Giuseppe Mazzini, the great political idealist of the Italian
struggle for independence, was born at Genoa, June 22, 1805. His
faith in democracy and his enthusiasm for a free Italy he inherited
from his parents; and while still a student in the University of
Genoa he gathered round him a circle of youths who shared his
dreams. At the age of twenty-two he joined the secret society of the
Carbonari, and was sent on a mission to Tuscany, where he was
entrapped and arrested. On his release, he set about the formation,
among the Italian exiles in Marseilles, of the Society of Young
Italy, which had for its aim the establishment of a free and united
Italian republic. His activities led to a decree for his banishment
from France, but he succeeded in outwitting the spies of the
Government and going on with his work. The conspiracy for a national
rising planned by Young Italy was discovered, many of the leaders
were executed, and Mazsini himself condemned to death.
Almost at once, however, he resumed operations, working this time
from Geneva; but another abortive expedition led to his expulsion
from Switzerland. He found refuge, but at first hardly a livelihood,
in London, where he continued his propaganda by means of his pen. He
went back to Italy when the revolution of 1848 broke out, and fought
fiercely but in vain against the French, when they besieged Rome and
ended the Roman Republic in 1849.
Defeated and broken, he returned to England, where he remained till
called to Italy by the insurrection of 1857. He worked with
Garibaldi for some time; but the kingdom established under Victor
Emmanuel by Cavour and Garibaldi was far from the ideal Italy for
which Mazsini had striven. The last years of his life were spent
mainly in London, but at the end he returned to Italy, where he died
on March 10,1872. Hardly has any age seen a political martyr of a
purer or nobler type.
Massini's essay on Byron and Goethe is more than literary criticism,
for it exhibits that philosophical quality which gives so remarkable
a unity to the writings of Massini, whether literary, social, or
political.