Italian nationalism () is a movement which believes that the Italians are a nation with a single homogeneous identity, and therefrom seeks to promote the cultural unity of Italy as a country. From an Italian nationalist perspective, Italianness is defined as claiming cultural and ethnic descent from the Latins, an Italic tribe which originally dwelt in Latium and came to dominate the Italian Peninsula and much of Europe. Because of that, Italian nationalism has also historically adhered to imperialist theories.Aaron Gillette. Racial theories in fascist Italy. 2nd edition. London, England, UK; New York, New York, USA: Routledge, 2003. Pp. 17.
Italian nationalism is often thought to trace its origins to the Renaissance,Trafford R. Cole. Italian Genealogical Records: How to Use Italian Civil, Ecclesiastical & Other Records in Family History Research. Salt Lake City, Utah, USA: Ancestry Incorporated, 1995. Pp. 15. but only arose as a political force in the 1830s under the leadership of Giuseppe Mazzini.J. P. T. Bury, ed. The new Cambridge modern history: The zenith of European power 1830–70 1964. Pp. 224. It served as a cause for Risorgimento in the 1860s to 1870s. Italian nationalism became strong again in World War I with Italian irredentist claims to territories held by Austria-Hungary, and during the era of Italian Fascism.
History Renaissance to 19th century
The origins of Italian nationalism have been traced to the Renaissance where Italy led a European revival of classical Greco-Roman style of culture, philosophy, and art. Italian Nationalism first developed not among the general populace but among the intellectual elites of various Italian states. In 1344 Petrarch wrote the famous patriotic canzone “Italia mia” (Rime 128), in which he railed against the warring petty lords of Italy for having yielded the country up to barbarian German fury (ʻla tedesca rabbia’, line 35) and called for peace and unification. Around the same time, Cola di Rienzo attempted to unite the whole of Italy under the hegemony of Rome. In 1347 he assumed the title of “Libertatis, Pacis Iustitiaeque Tribunus, et Sacrae Romanae Rei Publicae Liberator.” Petrarch hailed him in his famous song “Spirto gentil che quelle membra reggi” as the reincarnation of the classical spirit.
In 1454, representatives from all the regional states of Italy met in Lodi to sign the treaty known as the peace of Lodi, by which they intended to pursue Italian unification. The status quo established at Lodi lasted until 1494, when French troops intruded into Italian affairs under Charles VIII, initiating the Italian Wars.
The Renaissance-era diplomat and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli, in his work The Prince (1532), appealing to Italian patriotism urged Italians "to seize Italy and free her from the Barbarians", by which he referred to the foreign powers occupying the Italian peninsula.Mikael Hörnqvist. Machiavelli and Empire. Cambridge, England, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Pp. 259. Machiavelli quoted four verses from Petrarch's “Italia mia”, which looked forward to a political leader who would unite Italy.
During the Italian Wars Pope Julius II (1503–1513) made every effort to forge Italian alliances to drive the enemy – in his time the French – out of the country. And although his rallying cry fuori i barbari (‘Put the barbarians out!’) is probably apocryphal, it very neatly sums up the feeling of many Italians.For Julius II's anti-French policy, see Shaw C., Julius II. The Warrior Pope (Oxford: 1996) 245–278; for the rallying cry, see ibid. 245. In his treatise Discorso sopra il concilio che si ha da fare, e sopra la unione d'Italia, published in 1566, Girolamo Muzio, a prominent man of letters of the mid-1500s, advocated for the first time the political unification of Italy.
In 1559 the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis marked the end of Italian liberty and the beginning of a period of uncontested Spanish hegemony in Italy. During the long-lasting period of Spanish domination a vitriolic anti-Spanish polemic became widespread throughout Italy. Trajano Boccalini wrote many anti-Spanish pamphlets, such as Pietra del paragone politico (Politick Touchstone), published after his death in 1615. Followers of Boccalini published similar anti-Spanish pamphlets in the same period, such as Esequie delle reputazione di Spagna, printed in 1615, in which the corpse of the reputation of Spain is dissected by famous anatomists.
Modern historians disagree on the strength of “Italianità” (Italian national identity) in the early modern period. By contrast, Spanish diplomats in Italy at the time were all too certain that Italians shared a common bond of resentment against the imperial power of Spain.For a description of Italian ideas of national identity, see Felix Gilbert, “Italy,” in National Consciousness, History, and Political Culture in Early-Modern Europe, ed. Orest Ranum (Baltimore, 1975), pp. 21–42.
Charles Emmanuel I's expansionist policy ignited Italian nationalism and patriotism. In 1614 Alessandro Tassoni published in quick succession two anonymous Filippiche addressed to the Italian nobility, exhorting the nobles to discard their lethargy, unite and instead of fighting each other, join Savoy in ridding Italy of Spanish hegemony.
At about the same time that Tassoni was inspired to write the Filippiche, Fulvio Testi, a young poet at the court of the duke of Este, published a collection of poems dedicated to Charles Emmanuel. Not all the poems were of a patriotic nature, but those that were clearly revealed the feelings Charles Emmanuel had stirred in freedom-loving Italians. Testi followed this up, in 1617, with the Pianto d'Italia, where Italy calls for a war of national independence, in which the Duke of Savoy is to be the leader.
More than fifty years later Vittorio Siri still reminisced that “all Italy broke forth with pen and tongue in praises and panegyrics at the name of Carlo Emanuele, and in demonstrations of joy and applause that he had revived . . . the ancient Latin valor, wishing that he . . . [might] one day become the redeemer of Italy's freedom and the restorer of its greatness.”Vittorio Siri, Memorie recondite (Paris, 1677), III, 367.
The failure of Charles Emmanuel's expansive foreign policy caused a widespread crisis among Italian nationalists.
In Vincenzo da Filicaja's late seventeenth-century sonnet “Italia, Italia O tu, cui feo la sorte” (Italy, Italy, O you, to whom fate has given) the 'unlucky gift of beauty' was the reason why Italy, 'the slave of friend and foe', had repeatedly been conquered, sacked and exploited throughout history. Filicaia's sonnet was well known, along with Petrarch's Italia mia, as one of the great Italian patriotic lyrics. It appeared in Sismondi's De la littérature du midi (where it is praised as 'the most celebrated specimen which the Italian literature of the seventeenth century affords') and was frequently translated into English.Filicaia's sonnet is best known in Britain through Byron's translation in Childe Harold, IV, 42-3.
In 1713 the Dukes of Savoy, who traditionally possessed the title of an imperial vicar of Italy, obtained royal dignity, securing their pre-eminence among the Italian princes.Mörschel, Tobias: Frontier-State, Buffer-State, Weak-State? The Duchy of Savoy-Piedmont in the late 16th and early 17th Centuries, in: Almut Bues (ed.), Zones of Fracture in Modern Europe: The Baltic Countries, the Balkans, and Northern Italy, p. 93.
When France started to annex Corsica in the late 18th century (and then incorporated during Napoleon's empire the regions of Piemonte, Liguria, Toscana and Lazio), the first movements to defend Italy's existence aroused with Paoli revolt and were later followed by the birth of the so-called "irredentism".
Paoli was sympathetic to Italian culture and regarded his own native language as an Italian dialect (Corsican is an Italo-Dalmatian tongue closely related to Tuscan). He was considered by Niccolò Tommaseo, who collected his Lettere (Letters), as one of the precursors of the Italian irredentism. The so-called Babbu di a Patria ("Father of the fatherland"), as Pasquale Paoli was nicknamed by the Corsican Italians, wrote in his Letters the following appeal in 1768 against the French:N. Tommaseo. "Lettere di Pasquale de Paoli" (in Archivio storico italiano, 1st series, vol. XI).
We are Corsicans by birth and sentiment, but first of all we feel Italian by language, origins, customs, traditions; and Italians are all brothers and united in the face of history and in the face of God ... As Corsicans we wish to be neither slaves nor "rebels" and as Italians we have the right to deal as equals with the other Italian brothers ... Either we shall be free or we shall be nothing... Either we shall win or we shall die, weapons in hand ... The war against France is right and holy as the name of God is holy and right, and here on our mountains will appear for Italy the sun of liberty....
1830s to 1848
The initial important figure in the development of Italian nationalism was Giuseppe Mazzini, who became a nationalist in the 1820s.Vincent P. Pecora. Nations and identities: classic readings. Oxford, England, UK; Malden, Massachusetts, USA: Blackwell Publishers, Inc, 2001. Pp. 156. In his political career, Mazzini held as objectives the liberation of Italy from the Austrian occupation, indirect control by Austria, princely despotism, aristocratic privilege, and clerical authority.John Gooch. The Unification of Italy. Taylor & Francis e-library, 2001. Pp. 5. Mazzini was captivated by ancient Rome that he considered the "temple of humanity" and sought to establish a united Italy as a "Third Rome" that emphasized Roman spiritual values that Italian nationalists claimed were preserved by the Catholic Church. Mazzini and Italian nationalists in general promoted the concept of Romanità (the Romanness), which claimed that Roman culture made invaluable contributions to the Italian and Western civilization. Since the 1820s, Mazzini supported a revolution to create a utopia of an ideal Italian republic based in Rome. Mazzini formed revolutionary patriotic Young Italy society in 1832. Upon Young Italy breaking apart in the 1830s, Mazzini reconstituted it in 1839 with the intention to gain the support of workers' groups. However, at the time Mazzini was hostile to socialism due to his belief that all classes needed to be united in the cause of creating a united Italy rather than divided against each other.John Gooch. The Unification of Italy. Taylor & Francis e-library, 2001. Pp. 6.
Vincenzo Gioberti in 1843 in his book On the Civil and Moral Primacy of the Italians, advocated a federal state of Italy led by the Pope.Jonathan Sperber. The European revolutions, 1848-1851. Second Edition. Cambridge, England, UK; New York, New York, USA: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Pp. 97.
Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, the future Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Sardinia and afterwards the Kingdom of Italy, worked as an editor for the nationalist Italian newspaper Il Risorgimento in the 1840s.Lucy Riall. The Italian Risorgimento: State, society and national unification. London, England, UK; New York, New York, USA: Routledge, 1994. Pp. 69. Cavour was a clear example of civic nationalism with a high consideration for values including freedom, tolerance, equality, and individual rights compatible with a sober nationalism.Nationalism (Cavour). treccani.it/
Economic nationalism influenced businessmen and government authorities to promote a united Italy. Prior to unification, tariff walls held between the Italian states and the disorganized railway system prevented economic development of the peninsula. Prior to the revolutions of 1848, Carlo Cattaneo advocated an economic federation of Italy.
Revolutions of 1848 to Risorgimento (1859 to 1870)