1830] Need of combination.—Mazzini 121 take advantage of it as weakening their own adversary. General Pepe, who had foreseen the advantage of a simultaneous outbreak, says in his memoirs with regard to these risings, " If the Piedmontese had rebelled on the first of March, instead of on the tenth, or if they had informed me of their plans, affairs in Italy would have taken a more fortunate turn than would be generally believed." The sense of brotherhood was absent or feeble ; and the want of this unity of heart and will carried with it the want of unity in action, and prevented the fusion of those forces which were scattered, tense and eager, throughout the country. A power was needed capable of drawing together all the threads of the revolutionary organisation, and of inducing all conspirators, high and low, to transform themselves into representatives of the sacred rights of nationality. This power was found in Giuseppe Mazzini. His political ideals had grown to maturity during the months of his imprisonment on suspicion as a Carbonaro (1830). He had meditated deeply, and had seen the defects of the Italian conspiracies and insurrections ; the people must first be educated, then made to feel the indignity of oppression, drawn to a unanimous rebellion, and taught to think not only of their own district but of the whole of Italy as of their native country. According to him no real obstacles existed " for twenty-six million men, who wished to rise and fight for their country." On his release from prison in 1831 the Sardinian Government offered him the choice between exile and police supervision; and he took up his headquarters in Marseilles. There he founded " Young Italy," the society which was to be the instrument of the realisation of his ideas. He called it by this name because his appeal was specially addressed to youth. "Place youth at the head of the insurgent multitude," he said, "you know not the secret of the power hidden in these youthful hearts, nor the magic influence exercised on the masses by the voice of youth. You will find among the young a host of apostles of the new religion." A man of burning faith, of blameless life, creative in thought, heedless of the stumbling-blocks of practice, a writer of rich and vigorous prose, full of movement and fire, he was born to win proselytes ; and before long enthusiastic followers ranged themselves around the banner, on one side of which he had inscribed the words, " Liberty, Equality, and Humanity," and on the other, " Unity and Independence "; magic words which summed up the programme of the future patriotic mission of the Italians. For two years the band was limited in number. It was a heroic enterprise ; a few young men, with no aid of family or wealth, and, excepting their leader, of no great ability, proposed to mould the destinies of their country and prepared for war against a great military Power. But in their veins was the feverish ardour which Mazzini had inspired. With untiring industry they laboured for years ; they organised centres of " Young Italy" wherever an opportunity presented itself, spreading wide the net of their conspiracy. The 122 "Young Italy" and its methods [1831-44 opinions of the society were published and disseminated by means of a newspaper which appeared at long and irregular intervals. In this Mazzini and his comrades advised the young men of Italy to lay aside their trivial writings and love poems, and, instead, to devote their literary skill to advancing the good of the people by sacrifices of every kind; they were urged to travel, to bear from land to land and from village to village the torch of liberty, to expound its advantages to the people, to establish and consecrate its cult. They were told to " climb the mountains and share the humble food of the labourer; to visit the workshops and the artisans, hitherto neglected; to speak to them of their rights, of their memories of the past, of their past glories, of their former commerce; to recount to them the endless oppression of which they were ignorant, because no one took it on himself to reveal it." And this appeal found a ready response. At the beginning of 1833, owing to the efforts of Mazzini, the society reckoned 60,000 members. But far more efficacious than the immediate outcome of the organised conspiracy were the permanent results of his patient and burning exhortations, which were destined for some time to work secretly in men's hearts, rather than in action on the battle-field. The unfortunate issue of the pronunciamiento of the Piedmont militia in 1833, and the still more unfortunate result of the invasion of Savoy, which was attempted in the following year by a handful of fanatics, under the leadership of the inexperienced Ramorino, proved that the time was not yet ripe for a serious outbreak, and that common-sense was not the most conspicuous virtue of the followers of Mazzini. But the fiery words of the apostle —who seemed to draw fresh life, fresh courage, from defeat, and, undismayed by the horrors of torture and imprisonment, declared that " ideas grow quickly when watered with the blood of martyrs"—illuminating the civic consciousness of Italy, fulfilled their educative function and produced more effect than a victory or than the fall of a tyrant. This was shown in 1844 by the glorious and touching episode of the two Bandiera brothers, Attilio and Emilio. They were officers in Venice, sons of an Austrian admiral who had played a most important part in suppressing the revolt in Romagna. Filled with enthusiasm by the writings of Mazzini, they resolved to devote their lives to the liberation of their own country. They had won over to their designs Domenico Moro, another Venetian officer of the navy; and these three, leaving the Austrian ships which they commanded, went to Corfu, there to wait until the news of some event in the Peninsula should call them to action. There broke out in Calabria one of those trifling insurrections which were then of such frequent occurrence in the kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and which were invariably repressed without delay. A false or exaggerated account caused the Bandiera to attach more than due importance to the event, and they decided to hasten to the assistance of the rebels. They were 1833-44] Rising in Calabria. — Carlo Alberto 123 joined by a few other patriots, and the little band of nineteen landed at Cotrone and set out for Cosenza. But, betrayed by a companion, they were quickly surrounded by Bourbon troops, and after a short struggle all were captured. Nine of them, including the brothers Bandiera, suffered the extreme penalty, and died bravely, crying, as they fell beneath the bullets of King Ferdinand's soldiers, " Long live Italy." Such heroism was not exceptional at a time when heroism came naturally. But it was the first time that a band of Venetian youths had chosen for the field of their patriotic exertions a remote district in the south of Italy; this was the first solemn manifestation of the brotherhood which linked all the peoples scattered from the rugged Alps to the sun-bathed shores of the blue Ionian Sea. Among the little band which fell crushed by the odious tyranny of the Bourbons in the valley of the Rovito, there were natives of Perugia, of Romagna, of Frosinone, and of Modena; and the diversity of the districts to which the victims belonged was eloquent proof that one programme and one banner had begun to concentrate the aspirations of the Italians, hitherto disunited. Meanwhile, the sympathies of the Liberals were awakening in favour of Carlo Alberto, the sovereign who had once so cruelly disappointed them, and who in 1831 had succeeded Carlo Felice on the throne. The harsh and almost ferocious reaction of 1833, occasioned by a conspiracy in the army of Piedmont, had not succeeded in destroying their affection for him ; and the reforms which he had afterwards effected in his States had sufficed to revive it, especially amongst the more moderate of his subjects. The promulgation of the Civil Code, which included many of the principles originated b)' the French Revolution; that of the Penal Code, which acknowledged the equality of all citzens before the law; the wise and lenient financial administration ; the erection of suitable buildings for the service of the State, prisons, lunatic asylums, and hospitals; the foundation of important institutions of different kinds, such as the Savings Bank, the Commission of National History, and the Department of Statistics — indicated a movement towards more notable and radical changes. Men understood that the King must proceed with caution, that, as he himself asserted, he constantly stood " between the daggers of the Carbonari and the poisoned chocolate of the Jesuits." But, on the other hand, there was ground for hope in one who could write thus to Count Giuseppe Ricci : " Ah, Ricci, the form of Governments is not eternal, we shall march with the times." He was hampered by religious scruples and by the influence of the priests; but all understood that, if these ties could have been severed, or even relaxed, he would have made more generous concessions and would have wielded an avenging sword against the prolonged and shameful oppression of Austria. " At present," he exclaimed, " I should be unwilling to commit any action contrary to the precepts of our holy religion, but I feel assured that to my dying day the words ' Patriotism ' 124 Literature in Italy [1815-46 and 'Freedom from Foreign Rule' will cause my heart to throb." Hence the Church must herself make smooth the way for the bold thoughts which seethed within his breast; the Church must first seem to approve the enterprise which attracted him. This was shortly to come to pass through Cardinal Giovanni Mastai Ferretti, who became Pope on June 16, 1846, with the title of Pius IX. During this period of thirty years, literature, which joined hands with politics, played an important part in the movement of preparation. On the fall of the Italian kingdom the Romantic School established itself; it stood forth as a protest against the old order, against the tyranny of tradition, as a symbol of the sympathy between letters and the spirit of modern society. Hence we see that, in the struggle between the Romantics and the Classicists, which was at its height in the early days of Austrian rule, the Liberals sided with the Romantics and the reactionaries with the Classicists. The Romantics came to regard literature as a weapon against despotism and a means of spreading patriotic ideas. First and foremost among the organs of this new intellectual tendency was the Conciliatore, a review which took up the broken course of the Caffc, and which succeeded in living to one hundred and eighteen numbers, despite the suspicion, the vigilance, and the hostility of the police. The names of its contributors are significant of its spirit ; among them there were Pellico, Berchet, Romagnosi, Porro, and Confalonieri, all of whom risked life and fortune in the conspiracies and rebellions of that time. Between the lines of the literary criticisms, of the articles on art, or of the discussions on political economy, we can decipher the visions, the wishes, the impulses of citizens who dreamed of a free and peaceful Italy ; and the dreams had a fervour which was evident through their disguise, and aroused the suspicions of the Government. The word romantic, says Pellico, was acknowledged to be synonymous with Liberal, and no man dared call himself a classicist unless he were an extremist or a spy. The dramatic output, which at that time was unusually abundant, partook on the whole of the romantic and patriotic character. The taste of that generation revealed itself in the foreign masterpieces chosen for translation; Ferrario's rendering of Schiller's Conspiracy of'Fiesco and William Tell kindled afresh the desire for independence and the hatred of despotic rule. In original drama Pellico showed that under the veil of fiction and through the story of the past it was possible to touch the wounds of the present and to illustrate the hopes of the future. And it is probable that the moving legend of Paolo and Francesca produced less effect on the public than the impetuous words of the former in Act I, and his cry : For thee, for thee, mother of valiant sons, my Italy, 1815-46] The Drama. — Historical works 125 Nor was Manzoni forgetful of the condition of his country whilst composing the Adelchi and the Conte di Carmagnola. In the latter the evils of internal strife and the eagerness of foreigners to profit by it are set forth in the celebrated chorus of the battle of Maclodio; and its noble flow of rebukes and exhortations, which were inspired by the political sentiments of the author, secured for these verses the popularity of a patriotic hymn. In the Adelchi the allusions to the present situation were so unmistakable that the Censor exercised without mercy in several passages his right of suppression, writing in the margin of the manuscript, " For what does Signor Manzoni take us? Does he think that we cannot perceive his meaning? " But Benedetti and Niccolini advancedstill more boldly on the same roads ; the Cola di Rienzo of the former, written between 1820 and 1821, aroused a real enthusiasm; the love of a Colonna for the daughter of Cola was only an episode in the play; the real subject of the tragedy was political revolt; and the inspiration of the poet was naturally Liberal and anti-Papal in character. Hence, by an anachronism which was not wholly illogical, and which often tended to enhance the effect, the play is representative of the feeling of revolutionary Italy. Niccolini, a more subtle artist, attacked the crimes and outrages of Austrian rule under a French mask in Giovanni da Procida; and in Antonio Foscarini he revealed his passion for liberty, which afterwards burst forth audaciously in Arnaldo da Brescia, wherein he set forth how the Emperor and the Pope, acting together, had been the cause in the past and in the present of the servitude of Italy. Even historical works were pervaded by this spirit of opposition to the Governments which had been set up after the Napoleonic era. For instance Cantu, although instructor in a Royal-Imperial College, was so free in the descriptions and the judgments of his History of Como that the censors of Milan and of Como were obliged to alter or suppress part of the work. He was followed by Colletta, who, in his History of the Kingdom of Naples, openly denounced the disappointments and betrayals of the Revolution of 1820. This work is an indictment of the Bourbon Ferdinand I, the production of a merciless inquisitor, who spares no pains to expose before the public all the wrongs committed by this King and his Government. The book is in itself a historical event, because its publication proved that, although some Italians might preach resignation to the will of God, and submission to such princes as He may send, yet there were others who dared to make a solemn protest, and demonstrate that such misfortunes were not caused by Providence, but rather by the weakness of the many, and the wickedness of a few. Throughout the peninsula there was circulated a literature of revolt, the sole aim of which was to inspire men with patriotic feeling and to instigate rebellion — lyric poems, which were really hymns of war; |