign away his ideals without reservation, though. He firmly felt that "monarchical institutions were inherently incompatible with the principle of equality" (Lovett 36). Further, Mazzini strongly believed legitimate government required both liberty and equality. He strongly endorsed republics as "the only logical and legitimate form of government" (qtd. in Salvemini 60). Mazzini insisted on republicanism in 1848 at Rome. He favored, at that time, "a republic to include all seven of the Italian states" (McClellan 29). Unfortunately, such cooperation failed to emerge. Nevertheless, Mazzini clung to his ideals, insisting that republicanism would ultimately lead to a "holy alliance of all the peoples in everlasting peace" (Lloyd 17). A republican Italy was the first step in achieving Mazzini’s scheme of international cooperation.

At the heart of Mazzini’s vision for a united Italy was the concept of association. Association of equals became the foundation upon which he built his social doctrine. In Mazzini’s eyes, social equity "required that each man, by virtue of his work, participate in the enjoyment of the products of social activity" (Salvatorelli 94). Mazzini saw clearly the dangers inherent in separating those who possess wealth from those who produce wealth. In his ideal state, "capital and labour [would] be associated in the same hands" (Salvemini 51). He advocated the rights of the poorer classes and embraced their participation in revolutionary activity. In fact, Mazzini put "no faith in the privileged classes. He appealed to the people" (Lloyd 32). In both thought and action, he recognized the tension between classes. His distaste for such tension, though, distinguished him from the socialists of his day, whom he criticized openly. Fundamentally, he rejected the socialist assumption "that material interests were the mainspring of human behavior" (Lovett 57). While he held that all revolutions were "essentially social revolutions," he saw class war as intrinsically less valuable than interclass cooperation (Smith 15). Whereas he agreed with Marx on the evils of socioeconomic discord, he "strove to diminish rather than exploit it" (88). In effect, Mazzini advocated a constructive method through which the tyranny of capital could be mitigated. Mazzini did not escape the judgment of the socialists, though, who proved equally willing to criticize him. Essentially, they viewed him as an apologist for the bourgeois. Still, Mazzini was among the most socially concerned of the Risorgimento, and tensions between him and socialist intellectuals had little effect his ability to act.

Mazzini was, of course, an Italian nationalist; his nationalistic tendencies, however, was uniquely inclusive. He never referred to his sentiments as ‘nationalism,’ which he saw as "an unpleasant and dangerous perversion of patriotism" (Smith 220). Whereas mainstream nationalism lauded one ethnicity at the expense of another, Mazzini’s ideology maintained that each nationality was inherently valuable in its own unique way. This, largely, stems from his conceptualization of national mission. For humanity to fully embrace its potential, nations must interact. Still, Mazzini was an Italian, and his first cause remained the creation of an Italian nation. Mazzini’s personal concept of nationalism cannot, however, be "separated from his love for freedom and humanity" (Salvatorelli xix). Despite later Fascist attempts to distort Mazzinian ideologies to dovetail with party propaganda, the fact remains that the nationalism Mazzini espoused was "tolerant, conciliatory, humanitarian, cosmopolitan, [and] progressive" (Silone 18). Such qualities stood in stark contrast to traditional nationalism, which centered on subjugation. Mazzini espoused the "universal association of the human race" which could only be realized through the association of "free and equal national states" (Salvemini 73). Instead of limiting his quest for freedom to his fatherland, Mazzini strove to support all "struggling nationalities" (Lloyd 9). This tendency differentiated him from other Risorgimento leaders and contributed to his popular appeal throughout Europe.

Mazzinian ideology did not, of course, form in a vacuum. Like everyone else, Mazzini developed through interaction with the world around him. His sociopolitical doctrine synthesized his experiences and thoughts on nationhood. Mazzini was not content to be a political philosopher, though. He insisted on actively pursuing his idealized vision of an Italian nation. Mazzini’s struggle to realize a republican state in Italy was, to say the least, long and hard. In the process, however, he became a major player in the game of the Risorgimento.

Mazzini pinpointed 1821 as the year in which his revolutionary tendencies were born, and over the next ten years, those tendencies developed into the most basic tenets of his ideology. Experiences in his earlier, home life certainly played a major role in shaping his world-view as well. His mother’s life was, for the most part, "devoted to companionship with her son" (Latimer 28). This close bond dominated Mazzini’s family life, and produced marked effects on his sociopolitical outlook. Mazzini’s mother was a devout Jansenist; he therefore grew up "with concepts of life that were definitely moralistic on a background of Christian piety" (Silone 11). Mazzini’s early exposure to Jansenist principles is reflected in his antipathy toward the hierarchical Church. His home life was not the sole determinant of his religious ideology, though, for he denied the pessimism of Jansenist philosophy and held an optimistic view of humanity’s nature. The uprisings at Genoa in 1821 provided Mazzini with an opportunity to join the national cause. Mazzini himself defined the seemingly futile insurrection as his "moment of conversion" (Silone 6). Mazzini spent the next eight years preparing intellectually. He passed the time reading history, religion, philosophy, and, most importantly, literature (Sarti 30). In 1827, he was initiated into Carbonari movement, beginning the move from thought to action. He was understandably disappointed by the movement’s lethargy. Disillusioned by the secrecy and inefficiency of i buoni cugini, Mazzini began to shift slowly away from the ideology of the movement (Sarti 40). Nevertheless, he was arrested in 1830, and early the next year he expatriated to France.

Over the next six years, Mazzini came into his own as both political thinker and agitator. The time was delineated by his exile in France and Switzerland and by the creation of his own revolutionary group, Young Italy. Initially, Mazzini established himself at Marseilles, a hotbed of revolutionary activity in close proximity to his beloved Italy. During his first few months in France, Mazzini began to formulate his own, independent system of political beliefs. He advocated subversive activity "even when it ended in defeat" as a method of developing general "political consciousness" (Lovett 84). He also began to formally move away from the Carbonari. He overtly rejected their willing "cooperation with moderate monarchs" (Sarti 50). Not one to speak without acting, Mazzini formed Young Italy, a group dedicated to conquering "for Italy Unity, Independence, and Liberty" (qtd. in Lovett 35). The emergence of Young Italy gave Mazzini a forum through which he could both disseminate and enact his ideas. Young Italy also called him to the attention of reactionary regimes throughout Europe. By 1833, France was coming under increasing pressure to expel Mazzini, particularly from Austria. Mazzini moved to Switzerland in July, embittered, but much more aware of the issues concerning Europe at large than he had been two years previous. At Geneva, Mazzini’s "political and social opinions matured" significantly (Smith 16). His time in Switzerland, however, was marred by bouts of severe depression. Only its proximity to Italy served to keep him in the country. The latter half of 1836 provided the impetus for Mazzini to move on; his hopes of revolution were waning and Young Italy was "in shambles" (Sarti 90). By December, Mazzini was ready for a significant change. He was ready for England.

Mazzini took a quick liking to the birthplace of representative democracy. He adopted England as a second fatherland, and the nation embraced him as well. Mazzini had a number of patrons among London’s intellectual elite, but he took care to keep a low profile until he could establish himself. In the meantime, he "dabbled in business," failing miserably and reaffirming his vocation as insurrectionary (Sarti 99). He only slowly returned to Italian affairs; he began by devoting himself to "the good of the Italian working class immigrants in London" (Latimer 30). Despite his gradual reintroduction to political matters, he quickly regained ground. He reformed Young Italy along more organized lines, and he began writing again. By 1844, he was "once again regarded as being the most influential revolutionary in Europe (Smith 40). As in France, his increased stature was a mixed blessing. Suspecting mail tampering, Mazzini expressed his concerns to one of his patrons, who voiced the issue in the House of Commons. Indignation "swept the country" when Mazzini’s role as "victim of Britain’s foreign policy of peaceful coexistence with Austria" became public (Wicks 195, Sarti 120). Prominent intellectuals, some of whom publicly disagreed with Mazzini’s political agenda, spoke out against the British government. The wave of good press did wonders for Mazzini; it gained him new sympathizers and new patrons. By 1848, though, his thoughts turned again to action in Italy, and Mazzini left England confident in the imminence of Italy.

Mazzini only ever effected one Italian State, the Roman Republic of 1848-1849. Its brief existence marked the high point of Mazzini’s influence in the Risorgimento. 1848 witnessed the spread of revolutionary activity throughout Europe. Mazzini "took pride from the fact that" the revolts began in Sicily (Smith 56). The Sicilian insurrection was quickly quashed, but Mazzini noted growing tensions in Rome and shifted his attentions to the Eternal City. "Popular demonstrations" of the previous year had "confirmed Mazzini’s faith" in the citizens of Rome (Sarti 129). Hoping the sparks of Roman rebellion would ignite the rest of the peninsula into a blaze of revolution, Mazzinian republicans descended on Rome in the last few months of 1848. Pope Pius IX fled to Naples, and the republicans seized power. They soon invited Mazzini to Rome. Upon arrival, Mazzini drew up a constitution—"one of the most glorious charters of human liberty"—and was subsequently elected first Triumvir (Lloyd 35). Unfortunately, all did not go as Mazzini had planned. While he was well aware of the threat posed to the budding republic by Austria, he believed the newly formed French Republic would grant Rome its "fullest sympathy and support" (Latimer 127). That support never materialized. In fact, the French became the primary threat to Mazzini’s young state. In desperation, Mazzini attempted to join forces with Charles Albert, only to be rebuffed (Smith 65). With diplomacy exhausted, "Mazzini shifted…to belligerence without ever losing sight of the political implications" (Sarti 144). Rome fell despite his best efforts, but Mazzini harbored hope for the future.

The fall of the Roman Republic marked the beginning of the end for Mazzini. He had implemented his idealized political system, and it had failed. Suddenly, republicanism and Mazzinian thought were out of the running. The Risorgimento marched on, while Mazzini fell behind. He never fully recovered. Still, Mazzini’s fall from favor did not negate his contributions to the Risorgimento. In spite of his failures, he proved influential in Italy’s unification.

Rome’s fall dealt a fatal, if subtle, blow to Mazzini’s republicanism. Mazzini showed his wisdom in resigning his position of power after realizing "public opinion lacked his apocalyptic vision," (Smith 73). In the short run, Mazzini did not see his resignation as a failure. He recognized that he’d lost the battle, but he thought the war was far from over. Sadly, he was mistaken. While his stint in Rome had "enhanced his public stature," it cast doubt over the realism of his ideology (Sarti 151). He stubbornly insisted that the exiled leaders of the Roman Republic were the true Italian government in exile, further deflating his cause. Mazzini’s continued efforts to promote the notion of a Third Rome ended in "ruthless repression by the authorities," which was "disastrous from the point of view of the republican cause" (Salvemini 140). Indeed, the Roman experience served primarily to steer the Risorgimento away from future attempts at Mazzini’s "utterly unworkable" theories of government (McClellan 19). In the long run, even popular opinion could not withstand Mazzini’s practical failures.

Despite the loss of confidence that accompanied his defeat at Rome, Mazzini continued to dedicate energy to his dream of a republican Italy. Unfortunately, a good "opportunity for a general rising never occurred again" (Salvemini 140). Mazzini therefore limited his efforts to local insurrections, none of which proved successful. In the first years after Rome, Mazzini’s prospects were not insurmountably bleak. He maintained contact with exiled radicals "to plan for the resumption of the revolution" (Lovett 174). His first opportunity to realize that plan came in 1853. Mazzini left London in January to organize dissent from Switzerland. Milan was chosen as the setting for the uprising, in hopes that Genoa and Rome would follow suit. The ensuing revolt "brought tragedy to many and liberation to no one" (Sarti 161). In fact, the unqualified failure Mazzini’s followers experienced in Milan cemented Mazzini’s descent from the upper echelons of the Risorgimento. In its aftermath, Mazzini witnessed widespread "desertion among his more level-headed colleagues," (Smith 101). Mazzini’s cause continued its downward spiral. The next mass exodus from its ranks came four years later. Authorities discovered "a Mazzinian conspiracy in Genoa" before it came to fruition (Lovett 175). More debilitating was the "tragic failure…of an attempted insurrection at Calabria" (Absalom 39). This, the last of Mazzini’s great defeats, drove many followers from his cause, into Cavour’s blossoming Italian National Society. From 1857 forward, Mazzini was limited to ‘advocating’ various causes initiated by other revolutionaries and being generally ignored by the leaders of Italian unification. After the plebiscite and transfer of capital, for example, "no one pain any attention to Mazzini’s call for a constituent assembly" (Salvatorelli 173). Mazzini had descended into near-oblivion. Admittedly, he was integral to the workings of the Action Party, which, in and of itself, never accomplished much. When Mazzini’s agents attempted an insurrection at Milan in 1871, few Italians noticed and even fewer cared (Latimer 304). Within ten years of his zenith, Mazzini was almost fully stripped of direct influence within the Risorgimento.

While Mazzini himself fell from favor well before the Risorgimento was complete, Mazzinian ideologies remained present in the movement through unification. Despite his failures, his "extraordinary optimism and pertinacity continued…to be an essential ingredient in the Risorgimento" (Smith 103). He had "made credible Italy’s claim to be a nation and had made a political force of that belief" (Grew 40). Moreover, two of the greatest leaders of the successful unification shared at least partly in Mazzinian ideologies. Cavour embraced Mazzini’s tendency to appeal to the people rather than the elite (Lovett 38). Garibaldi went even further, proclaiming "that Mazzini was his teacher" (Salvatorelli 156). Indeed, Garibaldi was second only to Mazzini in the Action Party; for all practical purposes, he was more influential than Mazzini, especially considering Mazzini’s continuous descent throughout the 1850s. Mazzinian tenets were tied even closer to the heart of unification by the Italian National Society, which combined "the ideals of…Mazzini with the policies of Cavour and the heroism of Garibaldi" (Grew 460). Cavour, the architect of the Italian State, was further affected by Mazzinian ideals through his cooperation with the SNI, and Mazzini therefore maintained some influence over the course of the Risorgimento. Mazzini’s indirect influence was "incalculable, immeasurable, the purest inspiration for the rise of Modern Italy" (Wicks 198).

Regardless of his effectiveness in achieving his sociopolitical agenda, Mazzini was unique among Risorgimento leaders. Essentially, he lived for the Risorgimento. "There have been philanthropists, patriots, religious reformers, labor reformers, creators of nations, but none like Mazzini, who was all these in one, and was such by one principle" (Lloyd 7). Mazzini’s guiding principle was his love for humanity. His focus was, of course, Italian unification, but that purpose was merely a reasonable fraction of his true goal: the universal association of mankind. Mazzini is important because he alone dedicated "his life, his eloquence and his great ability with complete unselfishness and without hope of reward to the cause of Italia Unita" (McClellan 18). Mazzini was consistently present throughout the movement for Italia Unita; he was "the first and perhaps the most influential of the strategists of the Risorgimento" (Absalom 21). Mazzini’s life was fundamentally tied to his cause. There was no one else within the Risorgimento "who spent all his intelligence, all his energies, his every breath for the cause of Italy and humanity" (Salvatorelli 98). In light of his deeply rooted dedication to the movement, it is fair to say it was indeed his Risorgimento.

Mazzini probably never recognized the irony inherent to his movement. Historic irony is almost always defined in retrospect. The subtleties of the relationships among the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, Romanticism, and the Risorgimento seem insignificant, though, when considered in light of Mazzini’s sacrifice for a cause beyond himself. He "hoped his name would be forgotten after his death," for he harbored intense distaste for allocating public funds to grandiose, useless memorials (Smith 230). In many ways, Mazzini was forgotten, his contributions lost among the other names in Italian history. Nevertheless, his vision was eventually vindicated by the creation of an Italian republic in 1946.

Works Cited

Absalom, Roger. Italy since 1800: A Nation in the Balance? New York: Longman, 1995.

Grey, Raymond. A Sterner Plan for Italian Unity: The Italian National Society in the Risorgimento. Princeton: Princeton U P, 1963.

Latimer, Elizabeth W. Italy in the Nineteenth Century. Chicago: McClurg and Co., 1896.

Lloyd, Henry D. Mazzini and Other Essays. New York: Putnam, 1910.

Lovett, Clara M. The Democratic Movement in Italy 1830-1876. Cambridge: Harvard U P, 1982.

McClellan, George B. Modern Italy: A Short History. Princeton: Princeton U P, 1933.

Salvatorelli, Luigi. Risorgimento: Thought and Action. New York: Harper, 1970.

Salvemini, Gaetano. Mazzini. Stanford: Stanford U P, 1957.

Sarti, Roland. Mazzini: A Life for the Religion of Politics. London: Praeger Publishers, 1997.

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Smith, Denis M. Mazzini. New Haven: Yale U P, 1994.

Wicks, Margaret C. W. The Italian Exiles in London 1816-1848. Freeport: Books for Libraries P, 1968.