PERTURBED INACTIVITY (1821-1847)
After 1821 followed ten years of outward repose. Times were hard for
lovers of independence, but hope and purpose had been let loose, and in
dark corners, cloaking themselves as best they could, the friends of
freedom groped their way. Openly little was done except by exiles, but
indirect aid came from literature, which followed the romantic movement,
and loudly asserted the revolutionary ideas. There was Ugo Foscolo, the
poet, half Venetian, half Greek, who after the return of the Austrians
refused to take the oath of allegiance and fled to England, giving, as
was said, "to New Italy a new institution, Exile;" Giovanni Berchet, of
Milan, poet and man of letters; Gabriele Rossetti, of the Abruzzi,
father of Dante Rossetti, a poet himself; and many others. By far the
most distinguished was Alessandro Manzoni, a quiet, dignified Milanese
gentleman, who wrote patriotic plays, and the famous romance, "I
Promessi Sposi" (The Plighted Lovers). He cheered and comforted his
compatriots with the thought that in him they possessed a man of letters
whom Europe recognized as the peer of Scott, Byron, and Goethe. Scott
praised "I Promessi Sposi" most generously, and Goethe said, "It
satisfies us like perfectly ripe fruit."
Greater than Manzoni, though at the time less widely known, was the sad
poet, Giacomo Leopardi, indisputably the greatest Italian poet since
Tasso, and in the judgment of some men to-day, owing perhaps to greater
sympathy with his sentiments, superior to Tasso. Leopardi raised Italian
self-respect, as Manzoni did, by proof that the genius of the race still
lived. He wrote the most patriotic odes since Petrarch. Of these the
poem "To Italy" is perhaps most famous. It begins:--
O my country, I see the walls, the arches,
The columns, the statues, the defenceless towers
Of our forefathers,
But the glory I do not see.
Leopardi's wretchedness, in great measure purely personal, was matched
by that of his country. Austrian soldiers, ducal _sbirri_, and Jesuits
did their best to destroy all vigour, life, and freedom. The press was
stifled; no allusion to freedom was allowed. In a chorus of Bellini's
opera "I Puritani" the word _liberty_ was stricken out by the censor and
_loyalty_ substituted; and a singer who forgot the change was sent to
prison for three days. Things were best in Tuscany and worst in Naples,
where Francis I, a rake, bigot, and coward, practised the utmost
cruelty. After an insurrection in a village, twenty-six heads were cut
off at his command, and exhibited in cages; and once, when a grandmother
besought mercy for her two grandsons who were condemned to death, he
bade her choose one. She chose one; the other was shot, and she went
mad.
The ten long years of inaction at last passed away, and another wave of
exasperated independence and patriotism swept over the peninsula. The
French Revolution of 1830 was the proximate cause. This time, while
Piedmont and Naples remained quiet, for most of their leaders were in
exile or in prison, Parma, Modena, and the Romagna burst into
insurrection; but the Austrian soldiers marched in, suppressed the
revolt, and reseated duke, duchess, and Pope. The attention of the
world, however, had been called to priestly government in the Romagna,
and the five great Powers,--England, France, Austria, Prussia, and
Russia,--not wishing a hotbed of justifiable revolt on the same
Continent with comfortable and privileged ruling classes, wrote a
collective note to the Pope in which they insisted on certain reforms as
indispensable. The papal Curia made promises, but did nothing, and all
Italy relapsed outwardly into the condition in which she had been during
the ten years of inaction.
Nevertheless, the forces underneath, plotting and conspiring for
freedom, were stronger than before, and here and there indications of
this growing sentiment cropped out. In 1831, after the ill-fated,
melancholy, distrusting, and distrusted Carlo Alberto had succeeded to
the Kingdom of Sardinia, an anonymous letter addressed to him was spread
broadcast over Italy. This letter bade him choose between two
courses,--either to lead the national movement, or to be basely servile
to Austria. "Bend your back under the German (Austrian) whip and be a
tyrant--But, if as you read these words your mind runs back to that time
when you dared look higher than the lordship of a German fief, and if
you hear within a voice that cries 'You were born for something great,'
oh, obey that voice; it is the voice of genius, of opportunity, that
offers you its hand to mount from century to century as far as
immortality; it is the voice of all Italy, who awaits but one word, one
single word, to make herself all your own. Give her that word. Put
yourself at the head of the nation, and on your banner write Union,
Freedom, Independence. Sire, according to your answer, be sure that
posterity will pronounce you either the first of Italian Men, or the
last of Italian Tyrants. Choose."
Carlo Alberto, melancholy as Hamlet, for the burden put upon him was
greater than his strength, continued inactive, distrusted, and
distrusting. His only answer was to give sharper orders against
conspirators. The writer of the letter was a young Genoese of grave
countenance, with a sweet mouth and sad, handsome eyes, Giuseppe
Mazzini, aged twenty-six, who had already abandoned law for literature,
and literature for his country. Suspected of being a _Carbonaro_, he had
been arrested and put in prison. His father, having asked the reason,
was told that "his son was a young man of talents, very fond of solitary
walks at night, and habitually silent as to the subject of his
meditations, and that the Sardinian government was not fond of young men
of talents the subject of whose meditations it did not know." In prison
Mazzini became convinced that the true aim of patriots was the unity of
all Italy, and that the means should be the people, not the princes.
After a few months of imprisonment he was banished. It was then that he
wrote the letter.
In exile he began the task of rousing the Italian people throughout the
peninsula to the need of common effort for a common end. He organized a
secret society, and named it Young Italy. Its purpose was to make Italy
free, united, and republican. The first article of its constitution
read: "This society is instituted for the destruction, now become
indispensable, of all the governments of the peninsula, and for the
union of all Italy in a single state under republican government." The
new society spread rapidly, and was, perhaps, the greatest individual
cause of final success.
Mazzini was a master conspirator, a very St. Paul of the Risorgimento.
His whole life was a passionate renunciation of all the pleasures and
comforts for which most men live, and a passionate dedication of himself
to his ideals. He is a striking illustration of the saying, The man
whose heart is lifted up within him shall not find the path smooth
before him, but the just shall live by his faith. His ideals soared
higher and higher; not content with hope for Italy, he made plans for
helping all Europe. He became an object of suspicion all over the
Continent, and was driven from country to country, till he finally went
to England, but he never ceased to preach and teach, to urge and
encourage, to plot and counterplot. He believed in sacrifice, both of
himself and of others, and instigated desperate uprisings. One of these,
a wild invasion of Piedmont which came to nothing, is memorable because
among the list of those who were subsequently proscribed for
participation in it was a young seaman, a native of Nice, then a part of
Savoy, Giuseppe Garibaldi. Mazzini himself stayed in England, where the
cruelest accusations were made against him. He endured slander, malice,
poverty, outward failure, still steadfast at his task. He says, "I have
not for an instant thought that unhappiness may influence our actions."
He knew Carlyle, who bore witness in his favour: "I have had the honour
to know Mr. Mazzini for a series of years, and whatever I may think of
his practical insight and skill in worldly affairs, I can with great
freedom testify that he, if I have ever seen one such, is a man of
genius and virtue, one of those rare men, numerable unfortunately but as
units in this world, who are worthy to be called martyr souls; who, in
silence, piously in their daily life understand and practise what is
meant by that."
While Young Italy and the _Carbonari_ worked in secret, literature
continued to carry on the task of arousing enthusiasm for national
achievements and national ideals. The patient piety of Silvio Pellico's
"Le Mie Prigioni" was a most effective denunciation of Austrian tyranny;
the plays of Giovan Battista Niccolini, of Florence, on subjects famous
for Italian patriotism, were stirring appeals against despotism, civil
and ecclesiastical; the romantic novels of Massimo d'Azeglio, of
Piedmont, the patriot painter and statesman, reminded youth of the great
days of old; other novels, passionate and patriotic, by Tommaso Grossi,
of Belluno, and by Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi, of Leghorn, did
likewise. These romances so pitifully uninteresting to-day did much;
but a book of a different character had in its way a still more
brilliant career. Vincenzo Gioberti, of Turin, began life by taking
orders; he became patriotic, was suspected, imprisoned, exiled; in exile
he studied, taught, and thought. In 1843 he published in Brussels "Il
primato morale e civile degli Italiani" (The Moral and Civil Primacy of
the Italians), a book that rehearsed the old glory of Italy and pointed
out new ways by which that ancient glory might be renewed. Gioberti
advocated a confederation of the Italian States (excluding the Austrian
provinces) with the Pope at its head. The book had tremendous success;
its ideas were accepted and became a party creed; and Gioberti is
entitled to rank as one of the factors in the Risorgimento. Oddly
enough, as it seems to us now, his plan was on the verge of execution.
At this time Gregory XVI was Pope, a reactionary man, devoted to
ecclesiastical history, and, according to his detractors, to Orvietan
wine. He showed the extreme of papal incapacity for civil
administration; in the papal cities was squalor, in the country
brigandage, in both dense ignorance. But on Gregory's death Cardinal
Mastai-Ferretti, an amiable, smiling, charming, handsome, liberal-minded
cardinal, who had applauded Gioberti, became Pius IX (July, 1846).
Within a month or two Pius granted amnesty to political prisoners,
appointed a commission to study the necessary reforms in his states;
permitted, tacitly at least, liberty of the press; announced a Council
of State to consist of lay members; and authorized the organization of
a civic guard. He was hailed with enthusiasm throughout the peninsula.
Here was Gioberti's ideal Pope. Here was the man to lead the Italian
Guelfs and drive the Barbarians from Italy.
That the ecclesiastical head of organized conservatism, the great
bulwark of authority, the maintainer of ancient things, should be hailed
as a saviour by men desiring independence, freedom, and war, needs a
word of further explanation. In this period of decadence and servitude,
while Austrian officers played the peacock on every _piazza_ from Milan
to Naples, Italians could remember that an Italian Pope was head of the
greatest corporate body in the world, that tribute was paid into his
treasury from every country in Europe, that kings treated him with
deference, and that from East and West hundreds of servant bishops came
to the foot of his throne. These thoughts, coupled with inapplicable
memories and desperate hopes, led men to regard Pius IX as the
predestined leader of the liberal movement; and shouts of "Hurrah for
Italy, the Pope, and the Constitution!" were heard throughout the
peninsula.
Hope, too, arose in Piedmont. King Carlo Alberto received Massimo
d'Azeglio in audience (1845), and bade his astonished subject tell his
friends that when the occasion should present itself, his own life, his
sons' lives, his treasure, and his army would all be spent for the
Italian cause. A year later the king withstood Austria in a dispute over
customs; and a little later still, at an agrarian congress a member
rose and read a letter from the king which ended, "If ever God shall
give us grace to be able to undertake a war of independence, no one but
me shall command the army. Oh, what a glorious day will that be when we
shall be able to utter the cry of national independence!"
Thus encouraged by king and Pope, patriots, from Piedmont to Sicily,
waited in tremulous expectation for the coming of great events.