Italy

A

4

Period of Prosperity

By the middle of the 15th century Italy had achieved great prosperity and comparative tranquillity. The country stood in the forefront of European nations culturally, having pioneered the great revival of learning and the arts known as the Renaissance. Pre-eminent in this revival was Tuscany, which had produced the great poet Dante Alighieri and the painter Giotto. Near the end of the 15th century Italy became the object of a succession of aggressive wars, waged by France, Spain, and Austria, which culminated in the ascendancy of the Spanish and Austrian Habsburgs. In 1494 King Charles VIII of France undertook to conquer the Kingdom of Naples, then under the rule of the House of Aragón. Charles was induced to conduct this campaign by the Milanese regent Ludovico Sforza and by the citizens of Florence, who were restive under the Medici family. He invaded Italy, occupied Naples, and concluded a treaty with Florence, by the terms of which the Medici were expelled and the pope was brought to submission. In consequence, however, of a league formed against him by Spain, the pope, the Holy Roman Emperor, and the Italian cities of Venice and Milan, Charles was forced to retire from Naples and fight his way out of Italy. This French invasion, although it produced no great political results, was highly important as a means by which Italian culture was disseminated throughout Europe.

B

The Early Modern Age

During the 16th century the various states on the Italian Peninsula fell prey to armies from the more centralized countries of the north. In 1499 King Louis XII of France, successor to Charles VIII, subjugated Milan, which changed hands several times between the French and the Habsburgs. In 1501 Ferdinand V of Castile, who had also been King of Sicily since 1468, reunited Naples and Sicily under one crown. The rivalry between Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, and King Francis I of France led to another French invasion of Italy in 1525. With the Florentines, Genoese, and Venetians as allies, the French were successful at first, but they were ultimately defeated. In the Peace of Cambrai (1529) Francis renounced all his claims to territory in Italy. Although he renewed the conflict in the 1540s, Charles’s domination over Italy could not be broken. On the extinction of Milan’s Sforza dynasty in 1535, Charles also took control of that duchy, which became part of his Spanish Habsburg realm. Milan remained a Spanish possession for almost 200 years. Of the various free cities of Italy a few survived, and of these only Genoa and Venice remained influential. Venice, in its last notable achievement as an independent city, conquered the Pelopónnisus in 1684, but lost it in 1715.

During the 18th century Italy remained divided and controlled by foreigners. Until 1748 it was the site of a succession of European wars, while the balance of power shifted. Venice turned eastwards, the papacy became increasingly insular, and Florence no longer had a central role in the area. The Duchy of Savoy, located between France and the Habsburg possessions in Italy, became a major force in the area. Duke Victor Amadeus II emerged from the War of the Spanish Succession with power and prestige. The Peace of Utrecht (1713) awarded him a royal title and Sicily, which he ceded to Austria in exchange for Sardinia in 1720. The Utrecht treaties also transferred Spain’s holdings in Italy to the Austrians, who exercised dominion in the peninsula throughout most of the second half of the 18th century.

B

1

The Napoleonic Period

In 1796 Napoleon Bonaparte, later Emperor of France, invaded Italy. His victories led to the Treaty of Campo Formio (1797), establishing the Cisalpine and Ligurian republics with the former’s capital at Milan and the latter’s at Genoa. Venice and its territory were given to Austria. Napoleon was crowned King of Italy at Milan in 1805. The next year he took possession of the Kingdom of Naples. The island of Sicily, however, was preserved for the Neapolitan Bourbons by the British fleet. Naples was granted first to Napoleon’s brother Joseph and later to his brother-in-law Joachim Murat. By 1810 even Rome was incorporated into the French empire.

Napoleon’s hold on Italy was weakened by his defeat at Leipzig in 1813 as the Austrians invaded northern Italy and a British fleet occupied Genoa. The Congress of Vienna (1814-1815) led to a restoration of Austrian domination of the peninsula, but Sardinia recovered Piedmont, Nice, and Savoy and acquired Genoa.

C

The Risorgimento

The Italian resistance to Austrian domination, characterized by a growing movement for the unification of Italy and independence, has been termed the Risorgimento. Despite suppressive measures by the petty despots who relied on Austrian statesman Prince Klemens von Metternich, with his astute diplomacy and threat of military intervention, to preserve their rule, a network of secret societies challenged the traditional order. These societies, especially the Carbonari of southern Italy, played a key role in the revolutions of 1820, which were suppressed by Austria.

C

1

Nationalist Movements

The July Revolution of 1830, which drove the Bourbons from the throne of France, had repercussions in Italy. In 1831 insurrections erupted in the Papal States. A congress of representatives from its constituent areas (except Rome and a few cities in the march of Ancona) met in Bologna and adopted a constitution establishing a republican form of government. Responding to the request of Pope Gregory XVI, Austria intervened to suppress the revolutionary movement in the papal domain, and placed Bologna under military surveillance.

After the 1831 death of King Charles Felix of Sardinia, the crown passed to Charles Albert, Prince of Savoy and Piedmont, who, as regent, had proposed granting his people a constitution in 1821. Believing that Charles Albert still held liberal views, the Italian patriot Giuseppe Mazzini exhorted the new king to serve as liberator of Italy. The king answered this appeal by ordering Mazzini’s arrest; nevertheless, patriotic Italians continued to look to the Sardinian monarchy for leadership.

From exile in Marseille, France, in 1831 Mazzini established an organization called Giovine Italia (“Young Italy”) to spread the ideals of nationalism and republicanism to the Italian people. Its goals were education and insurrection, and it inspired several revolutions. As these uprisings were suppressed, some Italians questioned the use of radical tactics, suggesting that the national movement required a more responsible leadership.

The neo-Guelph movement sought to establish an order in which the pope would exercise political as well as spiritual leadership in Italy. In 1846 the nationalist and neo-Guelph movements were quickened by the election of Pope Pius IX, who was perceived as being a liberal and a nationalist. The pope immediately began an extensive programme of reform in the Papal States. An amnesty was proclaimed for political offenders, political exiles were permitted to return, freedom of the press was introduced, the highest government offices were opened to laymen, and a consultative chamber was created to suggest new reforms. The pope’s example was followed by the rulers of Lucca, Tuscany, and Piedmont. Instead of allaying the revolutionary movement, however, the reforms of 1846 and 1847 only intensified it. In January 1848 the people of Palermo drove out the forces of Ferdinand II, King of the Two Sicilies, who responded to the revolutionary outburst on the mainland by granting his Italian subjects a constitution. At the same time Leopold II, Grand Duke of Tuscany, issued a constitution for his duchy. In Turin, Charles Albert, encouraged by Conte Camillo Benso di Cavour, also promised to issue a constitution. Pope Pius IX reluctantly consented to a constitution for the Papal States, although he began to regard the course of events with some apprehension.