Manfredo Fanti - military general

Risorgimento hero who founded Royal Italian Army

Manfredo Fanti's battlefield skills
were vital to the unification campaign

The Italian general Manfredo Fanti, a key figure in the Italian Wars of Independence in the mid-19th century and the founder of the Royal Italian Army, was born on this day in 1806 in Carpi, a town about 20km (13 miles) northwest of Modena in what is now Emilia-Romagna.

Although he ultimately had a disagreement with Giuseppe Garibaldi, the figurehead of the Italian Unification movement, Fanti is still regarded as one of the heroes of the Risorgimento, as a result of the military victories he engineered against the Austrians in the second war of independence, which liberated Lombardy from foreign control, and against the Papal States and the Bourbons in the final push for unification in 1860.

Between the second and third wars of independence, after he had been appointed Minister of War in the Cavour government, Fanti organised the absorption of the army of the League of Central Italy into the Royal Sardinian Army, which he was later able to decree would take the name of the Royal Italian Army.

He also played a key role in freeing Italy from foreign domination and completing unification. As Garibaldi was leading his Expedition of the Thousand in the conquest of Sicily, Fanti led the simultaneous campaign in central Italy, winning significant victories against the armies of the Papal States and in the northern territories of the Bourbon-controlled Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

Fanti grew up as a citizen of the Duchy of Modena and, in 1825, was admitted into the Pioneer Corps of the army of Duke Francesco IV d'Este. He studied at the military college in Modena, where he obtained a degree in engineering.

The Battle of Castelfidardo saw Fanti
lead one of several key victories

Already drawn towards the vision of revolutionaries such as Giuseppe Mazzini and the growing Risorgimento movement, he took part in the uprising of 1830-31 in Modena before it was put down by the Austrian army, who condemned Fanti to be hanged. He escaped to France and later assisted the exiled Mazzini in his failed attempt to invade and capture the territories of Savoy.

He then moved to Spain, where he served in the army during a battle for power between the regent, Maria Cristina of Bourbon, and the supporters of Don Carlos, who felt he was the legitimate heir to the late King Ferdinand VII, before returning to Italy in 1848 to fight against the Austrians, who controlled most of northern Italy at the time. 

Assisted by French troops, he commanded a Lombard brigade of the Sardinian-Piedmontese Army, distinguishing himself on the battlefield with courage and tactical astuteness to win key victories at Palestro, Magenta, and Solferino in the Second Italian War of Independence, which ended with the Armistice of Villafranca and the return of Lombardy to Italian rule, along with most of the northern Italian states, although the Austrians initially retained control of Venetia.

Fanti supported but later had a
disagreement with Garibaldi

Fanti then organised the army of the Central Italian League, which included Tuscany, Modena, Parma, and Romagna, and prepared it for the annexation by Piedmont, the leading state of the Italian unification movement. 

In January 1860 , Camillo Count of Cavour, who returned to his position as prime minister of Sardinia-Piedmont after resigning following the Villafranca armistice, made Fanti his Minister for War and the Navy.

When the Expedition of the Thousand began in May, Fanti was appointed head of the army corps in central Italy. He again was an important figure on the battlefield, playing a significant part in the Battle of Castelfidardo and in the conquest of Perugia, which led to the Piedmontese annexation of Papal State territories in Marche and Umbria. 

He then became general of the army and chief of staff of the army in southern Italy, defeating the Bourbons at Mola and organising the successful siege of the fortress at Gaeta. 

Fanti's opposition to the admission of  5,000 officers of Garibaldi's volunteers into the new Royal Italian Army, with no loss of rank, was one of the reasons for his resignation from the army and government in June 1861, although the death of Cavour was also a factor.

He agreed to return the following year, taking command of an army corps in Florence, but fell ill soon afterwards. He died in Florence in April 1865 at the age of 59. His body was returned to Carpi, where he is buried in the Cathedral Basilica of Santa Maria Assunta.  There is a monument to Fanti in Piazza San Marco in Florence by the sculptor Pio Fedi, erected in 1873.

The Cathedral Basilica of Santa Maria Assunta
in Carpi, where Manfredo Fandi is buried 

Travel tip:

Carpi, which sits in the Padana plain, the area of flat and fertile land through which the Po river flows, became a wealthy town during the era of industrial development in Italy as a centre for textiles and mechanical engineering. Its historic centre, which features a town hall housed in a former castle, is based around the Renaissance square, the Piazza Martiri, the third largest square in Italy, which is surrounded by historical buildings such as the Palazzo Pio di Savoia, the Cathedral Basilica of Santa Maria Assunta, and the Teatro Comunale. The Palazzo Pio di Savoia houses the Museum of the Deportation, dedicated to the victims of the Nazi concentration camps, and the Museum of the City, which displays artworks and artefacts from Carpi’s past. Carpi was a major centre of the Italian Resistance movement in World War Two and there is a memorial at the site of the former Fossoli concentration camp, where thousands of Jews, political prisoners, and resistance fighters were detained and deported.

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The monumental sculpture in Castelfidardo
that commemorates the 1860 battle 

Travel tip:

Castelfidardo, which can be found about 21km (13 miles) south of the port of Ancona in the Marche region, is a charming hill town with a historical significance. It is renowned as the home of the accordion, which was actually patented in Austria in 1829 but underwent substantial redesign in Castelfidardo, where production of the instrument began in the late 19th century with the establishment of a factory opened by Paolo Soprani, who had bought one of the Austrian models after realising its potential. At one time 51,000 accordions were manufactured in the town in a single year, although production declined after World War Two as musical tastes changed. Nonetheless, it is still home to half of the accordion factories in the whole of Italy. There is inevitably an Accordion Museum, while the Monument of the Battle of Castelfidardo is commemorated with a dramatic monumental sculpture in the town’s Parco delle Rimembranze, by the Venetian sculptor Vito Pardo, which depicts in bronze a charge of infantrymen led by a figure on horseback descending from a mountain of white travertine boulders. 

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More reading:

How the Battle of Solferino led to the founding of the Red Cross

Why Mazzini was the ideological inspiration for Italian unification

The Frenchman who called for Italians to unite as a single people

Also on this day:

1507: The death of Renaissance painter Gentile Bellini

1821: The death in Rome of English poet John Keats

1822: The birth of archaeologist Giovanni Battista de Rossi

1834: The birth of ill-fated Sicilian banker Emanuele Notarbartolo 

1910: The birth of painter Corrado Cagli

(Picture credits: Carpi basilica by Attilios; Castelfidardo sculpture by Ermanon; via Wikimedia Commons)

(Painting of Battle of Castelfidardo by Giovanni Gallucci, Palazzo Comunale, Ancona)

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Francesco Crispi – Italian Prime Minister

The ‘great patriot’ was of Albanian heritage

A photographic portrait from the 
1880s of Francesco Crispi 

The death at the age of  82 in Naples of the Italian statesman Francesco Crispi, who was a key figure during the Risorgimento, was announced on this day in 1901.

He was a close friend of Giuseppe Mazzini and Giuseppe Garibaldi, and it was Crispi who persuaded Garibaldi to invade Sicily in 1860 with his band of volunteers known as The Thousand. Quickly conquering Sicily, Garibaldi proclaimed himself dictator and named Crispi as Minister of the Interior.

Crispi was born in Ribera in Sicily in 1818. His father’s family were originally from Palazzo Adriano in south western Sicily, which had been founded by Orthodox Christian Albanians. Crispi was brought up to speak Italian, along with Greek, Albanian and Sicilian.

By the time he was 11, Crispi was attending a seminary in Palermo. He then studied law and literature at the University of Palermo, receiving a law degree in 1837.

Crispi founded his own newspaper, L’Oreteo, which brought him into contact with political figures. He wrote about the need to educate poor people, the damage caused by the wealth of the Catholic Church and the need for all citizens, including women, to be considered equal.

In 1845 he became a judge in Naples, where he became well known for his liberal and revolutionary ideas.

Crispi travelled to Palermo in 1847 to prepare for the revolution against the Bourbon monarchy in Sicily. Afterwards, he was appointed a member of the provisional Sicilian parliament and supported the separatist movement that wanted to break ties with Naples.  But when the Bourbons took back control of Sicily by force in 1849, Crispi was forced to flee the island.

The uprising against the Bourbons in Sicily in
1848, which Crispi and others encouraged

He took refuge first in France and then in 1849 he moved to Turin, where he worked as a journalist and met Mazzini, who was a Republican activist. Crispi was then arrested and sent to live in Malta by the Piedmontese.

From there he went to London, where he became a revolutionary conspirator and was involved in the Italian national movement.

After returning to Italy, Crispi travelled round Sicily in disguise, preparing for the conquering of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

Crispi was appointed first secretary of state in the provisional government, where he found himself in opposition to Cavour, the prime minister of the Kingdom of Sardinia, who wanted to annex Sicily to Piedmont.

In the general election of 1861, before the establishment of the Kingdom of Italy, Crispi was elected a member of the Historical Left for the constituency of Castelvetrano, a seat he would hold for the rest of his life.

Crispi acquired the reputation for being aggressive and earned the nickname of Il Solitario, the Loner. In 1864 he deserted Mazzini and announced he was a monarchist. He told Mazzini in a letter: ‘The monarchy unites us, the republic would divide us.’ On the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war, he worked to impede a projected alliance with France.

The assassination attempt that
Crispi survived in 1894

After the general election of 1976, Crispi was elected President of the Chamber of Deputies. He travelled to London and Berlin where he established friendly relationship with Gladstone and Bismarck. After the death of Victor Emmanuel II in 1878, Crispi secured a unitary monarchy with King Umberto taking the title of Umberto I of Italy, instead of Umberto IV of Savoy. He was then accused of bigamy and although his marriage to his third wife was ruled as valid, he was compelled to resign bringing the whole government down with him.

In 1881, Crispi was one of the main supporters of universal male suffrage and in 1887 he was appointed by the King as Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs. He abolished the death penalty, revoked anti strike laws, limited police powers, and reformed the penal code.

His government lost its majority after his Minister of Finance had to reveal a higher than planned deficit and Crispi resigned in 1891. He was asked to form a new government in 1893 and the following year had to declare a state of siege throughout Sicily.

In 1894, an anarchist tried to shoot Crispi but failed. Crispi introduced a series of anti-anarchist laws that strengthened his position.

During his second term, Crispi continued colonial expansion in East Africa, which led to the first Italo-Ethiopian war.

An attempt was made to prosecute Crispi for embezzlement, but a parliamentary commission refused to authorise it. He resigned his seat in parliament, but was re-elected in 1898 by his Palermo constituents.

After his health declined, Crispi died in Naples on the evening of Sunday, August 11, 1901, with his death announced the following morning. He is remembered as a colourful, patriotic politician. His fiery nature and turbulent personal and political life have been ascribed to his Albanian heritage. He was once saluted by Giuseppe Verdi as ‘the great patriot’ and streets in Italy are still named after him to this day.

One of the towers at
Castello di Poggio Diana

Travel tip:

Ribera, the birthplace of Francesco Crispi, is a town of almost 18,000 inhabitants situated about 50km (31 miles) from Agrigento on the southwest flank of the island of Sicily. Sometimes known as "the city of oranges" it sits on the Plain of San Nicola, between the valleys of the Verdura and Magazzolo rivers. The town's main sights include the 18th century Chiesa Madre, which remained closed for more than 30 years following an earthquake in 1968 but has been restored. Outside the town, on a gorge overlooking the Verdura river, is the Castello di Poggio Diana, built by Guglielmo Peralta in the 14th century. Agriculture is the town's main industry, involving the cultivation and marketing of the Washington navel orange - introduced by emigrants returned from the United States - and strawberries. 

The Via Francesco Crispi is in the heart of
Rome's historic city centre

Travel tip:

Many streets in Italy take the name of Francesco Crispi. The Via Francesco Crispi in Rome bisects the historical centre of the city between Piazza di Spagna and Piazza Barberini, a few minutes' walk away from the Villa Borghese, Piazza del Popolo and the Trevi Fountain. The Volpetti family's gourmet food business, established in 1870, is located on Via Francesco Crispi, as is the historic Crispi 19 restaurant, opened in 1873, and the upmarket Marini shoe shop. The street is also home to the Galleria Comunale d'Arte Moderna, a former16th-century monastery now turned museum housing a large collection of works by late 19th and early 20th century artists including  Giacomo Balla, Carlo Carrà, Arturo Dazzi, Giorgio de Chirico, Renato Guttuso, Giacomo Manzù and Giorgio Morandi.

Also on this day: 

1612: The death of Venetian composer Giovanni Gabrieli

1861: The birth of anarchist Luigi Galleani

1943: The death of mountaineer and photographer Vittorio Sella

1990: The birth of football Mario Balotelli

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Sette e mezzo: The Palermo revolt of 1866

Insurgents took control of city after a major uprising 

Sicily had seen previous uprisings in the 19th century,
such as this depicted in 1860 during the unification campaign

The Sette e mezzo revolt - so named because it lasted seven and a half days - began in Palermo, the capital of Sicily, on this day in 1866.

The uprising - five years after the island became part of the new Kingdom of Italy - brought to the surface the tensions that existed in southern Italy following the Risorgimento movement and unification.

It was put down harshly by the new government of Italy, who laid siege to the city of Palermo, deploying more than 40,000 soldiers under the command of General Raffaele Cadorna.

It is not known exactly how many Sicilians were killed before the revolt was subdued. Several thousand died as a result of a cholera outbreak that swept through Palermo and the surrounding area, but it is thought that more than 1,000 may have been killed as a direct consequence of the siege.

Sicily did not take well to the imposition of a national government, bringing with it plans to modernise the traditional economy and political system. New laws and taxes and the introduction of compulsory military service caused resentment. There was a feeling also that the industrialisation of Italy was too heavily concentrated in the north, with little investment being made in the south.

Government officials installed in new municipal offices were almost exclusively from the north and many seemed to regard Sicilians almost as barbarians.

General Raffaele Cadorna led the troops
who were ordered to crush the revolt

The local ruling elites frequently tried to undermine attempts by the national government to establish a police force and a liberal justice system and from 1861 onwards there were a series of small uprisings, often encouraged by local brigands who feared for the future of their own criminally acquired wealth.

On the morning of September 16, 1866, however, something much bigger and organised took place, with thousands of people from villages around Palermo gathering at the edge of the city, under the command of some of the island’s disenfranchised former political leaders.

Many were armed, some as the result of storming small government army garrisons. More than 4,000 attacked the prefecture and police headquarters, killing the inspector general of the Public Security Guard Corps. 

Similar violence took place in neighbouring towns as word of the Palermo uprising spread, including Monreale, Altofonte and Misilmeri. It is thought that there were possibly as many as 35,000 insurgents in Palermo and its province.

On September 22, seven and a half days after the rioters had begun to mobilise around Palermo, the fighting ceased.  The rioters had control of the city and the organised nature of their campaign became clear when a Revolutionary Committee was formed. The secretary was Francesco Bonafede, a follower of the northern revolutionary, Giuseppe Mazzini, and its membership included many figures from the traditional Sicilian aristocracy, including princes, barons and even clergymen, among them the Archbishop of Monreale, Monsignor Benedetto Purchase.

Yet the response of the new national government was uncompromising. On September 27, ships of the Italian Royal Navy bombarded Palermo, destroying the homes of hundreds of citizens, after which the cholera outbreak only accelerated, eventually claiming almost 4,000 victims.

Bandit groups were blamed for stirring
up anti-government sentiments

The  bombardment paved the way for 40,000 troops to be landed in the city, a force ultimately too powerful for the insurgents. House-to-house fighting destroyed still more buildings and rioters were rounded up and summarily executed. Almost 2,500 citizens were arrested, although fewer than 200 were ultimately convicted.

Army casualties were put at just over 200, along with 42 policemen. The number of insurgents killed is unknown and the estimated figure of 1,000 is probably an under-estimate.

Although this uprising was ultimately quelled, Sicily’s problems did not go away. Outbreaks of less organised violence continued, often blamed on local bandits, and the island’s economic difficulties led to increased emigration, particularly to the United States. Left-wing political groups gained popularity.

Yet Italy’s politicians on the mainland never effectively dealt with the economic imbalance between the north and south and this can be blamed, along with the dismantling of the traditional structures of society, for the growth and influence of organised crime in the shape of the Sicilian Mafia, as well as the Camorra in Naples and its surrounds, the ‘Ndrangheta in Calabria and other groups.

Palermo's magnificent Cathedral of the 
Assumption of the Virgin Mary

Travel tip:

Although Palermo has long been associated with the Mafia and organised crime, visitors to the city would normally witness nothing to suggest that the criminal underworld has any influence on daily life.  The Sicilian capital, on the northern coast of the island, is a vibrant city with a wealth of beautiful architecture bearing testament to a history of northern European and Arabian influences.  The church of San Cataldo on Piazza Bellini is a good example of the fusion of Norman and Arabic architectural styles, having a bell tower typical of those common in northern France but with three spherical red domes on the roof, while the city’s majestic Cathedral of the Assumption of Virgin Mary includes Norman, Moorish, Gothic, Baroque and Neoclassical elements. Palermo’s opera house, the Teatro Massimo is the largest in Italy and the third biggest in Europe.

The Cathedral of Santa Maria Nuova at Monreale
is described as the finest Norman building in Sicily

Travel tip:

Monreale, which was also the scene of an uprising in 1866,  is an historic hill town about 12km (7 miles) west of Palermo. Its Cathedral of Santa Maria Nuova and the adjoining cloisters have been described as the finest Norman buildings in Sicily, its extravagant features in part down to the competition with Palermo to build the island’s greatest cathedral. The buildings have their origin in the 12th century, commissioned by the Norman ruler William II. Mosaic making is still taught in Monreale today, with many workshops around the town. The local cuisine is a mix of traditional Sicilian and cookery of Arab origins. 

Also on this day:

1797: The birth of Sir Anthony Panizzi, librarian at the British Museum

1841: The birth of revolutionary politician Alessandro Fortis

2005: The arrest of Camorra boss Paolo di Lauro

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Italy elects its first parliament

1861 vote preceded proclamation of new Kingdom

Count Camillo Benso di Cavour was
named Italy's first prime minister

Italians went to the polls for the first time as a nation state on this day in 1861 to elect a parliament in anticipation of the peninsula becoming a unified country.

The vote was a major milestone in the Risorgimento - the movement to bring together the different states of the region as one country - enabling there to be a parliament in place the following month and for deputies to declare Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia as the first King of Italy in March.

The first parliament convened in Turin as Rome remained under the control of the Papal States until it was captured by the Italian army in 1870.

The body comprised 443 deputies representing 59 provinces. Some provinces, such as Benevento, near Naples, elected just one deputy, whereas the major cities elected many more. Turin, for example, chose 19 deputies, Milan and Naples 18 each.

The eligibility rules were so specific that of a population of around 22 million, only 418,696 people were entitled to vote.

In line with the procedures set down in the electoral laws of the Kingdom of Sardinia, only men could vote - women were not fully enfranchised in Italy until 1945 - and only men aged 25 and above who were literate and paid a certain amount of taxes, in most cases at least 40 lire per year. 

The new parliament proclaimed
Victor Emmanuel II as king

The election was in two stages, the voting on 27 January being followed by, where necessary, a second ballot a week later on 3 February.  A second vote took place only when no candidate received more than 50 per cent of the vote or the equivalent of one-third of the registered voters in the constituency.

Of the 418,696 who could have voted, only 239,583 actually did and 10,000 votes were declared invalid, which meant that the first government was decided by barely one percent of the population.  The turnout was not helped by the Pope demanding that Catholics take no part.

In the absence of political parties as would be recognised today, the candidates representing blocs according to their values.

The group known as the Destra Storico - the Historical Right - comprised conservatives and monarchists and was led by Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, the former prime minister of Sardinia, an experienced statesman who had been an important figure in the drive to unification.

Against the Right, the Sinistra Storica - the Historical Left - was made up of liberals and centrists, led by Urbano Rattazzi.

The election was also contested by the Historical Far Left - also known as the Partito d’Azione - the radical grouping led by the revolutionary Giuseppe Mazzini and with which Giuseppe Garibaldi also alligned himself.

Mazzini and Garibaldi were also key figures in the Risorgimento, but in a different way from Cavour.  Mazzini, often described as the movement's ideological inspiration, had been behind many uprisings from the 1830s onwards as Italians rebelled against the rule of oppressive foreign powers and Garibaldi led the military campaign to unite the peninsula. Mazzini, in particular, wanted the new country to be a republic.

Mazzini's party was not
widely supported

In the event, perhaps not surprisingly given the natural political alliances of those eligible to vote, Mazzini’s group polled a mere 2.3 percent of the popular vote, which swung heavily behind Cavour’s Historical Right, which received 46.1 percent against 20.4 percent for Rattazzi’s Historical Left.

Cavour was duly elected prime minister and parliament convened for the first time on 4 March in Turin, where 13 days later they proclaimed the new Kingdom of Italy and confirmed Victor Emmanuel as the first monarch.

As King of Sardinia, Victor Emmanuel had appointed Cavour as prime minister of Sardinia-Piedmont. The new king’s insistence on ruling as Victor Emmanuel II - as he had called himself in Sardinia in respect of his ancestor Victor Emmanuel I - upset some factions, who felt it implied that Italy was actually ruled by the House of Savoy.

Cavour’s term in office proved to be brief, in the event, as the stress of the job, dominated by the question of how to bring Rome and Venice into the new kingdom to make it fully unified, took its toll. He succumbed to malaria and died after only 75 days in office, at the age of just 50.

Palazzo Carignano, birthplace of the King, where
Italy's first parliament met in 1861

Travel tip:

The first Italian parliament met in Palazzo Carignano in Turin, the house in which Victor Emmanuel II was born. Designed by the Piedmontese architect Guarino Guarini, the Baroque palace in Via Accademia delle Scienze dates back to 1679. It now houses the National Museum of the Risorgimento, the biggest of 23 museums in Italy devoted to the movement.  The building has a lavish interior with many frescoes, some by Stefano Legnani, a painter of the Baroque period who was known in his native Milan as Legnanino.

The medieval Grinzane Castle was Cavour's
home for 31 years until his death

Travel tip:

Camillo Benso di Cavour, Italy’s first prime minister, hailed from a background in Turin nobility. He was the second son of the fourth Marquess of Cavour and for a large part of his life lived at the 13th century castle of Grinzane Cavour near Turin, which is now a UNESCO World Heritage site. Born in 1810, Cavour lived there from 1830 until his death in 1861. During his stays there he restored the building and improved the cultivation of the vines in the area. Today, the castle has rooms dedicated to Cavour as well as the Cavour Regional Enoteca, which showcases the best wines produced in the region.

More reading:

How Giuseppe Mazzini was the ideological inspiration for the Risorgimento

Garibaldi's Expedition of the Thousand

How the capture of Rome completed Italian unification

Also on this day:

98: Trajan becomes Emperor of Rome

1881: The birth of mobster Frank Nitti

1901: The death of composer Giuseppe Verdi

1962: The birth of composer and film director Roberto Paci Dalò

_________________________________________________________

Find out more:

A Concise History of Italy, by Christopher Duggan. Buy from

(Picture credit: Grinzane Castle by Sbisolo via Wikimedia Commons)

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Ippolito Nievo - writer and patriot

Risorgimento novel now seen as an overlooked classic

Ippolito Nievo (above) fought with 
Garibaldi in the cause of unification

The writer Ippolito Nievo, whose posthumously published Confessions of an Italian is now considered the most important novel about the Risorgimento in Italian literature, was born on this day in 1831 in Padua.

Nievo, who was a passionate supporter of the move to unify Italy in the 19th century, drew inspiration from his participation in Giuseppe Garibaldi’s Spedizione dei Mille - the Expedition of the Thousand - which sought to achieve that goal.

He died for the cause at the age of just 29, perishing in a shipwreck while transporting important documents from Palermo to Naples.

His legacy was preserved in his most famous novel, in which the central character and narrator shares Nievo’s passions. Nievo completed the work in 1858 but it was not until 1867, six years after his death, that it found a publisher.

Nievo was born into comfortable circumstances.  His father was a prominent lawyer and magistrate in Padua and his mother the daughter of a Friulian countess.  Their home in Padua was the Palazzo Mocenigo Querini, a 16th century house overlooking Via Sant’Eufemia, close to the city centre. 

They also had use of his mother’s ancestral home, a castle in Colloredo di Montalbano, a hamlet just outside the city of Udine in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, and of the Palazzo Nievo in Mantua. 

Nievo was inspired by the political goals
of revolutionary Giuseppe Mazzini

From 1832 to 1837, when Nievo was a small child, they lived in a house adjoining the Palazzo della Giustizia in Soave, about 60km (37 miles) from Padua, where his father was posted as a judge.  By the late 1840s, Nievo was becoming increasingly fascinated by the writings of Carlo Cattaneo and Giuseppe Mazzini, two of the central philosophical drivers of the Risorgimento.

He is thought to have taken part in a failed uprising in Mantua in 1848, a year marked by a series of insurrections inspired by Italian nationalists seeking to overthrow the Austian grip on the north of the country.  He had been inspired by conversations with his maternal grandfather, Carlo Marin, who had been a prominent official of the Venetian Republic when it fell to the Austrians in 1797.

Nievo refused to follow his father into the law as he felt it would imply submission to the Austrian government and instead pursued a career in journalism.

His political activity intensified in the late 1850s, when he joined Garibaldi’s Cacciatori delle Alpi, a brigade of volunteers fighting to liberate Lombardy, and then participated in the Expedition of the Thousand, given the number 690 in the list of 1,000 patriots.

Nievo embarked in Genoa on 5 May, 1860 setting sail for Sicily. After distinguishing himself in the battle of Calatafimi and in Palermo, he was promoted to colonel and took on administrative assignments, at the same time keeping diaries that served as a chronicle of events. 

It was in this role that he was tasked with bringing back from Sicily all the administrative documents and receipts from the expedition’s expenses. He boarded the steamship Ercole along with other members of the military administration to travel from Palermo to Naples, but during the night between March 4 and 5, 1861, the vessel ran into difficulties off the coast of Sorrento, almost within view of the Bay of Naples, and sank.  There were no survivors.

An English edition of Nievo's
most famous book

It was during the years between these periods of active support for the revolutionary cause that Nievo did the bulk of his writing.

Much of this time he spent in retreat in Colloredo di Montalbano, writing a number of novels set in the Friulian countryside, as well as volumes of short stories and poetry.

He began writing his major work at some point in the mid-1850s. The central character is an 83-year-old man, Carlo Altoviti - thought to be based at least loosely on Carlo Marin - who has decided to write down the history of his long life, from an unhappy childhood to romantic entanglements during the siege of Genoa, and fighting in the cause of revolution in Naples. 

Carlo’s twin passions are the dream of a unified, free Italy and his undying love for Pisana, the woman with whom he is obsessed. With characters ranging from drunken smugglers to saintly nuns and scheming priests, as well as real figures such as Napoleon and Lord Byron, it is an epic novel that tells the story of one man's life and the history of Italy's unification.

When Nievo’s supporters found a publisher years after Nievo’s unexpected death, the book was titled Confessioni di un ottuagenario (Confessions of an octogenarian), because Nievo’s intended title was still deemed politically sensitive.  It was changed later to reflect the author’s wishes.

Nievo’s life is commemorated in a number of locations, including Colloredo di Montalbano and Fossalta di Portogruaro, in the Veneto, where the Castello di Fratta, the scene of Carlo Altoviti’s unhappy childhood, was thought to be located.  There is a statue of him in Cordovado, in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, where there is a literary park dedicated to his name.

Nievo wrote his masterpiece while in retreat
at the castle in Colloredo di Montalbano

Travel tip:

Colloredo di Monte Albano - known locally as Colloredo di Montalbano - is a small village in Friuli-Venezia Giulia situated about 14km (9 miles) northwest of Udine.  In the 11th century, it was a fief of the Viscounts of Mels, who had received it from the Counts of Tyrol. In 1420, together with all of Friuli, the hamlet was acquired by the Republic of Venice.  The village was severely damaged by the Friuli earthquake in 1976, yet the family castle remains intact.

The Caffè Pedrocchi was at the centre of life for
students and intellectuals in Padua

Travel tip:

Padua’s revolutionary movement had strong links to the city’s Caffè Pedrocchi, a meeting place for business people, students, intellectuals and writers for nearly 200 years. Founded by coffee maker Antonio Pedrocchi in 1831, the café was designed in neoclassical style and each side is edged with Corinthian columns. It quickly became a centre for the Risorgimento movement and was popular with students and artists because of its location close to Palazzo del Bò, the main university building. It briefly became a battleground when the students rose up against the armed Austrians in 1848.  You can still see a hole in the wall of the White Room inside Caffè Pedrocchi made by a bullet fired by an Austro-Hungarian soldier at the students.

Also on this day:

1466: The birth of military commander Andrea Doria

1485: The birth of poet and stateswoman Veronica Gambara

1954: The birth of actress Simonetta Stefanelli

1957: The death of opera singer Beniamino Gigli

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Rimini Proclamation

Opening statement of the Risorgimento came from a Frenchman

Murat's Rimini Proclamation is seen as the
rallying call for the Risorgimento

The first political proclamation calling for all Italians to unite into a single people and drive out foreigners was issued on this day in 1815 in Rimini.

But the stirring words: ‘Italians! The hour has come to engage in your highest destiny…’ came from a Frenchman, Gioacchino (Joachim) Murat, who was at the time occupying the throne of Naples, which he had been given by his brother-in-law, Napoleon.

Murat had just declared war on Austria and used the Proclamation to call on Italians to revolt against the Austrians occupying Italy. He was trying to show himself as a backer of Italian independence in an attempt to find allies in his desperate battle to hang on to his own throne.

Although Murat was acting out of self-interest at the time, the Proclamation is often seen as the opening statement of the Risorgimento, the movement that helped to arouse the national consciousness of the Italian people. It led to a series of political events that freed the Italian states from foreign domination and unified them politically.

Murat’s Proclamation impressed the Milanese writer Alessandro Manzoni, who wrote a poem about it later that year, Il proclama di Rimini. However, he abandoned it unfinished after Murat’s military campaign failed.

Joachim Murat was one of Napoleon's
most trusted military aides

Napoleon had originally installed his brother, Joseph, as King of Naples in 1806. But two years later he moved Joseph to the throne of Spain and installed Murat, the husband of his sister, Carolina, in his place.

Murat was one of Napoleon’s most trusted military aides, who had shown himself to be a daring and capable military leader.

While in charge of Naples, Murat made social and economic changes, reformed the University and introduced new scientific facilities. He built new roads and started work on Piazza del Plebiscito and the Church of San Francesco di Paola.

After Napoleon’s exile to Elba in 1814, Murat signed a treaty with Austria, pledging his help against the French troops in the north.

He took over the Papal States and Tuscany in return for an Austrian assurance that he would remain on the throne of Naples. From Rimini he writes in his Proclamation: 'Providence has called you to be an independent nation. From the Alps to the straits of Sicily, there is but one cry – Italian independence.’

But then Napoleon escaped from Elba and set out for Paris. Murat decided to realign himself with his brother-in-law and declared war on the Austrians.

He fought battles to save his own throne and to prevent the Austrians from moving into France to take on Napoleon. But after he lost a major battle at Tolentino in May and his army was in tatters, he fled from Italy to France, where he was snubbed by Napoleon.

Murat was killed by a firing squad
in the Calabrian town of Pizzo

Murat set sail for Italy again to make one last desperate attempt to regain his kingdom, which by now was back in Bourbon hands.

With a small group of soldiers he landed at Pizzo on the coast of Calabria, planning to march north to Naples. Instead, he was captured, imprisoned and sentenced to death.

On 13 October 1815 he faced his firing squad, smartly dressed and fearless, having refused the offer of a blindfold.

Within another 46 years Italy had become a unified country.

The Tempio Malatestiano, a 13th century Gothic church in
Rimini, has works by Piero della Francesca and Giotto

Travel tip:

The coastal city of Rimini was part of Napoleon’s Cisalpine Republic when Murat launched his Proclamation from there to the Italian people in 1815. The city looking out over the Adriatic Sea was incorporated into the Kingdom of Italy in 1860. Now part of the Emilia-Romagna region it has become one of the leading seaside resorts in Europe, with wide sandy beaches and plenty of hotels and restaurants. One of Rimini’s most famous sights is the Tempio Malatestiano, a 13th century Gothic church originally built for the Franciscans that was transformed on the outside in the 15th century and decorated inside with frescos by Piero della Francesca and works by Giotto.

The Palazzo Reale, on the Piazza del Plesbiscito, was
Murat's luxurious home in Naples

Travel tip:

Murat lived a luxurious lifestyle during his brief rule over the Kingdom of Naples and resided at the Royal Palace in Naples (Palazzo Reale), which is at the eastern end of Piazza del Plebiscito. The 17th century palace now houses a 30-room museum and the largest library in southern Italy, which are both open to the public. A statue of Murat was erected in the 1880s in the west façade of the Royal palace.

Also on this day:

1282: French driven out by the Sicilian Vespers

1892: The birth of painter and designer Fortunato Depero

1905: The birth of architect and engineer Ignazio Gardella


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Nabucco premieres in Milan

Verdi opera that became a symbol of the Risorgimento

The bill advertising the first staging
of Nabucco at La Scala in Milan

The opera Nabucco, with music by Giuseppe Verdi and a libretto by Temistocle Solera, was first performed on this day in 1842 at Teatro alla Scala in Milan.

The opera contains the famous chorus Va, pensiero, a lament for a lost homeland that many Italians now regard as their unofficial national anthem.

The opera and Verdi himself have become synonymous with the Risorgimento, the period in the 19th century when people worked to free the Italian states of foreign domination and unite them under the leadership of Victor Emmanuel, the King of Sardinia and Duke of Savoy.

It is said that during the last years of the Austrian occupation of Lombardia and the Veneto, for example, that Italian patriots adopted Viva Verdi as a slogan and rallying call, using the composer’s name as an acronym for 'Vittorio Emanuele Re d’Italia' - 'Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy'.

On the day of the composer’s funeral in Milan in 1901, a crowd of 300,000 people filled the streets and sang Va, pensiero, conducted by Arturo Toscanini, a moving event that showed how Verdi’s music had helped unite the Italian nation.

But Verdi nearly didn’t take up the offer to compose the music for Nabucco.

Verdi took up the offer to write the
music for Nabucco with reluctance

After a terrible two-year period, during which his young wife and two children had all died as a result of illnesses, Verdi had vowed never to compose music again.

During a chance meeting with Bartolomeo Merelli, La Scala’s impresario, Verdi was given a copy of Solera’s libretto, which had been rejected by another composer.

Verdi later recalled in his memoirs how he took the libretto home, threw it on the table with a violent gesture and it opened up in front of him. Verdi’‘s eye fell on the phrase, ‘Va, pensiero, sull’ali dorate’  - 'Fly, thought, on golden wings'.

He tried to ignore the libretto but eventually found himself sitting at the piano and setting the words to music.

It is claimed he was still reluctant about working on the score and tried to take the manuscript back to Merelli, but the impresario stuffed the libretto back in Verdi’s pocket, threw him out of his office and locked the door.

Verdi went home and continued to work on the music and by the autumn of 1841 the opera was complete.

The opening performance at La Scala on 9 March 1842 was an immediate success, establishing Verdi as a major composer. The opera is still regularly performed all over the world today.

Verdi's future wife, Giuseppina Strepponi,
was a member of the original cast

The original cast included the soprano Giuseppina Strepponi, who would later become Verdi's second wife.

Nabucco is named after King Nebuchadnezzar, who featured in the books of Jeremiah and Daniel in the Bible, and the opera follows the plight of the Jews he conquered and exiled. The chorus Va, pensiero - also known as the 'Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves' - captured the feeling of national pride among Italians at the time who were still living under Austrian domination.

In 1981 a journalist proposed replacing Italy’s official national anthem with Va, persiero. This never happened, but the political party Lega Nord - now La Lega - adopted it as its official hymn and the chorus is now sung at all party meetings.

In 2011, after conducting Va, pensiero at the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome, the conductor Riccardo Muti made a speech protesting about cuts in Italy’s arts budget and then invited the audience to sing along in support of culture and patriotism.

Milan's Teatro alla Scala, one of the world's most prestigious
opera houses, is right in the centre of the city

Travel tip:

Teatro alla Scala is in Piazza della Scala in the centre of Milan across the road from the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, an elegant arcade lined with cafes, shops and restaurants which was built to link Piazza della Scala with Piazza del Duomo, Milan’s cathedral square. La Scala has a fascinating museum that displays costumes and memorabilia from the history of opera. The entrance is in Largo Ghiringhelli. It is open every day except the Italian Bank Holidays and a few days when it is closed in December. Opening hours are from 9.00 to 12.30 and 1.30 to 5.30 pm.

Rome's Teatro dell'Opera, rebuilt in the 1920s by the
architect Marcello Piacentini, seats 1600 spectators

Travel tip:

The Teatro dell’Opera in Rome, where conductor Riccardo Muti invited the audience to join in the chorus Va, pensiero in 2011, is a 1600-seat opera house in Piazza Beniamino Gigli. It was originally opened in 1880 as the Costanzi Theatre and has undergone several changes of name and many improvements over the years.

Rome hotels by Booking.com

Also on this day:

1454: The birth of explorer Amerigo Vespucci

1809: The birth of statesman and winemaker Bettino Ricasoli

1908: The founding of the Milan football club Internazionale

1948: The birth of politician Emma Bonino


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Bettino Ricasoli - statesman and winemaker

Prime minister and inventor of modern Chianti wine

While not tending to his ancient vineyards,
Bettino Ricasoli was twice prime minister

The politician and winemaker Barone Bettino Ricasoli was born on this day in 1809 in Florence.

Ricasoli, who is considered one of the driving forces of the Risorgimento alongside Giuseppe Mazzini, Count Camillo Benso of Cavour, Giuseppe Garibaldi and others, succeeded Cavour as prime minister in 1861, the second person to hold the office in the new Kingdom of Italy.

After withdrawing from politics, he concentrated on the family vineyards around the Castello di Brolio in the Tuscan hills between Siena and Arezzo, seat of the Ricasoli family since the early 12th century.

It was there is 1872, seeking to create a wine with universal appeal, that he developed the formula for Chianti wine that is still used today, made up of 70 per cent Sangiovese grapes, 15 per cent Canaiolo and 15 per cent Malvasia bianca.

Today Barone Ricasoli - the oldest wine producer in Italy and the second oldest in the world - is the largest winery in the Chianti Classico area, with 235 hectares of vines and 26 hectares of olive groves in the area around Gaiole and Castelnuovo Berardenga.

Bettino was the son of Baron Luigi Ricasolo and Elisabetta Peruzzi, who came from a family of Tuscan bankers. He attended the Collegio Cicognini, the oldest school in Prato, and spent two years travelling around Europe with his personal tutor. He was orphaned by the age of 18 following the deaths of both his parents, inheriting the castle and the estate but finding it to be heavily in debt.

Vines fill most of the slopes surrounding the ancient Ricasoli
family seat at Castello di Brolio in Tuscany

Decreed to be of age by the Duke of Tuscany, and therefore the legal owner of the castle and its vineyards, he quickly enrolled at the Accademia dei Georgofili in Florence in order to acquire the agrarian and financial skills he needed to run the business successfully. He managed to save it from collapse, helped by his marriage to Anna Bonaccorsi, the daughter of a noble landowner from Tredozio in the Tuscan Romagna, who brought with her a considerable dowry.

A follower of patriotic political philosophers such as Cesare Balbo and Massimo d’Azeglio, Ricasoli he became politically active in 1846, urging Leopold II, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, to make various liberal reforms. The following year, he founded a newspaper, La Patria, with a mission to define “the constitution of Italian nationality”.

In 1848 he was elected gonfalonier (mayor) of Florence after Leopold authorised the establishment of a Tuscan constitution. He encouraged support for Piedmont-Sardinia against Austria in the First Italian War of Independence.

Barone Ricasoli's
chianti is renowned

However, after Leopold was overthrown by the radical democrats Giuseppe Montanelli and Francesco Guerrazzi, who proclaimed a new republic, he reclaimed power only after turning to the Austrians for help, which so disgusted Ricasoli he abandoned his political career and exiled himself to Switzerland.

When he returned to the Castello di Brolio he took a circuitous route to avoid Florence, so that he would not have to set eyes on the occupying Austrian troops.

Ricasoli stayed out of politics until 1859, after the Second Italian War of Independence achieved its goal, when he was appointed minister of the interior in Cavour’s government of Tuscany, promoting the union of Tuscany with Piedmont, which took place in March 1860.

Elected to the Chamber of Deputies of the new Italian government in February 1861, he succeeded Cavour in the premiership in June.

As prime minister he admitted the Garibaldian volunteers to the regular army, revoked the 30-year exile of Mazzini for his membership of an illegal political group, and attempted - unsuccessfully - a reconciliation with the Vatican, with whom the new kingdom was still at odds.

He resigned in 1862 but returned to power in 1866. On this occasion he refused Napoleon III's offer to cede Venetia to Italy on condition that Italy gave up their Prussian alliance, and reached a compromise with the Vatican only for the Chamber to reject it, upon which he resigned again and withdrew from politics for good.

He died at the Castello di Brolio in October 1880.

The Ricasoli name was sold to a multinational conglomerate in the early 1970s but reacquired by the Barone’s grandson, also called Bettino. The business is now run by his great-grandson, Francesco.

Bettino Ricasoli turned the Castello di Brolio into a kind
of English-style neo-Gothic manor house

Travel tip:

The impressive Castello di Brolio, which sits on top of a hill 11km (7 miles) south of Gaiole in Chianti, dominates the surrounding countryside. Even though it is closer to Siena, just 20 km away and visible on a clear day, the castle has always been under the influence of Florence and was for many years used as a strategic outposts. As a result, it has been destroyed several times. The castle of today is partly the reconstruction ordered by Bettino Ricasoli in 1835, when he commissioned the architect Pietro Marchetti to modify the castle according to the taste of the Gothic revival, a romantic movement originating in England, transforming it from a fortress into something closer to an English manor house, with Tudor-style windows and crenellated turrets. Parts of the house, the Renaissance gardens and the English woods are open to the public. Inside the castle, it is possible to visit the Chapel of San Jacopo and the crypt with the family tombs and a small museum housing the Ricasoli collection.

Hotels in Gaiole in Chianti by Booking.com

The Via Bettino Ricasole is a broad street, almost a
piazza, in the centre of Gaiole in Chianti

Travel tip:

The beautiful small town of Gaiole in Chianti, about 40km (25 miles) southeast of Florence, basks in the enviable accolade of being named at number one in a list of "Europe's Most Idyllic Places To Live" by Forbes magazine. The town is a perfect base for visiting the many castles in the area, such as the Castello di Meleto, the Castello di Spaltenna and the Badia Coltibuono, a fortified monastery. The town hosts many events connected with the wine industry plus, every March, a professional bicycle race is held, known as Strade Bianche.

More reading:

Carlo Cattaneo, the intellectual force behind the Five Days of Milan

Count Camillo Benso di Cavour, the new Italy's first political figurehead

Luigi Einaudi, the politician and winemaker who became president

Also on this day:

1454: The birth of explorer Amerigo Vespucci

1908: The founding of the football club Internazionale

1948: The birth of radical politician Emma Bonino

Selected books:

Risorgimento: The History of Italy from Napoleon to Nation State, by Lucy Riall

The Force of Destiny: A History of Italy Since 1796, by Christopher Duggan 

(Picture credits: Ricasoli vines by RiverBerlin; Castello by Sailko; Gaiole street by Tubantia; all via Wikimedia Commons)



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