Chapter IV
The Risorgimento
The Resurgence · 1815–1871
What Was the Risorgimento?
The Risorgimento— literally “the Resurgence” or “the Rising Again” — was the political and social movement that created modern Italy. For centuries, the Italian peninsula had been a patchwork of separate states: the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in the south, the Papal States in the center, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, and various duchies and republicans in the north, with the Kingdom of Sardinia (Piedmont) emerging as the most powerful. The Risorgimento aimed to unite these into a single nation-state.
The movement had roots in the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, but it gained momentum after the Congress of Vienna (1815) restored the old monarchies. Carbonari — secret revolutionary societies — plotted in the 1820s and 1830s. Revolutions erupted in 1820 and 1848, and were crushed. But by the late 1850s, conditions were ripe for a final push.
The Architects of Unification
Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour
1810–1861The Strategist
Prime Minister of Piedmont. A brilliant, pragmatic statesman who engineered the diplomatic alliances (especially with France) that made unification possible. He was a modernizer who built railways, negotiated treaties, and manipulated great-power politics. He cared little for Sicily and even less for Garibaldi, but he used both. He died just months after Italy was unified, never seeing the full result.
Giuseppe Garibaldi
1807–1882The Hero
The most romantic figure of the Risorgimento. A guerrilla fighter who had fought in South America, defended the Roman Republic of 1849, and become an international celebrity. He was charismatic, idealistic, and personally courageous — but politically naive. His expedition to Sicily in 1860 was technically unauthorized by the Piedmontese government, which could only watch and hope he wouldn't cause a diplomatic crisis.
Victor Emmanuel II
1820–1878The King
King of Sardinia (Piedmont) and the first King of Italy. A burly, blunt man who was more comfortable on horseback than in a palace. He was not an intellectual — Cavour did the thinking — but he provided the legitimate monarchy that the unification movement needed. His monument in Rome (the Altare della Patria) is a massive marble wedding cake that Romans either love or despise.
Giuseppe Mazzini
1805–1872The Ideologue
The philosopher of the Risorgimento. He dreamed of a democratic, republican Italy united by popular will, not royal conquest. He spent most of his life in exile, plotting revolutions that failed. His vision of Italy was nobler than what was actually achieved — a republic of citizens, not a kingdom of subjects. He died disappointed, but his ideas inspired Garibaldi and a generation of patriots.
The Expedition of the Thousand
On the night of May 5, 1860, Garibaldi set sail from the rocks of Quarto, near Genoa, with 1,089 volunteers aboard two steamships. They were the Mille — the Thousand — a ragtag army of idealists, adventurers, students, and exiles. They wore red shirts, carried outdated rifles, and had no official sanction from any government. Their goal: to liberate Sicily from Bourbon rule.
They landed at Marsala, on the western tip of Sicily, on May 11. The story of the landing is almost comical: a British naval squadron was anchored in the harbor, and its officers watched impassively as Garibaldi's men waded ashore. The Bourbon garrison put up token resistance and then fled. Garibaldi declared himself dictator of Sicily in the name of Victor Emmanuel II.
What followed was one of the most remarkable military campaigns of the nineteenth century. Garibaldi's small force, reinforced by Sicilian volunteers and armed with captured Bourbon weapons, marched eastward across the island. At Calatafimi on May 15, they defeated a Bourbon force three times their size — Garibaldi's famous cry “Here we make Italy or die!” came from this battle. Palermo fell on May 27 after three days of street fighting. By July, most of Sicily was in Garibaldi's hands.
Garibaldi then crossed to the mainland, marching north toward Naples. The Bourbon king Francis II fled. On October 26, 1860, Garibaldi met Victor Emmanuel II at Teano, north of Naples, and surrendered his conquests to the king. In a famous gesture, he refused all titles and rewards, boarded a ship, and sailed home to his island farm. He had given Italy half a country and asked for nothing in return.
The Plebiscites
Annexation was ratified by plebiscites — direct votes by the population. In Sicily, the vote was held on October 21, 1860. The question was whether to join the new Kingdom of Italy under Victor Emmanuel II. The result was overwhelmingly in favor: 432,053 votes for annexation, 667 against.
The numbers are suspect. Many areas had turnout figures that defy credibility. Voters were pressured, ballots were not secret, and in some districts the results were announced before voting was complete. This is the plebiscite that Don Fabrizio participates in in Chapter III of The Leopard — and his reaction (sardonic resignation) was shared by many Sicilians who understood that the vote was theater, not democracy.
“The whole thing is a farce. But it is a necessary farce. One must give the people the illusion of choice, or they will eventually make a real one.”
— Paraphrasing the spirit of the Risorgimento plebiscites
Completing Italy
On March 17, 1861, the Kingdom of Italy was officially proclaimed. Victor Emmanuel II became its first king. But Italy was not yet complete — Venice was still Austrian (added in 1866) and Rome was still Papal (added in 1870, when French troops defending the Pope were withdrawn to fight the Franco-Prussian War). The Risorgimento was, in the end, less a popular revolution than a diplomatic and military campaign orchestrated by Piedmont, with Garibaldi providing the romantic heroics and Cavour the cold calculation.
For Sicily, unification meant exchanging one distant government for another. The island's new masters spoke Italian instead of Neapolitan dialect, but they were just as remote, just as indifferent, and — as the next decades would prove — just as willing to use force to maintain control.