The 1870 Rome plebiscite

When the Eternal City defied the Pope to be part of the new Italy

Romans celebrate the result of the
vote outside the Palazzo Senatorio

Citizens of Rome voted overwhelmingly in favour of becoming part of the new Italy on this day in 1870, less than two weeks after the city had been captured by the Italian army and the unification process was finally complete.

For nine years after the Kingdom of Italy was officially declared in 1861, Rome remained under the control of Pope Pius IX as the sovereign territory of the Church, even though much of the area that had been the Papal States had been captured by the unification forces by 1860. 

The city’s independence had been protected by a French garrison stationed there permanently by Emperor Napoleon III, a key Church ally, but the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 meant that the French soldiers had to be withdrawn.

In their absence, after attempts to persuade Pope Pius IX to agree a peaceful surrender had failed, Italian troops led by General Raffaele Cadorna breached the Aurelian Walls near Porta Pia early on the morning of September 20, and flooded into the city, needing only a few hours to be in complete control. There were casualties on both sides, although thankfully few.

Pius IX, who had been head of the Catholic Church since 1846, believed that retaining the sovereign territorial power held by the church for more than 1,100 years was vital to its spiritual authority.  He was also fiercely opposed to two of the leading figures in the Risorgimento movement, Giuseppe Garibaldi and Giuseppe Mazzini, whom he perceived as anti-Catholic.

But the people of Rome and the surrounding Lazio region, which was the last territorial remnant of the Papal States, wanted to be part of a unified Italy and Giovanni Lanza, who had been prime minister since December 1869, believed that a referendum would settle any arguments and legitimise the annexation of the territories.

Thus a plebiscite was organised for Sunday, October 2, 1870. Multiple polling stations, typically in public buildings, were set up across the city and region, which were open from early morning until the evening.

Voting eligibility was quite restricted at the time. Only males over the age of 21 were allowed to take part and they were required to meet certain property or tax‑paying requirements, often needing to prove their literacy as well. 

Pope Pius IX opposed the absorption of
Rome into the unified Kingdom of Italy 

The number of registered voters across Rome and Lazio was 167,548, of which there was a turnout of 80.75 per cent despite Pius IX asking Catholics to abstain.

When the results were announced the following day, there was an overwhelming majority in favour of becoming part of the unified kingdom.

In the city itself, the vote was ‘Yes: 40,785  No: 46’; in the Lazio region it was ‘Yes: 77,520  No: 857’.  Overall, 133,681 had voted in favour and only 1,507 against.

Rome was officially declared the capital of Italy in February, 1871. Before then, the status of capital city had been bestowed first on Turin (1861-65) and then Florence (1865-71).

Despite the numbers, Pope Pius IX remained steadfast in his opposition.

After the plebiscite had ratified annexation, the Italian government passed the Law of Guarantees offering personal inviolability for the pope, annual financial support, extra-territoriality for the Vatican and Lateran palaces, and the freedom to conduct diplomacy.

But Pius IX rejected the law entirely, arguing that accepting it would imply recognising Italy’s sovereignty over Rome. He continued to insist that the pope needed territorial sovereignty to remain politically independent and able to act freely in international affairs.

He declared himself a “prisoner in the Vatican”, refusing to leave the Apostolic Palace and refusing all contact with the Italian state.

His actions began a stand-off between the Papacy and the Italian state that persisted for almost 60 years in which a succession of popes refused to recognise Italy’s sovereignty and the Italian authorities in turn avoided interfering in Vatican affairs.

This awkward relationship came to be known as the ‘Roman Question’ and was not settled until the Lateran Treaty of 1929, agreed between Pope Pius XI and Benito Mussolini.

Under the terms of the treaty, the Vatican City was recognised as an independent, sovereign micro state, Catholicism was recognised as the sole official state religion of Italy, and a financial settlement was agreed that provided substantial financial compensation to the Holy See for the loss of its historical territories.

St Peter's Basilica is part of the Vatican City, the 
smallest sovereign state in the world

Travel tip:

The Vatican City, which occupies an area of 44 hectares (110 acres) within the city of Rome and has approximately 1,000 citizens, is the smallest sovereign state in the world by both area and population. It came into existence in 1929 when an agreement was signed between the Kingdom of Italy and the Holy See to recognise the Vatican as an independent state. The treaty - known as the Lateran Treaty - settled what had been a long-running dispute regarding the power of the Popes as rulers of civil territory within a united Italy.  The treaty was named after the Lateran Palace where the agreement was signed and although the signatory for the Italian government was the Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, succeeding democratic governments have all upheld the treaty.  The major tourist attractions of St Peter’s Square and St Peter’s Basilica, the Vatican Museums, the Sistine Chapel and the Pinocateca Vaticana art gallery are all within Vatican territory. The Via della Conciliazione, the broad thoroughfare that connects St Peter's Square to Castel Sant'Angelo on the western bank of the Tiber, was built by Mussolini to symbolise the new accord between the Vatican and the Italian state.

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The Monumento al Bersaglieri
stands opposite Porta Pia

Travel tip:

Porta Pia is a gate in Rome’s ancient walls, named after Pope Pius lV, who commissioned Michelangelo to design it just before his death in Rome in 1564. You will find it at the end of Via XX Settembre, which goes off Piazza di San Bernardo, not far from the Quirinale Palace and the Trevi Fountain. It was a dozen metres to the west of the gate that Italian artillery created the breach in the wall through which soldiers from the Bersaglieri, an elite light-infantry corps of the Italian army, entered Rome on September 20, 1870, to complete the unification of Italy. A marble and bronze Monument to the Porta Pia Breach marks the spot. Opposite the gate, on the external side, at the centre of the Piazzale di Porta Pia, is the Monumento al Bersagliere, commissioned by Mussolini and erected in 1932 by Publio Morbiducci. The buildings between the two arches of the gate now contain the Historical Museum of the Bersaglieri.

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More reading:

The capture of Rome

How the Lateran Treaty confirmed the Vatican as an independent state

Alessandro la Marmora, founder of the Bersaglieri corps

Also on this day:

1538: The birth of Church reformer Saint Charles Borromeo

1821: The birth of soldier and politician Nino Bixio

1897: The birth of Mafia boss Joe Profaci

1950: The birth of anti-corruption magistrate Antonio Di Pietro

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1 October

Attilio Pavesi - Olympic cycling champion

Rider from Emilia-Romagna won Italy's first road racing gold 

Attilio Pavesi, the first winner of an individual Olympic gold medal in Italian cycling history, was born on this day in 1910 in the small town of Caorso in Emilia-Romagna.  At the Los Angeles Olympics of 1932, Pavesi won the individual road race and picked up a second gold medal as a member of the Italian quartet that won the team classification in the same race.  Italy had already won gold medals for the team pursuit in track cycling - indeed, they won that title for the fourth time in a row in 1932 - but had not enjoyed success on the road before Pavesi's triumph.  Pavesi, the last of 11 children born to Angelo, a poultry farmer, and his wife Maria, was a natural all-round sportsman, excelling at running, long jump, swimming, diving, gymnastics and football as he grew up.  He was such a strong swimmer he once saved a boy from drowning in a local river.   Read more…

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Milly Carlucci - TV host

Former actress is the face of Ballando con le Stelle

The television host and former actress Milly Carlucci was born on this day in 1954 in Sulmona, a picturesque town in central Abruzzo, about 52km (32 miles) inland from the coastal city of Pescara.  With a career spanning nearly five decades, Carlucci has been a well known and popular personality on Italian variety television since the late 1970s, establishing a reputation for elegance and professionalism and a list of credits that grew rapidly through the ‘80s and ‘90s.  But it is in her current and most enduring role, as the presenter of the pro-celebrity dance contest Ballando con le Stelle - the Italian version of the US hit Dancing with the Stars and the UK’s Strictly Come Dancing - that she has established herself as a giant of small-screen entertainment.  Having fronted the show from its inception in 2005, Carlucci is also its artistic director and project manager.  Read more… 

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Leonello d’Este - Marquis of Ferrara

Ruler who spent money on the arts and education

Leonello d’Este, who is remembered as a dedicated patron of the arts, literature and culture, died on this day in 1450 in Ferrara.  Leonello was Marquis of Ferrara and Duke of Modena and Reggio Emilia from 1441 to 1450.  An illegitimate son of Niccolo III d’Este, Leonello was favoured by his father as his successor ahead of his legitimate children.  As he was well educated and popular with the common people, he was considered by his father to be the most suitable heir.  During his rule over Ferrara, Leonello transformed the city and reformed the University of Ferrara, actions which influenced the political and artistic achievements of his successors.  Leonello was tutored by Guarino Veronese, who instructed him on the traits of a desirable ruler and how to govern. Veronese was later appointed as a professor at the University of Ferrara.  Read more…

Walter Mazzarri - football coach

Former Watford manager with fine record in Italy

The football coach Walter Mazzarri, whose disappointing spell in English football as Watford manager contrasts with a fine record as a coach in his native Italy, was born on this day in 1961 in San Vincenzo, a resort on the coast of Tuscany.  Mazzarri won promotion to Serie A with his local club Livorno and kept tiny Calabrian team Reggina in Serie A against the odds for three consecutive seasons, on the last occasion despite an 11-point deduction for involvement in an alleged match-fixing scandal.  He subsequently had two seasons as coach of Sampdoria, qualifying for the UEFA Cup by finishing sixth in the first of those campaigns and then reaching the final of the Coppa Italia. After that he was appointed head coach of Napoli, guiding them to sixth - their best Serie A finish for 25 years.  Read more…

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Sylvano Bussotti – composer, opera director and writer

Renaissance man with many strings to his bow

The multi-talented Sylvano Bussotti, a leading composer who was part of Italy’s avant-garde movement, was born on this day in 1931 in Florence.  Bussotti was also a painter, set and costume designer, opera director and writer. His operas and ballets were performed at the most prestigious theatres in Italy and abroad and he served as artistic director of La Fenice in Venice, the Puccini festival in Tuscany and the music section of the Venice Biennale.  Before he was five years old, Bussotti was learning to play the violin and he soon became a prodigy. He was also introduced to painting early in his life by his older brother and uncle.  At the Luigi Cherubini Conservatory in Florence, he studied harmony and counterpoint and learnt the piano, but he was unable to complete his studies and receive any official qualifications because of the start of World War II. Read more…

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Book of the Day: Pedalare! Pedalare! A History of Italian Cycling, by John Foot

Cycling was a sport so important in Italy that it marked a generation, sparked fears of civil war, changed the way Italian was spoken and led to legal reform. It was a sport so popular that it created the geography of Italy in the minds of her citizens, and some have said that it was cycling, not political change, that united Italy.  Pedalare! Pedalare! is the first complete history of Italian cycling to be published in English. The book moves chronologically from the first Giro d'Italia (Italy's equivalent of the Tour de France) in 1909 to the 21st century. The tragedies and triumphs of great riders such as Fausto Coppi and Gino Bartali appear alongside stories of the support riders, snow-bound mountains and the first and only woman to ride the whole Giro.  Cycling's relationship with Italian history, politics and culture is always up front, with reference to fascism, the cold war and the effect of two world wars. The sport is explored alongside changes in Italian society as a whole, from the poor peasants who took up cycling in the early, pioneering period, to the slick, professional sport of today. Scandals and controversy appear throughout the book as constant features of the connection between fans, journalists and cycling.

John Foot is an English academic historian specialising in Italy. He is the author of several books, including histories of Italian football, Italian cycling and the story of the pioneering psychiatrist, Franco Basaglia, who led a revolution in mental health care in Italy. 

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30 September

Angelo Cerica - Carabinieri general

First job was to arrest Mussolini

General Angelo Cerica, the police commander tasked with arresting the Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini after he was deposed as party leader in 1943, was born on this day in 1885 in Alatri, in the Ciociaria region of Lazio, about 90km (56 miles) south of Rome.  Mussolini was arrested on July 25 as he left his regular meeting with the King, Vittorio Emanuele III, the day after the Fascist Grand Council had voted to remove him from power.  The monarch had informed him that General Pietro Badoglio, former chief of staff of the Italian army, would be replacing him as prime minister.  Cerica had been appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Carabinieri, Italy’s paramilitary second police force, only two days previously, succeeding General Azolino Hazon, who had been killed in a bombing raid.  He was hand-picked for the job by General Vittorio Ambrosio. Read more… 

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Monica Bellucci - actress and model

Movie actress who became face of Dolce & Gabbana

The actress and model Monica Bellucci, who has appeared in more than 60 films in a career that began in 1990, was born on this day in 1964 in Città di Castello in Umbria.  Bellucci, who is associated with Dolce & Gabbana and Dior perfumes, began modelling to help fund her studies at the University of Perugia, where she studied law with ambitions of a career in the legal profession.  But she was quickly brought to the attention of the major model agencies in Milan and soon realised she had the potential to follow a much different career.  Bellucci, whose father Pasquale worked for a transport company, soon began to attract big-name clients in Paris and New York as well as Italy, but decided not long into her modelling career that she would take acting lessons.  She claimed to have been inspired by watching the Italian female movie icons Claudia Cardinale and Sophia Loren. Read more…

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Massimo Bottura - chef and food activist

Leading restaurateur who set up project to feed hungry

The chef and restaurateur Massimo Bottura, whose Osteria Francescana in his hometown of Modena has twice been named as the world’s best restaurant, was born on this day in 1962.  Bottura is also the founder, in partnership with his American-born wife, the former actress and artist Lara Gilmore, of Food for Soul, a non-profit organisation that sets out to combat waste and feed the hungry through a network of refectories in major cities around the world.  The Food for Soul project was launched in 2015 with a refettorio in Greco, a poor district of northern Milan, and has expanded to the extent that it now numbers 12 similar dining rooms for the hungry and homeless, including London, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Sydney and Nairobi as well as at other locations in Italy.  As a young man, Bottura’s passions were food and football. Read more…

Pierina Legnani - ballerina

Italian dancer who conquered St Petersburg

The ballerina Pierina Legnani, considered by many ballet historians to be one of the greatest dancers in history, was born on this day in 1863 in Milan.  Legnani's legacy was the 32-turn fouetté en tournant in which the dancer essentially spins on the point of one foot for 32 revolutions while maintaining perfect balance.  No ballerina had completed 32 turns before Legnani, who is said to have tried it out at the Alhambra Theatre in London before introducing the move to the wider world in 1893 on her debut at the Imperial Ballet in St Petersburg in Russia, where she was performing in the title role of Cinderella.  It came in the final act on the night of the premiere and caused a sensation, with many critics hailing her as the supreme ballerina of her generation.  Her feat set a new standard for future ballerinas as a yardstick of strength and technique.  Read more…

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Girolamo Mercuriale – physician

Doctor went from hero to villain and back again

Girolamo Mercuriale, who is believed to have written the first book about sports medicine and one of the first books about the benefits of physical exercise, was born on this day in 1530 in Forlì.  He published his most famous book, De Arte Gymnastica, in 1569 in Venice, having studied Greek and Roman medical literature and learnt about the attitude of athletes in ancient times to diet, exercise and hygiene.  Girolamo was the son of a doctor, Giovanni Mercuriale, and he was sent to Bologna, Padua and Venice to study medicine. After receiving his doctorate in philosophy and medicine in 1555 in Venice he went to Rome on a political mission, where he had access to many of the important libraries housing classical manuscripts.  His book is believed to be the first to explain the principles of physical therapy, now known as physiotherapy.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Mussolini's War: Fascist Italy from Triumph to Collapse, 1935-1943, by John Gooch

While staying closely aligned with Hitler, Mussolini remained carefully neutral until the summer of 1940. Then, with the wholly unexpected and sudden collapse of the French and British armies, Mussolini declared war on the Allies in the hope of making territorial gains in southern France and Africa. This decision proved a dreadful miscalculation, dooming Italy to its own prolonged and unwinnable war, immense casualties and an Allied invasion in 1943 which ushered in a terrible new era for the country.  John Gooch's new book is the definitive account of Italy's war experience. Beginning with the invasion of Abyssinia and ending with Mussolini's arrest, Gooch brilliantly portrays the nightmare of a country with too small an industrial sector, too incompetent a leadership and too many fronts on which to fight.  Everywhere - whether in the USSR, the Western Desert or the Balkans - Italian troops found themselves against either better-equipped or more motivated enemies. The result was a war entirely at odds with the dreams of pre-war Italian planners. Mussolini's War shows the centrality of Italy to the war, outlining the brief rise and disastrous fall of the Italian military campaign.

John Gooch is one of the world's leading writers on Italy and the two world wars. His books include Mussolini and His Generals and The Italian Army and the First World War. He is Professor Emeritus at the University of Leeds. 

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29 September

NEW - Guido I da Montefeltro - Lord of Urbino

Brilliant military strategist who suffered poetic damnation

Guido I da Montefeltro, the brilliant military strategist who consolidated the power of medieval Urbino but was famously consigned to Hell in Dante’s Inferno, died on this day in 1298.  A leading figure in the power struggle between the pro-imperial Ghibellines and the pro-papal Guelphs in northern and central Italy, Guido achieved many notable battlefield victories, yet towards the end of his life became a Franciscan monk. He is thought to have died and been buried at a monastery in Ancona, the coastal city some 75km (45 miles) southwest of Urbino, although this is disputed in some accounts. He was around 75 years old.  Guido had taken Holy orders by way of seeking redemption for the brutal military deeds by which he had inflicted so much suffering and death, and it was this that led the poet Dante Alighieri to place him in Hell in the Inferno section of his Divine Comedy.  Read more…

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Silvio Piola - footballer

Modest star who remains Italy’s greatest goalscorer

Silvio Piola, a forward whose career tally of 364 goals between 1930 and 1954 remains the most scored by any professional player in the history of football in Italy, was born on this day in 1913 in Robbio Lomellina, a small town about 50km (31 miles) southwest of Milan.  Of those goals, 274 were scored in Serie A and 30 for the Italian national team, with whom he was a World Cup winner in 1938, scoring twice in the final against Hungary.  No other player has scored so many goals in the top flight of Italian football and only two others - Gigi Riva and Giuseppe Meazza - have scored more while wearing the azzurri shirt.  Other records still held by Piola include all-time highest Serie A goalscorer for three different clubs - his hometown club Pro Vercelli, Lazio, and Novara - and one of only two players to have scored six goals in a single match. Read more…

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Enrico Fermi – nuclear physicist

Scientist from Rome who created world’s first nuclear reactor

Enrico Fermi, who has been called the architect of the nuclear age and even the father of the atomic bomb, was born on this day in 1901 in Rome.  Fermi, who won a Nobel Prize in 1938, created the world’s first nuclear reactor, the so-called Chicago Pile-1, after he had settled in the United States, and also worked on the Manhattan Project, which was the code name for the secret US research project aimed at developing nuclear weapons in the Second World War.  The third child of Alberto Fermi, an official in Italy’s Ministry of Railways, and Ida de Gattis, a school teacher, Fermi took an interest in science from an early age, inspired by a book about physics he had discovered in the local market in Campo de’ Fiori in Rome, written in Latin by a Jesuit priest in about 1840.  He read avidly as he was growing up, conducting many experiments. Read more…

Silvio Berlusconi - entrepreneur and politician

Businessman who was four times PM

Silvio Berlusconi, who has served as prime minister of Italy in four Governments, was born on this day in 1936 in Milan.  Head of a large media empire and owner of the football club AC Milan, Berlusconi was prime minister for a total of nine years, making him the longest-serving post-war prime minister and the third longest-serving since Italian unification.  Berlusconi was the eldest of three children born to a bank employee and his wife. He studied Law at the Università Statale in Milan, graduating with honours in 1961.  While at University he played the double bass in a group and occasionally performed as a cruise ship crooner. In later life he was to co-write both AC Milan’s and Forza Italia’s anthems and, in collaboration with Mariano Apicella, a Neapolitan singer and musician, he wrote the lyrics for two albums of Neapolitan-style songs. Read more…

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Giorgio Frassineti - politician

Mayor who proposed museum of Fascism

Giorgio Frassineti, the politician famous for proposing a museum dedicated to Fascism in Predappio, the birthplace of Benito Mussolini, was born on this day in 1964 in Forlì in Emilia-Romagna.  A member of the centre-left Partito Democratico, Frassineti was mayor of Predappio from 2009 to 2019.  Predappio, around 18km (11 miles) south of Forlì, has a population of less than 6,500.  Apart from by private car, it is accessible only by bus from Forlì, which is a pleasant small city but one that tourists mainly pass through on the way to Rimini and the Adriatic coast.  Yet 50,000 visitors a year descend on Predappio, mainly to visit the house where Mussolini was born in 1883, or the family mausoleum where his body was laid to rest following his execution by Italian partisans in 1945. Despite his alliance with the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, Mussolini is still admired by some Italians. Read more… 

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Book of the Day: The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso,  by Dante Alighieri. Translated by Robin Kirkpatrick

Robin Kirkpatrick's masterful verse translation of The Divine Comedy, published in a single volume, is the ideal edition for students as well as the general reader coming to this great masterpiece of Italian literature for the first time.  The Divine Comedy describes Dante's descent into Hell with Virgil as a guide; his ascent of Mount Purgatory and encounter with his dead love, Beatrice; and finally, his arrival in Heaven. Examining questions of faith, desire and enlightenment, the poem is a brilliantly nuanced and moving allegory of human redemption.  This volume includes a new introduction, notes, maps and diagrams. Individual editions of Robin Kirkpatrick's translation - Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso - are also available in Penguin Classics, and include Dante's Italian printed alongside the English text.

The poet Dante Alighieri was born in 1265 in Florence. At about the age of 20 he married Gemma Donati, by whom he had three children, but for much of his life maintained an unrequited love for Beatrice Portinari, the daughter of a Florentine banker. His Divine Comedy is still considered to be the greatest literary work written in Italian. Robin Kirkpatrick is Professor of Italian and English Literature at the University of Cambridge and has written a number of books on Dante and on the Renaissance.

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