Italy : A Country For Long?

To begin, Italy’s government is a republic. The capital is a very big part of Italy. The capital of Italy is Rome. Rome is called the Eternal City because it is still around now (briticanna.com). Italy, like the U.S., has an age at which you are allowed to vote. People in Italy are allowed to vote at age 18 (The World Factbook). The president terms are almost double the length of the U.S.’s. The presidents of Italy serve a term of seven years long. The flag has three stripes going vertically. The colors are red, green, and white, which are the national colors. The flag was adopted on June 19, 1946. The green stands for hope, the white stands for faith, and the red stands for

Before the Congress of Vienna the French occupation had far reaching affects on Italy. The power of the Church and the Pope was reduced, changes were made in landownership and land was redistributed. A new middle class began to appear. Agriculture was improved and the peasants were freed from their old feudal ties and obligations. Then when Napoleon was defeated and the restoration of the old regime and monarchs was started, Italy again became a country divided into eleven independent states, excluding the tiny principalities and the Republic of San Marino. So Italy was not unified after the Congress of Vienna due to a number of reasons, such as the foreign influence of the Central European Powers, parochialism within the states, the lack

Whoever ignores this love of the individual regions of Italy will always build on sand.” (DOC 2) People believed the diverse social classes and power would not make for a unified country. Count Camillo Benso di Cavour, a politician from Piedmont-Sardinia, said, “Active power resides almost exclusively in the middle class and part of the upper class, both of which have ultraconservative interests to defend.” (DOC 4) Daniele Manin, a politician from Venice, wrote, “Peoples who have different origins and customs should not be forced together, because otherwise civil war will follow the war of independence.” (DOC 6) People against unification felt that bringing the diverse states together would cause more problems and do more harm than good. There were obvious pros and cons to the unification if Italy, but some civilians were on the fence.

Before unification, Italy was a collection of different independent states. The Italian Wars, which went on from 1494 to 1559, were fought for the control of these Italian states by European powers. The most consistently fought over city-states in Italy were Naples, Florence, Venice, Sicily, and the Papal State of Rome. Many European powers were involved in the beginning, but soon the wars became a struggle between mainly France and Spain. While the Italian Wars were harsh on Italy, they helped to spread the Italian Renaissance throughout Western Europe. The Renaissance Era began a new way of thinking, which has been traced to the beginnings of Italian nationalism, which has contributed to the Unification of Italy.

Italy has a rich history at about 600 BC the Etruscans established thriving small cities in and around northern and central Italy; this would lay the foundation for what was to come much later. At around 260 BC, the first of what would be three major wars, called the Punic War took place between a ferocious sworn enemy the city-state of Carthage, which was located in what, is today parts of Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Spain, Portugal, Gibraltar, Italy, France, and Malta. Carthage was powerful from northern Africa to parts of southern Europe it dominated. Upon the eventual defeat of the Carthaginians at around 149 to 145 BC, lead to the annexation of all Carthaginian land and the growth of what was to become an empire. Around 45 BC,

When World War I began, Italy was in the forty-third year of its unification. From 1860 until 1871, the Kingdom of Italy wrangled individual kingdoms across the land into one entity, much to the shock of its neighbors. The joining forced the rest of Europe to give grudging respect the land of the Roman Empire. The Kingdom of Italy was just missing the Italian speaking lands of the Alps, held by the Austrian-Hapsburg Empire, and they coveted the land greatly. During his reign, Bismarck saw the rising tension between Austria-Hungary and its new neighboring enemy and brokered a triple alliance that promised Italy support to take French-held territory in and around the Mediterranean Sea. As nationalism rose in citizens across nations, Italy had more than its share of Risorgimento, which was the term for the Italian

Italy is one of the most interesting countries in the world in many people's perspective. The Italian state began in 1861. The official name of Italy is the Italian Republic (Repubblica Italiana). It is located in the south-central Europe, occupying a peninsula. Also Italy is a European country with a long Mediterranean coastline. It has left a powerful mark on Western culture and cuisine. It is very deep into the Mediterranean Sea, Italy also comprises some of the worlds most varied and scenic landscapes on Earth. The name Italy comes from the word italia, meaning calf land, because the bull is a symbol of the Southern Italian tribes. Italy incorporated Venetia and the former Papal States including Rome by 1871.

Italy, as it is known today, has been in existence for less than one hundred fifty years. For several centuries, Italy had been made up of separate states often ruled by foreign powers. In 1796, Napoleon Bonaparte invaded and conquered the Italian peninsula. After falling under French rule, the peninsula was divided into three parts: several northern states, which were annexed to France, the Kingdom of Italy, of which Napoleon declared himself king in 1805, and the Kingdom of Naples in the south. Napoleon and the French brought new ideas about society and governing with them. They also brought the concepts of freedom and nationalism with them, which might have sparked Italy’s later attempts to achieve unity. Napoleon’s reign over Italy crumbled with his defeat in 1814. Shortly after, parts of Italy were distributed amongst other European countries, particularly Austria, and returned to former rulers by the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Many people were unhappy with the actions of the Congress and secret societies started to grow to oppose these rulers and promote the idea of a united Italy.

Italy is the country of the culture, in fact the art, the innovation and the genius have always found a rich soil in it, Italy gives space to every kind of arts or science: Galileo Galilei, Dante Alighieri, Cristoforo Colombo, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Leonardo Da Vinci, Filippo Brunelleschi and many others.

Italy was divided into competing states which made it difficult for the people because they considered themselves a part of their city, not as part of a bigger Italy. Secondly, The Congress of Vienna divided Italy up among Austria, Hapsburg, and the French. Finally, Nationalist revolts were continually crushed by Austria.

There were many different empires on the European continent before Napoleon's rule. As many as 20 Italian city-states existed, all of which were tiny. Before unification, Italy had not been unified since the Roman Empire. The Congress of Vienna restored pre-Napoleonic independent governments. The Austrian Empire opposed unification because it controlled Northeastern Italy at the time. The papacy (the Pope and the church) also opposed unification because it feared persecution. Whether the new Italy would be a confederation, a republic, or a monarchy was not yet decided.

Guisseppe Mazzini was an Italian national and patriot who inspired the idea of an independent and unified nation of Italy through his movement of Giovine Italia also known as “Young Italy.” Mazzini, born in Genoa on June 22nd, 1805 was an activist for the unification Italy. He formed an oath for which each member of Young Italy would pronounce in the presence of the initiator, “To dedicate myself wholly and forever to the endeavor with them to constitute Italy one free, independent, republican nation; to promote by every means in my power-whether by written or spoken word, or by action-the education of my Italian brothers towards the aim of Young Italy.” 1 Through his political movement which was founded in 1831, Mazzini’s aim was to eliminate

Cavour, Mazzini and Garibaldi were all reflected to be the heroes of Italian union respectively, Cavour on the other hand was known

Mazzini, who, in 1832, started Young Italy, which was a patriotic society that advocated and was ready to fight for the unification of Italy if necessary. In 1848, revolts broke out in several Italian states. These revolts forced the leaders to establish the constitutions of the revolutionaries. In Sardinia, King Charles Albert was one who voluntarily granted a new constitution to his people. However, these strides in progress were soon crushed and repressed when in came the Austrian army. Charles tried to drive the Austrians out of north Italy, but was defeated at Custoza in 1848 and Novara in 1849 and was abdicated. Revolutions elsewhere were suppressed, including one in Rome, where Mazzini had formed a short-lived republic. The movement for the unification of Italy was temporarily shut off until 1859.

How far do you agree that the limited appeal of Mazzini’s ideas was the main reason for the slow progress of national unity in Italy in the years 1815-48?