ITALY (
Italia), the name
1 applied both in
ancient and in modern times to the great peninsula that projects
from the mass of central
Europe far to the south into the
Mediterranean
Sea, where the island of
Sicily may be considered as a continuation of he
continental promontory. The portion of the Mediterranean commonly
termed the Tyrrhenian Sea forms its limit on the W. and S., and the
Adriatic on the E.; while to the N., where it joins the main
continent of Europe, it is separated from the adjacent regions by
the mighty barrier of the
Alps,
which sweeps round in a vast semicircle from the head of the
Adriatic to the shores of
Nice and
Monaco.
1 On the derivation see below,
History, section A,
ad. init.
Topography
The land thus circumscribed extends between the
parallels of 46° 40' and
36° 38' N., and between 6° 30' and 18° 30' E. Its greatest length
in a straight line along the mainland is from N.W. to S.E., in
which direction it measures 708 m. in a direct line from the
frontier near Courmayeur to Cape Sta Maria di Leuca, south of
Otranto, but the great mountain
peninsula of
Calabria
extends about two degrees farther south to Cape Spartivento in lat.
37° 55'. Its breadth is, owing to its configuration, very
irregular. The northern portion, measured from the Alps at the
Monte Viso to the mouth of the Po, has a breadth of about 270 m.,
while the maximum breadth, from the Rocca Chiardonnet near
Susa to a peak in the valley of the
Isonzo, is 354 m. But the peninsula of Italy, which forms the the
largest portion of the country, nowhere exceeds 150 m. in breadth,
while it does not generally measure more than 100 m. across. Its
southern extremity, Calabria, forms a complete peninsula, being
united to the mass of
Lucania or the
Basilicata by an
isthmus isthmus 35 m. in width, while that
between the gulfs of Sta Eufemia and Squillace, which connects the
two portions of the province, does not exceed 20 m. The area of the
kingdom of Italy, exclusive of the large islands, is computed at
91,277 sq. m. Though the Alps form throughout the northern boundary
of Italy, the exact limits at the extremities of the Alpine chain
are not clearly marked. Ancient geographers appear to have
generally regarded the remarkable headland which descends from the
Maritime Alps to the sea between Nice and Monaco as the limit of
Italy in that direction, and in a purely geographical point of view
it is probably the best point that could be selected. But Augustus,
who was the first to give to Italy a definite political
organization, carried the frontier to the river Varus or
Var, a few miles west of Nice, and this
river continued in modern times to be generally recognized as the
boundary between
France and
Italy. But in 1860 the
annexation Nice and the adjoining territory
to France brought the political frontier farther east, to a point
between
Mentone and
Ventimiglia which constitutes no natural limit.
Towards the north-east, the point where the
Julian Alps approach close to the seashore (just
at the sources of the little stream known in ancient times as the
Timavus) would seem to constitute the best natural limit. But by
Augustus the frontier was carried farther east so as to include
Tergeste (Trieste), and the
little river Formio (Risano) was in the first instance chosen as
the limit, but this was subsequently transferred to the river Arsia
(the Arsa), which flows into the Gulf of Quarnero, so as to include
almost all
Istria; and the
circumstance that the coast of Istria was throughout
the middle ages
held by the Republic of
Venice
tended to perpetuate this arrangement, so that Istria was generally
regarded as belonging to Italy, though certainly not forming any
natural portion of that country. Present
Italian aspirations are similarly directed.
The only other part of the northern frontier of Italy where the
boundary is not clearly marked by nature is
Tirol or the valley of the
Adige. Here the main chain of the Alps (as marked
by watershed) recedes so far to the north that it has never
constituted the frontier. In ancient times the upper valleys of
Adige and its tributaries were inhabited by Raetian tribes and
included in the province of
Raetia; and the line of demarcation between that
province and Italy was purely arbitrary, as it remains to this day.
Tridentum or Trent was in the time of Pliny included in the tenth
region of Italy or
Venetia,
but he tells us that the inhabitants were a Raetian tribe. At the
present day the frontier between
Austria and the kingdom of Italy crosses the
Adige about 30 m. below Trent—that city and its territory, which
previous to the treaty of Lunéville in 1801 was governed by
sovereign archbishops, subject only to the German emperors, being
now included in the Austrian empire.
While the Alps thus constitute the northern boundary of Italy,
configuration and internal
geography are determined almost entirely by
the great chain of the
Apennines, which branches off from the
Maritime Alps between Nice and
Genoa, and, after
etching in an unbroken line from the Gulf of
Genoa to the Adriatic, turns more to the south, and is continued
throughout Central and Southern Italy, of which it forms as it were
the back-bone, until it ends in the southernmost extremity of
Calabria at Cape Spartivento. The great
spur or promontory projecting towards the east to
Brindisi and
Otranto has no direct connexion
with the central chain.
One chief result of the manner in which the Apennines traverse
Italy from the Mediterranean to the Adriatic is the marked division
between Northern Italy, including the region north of the Apennines
and extending thence to the foot of the Alps, and the central and
more southerly portions of the peninsula. No such line of
separation exists farther south, and the terms Central and Southern
Italy, though in general use among geographers and convenient for
descriptive purposes, do not correspond to any natural
divisions.
1. Northern Italy
By far the larger portion of Northern Italy is occupied by the
basin of the Po, which comprises the whole of the broad plain
extending from the foot of the Apennines to that of the Alps,
together with the valleys and slopes on both sides of it. From its
source in Monte Viso to its outflow into the Adriatic—a distance of
more than 220 m. in a direct line&mdsah;the Po receives all the
waters that flow from the Apennines northwards, and all those that
descend from the Alps towards the south, Mincio (the outlet of the
Lake of Garda) inclusive. The next river to the E. is the Adige,
which, after pursuing a parallel course with the Po for a
considerable distance, enters the Adriatic by a separate mouth.
Farther to the N. and N.E. the various rivers of Venetia fall
directly into the Gulf of Venice.
There is no other instance in Europe of a basin of similar
extent equally clearly characterized—the perfectly level character
of the plain being as striking as the boldness with which the lower
slopes of the mountain ranges begin to rise on each side of it.
This is most clearly marked on the side of the Apennines, where the
great Aemilian Way, which has been the high road from the time of
the
Romans to our own,
preserves an unbroken straight line from
Rimini to
Piacenza, a distance of more than 150 m.,
during which the underfalls of the mountains continually approach
it on the left, without once crossing the line of road.
The geography of Northern Italy will be best described by
following the course of the Po. That river has its origin as a
mountain torrent descending from two little dark lakes on the north
flank of Monte Viso, at a height of more than 6000 ft. above the
sea; and after a course of less than 20 m. it enters the plain at
Saluzzo, between which and
Turin, a distance of only 30 m., it receives three considerable
tributaries—the Chisone on its left
bank, bringing down the waters from the
valley of Fenestrelle, and the Varaita and Maira on the south,
contributing those of two valleys of the Alps immediately south of
that of the Po itself. A few miles below Valenza it is joined by
the Tanaro, a large stream, which brings with it the united waters
of the Stura, the Bormida and several minor rivers.
More important are the rivers that descend from the main chain
of the Graian and Pennine Alps and join the Po on its left bank. Of
these the Dora (called for distinctions sake Dora Riparia), which
unites with the greater river just below
Turin, has its source in the Mont Genèvre, and
flows past Susa at the foot of the
Mont Cenis. Next comes the Stura, which
rises in the glaciers of the Roche Melon; then the Orca, flowing
through the Val di Locana; and then the Dora Baltea, one of the
greatest of all the Alpine tributaries of the Po, which has its
source in the glaciers of
Mont Blanc, above Courmayeur, and thence
descends through the Val d'Aosta for about 70 m. till it enters the
plain at
Ivrea, and, after
flowing about 20 m. more, joins the Po a few miles below
Chivasso. This great
valley—one of the most considerable on the southern side of the
Alps—has attracted special attention, in ancient as well as modern
times, from its leading to two of the most frequented passes across
the great mountain chain—the Great and the Little St Bernard—the
former diverging at
Aosta, and
crossing the main ridges to the north into the valley of the
Rhone, the other following a more
westerly direction into
Savoy. Below Aosta also the Dora Baltea receives several
considerable tributaries, which descend from the glaciers between
Mont Blanc and
Monte
Rosa.
About 25 m. below its confluence with the Dora, the Po receives
the Sesia, also a large river, which has its source above Alagna at
the southern foot of Monte Rosa, and after flowing by Varallo and
Vercelli falls into the Po
about 14 m. below the latter city. About 30 m. east of this
confluence—in the course of which the Po makes a great bend south
to Valenza, and then returns again to the northward—it is joined by
the Ticino, a large and rapid river, which brings with it the
outflow of
Lago
Maggiore and all the waters that flow into it. Of these the
Ticino itself has its source about 10 m. above Airolo at the foot
of the St Gotthard, and after flowing above 36 m. through the Val
Leventina to
Bellinzona (where it is joined by the Moësa
bringing down the waters of the Val Misocco) enters the lake
through a marshy plain at Magadino, about 10 m. distant. Or the
west side of the lake the Toccia or Tosa descends from the pass of
the Gries nearly due south to Domodossola, where it receives the
waters of the Doveria from the Simplon, and a few miles lower down
those of the Val d'Anzasca from the foot of Monte Rosa, and 12 m.
farther has its outlet into the lake between
Baveno and
Pallanza. The Lago Maggiore is also the
receptacle of the waters of the Lago di
Lugano on the east and the Lago d'Orta on the
west.
The next great affluent of the Po, the
Adda, forms the outflow of the Lake of
Como, and has also its sources in the
Alps, above
Bormio, whence it
flows through the broad and fertile valley of the
Valtellina for more than
65 m. till it enters the lake near Colico. The Adda in this part of
its course has a direction almost due east to west; but at the
point where it reaches the lake, the Liro descends the valley of S.
Giacomo, which runs nearly north and south from the pass of the
Splügen, thus affording one of the most direct lines of
communication across the Alps. The Adda flows out of the lake at
its south-eastern extremity at
Lecco, and has thence a course through the plain
of above 70 m. till it enters the Po between Piacenza and
Cremona. It flows by
Lodi and Pizzighettone, and receives
the waters of the Brembo, descending from the Val Brembana, and the
Serio from the Val Seriana above
Bergamo. The Oglio, a more considerable stream
than either of the last two, rises in the Monte Tonale above Edolo,
and descends through the Val Camonica to
Lovere, where it expands into a large lake,
called Iseo from the town of that name on its southern shore.
Issuing thence at its southwest extremity, the Oglio has a long and
winding course through the plain before it finally reaches the Po a
few miles above Borgoforte. In this lower part it receives the
smaller streams of the Mella, which flows by
Brescia, and the Chiese, which proceeds from
the small Lago d'Idro, between the Lago d'Iseo and that of
Garda.
The last of the great tributaries of the Po is the Mincio, which
flows from the Lago di Garda, and has a course of about 40 m. from
Peschiera, where it issues from the lake at its south-eastern
angle, till it joins the Po. About 12 m. above the confluence it
passes under the walls of
Mantua, and expands into a broad lake-like reach
so as entirely to encircle that city. Notwithstanding its extent,
the Lago di Garda is not fed by the snows of the high Alps, nor is
the stream which enters it at its northern extremity (at Riva)
commonly known as the Mincio, though forming the main source of
that river, but is termed the Sarca; it rises at the foot of Monte
Tonale.
The Adige, formed by the junction of two streams—the Etsch or
Adige proper and the Eisak, both of which belong to Tirol rather
than to Italy—descends as far as
Verona, where it enters the great plain, with a
course from north to south nearly parallel to the rivers last
described, and would seem likely to discharge its waters into those
of the Po, but below
Legnago
it turns eastward and runs parallel to the Po for about 40 m.,
entering the Adriatic by an independent mouth about 8 m. from the
northern outlet of the greater stream. The waters of the two rivers
have, however, been made to communicate by artificial cuts and
canals in more than one place.
The Po itself, which is here a very large stream, with an
average width of 400 to 600 yds., continues to flow with an
undivided mass of waters as far as Sta Maria di Ariano, where it
parts into two arms, known as the Po di Maestra and Po di Goro, and
these again are subdivided into several other branches, forming a
delta above 20 m. in width from
north to south. The point of bifurcation, at present about 25 m.
from the sea, was formerly much farther inland, more than 10 m.
west of
Ferrara, where a
small arm of the river, still called the Po di Ferrara, branches
from the main stream. Previous to the year 1154 this channel was
the main stream, and the two small branches into which it
subdivides, called the Po di Volano and Po di Primaro, were in
early times the two main outlets of the river. The southernmost of
these, the Po di Primaro, enters the Adriatic about 12 m. north of
Ravenna, so that if these
two arms be included, the delta of the Po extends about 36 m. from
south to north. The whole course of the river, including its
windings, is estimated at about 450 m.
Besides the delta of the Po and the large marshy tracts which it
forms, there exist on both sides of it extensive lagoons of
salt water, generally separated from
the Adriatic by narrow strips of
sand or embankments, partly natural and partly
artificial, but havin openings which admit the influx and efflux of
the sea-water, and serve as ports for communication with the
mainland. The best known and the most extensive of these lagoons is
that in which Venice is situated, which extends from
Torcello in the north to
Chioggia and Brondolo in the
south, a distance of above 40 m.; but they were formerly much more
extensive, and afforded a continuous means of internal navigation,
by what were called "the Seven Seas" (Septem Maria), from Ravenna
to
Altinum, a few miles
north of Torcello. That city, like Ravenna, originally stood in the
midst of a
lagoon; and the
coast east of it to near Monfalcone, where it meets the mountains,
is occupied by similar expanses of water, which are, however,
becoming gradually converted into dry land.
The tract adjoining this long line of lagoons is, like the basin
of the Po, a broad expanse of perfectly level alluvial plain,
extending from the Adige eastwards to the Carnic Alps, where they
approach close to the Adriatic between
Aquileia and
Trieste, and northwards to the foot of the
great chain, which here sweeps round in a semicircle from the
neighborhood of
Vicenza to
that of Aquileia. The space thus included was known in ancient
times as Venetia, a name applied in the middle ages to the
well-known city; the eastern portion of it became known in the
middle ages as the Frioul or
Friuli.
Returning to the south of the Po, the tributaries of that river
on its right bank below the Tanaro are very inferior in volume and
importance to those from the north. Flowing from the Ligurian
Apennines, which never attain the limit of perpetual
snow, they generally dwindle in
summer into insignificant streams. Beginning from the Tanaro, the
principal of them are—(1) the Scrivia, a small but rapid stream
flowing from the Apennines at the back of Genoa; (2) the Trebbia, a
much larger river, though of the same torrent-like character, which
rises near Torriglia within 20 m. of Genoa, flows by
Bobbio, and joins the Po a few
miles above Piacenza; (3) the Nure, a few miles east of the
preceding; (4) the Taro, a more considerable stream; (5) the Parma,
flowing by the
city of the same
name; (6) the Enza; (7) the Secchia, which flows by
Modena; (8) the Panaro, a few
miles to the east of that city; (9) the
Reno, which flows by
Bologna, but instead of holding its course till
it discharges its waters into the Po, as it did in Roman times, is
turned aside by an artificial channel into the Po di Primaro. The
other small streams east of this—of which the most considerable are
the Solaro, the Santerno, flowing by
Imola, the Lamone by
Faenza, the Montone by
Forlì, all in Roman times tributaries of the
Po—have their outlet in like manner into the Po di Primaro, or by
artificial mouths into the Adriatic between Ravenna and Rimini. The
river Marecchia, which enters the sea immediately north of Rimini,
may be considered as the natural limit of Northern Italy. It was
adopted by Augustus as the boundary of Gallia Cispadana; the
far-famed
Rubicon was a
trifling stream a few miles farther north, now called Fiumicino.
The Savio is the only other stream of any importance which has
always flowed directly into the Adriatic from this side of the
Tuscan Apennines.
The narrow strip of coast-land between the Maritime Alps, the
Apennines and the sea—called in ancient times
Liguria, and now known as the
Riviera of Genoa—is throughout
its extent, from Nice to Genoa on the one side, and from Genoa to
Spezia on the other, almost
wholly mountainous. It is occupied by the branches and offshoots of
the mountain ranges which separate it from the great plain to the
north, and send down their lateral ridges close to the water's
edge, leaving only in places a few square miles of level plains at
the mouths of the rivers and openings of the valleys. The district
is by no means devoid of fertility, the steep slopes facing the
south enjoying so fine a climate as to render them very favorable
for the growth of
fruit trees,
especially the
olive, which is
cultivated in terraces to a considerable height up the face of the
mountains, while the openings of the valleys are generally occupied
by towns or villages, some of which have become favorite winter
resorts.
From the proximity of the mountains to the sea none of the
rivers in this part of Italy has a long course, and they are
generally mere mountain torrents, rapid and swollen in winter and
spring, and almost dry in summer. The largest and most important
are those which descend from the Maritime Alps between Nice and
Albenga. The most considerable
of them are—the Roja, which rises in the
Col di Tenda and descends to
Ventimiglia; the Taggia, between
San Remo and Oneglia; and the
Centa, which enters the sea at Albenga. The
Lavagna, which enters the sea at
Chiavari, is the only stream
of any importance between Genoa and the Gulf of Spezia. But
immediately east of that inlet (a remarkable instance of a deep
landlocked gulf with no river flowing into it) the Magra, which
descends from
Pontremoli down the valley known as the
Lunigiana, is a large stream, and brings with it the waters of
another considerable stream, the Vara. The Magra (Macra), in
ancient times the boundary between Liguria and
Etruria, may be considered as constituting on
this side the limit of Northern Italy.
The
Apennines
(
q.v.), as has been already mentioned, here traverse the
whole breadth of Italy, cutting off the peninsula properly so
termed from the broader mass of Northern Italy by a continuous
barrier of considerable breadth, though of far inferior elevation
to that of the Alps The Ligurian Apennines may be considered as
taking their rise in the neighborhood of
Savona, where a pass of very moderate elevation
connects them with the Maritime Alps, of which they are in fact
only a continuation. From the neighbourhood of Savona to that of
Genoa they do not rise to more than 3000 tO 4000 ft., and are
traversed by passes of less than 2000 ft. As they extend towards
the east they increase in elevation; the Monte Bue rises to 5915
ft., while the Monte Cimone, a little farther east, attains 7103
ft. This is the highest point in the northern Apennines, and
belongs to a group of summits of nearly equal
altitude; the range which is continued thence
between
Tuscany and what are
now known as the Emilian provinces presents a continuous ridge from
the mountains at the head of the Val di Mugello (due north of
Florence) to the point where they are traversed by the celebrated
Furlo Pass. The highest point in this part of the range is the
Monte Falterona, above the sources of the
Arno, which
attains 5410 ft. Throughout this tract the Apennines are generally
covered with extensive forests of
chestnut,
oak
and
beech; while their upper
slopes afford admirable pasturage. Few towns of any importance are
found either on their northern or southern declivity, and the
former region especially, though occupying a tract of from 30 to 40
m. in width, between the
crest
of the Apennines and the plain of the Po, is one of the least known
and at the same time least interesting portions of Italy.
2. Central Italy
The geography of Central Italy is almost wholly determined by
the Apennines, which traverse it in a direction from about
north-north-east to south-south-west, almost precisely parallel to
that of the coast of the Adriatic from
Rimini to
Pescara.
The line of the highest summits and of the
watershed ranges is about 30 to 40 m. from
the Adriatic, while about double that distance separates it from
the Tyrrhenian Sea on the west. In this part of the range almost
all the highest points of the Apennines are found. Beginning from
the group called the Alpi della Luna near the sources of the
Tiber, which attain 4435 ft., they
are continued by the Monte Nerone (5010 ft.), Monte Catria (5590),
and Monte Maggio to the Monte Pennino near Nocera (5169 ft.), and
thence to the Monte della Sibilla, at the source of the Nar or
Nera, which attains 7663 ft. Proceeding thence southwards, we find
in succession the Monte Vettore (8128 ft.), the Pizzo di Sevo (7945
ft.), and the two great mountain masses of the Monte Corno,
commonly called the
Gran Sasso d'Italia, the most lofty
of all the Apennines, attaining to a height of 9560 ft., and the
Monte della Maiella, its highest summit measuring 9170 ft. Farther
south no very lofty summits are found till we come to the group of
Monti del Matese, in Samnium (6660 ft.), which according to the
division here adopted belongs to Southern Italy. Besides the lofty
central masses enumerated there are two other lofty peaks, outliers
from the main range, and separated from it by valleys of
considerable extent. These are the Monte Terminillo, near Leonessa
(7278 ft.), and the Monte Velino near the Lake Fucino, rising to
8192 ft., both of which are covered with snow from November till
May. But the Apennines of Central Italy, instead of presenting,
like the Alps and the northern Apennines, a definite central ridge,
with transverse valleys leading down from it on both sides, in
reality constitute a mountain mass of very considerable breadth,
composed of a number of minor ranges and groups of mountains, which
preserve a generally parallel direction, and are separated by
upland valleys, some of them of considerable extent as well as
considerable elevation above the sea. Such is the basin of Lake
Fucino, situated in the centre of the mass, almost exactly midway
between the two seas, at an elevation of 2180 ft. above them; while
the upper valley of the Aterno, in which
Aquila is situated, is 2380 ft. above the sea.
Still more elevated is the valley of the Gizio (a tributary of the
Aterno), of which
Sulmona is
the chief town. This communicates with the upper valley of the
Sangro by a level plain called the Piano di Cinque Miglia, at an
elevation of 4298 ft., regarded as the most wintry spot in Italy.
Nor do the highest summits form a continuous ridge of great
altitude for any considerable distance; they are rather a series of
groups separated by tracts of very inferior elevation forming
natural passes across the range, and broken in some places (as is
the case in almost all
limestone countries) by the waters from the
upland valleys turning suddenly at right angles, and breaking
through the mountain ranges which bound them. Thus the Gran Sasso
and the Maiella are separated by the deep valley of the Aterno,
while the Tronto breaks through the range between Monte Vettore and
the Pizzo di Sevo. This constitution of the great mass of the
central Apennines has in all ages exercised an important influence
upon the character of this portion of Italy, which may be
considered as divided by nature into two great regions, a cold and
barren upland country, bordered on both sides by rich and fertile
tracts, enjoying a warm but temperate climate.
The district west of the Apennines, a region of great beauty and
fertility, though inferior in productiveness to Northern Italy,
coincides in a general way with the countries familiar to all
students of ancient history as Etruria and
Latium. Until the union of Italy they were
comprised in
Tuscany and the
southern Papal States. The northern part of Tuscany is indeed
occupied to a considerable extent by the underfalls and offshoots
of the Apennines, which, besides the slopes and spurs of the main
range that constitutes its northern frontier towards the plain of
the Po, throw off several outlying ranges or groups. Of these the
most remarkable is the group between the valleys of the Serchio and
the Magra, commonly known as the mountains of
Carrara, from the celebrated
marble quarries in the vicinity of that city.
Two of the summits of this group, the Pizzo d'Uccello and the Pania
della Croce, attain 6155 and 6100 ft. Another lateral rsnge, the
Prato Magno, which branches off from the central chain at the Monte
Falterona, and separates the upper valley of the
Arno from its
second basin, rises to 5188 ft.; while a similar branch, called the
Alpe di Catenaja, of inferior elevation, divides the upper course
of the Arno from that of the Tiber.
The rest of this tract is for the most part a hilly, broken
country, of moderate elevation, but Monte Amiata, near Radicofani,
an isolated mass of volcanic origin, attains a height of 5650 ft.
South of this the country between the frontier of Tuscany and the
Tiber is in great part of volcanic origin, forming hills with
distinct
crater-shaped basins,
in several instances occupied by small lakes (the Lake of
Bolsena, Lake of Vico and Lake
of
Bracciano). This
volcanic tract extends across the Campagna of
Rome, till it rises again in the lofty group of
the Alban hills, the highest summit of which, the Monte Cavo, is
3160 ft. above the sea. In this part the Apennines are separated
from the sea, distant about 30 m. by the undulating volcanic plain
of the Roman Campagna, from which the mountains rise in a wall-like
barrier, of which the highest point, the Monte Gennaro, attains
4165 ft. South of Palestrina again, the main mass of the Apennines
throws off another lateral mass, known in ancient times as the
Volscian mountains (now called the Monti Lepini), separated from
the central ranges by the broad valley of the Sacco, a tributary of
the
Liri (Liris) or Garigliano,
and forming a large and rugged mountain mass, nearly 5000 ft. in
height, which descends to the sea at
Terracina, and between that point and the
mouth of the Liri throws out several rugged mountain headlands,
which may be considered as constituting the natural boundary
between Latium and
Campania, and consequently the natural
limit of Central Italy. Besides these offshoots of the Apennines
there are in this part of Central Italy several detached mountains,
rising almost like islands on the seashore, of which the two most
remarkable are the Monte Argentaro on the coast of Tuscany near
Orbetello (2087 ft.) and
the Monte Circello (1771 ft.) at the angle of the Pontine Marshes,
by the whole breadth of which it is separated from the Volscian
Apennines.
The two valleys of the Arno and the Tiber (Ital.
Tevere) may be considered as furnishing the key to the
geography of all this portion of Italy west of the Apennines. The
Arno, which has its source in the Monte Falterona, one of the most
elevated summits of the main chain of the Tuscan Apennines, flows
nearly south till in the neighborhood of
Arezzo it turns abruptly north-west, and pursues
that course as far as Pontassieve, where it again makes a sudden
bend to the west, and pursues a westerly course thence to the sea,
passing through
Florence
and
Pisa. Its principal tributary
is the
Sieve, which joins it at
Pontassieve, bringing down the waters of the Val di Mugello. The
Elsa and the Era, which join it on its left bank, descending from
the hills near
Siena and
Volterra, are inconsiderable
streams; and the Serchio, which flows from the territory of
Lucca and the Alpi Apuani, and
formerly joined the Arno a few miles from its mouth, now enters the
sea by a separate channel. The most considerable rivers of Tuscany
south of the Arno are the Cecina, which flows through the plain
below Volterra, and the Ombrone, which rises in the hills near
Siena, and enters the sea about 12 m. below
Grosseto.
The Tiber, a much more important river than the Arno, and the
largest in Italy with the exception of the Po, rises in the
Apennines, about 20 m. east of the source of the Arno, and flows
nearly south by Borgo S. Sepolcro and Città di Castello, then
between
Perugia and
Todi to Orte, just below which it
receives the Nera. The Nera, which rises in the lofty group of the
Monte della Sibilla, is a considerable stream, and brings with it
the waters of the Velino (with its tributaries the Turano and the
Salto), which joins it a few
miles below its celebrated
waterfall at
Terni. The Teverone or Anio, which enters the
Tiber a few miles above Rome, is an inferior stream to the Nera,
but brings down a considerable body of water from the mountains
above
Subiaco. It is a
singular fact in the geography of Central Italy that the valleys of
the Tiber and Arno are in some measure connected by that of the
Chiana, a level and marshy tract,
the waters from which flow partly into the Arno and partly into the
Tiber.
The eastern declivity of the central Apennines towards the
Adriatic is far less interesting and varied than the western. The
central range here approaches much nearer to the sea, and hence,
with few exceptions, the rivers that flow from it have short
courses and are of comparatively little importance. They may be
enumerated, proceeding from Rimini southwards: (1) the Foglia; (2)
the Metauro, of historical celebrity, and affording access to one
of the most frequented passes of the Apennines; (3) the Esino; (4)
the Potenza; (5) the Chienti; (6) the Aso; (7) the Tronto; (8) the
Vomano; (9) the Aterno; (10) the Sangro; (11) the Trigno, which
forms the boundary of the southernmost province of the Abruzzi, and
may therefore be taken as the limit of Central Italy.
The whole of this portion of Central Italy is a hilly country,
much broken and cut up by the torrents from the mountains, but
fertile, especially in fruit-trees, olives and vines; and it has
been, both in ancient and modern times, a populous district,
containing many small towns though no great cities. Its chief
disadvantage is the absence of ports, the coast preserving an
almost unbroken straight line, with the single exception of
Ancona, the only port worthy of
the name on the eastern coast of Central Italy.
3. Southern Italy
The great central mass of the Apennines, which has held its
course throughout Central Italy, with a general direction from
north-west to south-east, may be considered as continued in the
same direction for about 100 m. farther, from the basin-shaped
group of the Monti del Matese (which rises to 6660 ft.) to the
neighbourhood of Potenza, in the heart of the province of
Basilicata, corresponding
nearly to the ancient
Lucania. The whole of the district known in
ancient times as Samnium (a part of which retains the name of
Sannio, though officially designated the province of Campobasso) is
occupied by an irregular mass of mountains, of much inferior height
to those of Central Italy, and broken up into a number of groups,
intersected by rivers, which have for the most part a very tortuous
course. This mountainous tract, which has an average breadth of
from 50 to 60 m., is bounded west by the plain of Campania, now
called the Terra di Lavoro, and east by the much broader and more
extensive tract of
Apulia or
Puglia, composed partly of level plains, but for the most part of
undulating
downs, contrasting
strongly with the mountain ranges of the Apennines, which rise
abruptly above them. The central mass of the mountains, however,
throws out two outlying ranges, the one to the west, which
separates the Bay of
Naples
from that of
Salerno, and
culminates in the Monte S. Angelo above Castellammare (4720 ft.),
while the detached volcanic cone of
Vesuvius (nearly 4000 ft.) is isolated from
the neighboring mountains by an intervening strip of plain. On the
east side in like manner the
Monte Gargano (3465 ft.), a detached
limestone mass which projects in a bold spur-like promontory into
the Adriatic, forming the only break in the otherwise uniform
coast-line of Italy on that sea, though separated from the great
body of the Apennines by a considerable interval of low country,
may be considered as merely an outlier from the central mass.
From the neighborhood of Potenza, the main ridge of the
Apennines is continued by the Monti della Maddalena in a direction
nearly due south, so that it approaches within a short distance of
the Gulf of Policastro, whence it is carried on as far as the Monte
Pollino, the last of the lofty summits of the Apennine chain, which
exceeds 7000 ft. in height. The range is, however, continued
through the province now called Calabria, to the southern extremity
or toe of Italy, but presents in this part a very much altered
character, the broken limestone range which is the true
continuation of the chain as far as the neighbourhood of
Nicastro and
Catanzaro, and keeps close
to the west coast, being flanked on the east by a great mass of
granitic mountains, rising to about 6000 ft., and covered with vast
forests, from which it derives the name of La
Sila. A similar mass, separated from the preceding
by a low neck of
Tertiary
hills, fills up the whole of the peninsular extremity of Italy from
Squillace to Reggio. Its highest point is called
Aspromonte (6420
ft.).
While the rugged and mountainous district of Calabria, extending
nearly due south for a distance of more than 150 m., thus derives
its character and configuration almost wholly from the range of the
Apennines, the long spur-like promontory which projects towards the
east to Brindisi and Otranto is merely a continuation of the low
tract of Apulia, with a dry calcareous soil of Tertiary origin. The
Monte Volture, which rises in the neighborhood of
Melfi and
Venosa to 4357 ft., is of volcanic origin, and
in great measure detached from the adjoining mass of the Apennines.
Eastward from this the ranges of low bare hills called the Murgie
of
Gravina and
Altamura gradually sink into
the still more moderate level of those which constitute the
peninsular tract between Brindisi and
Taranto as far as the Cape of Sta Maria di
Leuca, the south-east extremity of Italy. This projecting tract,
which may be termed the "heel" or "spur" of Southern Italy, in
conjunction with the great promontory of Calabria, forms the deep
Gulf of Taranto, about 70 m. in width, and somewhat greater depth,
which receives a number of streams from the central mass of the
Apennines.
None of the rivers of Southern Italy is of any great importance.
The Liri (Liris) or Garigliano, which has its source in the central
Apennines above
Sora, not far from
Lake Fucino, and enters the Gulf of
Gaeta about 10 m. east of the city of that name,
brings down a considerable body of water; as does also the
Volturno, which rises in the
mountains between Castel di Sangro and Agnone, flows past Isernia,
Venafro and Capua, and enters the sea about 15 m. from the mouth of
the Garigliano. About 16 m. above Capua it receives the Calore,
which flows by
Benevento. The Silarus or Sele enters the
Gulf of Salerno a few miles below the ruins of
Paestum. Below this the watershed of the
Apennines is too near to the sea on that side to allow the
formation of any large streams. Hence the rivers that flow in the
opposite direction into the Adriatic and the Gulf of Taranto have
much longer courses, though all partake of the character of
mountain torrents, rushing down with great violence in winter and
after storms, but dwindling in the summer into scanty streams,
which hold a winding and sluggish course through the great plains
of Apulia. Proceeding south from the Trigno, already mentioned as
constituting the limit of Central Italy, there are (1) the Biferno
and (2) the Fortore, both rising in the mountains of Samnium, and
flowing into the Adriatic west of Monte Gargano; (3) the Cervaro,
south of the great promontory; and (4) the Ofanto, the Aufidus of
Horace, whose description of
it is characteristic of almost all the rivers of Southern Italy, of
which it may be taken as the typical representative. It rises about
15 m. west of Conza, and only about 25 m. from the Gulf of Salerno,
so that it is frequently (though erroneously) described as
traversing the whole range of the Apennines. In its lower course it
flows near
Canosa and
traverses the celebrated battlefield of
Cannae. (5) The Bradano, which rises near
Venosa, almost at the foot of Monte Volture, flows towards the
south-east into the Gulf of Taranto, as do the Basento, the Agri
and the Sinni, all of which descend from the central chain of the
Apennines south of Potenza. The Crati, which flows from
Cosenza northwards, and then
turns abruptly eastward to enter the same gulf, is the only stream
worthy of notice in the rugged peninsula of Calabria; while the
arid limestone hills projecting eastwards to Capo di Leuca do not
give rise to anything more than a mere streamlet, from the mouth of
the Ofanto to the south-eastern extremity of Italy.
Lakes
The only important lakes are those on or near the north
frontier, formed by the expansion of the tributaries of the Po.
They have been already noticed in connection with the rivers by
which they are formed, but may be again enumerated in order of
succession. They are, proceeding from west to east, (1) the Lago
d'Orta, (2) the Lago Maggiore, (3) the Lago di Lugano, (4) the Lago
di Como, (5) the Lago d'Iseo, (6) the Lago d'Idro, and (7) the Lago
di Garda. Of these the last named is considerably the largest,
covering an area of 143 sq. m. It is 32¼ m. long by 10 broad; while
the Lago Maggiore, notwithstanding its name, though considerably
exceeding it in length (37 m.), falls materially below it in
superficial extent. They are all of great depth—the Lago Maggiore
having an extreme depth of 1198 ft., while that of Como attains to
1365 ft. Of a wholly different character is the Lago di
Varese, between the Lago Maggiore
and that of Lugano, which is a mere shallow expanse of water,
surrounded by hills of very moderate elevation. Two other small
lakes in the same neighbourhood, as well as those of Erba and
Pusiano, between Como and Lecco, are of a similar character.
The lakes of Central Italy, which are comparatively of trifling
dimensions, belong to a wholly different class. The most important
of these, the Lacus Fucinus of the ancients, now called the Lago di
Celano, situated almost
exactly in the centre of the peninsula, occupies a basin of
considerable extent, surrounded by mountains and without any
natural outlet, at an elevation of more than 2000 ft. Its waters
have been in great part carried off by an artificial channel, and
more than half its surface laid bare. Next in size is the Lago
Trasimeno, a broad expanse of shallow waters, about 30 m. in
circumference, surrounded by low hills. The neighbouring lake of
Chiusi is of similar character,
but much smaller dimensions. All the other lakes of Central Italy,
which are scattered through the volcanic districts west of the
Apennines, are of an entirely difierent formation, and occupy deep
cup-shaped hollows, which have undoubtedly at one time formed the
craters of extinct volcanoes. Such is the Lago di Bolsena, near the
city of the same name, which is an extensive sheet of water, as
well as the much smaller Lago di Vico (the Ciminian lake of ancient
writers) and the Lago di Bracciano, nearer Rome, while to the south
of Rome the well known lakes of Albano and Nemi have a similar
origin.
The only lake properly so called in southern Italy is the Lago
del Matese, in the heart of the mountain group of the same name, of
small extent. The so-called lakes on the coast of the Adriatic
north and south of the promontory of Gargano are brackish lagoons
communicating with the sea.
Islands
The three great islands of
Sicily,
Sardinia and
Corsica are closely connected with Italy, both
by geographical position and community of language, but they are
considered at length in separate articles. Of the smaller islands
that lie near the coasts of Italy, the most considerable is that of
Elba, off the west coast of
central Italy, about 50 m. S. of
Leghorn, and separated from the mainland at
Piombino by a strait of only
about 6 m. in width. North of this, and about midway between
Corsica and Tuscany, is the small island of
Capraia, steep and rocky, and only 4½ m. long,
but with a secure port; Gorgona, about 25 m. farther north, is
still smaller, and is a mere rock, inhabited by a few fishermen.
South of Elba are the equally insignificant islets of
Pianosa and
Montecristo, while the
more considerable island of
Giglio lies much nearer the mainland,
immediately opposite the mountain promontory of Monte Argentaro,
itself almost an island. The islands farther south in the
Tyrrhenian Sea are of an entirely different character. Of these
Ischia and
Procida, close to the northern headland of the
Bay of Naples, are of volcanic origin, as is the case also with the
more distant group of the Ponza Islands. These are three in number
Ponza, Palmarola and Zannone;
while Ventotene (also of volcanic formation) is about midway
between Ponza and Ischia. The island of
Capri, on the other hand, opposite the southern
promontory of the Bay of Naples, is a precipitous limestone rock.
The Aeolian or
Lipari Islands, a remarkable volcanic
group, belong rather to Sicily than to Italy, though Stromboli, the
most easterly of them, is about equidistant from Sicily and from
the mainland.
The Italian coast of the Adriatic presents a great contrast to
its opposite shores, for while the coast of
Dalmatia is bordered by a succession of
islands, great and small, the long and uniform coast-line of Italy
from Otranto to Rimini presents not a single adjacent island; and
the small outlying group of the Tremiti Islands (north of the Monte
Gargano and about 15 m. from the mainland) alone breaks the
monotony of this part of the Adriatic.
Geology
The
geology of Italy is
mainly dependent upon that of the
Apennines (
q.v.). On each side of
that great chain are found extensive Tertiary deposits, sometimes,
as in Tuscany, the district of Monferrat, &c., forming a
broken, hilly country, at others spreading into broad plains or
undulating downs, such as the Tavoliere of Puglia, and the tract
that forms the spur of Italy from
Bari to
Otranto.
Besides these, and leaving out of account the islands, the
Italian peninsula presents four distinct volcanic districts. In
three of them the volcanoes are entirely extinct, while the fourth
is still in great activity.
1. The Euganean hills form a small group extending for about 10
m. from the neighborhood of
Padua to
Este,
and separated from the lower offshoots of the Alps by a portion of
the wide plain of Padua. Monte Venda, their highest peak, is 1890
ft. high.
2. The Roman district, the largest of the four, extends from the
hills of Albano to the frontier of Tuscany, and from the lower
slopes of the Apennines to the Tyrrhenian Sea. It may be divided
into three groups: the Monti
Albani, the second highest
1 of which,
Monte Cavo (3115 ft.), is the ancient Mons Albanus, on the summit
of which stood the temple of
Jupiter Latialis, where the assemblies of the
cities forming the
Latin confederation were
held; the Monti Cimini, which extend from the valley of the Tiber
to the neighbourhood of
Civita Vecchia, and attain at their
culminating point an elevation of 3454 ft.; and the mountains of
Radicofani and Monte Amiata, the latter of which is 5688 ft. high.
The lakes of Bolsena (Vulsiniensis), of Bracciano (Sabatinus), of
Vico (Ciminus), of Albano (Albanus), of Nemi (Nemorensis), and
other smaller lakes belong to this district; while between its
south-west extremity and Monte Circello the Pontine Marshes form a
broad strip of alluvial soil infested by
malaria.
3. The volcanic region of the Terra di Lavoro is separated by
the Volscian mountains from the Roman district. It maybe also
divided into three groups. Of Roccamonfina, at the N.N.W. end of
the Campanian Plain, the highest cone, called Montagna di Santa
Croce, is 3291 ft. The Phlegraean Fields embrace all the country
round
Baiae and
Pozzuoli and the adjoining
islands. Monte Barbaro (Gaurus), north-east of the site of
Cumae, Monte San Nicola (Epomeus),
2589 ft. in Ischia, and Camaldoli, 1488 ft., west of Naples, are
the highest cones. The lakes Averno (Avernus), Lucrino (Lucrinus),
Fusaro (Palus Acherusia), and Agnano are within this group, which
has shown activity in historical times. A stream of
lava issued in 1198 from the crater of the
Solfatara, which still
continues to exhale
steam and
noxious gases; the Lava dell' Arso came out of the N.E. flank of
Monte Epomeo in 1302; and Monte Nuovo, north-west of Pozzuoli (455
ft.), was thrown up in three days in September 1538. Since its
first historical eruption in AD. 79, Vesuvius or Somina, which
forms the third group, has been in constant activity. The Punta del
Nasone, the highest point of Somma, is 3714 ft. high, while the
Punta del Palo, the highest point of the brim of the crater of
Vesuvius, varies materially with successive eruptions from 3856 to
4275 ft.
4. The Apulian volcanic formation consists of the great mass of
Monte Volture, which rises at the west end of the plains of Apulia,
on the frontier of Basilicata, and is surrounded by the Apennines
on its south-west and north-west sides. Its highest peak, the
Pizzuto di Melfi, attains an elevation of 4365 ft. Within the
widest crater there are the two small lakes of Monticchio and San
Michele. In connection with the volcanic districts we may mention
Le Mofete, the pools of
Ampsanctus, in a wooded valley S.E. of
Frigento, in the province of
Avellino, Campania (Virgil,
Aeneid,
vii. 563-571). The largest is not more than 160 ft. in
circumference, and 7 ft. deep.
The whole of the great plain of
Lombardy is covered by
Pleistocene and recent deposits. It is a
great depression—the continuation of the Adriatic Sea—filled up by
deposits brought down by the rivers from the mountains. The
depression was probably formed during the later stages of the
growth of the Alps.
1The actual highest point is the Maschio delle Faete
(3137 ft.). (See
Albanus Mons.)
Climate and Vegetation
The geographical position of Italy, extending from about 46° to
38° N., renders it one of the hottest countries in Europe. But the
effect of its southern
latitude is tempered by its peninsular
character, bounded as it is on both sides by seas of considerable
extent, as well as by the great range of the Alps with its snows
and glaciers to the north. There are thus irregular variations of
climate. Great differences also exist with regard to climate
between northern and southern Italy, due in great part to other
circumstances as well as to differences of latitude. Thus the great
plain of northern Italy is chilled by the cold winds from the Alps,
while the
damp warm winds from the
Mediterranean are to a great extent intercepted by the Ligurian
Apennines. Hence this part of the country has a cold winter
climate, so that while the mean summer temperature of
Milan is higher than that of
Sassari, and equal to that of
Naples, and the extremes
reached at Milan and
Bologna
are a good deal higher than those of Naples, the mean winter
temperature of
Turin is actually
lower than that of
Copenhagen. The lowest recorded winter
temperature at Turin is 5° Fahr. Throughout the region north of the
Apennines no plants will thrive which cannot stand occasional
severe frosts in winter, so that not only oranges and lemons but
even the olive
tree cannot be
grown, except in specially favoured situations. But the strip of
coast between the Apennines and the sea, known as the Riviera of
Genoa, is not only extremely favourable to the growth of olives,
but produces oranges and lemons in abundance, while even the
aloe, the
cactus and the
palm flourish in many places.
Central Italy also presents striking differences of climate and
temperature according to the greater or less proximity to the
mountains. Thus the greater part of Tuscany, and the provinces
thence to Rome, enjoy a mild winter climate, and are well adapted
to the growth of mulberries and olives as well as vines, but it is
not till after passing Terracina, in proceeding along the western
coast towards the south, that the vegetation of southern Italy
develops in its full luxuriance. Even in the central parts of
Tuscany, however, the climate is very much affected by the
neighboring mountains, and the increasing elevation of the
Apennines as they proceed south produces a corresponding effect
upon the temperature. But it is when we reach the central range of
the Apennines that we find the coldest districts of Italy. In all
the upland valleys of the Abruzzi snow begins to fall early in
November, and heavy storms occur often as late as May; whole
communities are shut out for months from any intercourse with their
neighbours, and some villages are so long buried in snow that
regular passages are made between the different houses for the sake
of communication among the inhabitants. The district from the
south-east of Lake Fucino to the Piano di Cinque Miglia, enclosing
the upper basin of the Sangro and the small lake of Scanno, is the
coldest and most
bleak part of
Italy south of the Alps. Heavy falls of snow in June are not
uncommon, and only for a short time towards the end of July are the
nights totally exempt from light frosts. Yet less than 40 m. E. of
this district, and even more to the north, the olive, the fig-tree
and the orange thrive luxuriantly on the shores of the Adriatic
from Ortona to
Vasto. In the
same way, whilst in the plains and hills round Naples snow is
rarely seen, and never remains long, and the thermometer seldom
descends to the freezing-point, 20 m. E. from it in the fertile
valley of Avellino, of no great elevation, but encircled by high
mountains, light frosts are not uncommon as late as June; and 18 m.
farther east, in the elevated region of San Angelo dei Lombardi and
Bisaccia, the inhabitants are always warmly clad, and vines grow
with difficulty and only in sheltered places. Still farther
south-east, Potenza has almost the coldest climate in Italy, and
certainly the lowest summer temperatures. But nowhere are these
contrasts so striking as in Calabria. The shores, especially on the
Tyrthenian Sea, present almost a continued
grove of olive, orange,
lemon and
citron trees, which attain a size unknown in the
north of Italy. The
sugar-
cane flourishes, the
cotton-plant ripens to
perfection, date-trees are seen in the gardens, the rocks are
clothed with the prickly-pear or Indian fig, the enclosures of the
fields are formed by aloes and sometimes pomegranates, the
liquorice-root grows wild,
and the
mastic, the
myrtle and many varieties of
oleander and cistus form the
underwood of the natural forests of arbutus and
evergreen oak. If we turn
inland but 5 or 6 m. from the shore, and often even less, the scene
changes. High districts covered with oaks and chestnuts succeed to
this almost tropical vegetation; a little higher up and we reach
the elevated regions of the Pollino and the Sila, covered with firs
and pines, and affording rich pastures even in the midst of summer,
when heavy dews and light frosts succeed each other in July and
August, and snow begins to appear at the end of September or early
in October. Along the shores of the Adriatic, which are exposed to
the north-east winds, blowing coldly from over the Albanian
mountains, delicate plants do not thrive so well in general as
under the same latitude along the shores of the Tyrrhcnian Sea.
Southern Italy indeed has in general a very different climate
from the northern portion of the kingdom; and, though large tracts
are still occupied by rugged mountains of sufficient elevation to
retain the snow for a considerable part of the year, the districts
adjoining the sea enjoy a climate similar to that of
Greece and the southern provinces
of
Spain. Unfortunately several
of these fertile tracts suffer severely from
malaria (
q.v.), and especially the
great plain adjoining the Gulf of
Tarentum, which in the early ages of history
was surrounded by a
girdle of
Greek cities—some of which attained to almost unexampled
prosperity—has for centuries past been given up to almost complete
desolation.
It is remarkable that, of the
vegetable productions of Italy, many which
are at the present day among the first to attract the attention of
the visitor are of comparatively late introduction, and were
unknown in ancient times. The olive indeed in all ages clothed the
hills of a large part of the country; but the orange and lemon, are
a late importation from the East, while the cactus or Indian fig
and the aloe, both of them so conspicuous on the shores of southern
Italy, as well as of the Riviera of Genoa, are of Mexican origin,
and consequently could not have been introduced earlier than the
16th century. The same remark applies to the
maize or Indian
corn. Many botanists are even of opinion that the
sweet chestnut, which now constitutes so large a part of the
forests that clothe the sides both of the Alps and the Apennines,
and in some districts supplies the chief food of the inhabitants,
is not originally of Italian growth; it is certain that it had not
attained in ancient times to anything like the extension and
importance which it now possesses. The
eucalyptus is of quite modern introduction;
it has been extensively planted in malarious districts. The
characteristic
cypress, ilex
and stone-
pine, however, are
native trees, the last-named flourishing especially near the coast.
The proportion of evergreens is large, and has a marked effect on
the landscape in winter.
Fauna
The
chamois, bouquetin
and
marmot are found only in
the
Alps, not at all in the
Apennines. In the latter
the
bear was found in Roman times,
and there are said to be still a few remaining.
Wolves are more numerous, though only in the
mountainous districts; the flocks are protected against them by
large white sheep-dogs, who have some wolf blood in them. Wild
boars are also found in mountainous
and forest districts.
Foxes are
common in the neighborhood of Rome. The sea mammals include the
common
dolphin
(
Delphinus delphis). The birds are similar to those of
central Europe; in the mountains vultures, eagles, buzzards, kites,
falcons and hawks are found.
Partridges,
woodcock,
snipe, &c., are among the game-birds; but all
kinds of small birds are also shot for food, and their number is
thus kept down, while many members of the migratory species are
caught by traps in the foothills on the south side of the Alps,
especially near the Lake of Como, on their passage. Large numbers
of quails are shot in the spring. Among
reptiles the various kinds of
lizard are noticeable. There are
several varieties of
snakes,
of which three species (all vipers) are poisonous. Of sea-
fish there are many varieties, the
tunny, the sardine and the
anchovy being commercially the
most important. Some of the other edible fish, such as the palombo,
are not found in northern waters. Small cuttlefish are in common
use as an article of diet.
Tortoiseshell, an important article of
commerce, is derived from the
Thalassochelys caretta, a
sea turtle. Of
freshwater fish the
trout of the mountain streams and the eels of the
coast lagoons may be mentioned. The
tarantula spider and the
scorpion are found in the south of Italy. The
aquarium of the zoological
station at
Naples contains the
finest collection in the world of marine animals, showing the
wonderful variety of the different species of fish, molluscs,
crustacea, &c., found
in the Mediterranean.
(E. H. B.; T. As.)
Population
The following table indicates the areas of the several provinces
(sixty-nine in number), and the population of each according to the
censuses of the 31st of December 1881 and the 9th of February 1901.
(The larger divisions or compartments in which the provinces are
grouped are not officially recognized.)
Population.
| Provinces and Compartments |
Area in
sq. m. |
Population |
| 1881. |
1901. |
| Alessandria |
1950 |
729,710 |
825,745 |
| Cuneo |
2882 |
635,400 |
670,504 |
| Novara |
2553 |
675,926 |
763,830 |
| Turin |
3955 |
1,029,214 |
1,147,414 |
| Piedmont |
11,340 |
3,070,250 |
3,407,493 |
| Genoa |
1582 |
760,122 |
931,156 |
| Porto
Maurizio |
455 |
132,251 |
144,604 |
| Liguria |
2037 |
892,373 |
1,075,760 |
| Bergamo |
1098 |
390,775 |
467,549 |
| Brescia |
1845 |
471,568 |
541,765 |
| Como |
1091 |
515,050 |
594,304 |
| Cremona |
695 |
302,097 |
329,471 |
| Mantua |
912 |
295,728 |
315,448 |
| Milan |
1223 |
1,114,991 |
1,450,214 |
| Pavia |
1290 |
469,831 |
504,382 |
| Sondrio |
1232 |
120,534 |
130,966 |
| Lombardy |
9386 |
3,680,574 |
4,334,099 |
| Belluno |
1293 |
174,140 |
214,803 |
| Padua |
823 |
397,762 |
444,360 |
| Rovigo |
685 |
217,700 |
222,057 |
| Treviso |
90 |
375,704 |
416,945 |
| Udine |
2541 |
501,745 |
614,720 |
| Venice |
934 |
356,708 |
399,823 |
| Verona |
1188 |
394,065 |
427,018 |
| Vicenza |
1052 |
396,349 |
453,621 |
| Venetia |
9476 |
2,814,173 |
3,193,347 |
| Bologna |
1448 |
464,879 |
529,619 |
| Ferrara |
1012 |
230,807 |
270,558 |
| Forlì |
725 |
251,110 |
283,996 |
| Modena |
987 |
279,254 |
323,598 |
| Parma |
1250 |
267,306 |
303,694 |
| Piacenza |
954 |
226,758 |
250,491 |
| Ravenna |
715 |
218,359 |
234,656 |
| Reggio (Emilia) |
876 |
244,959 |
281,085 |
| Emilia |
7967 |
2,183,432 |
2,477,697 |
| Arezzo |
1273 |
238,744 |
275,588 |
| Florence |
2265 |
790,776 |
945,324 |
| Grosseto |
1738 |
114,295 |
137,795 |
| Leghorn |
133 |
121,612 |
121,137 |
| Lucca |
558 |
284,484 |
329,986 |
| Massa and Carrara |
687 |
169,469 |
202,749 |
| Pisa |
1179 |
283,563 |
319,854 |
| Siena |
1471 |
205,926 |
233,874 |
| Tuscany |
9304 |
2,208,869 |
2,566,307 |
| Ancona |
762 |
267,338 |
308,346 |
| Ascoli Piceno |
796 |
209,185 |
251,829 |
| Macerata |
1087 |
239,713 |
269,505 |
| Pesaro and Urbino |
1118 |
223,043 |
259,083 |
| Marches |
3763 |
939,279 |
1,088,763 |
| Perugia—Umbria |
3748 |
572,060 |
675,352 |
| Rome—Lazio |
4663 |
903,472 |
1,142,526 |
| Aquila degli Abruzzi
(Abruzzo Ulteriore II.) |
2484 |
353,027 |
436,367 |
| Campobasso
(Molise) |
1691 |
365,434 |
389,976 |
| Chieti (Abruzzo
Citeriore) |
1138 |
343,948 |
387,604 |
| Teramo (Abruzzo Ulteriore
I.) |
1067 |
254,806 |
312,188 |
| Abruzzi and
Molise |
6380 |
1,317,215 |
1,526,135 |
| Avellino (Principato
Ulteriore) |
1172 |
392,619 |
421,766 |
| Benevento |
818 |
238,425 |
265,460 |
| Caserta (Terra di
Lavoro) |
2033 |
714,131 |
805,345 |
| Naples |
350 |
1,001,245 |
1,141,788 |
| Salerno (Principato
Citeriore) |
1916 |
550,157 |
585,132 |
| Campania |
6289 |
2,896,577 |
3,219,491 |
| Bari delle Puglie (Terra di
Bari) |
2065 |
679,499 |
837,683 |
| Foggia (Capitanata) |
2688 |
356,267 |
421,115 |
| Lecce (Terra di Otranto) |
2623 |
553,298 |
705,382 |
| Apulia |
7376 |
1,589,064 |
1,964,180 |
| Potenza (Basilicata) |
3845 |
524,504 |
491,558 |
| Catanzaro (Calabria
Ulteriore II.) |
2030 |
433,975 |
498,791 |
| Cosenza (Calabria
Citeriore) |
2568 |
451,185 |
503,329 |
| Reggio di
Calabria (Calabria Ulteriore I.) |
1221 |
372,723 |
437,209 |
| Calabria |
5819 |
1,257,883 |
1,439,329 |
| Caltanisetta |
1263 |
266,379 |
329,449 |
| Catania |
1917 |
563,457 |
705,598 |
| Girgenti |
1172 |
312,487 |
380,666 |
| Messina |
1246 |
460,924 |
550,895 |
| Palermo |
1948 |
699,151 |
796,151 |
| Syracuse |
1442 |
341,526 |
433,796 |
| Trapani |
948 |
283,977 |
373,569 |
| Sicily |
9936 |
2,927,901 |
3,568,124 |
| Cagliari |
5204 |
420,635 |
486,767 |
| Sassari |
4090 |
261,367 |
309,026 |
| Sardinia |
9294 |
682,002 |
795,793 |
| Kingdom of Italy |
110,623 |
28,459,628 |
32,965,504 |
The number of foreigners in Italy in 1901 was 61,606, of whom
37,762 were domiciled within the kingdom.
The population given in the foregoing table is the resident or
"legal" population, which is also given for the individual towns.
This is 490,251 higher than the actual population, 32,475,253,
ascertained by the
census of
the 10th of February 1901; the difference is due to temporary
absences from their residences of certain individuals on military
service, &c., who probably were counted twice, and also to the
fact that 469,020 individuals were returned as absent from Italy,
while only 61,606 foreigners were in Italy at the date of the
census. The kingdom is divided into 69 provinces, 284 regions, of
which 197 are classed as
circondarii and 87 as districts
(the latter belonging to the province of Mantua and the 8 provinces
of Venetia), 1806 administrative divisions (
mandamenti)
and 8262 communes. These were the figures at the date of the
census. In 1906 there were 1805
mandamenti and 8290
communes, and 4 boroughs in Sardinia not connected with communes.
The
mandamenti or administrative divisions no longer
correspond to the judicial divisions (
mandamenti
giudiziarii) which in November 1891 were reduced from 1806 to
1535 by a law which provided that judicial reform should not modify
existing administrative and electoral divisions. The principal
elective local administrative bodies are the provincial and the
communal councils. The
franchise is somewhat wider than the
parliamentary. Both bodies are elected for six years, one-half
being renewed every three years. The provincial council elects a
provincial commission and the communal council a municipal council
from among its own members; these smaller bodies carry on the
business of the larger while they are not sitting. The
syndic of each
commune is elected by
ballot by the communal council from among its
own members.
The actual (not the resident or "legal") population of Italy
since 1770 is approximately given in the following table (the first
census of the kingdom as a whole was taken in 1871):—
| 1770 |
14,689,317 |
1861 |
25,016,801 |
| 1800 |
17,237,421 |
1871 |
26,801,154 |
| 1825 |
19,726,977 |
1881 |
28,459,628 |
| 1848 |
23,617,153 |
1901 |
32,475,253 |
The average
density
increased from 257.21 per sq. m. in 1881 to 293.28 in 1901. in
Venetia,
Emilia,
the Marches,
Umbria and
Tuscany the proportion of concentrated
population is only from 40 to 55%; in
Piedmont,
Liguria and
Lombardy the proportion rises to from 70 to
76%; in southern Italy, Sicily and Sardinia it attains a maximum of
from 76 to 93%.
The population of towns over 100,000 is given in the following
table according to the estimates for 1906. The population of the
town itself is distinguished from that of its commune, which often
includes a considerable portion of the surrounding country.
| |
Town. |
Commune.! |
| Bologna |
105,153 |
160,423 |
| Catania |
135,548 |
159,210 |
| Florence |
201,183 |
226,559 |
| Genoa |
255,294 |
267,248 |
| Messina |
108,514 |
165,007 |
| Milan |
560,613 |
.. |
| Naples |
491,614 |
585,289 |
| Palermo |
264,036 |
323,747 |
| Rome |
403,282 |
516,580 |
| Turin |
277,121 |
361,720 |
| Venice |
146,940 |
169,563 |
The population of the different parts of Italy differs in
character and
dialect; and
there is little community of sentiment between them. The modes of
life and standards of comfort and morality in north Italy and in
Calabria are widely
different; the former being far in front of the latter. Much,
however, is effected towards unification, by compulsory military
service, it being the principle that no man shall serve within the
military district to which he belongs. In almost all parts the idea
of personal
loyalty
(
e.g. between master and servant) retains an almost feudal
strength. The inhabitants of the north—the Piedmontese,
Lombards and Genoese
especially—have suffered less than those of the rest of the
peninsula from foreign domination and from the admixture of
inferior racial elements, and the cold winter climate prevents the
heat of summer from being enervating. They, and also the
inhabitants of central Italy, are more industrious than the
inhabitants of the southern provinces, who have by no means
recovered from centuries of misgovernment and oppression, and are
naturally more hot-blooded and excitable, but less stable, capable
of organization or trustworthy. The southerners are apathetic
except when roused, and socialist doctrines find their chief
adherents in the north. The Sicilians and Sardinians have something
of Spanish dignity, but the former are one of the most mixed and
the latter probably one of the purest races of the Italian kingdom.
Physical characteristics differ widely; but as a whole the Italian
is somewhat short of stature, with dark or black hair and eyes,
often good looking. Both sexes reach maturity early. Mortality is
decreasing, but if we may judge from the physical conditions of the
recruits the physique of the nation shows little or no improvement.
Much of this lack of progress is attributed to the heavy manual
(especially agricultural) work undertaken by women and children.
The women especially age rapidly, largely owing to this cause (E.
Nathan,
Vent' anni di vita italiana attraverso all'
annuario, 169 sqq.).
Births, Marriages, Deaths
Birth and marriage rates vary considerably, being highest in the
centre and south (Umbnia, the Marches, Apulia, Abruzzi and Molise,
and Calabria) and lowest in the north (Piedmont, Liguria and
Venetia), and in Sardinia. The death-rate is highest in Apulia, in
the Abruzzi and Molise, and in Sardinia, and lowest in the north,
especially in Venetia and Piedmont.
Taking the
statistics for the whole kingdom, the annual
marriagerate for the years 1876-1880 was 7.53 per 100o; in
1881-1885 it
rose to 8o6; in
1886-1890 it was 777; in 1891-1895 it was 7.41, and in 1896-1900 it
had gone down to 7.14 (a figure largely produced by the abnormally
low rate of 6.88 in 1898), and in 1902 was 7.23.
Divorce is forbidden by the
Roman
Catholic Church, and only 839 judicial separations were
obtained from the courts in 1902, more than half of the demands
made having been abandoned. Of the whole population in 1901, 575%
were unmarried, 36.0% married, and 6.5% widowers or widows. The
illegitimate births show a decrease, having been 6.95 per 100
births in 1872 and 5.72 in 1902 with a rise, however, in the
intermediate period as high as 7.76 ir 1883. The birth-rate shows a
corresponding decrease from 38~I(per 1000 in 1881 to 33.29 in 1902.
The male births have since 1871 been about 3% (3.1410 1872-1875 and
2.72 in 1896-1900) 10 excen of the female births, which is rather
more than compensated for b) the greater male mortality, the excess
being 264 in 1872-1875 anc having increased to 4.08 in I 896-1900.
(The calculations are mad in both cases on the total of births and
deaths of both sexes.) The result is that, while in 1871 there was
an excess of 143,370 males over females in the total population, in
188f the excess was only 71,138, and in I90f there were 169,684
more females than males. The death-rate (excluding still-born
children) was, in 1872, 30.78 per boo, and has since steadily
decreasedless rapidly between 1886-1890 than during other years; in
5902 it was only 22.15 and in 1899 was as low as 2189. The excess
of births over deaths shows considerable variationsowing to a very
low birth-rate, it was only 3.12 per 1000 in 1880, but has averaged
11.05 per 1000 from 1896 to 1900, reaching 11.98 in 1899 and 11.14
in 1902. For the four years 1899-1902 2466% died under the age of
one year, 9.41 between one and two years. The average expectation
of life at birth for the same period was 52 years and II months, 62
years and 2 months at the age of three years, 52 years at the age
of fifteen, 44 years at the age of
twenty-four, 30 years at the
age of forty; while the average period of life, which was 35 years
3 months per individual in 1882, was 43 yearf per individual in
1901. This shows a considerable improvement, largely, but not
entirely, in the diminution of
infant mortality; the expectation of life at
birth in 1882, it is true, was only 33 years and 6 months, and at
three years of age 56 years I month; but the increase, both in the
expectation of life and in its average duration, goes all through
the different ages.
Occupations
In the census of 1901 the population over nine years of age
(both male and female) was divided as follows as regards the main
professions:
Total. Males. Females.
Agricultural (including hunt ing and fishing) - - 9,666,467
6,466,165 3,200,302
Industrial 4,505,736 3,017,393 1,488,343
Commerce and transport (public and private services) 1,003,888
885,070 118,818
Domestic service, &c. - 574,855 171,875 402,980
Professional classes, admini stration, &c 1,304,347 855,217
449,130
Defence 204,012 204,012
Religion 129,893 89,329 40,564
Emigration
The movement of
emigration may be divided into two currents,
temporary and permanentthe former going chiefly towards neighboring
European countries and to North
Africa, and consisting of manual laborers, the
latter towards trans-oceanic countries, principally
Brazil,
Argentina and
the United States. These emigrants
remain abroad for several years, even when they do not definitively
establish themselves there. They are composed principally of
peasants, unskilled workmen and other manual laborers. There was a
tendency towards increased emigration during ,the last quarter of
the 19th century. The principal causes are the growth of
population, and the over-supply of and low rates of remuneration
for manual labor in various Italian provinces. Emigration has,
however, recently assumed such proportions as to
lead to scarcity of labor and rise of
wages in Italy itself. Italians
form about half of the total emigrants to
America.
Temporary Emigration. Permanent Emigration.
Year. TotalNo.of Total No. of Emigrants. Population. Emigrants.
Population.
1881 94,225 333 41,607 147
1891 118,111 389 175,520 578
1901 281,668 865 251,577 772
The increased figures may, to a minor extent, be due to better
registration, in
consequence of the law of 1901.
From the next table will be seen the direction of emigration in
the years specified :
1900.1901.1902.19C
Europe 181,047 244,298 236,066 215,
N. Africa 5,417 9,499 11,771 9,
U.S. and
Canada - - 89,400
124,636 I96,723 200,
Mexico (Central America)
2,069 997 766 I,
AsiaandOceania. - 691 1,272 1,086 2,
Total - - - - 352,792 533,245 531,509 507,
The figures for 1905 show that the total of 718,221 emigrants
was made up, as regards numbers, mainly by individuals from
Venetia, Sicily, Campania, Piedmont, Calabria and the Abruzzi;
while the percentage was highest in Calabria (4.44), the Abruzzi,
Venetia, Ba-~ilicata, the Marches, Sicily (2.86), Campania,
Piedmont (2.02). Tuscany gives I20, Latium 1.14%, Apulia only I~02,
while Sardinia with 0.34% occupies an exceptional position. The
figure for Sicily, which was 106,000 in 1905, reached 127,000 in
1906 (~.5%), and of these about three-fotrrths would be adults; in
the meantime, how ever, the population increases so fast that even
in 1905 there was a
net increase in
Sicily of 20,000 souls; sO that in three years 220,000 workers were
replaced by 320,000 infants.
The
phenomenon of
emigration in Sicily cannot altogether be explained by low wages,
which have risen, though prices have done the same. It has been
defined as apparently a kind of collective madness.
Agriculture
Accurate statistics with regard to the area occupied in
different forms of cultivation are difficult to obtain, both on
account of their varied and piecemeal character and from the lack
of a complete cadastral survey. A complete survey was ordered by
the law of the 1st of March 1886,but many years must elapse before
its completion. The law, however, enabled provinces most heavily
burdened by land tax to accelerate their portion of the survey, and
to profit by the reassessment of the tax on the new basis. An idea
of the effects of the survey may be gathered from the fact that the
assessments in the four provinces of Mantua, Ancona, Cremona and
Milan, which formerly amounted to a total of I,454,696~ are now
2,788,080, an increase of 91%. Of the total area of Italy,
70,793,000 acres, 71% are classed as productive. The unproductive
area comprises 16% of the total area (this includes 4% occupied by
lagoons or marshes, and I75% of the total area susceptible of
bonificazione or improvement by drainage. Between 1882 and 1902
over 4,000,000was spent on this by the government). The
uncultivated area is 13%. This includes 3.50% of the total
susceptible of cultivation.
The cultivated area may be divided into five agrarian regions or
zones, named after the variety of tree culture which flourishes in
them. (1) Proceeding from south to north, the first zone is that of
the agrumi (oranges, lemons and similar fruits). It comprises a
great part of Sicily. In Sardinia it extends along the southern and
western coasts. It predominates along the Ligurian Riviera from
Bordighera to Spezia, and
on the Adriatic, near San Benedetto del Tronto and Gargano, and,
crossing the Italian shore of the Ioian Sea, prevails in some
regions of Calabria, and terminates around the gulfs of Salerno,
Sorrento and Naples. (2) The
region of olives comprises the internal Sicilian valleys and part
of the mountain slopes; in Sardinia, the valleys near the coast on
the S.E., S.W. and N.W.; on the mainland it extends from Liguria
and from the southern extremities of the Romagna to Cape
Santa Maria di Leuca in
Apulia, and to Cape Spartivento in Calabria. Some districts of the
olive region ara near the lakes of upper Italy and in Venetia, and
the territories of Verona, Vicenza, Treviso and Friuli. (~) The
vine region begins on the sunny
slopes of the Alpine spurs and in those Alpine valleys open towards
the south, extending over the plains of Lombardy and Emilia. In
Sardinia it covers the mountain slopes to a considerable height,
and in Sicily covers the sides of the Madonie range, reaching a
level above 3000 ft. on the southern slope of
Etna. The Calabrian Alps, the less rocky sides of
the Apulian Murgie and the whole length of the Apennines are
covered at different heights, according to their situation. The
hills of Tuscany, and of Monferrato in Piedmont, produce the most
celebrated Italian vintages. (4) The region of chestnuts extends
from the valleys to the high plateaus of the Alps, along the
northern slopes of the Apennines in Liguria, Modena, Tuscany,
Romagna, Umbria, the Marches and along the southern Apennines to
the Calabrian and Sicilian ranges, as well as to the mountains of
Sardinia. (5) The wooded region covers the Alps and Apennines above
the chestnut level. The woods consist chiefly of pine and
hazel upon theApennines, and upon
the Calabrian, Sicilian and Sardinian mountains of oak, ilex,
hornbeam and similar
trees.
Between these regions of tree culture lie zones of different
her- __________ _______ baceous culture, cereals, vegetables
3.1904.1905. and textile plants. The
style of cultivation vanes according to the)43
209,942 266,982 nature of the ground, terraces sup ~52 14,709
11,910 ported by stone walls being much;83 173,537 322,627 used in
mountainous districts. Cereal If 1,828 2,044 cultivation occupies
the foremost 599 74,209 111,943 place in area and quantity though
i68 2,966 2,715 it has been on the decline since f903, still
representing, however, an)56 477,191 718,221 advance on previous
years.
Wheat is the most
important
crop and is widely
distributed. In 1905 12,734,491 acres, or about 18%
of the total area, produced 151,696,571 bushels of wheat, a
yield of only 12 bushels per
acre. The, importation has, however,
enormously increased since 1882from 164,600 to 1,126,368 tons;
while the extent of land devoted to corn cultivation has slightly
decreased. Next in importance to wheat comes maize, occupying about
7% of the total area of the country, and cultivated almost
everywhere as an alternative crop. The production of maize in
1905
reached about 96,250,000 bushels, a slight increase on the
average. The production of maize is, however, insufficient, and
208,719 tons were imported in 1902about double the amount imported
in 1882.
Rice is cultivated in
low-lying, moist lands, where spring and summer temperatures are
high. The P0 valley and the valleys of Emilia and the Romagna are
best adapted for rice, but the area is diminishing on account of
the competition of foreign rice and of the impoverishment of the
soil by too intense cultivation. The area is about 0.5% of the
total of Italy. The area under
rye
is about 0.5% of the total, of which about two-thirds lie in the
Alpine and about one-third in the Apennine zone. The
barley zone is geographicall
xtensive but embraces not more than 1% of the total area, of whic
raif is situated in Sardinia and Sicily. Oats, cultivated in the
Roman and Tuscan
maremma and
in Apulia, are used almost exclusively for horses and
cattle. The area of oats
cultivation is 1.5% of the total area. The other cereals,
millet and panico sorgo (Panicum
italicum), have lost much of their importance in consequence of the
introduction of maize and rice. Millet, however, is still
cultivated in the north of Italy, and is used as
bread for agricultural laborers, and as
forage when mixed with
buckwheat (Sorghum
saccaratum). The manufacture of
macaroni and similar foodstuff is a
characteristic Italian industry. It is extensively distributed, but
especially flourishes in the Neapolitan provinces. The exportation
of cornflour pastes sank, however, from 7100 tons to 350 between
1882 and 1902.
The cultivation of green forage is extensive and is divided into
the categories of temporary and perennial. The temporary includes
vetches,
pulse,
lupine,
clover and trifolium; and the perennial,
meadow-
trefoil, lupinella,
sulla (fledysarum coronarium),
lucerne and darnel. The natural
grass
meadows are extensive, and
hay is
grown all over the country, but especially in the P0 valley.
Pasture occupies about 30% of the total area of the country, of
which Alpine pastures occupy I ~25%.
Seed-bearing vegetables are comparatively scarce.
The principal are: white beans, largely consumed by the working
classes; lentils, much less cultivated than beans; and green peas,
largely consumed in Italy, and exported as a spring vegetable.
Chick-pease are extensively cultivated in the southern provinces.
Horse beans are grown,
especially in the south and in the larger islands; lupines are also
grown for fodder.
Among tuberous vegetables the
potato comes first. The area occupied is abotit
0.7% of the whole of the country. Turnips are grown principally in
the
central provinces as an
alternative crop to wheat. They yield as much as 12 tons per acre.
Beetroot (Beta vulgaris) is used as fodder, and yields about 10
tons per acre. Sugar
beet is
extensively grown to supply the sugar factories. In 1898f 899 there
were only four sugar factories, with an output of 5972 tons; In
1905 there were thirty-three, with an output of 93,916 tons.
Market gardening is carried on both near towns and villages,
where products find ready sale, and along the great
railways, on account of
transport facilities. Rome is an exception to the former rule and
imports
garden produce largely
from the neighborhood of Naples and from Sardinia.
Among the chief industrial plants is
tobacco, which grows wherever suitable soil
exists. Since tobacco is a government
monopoly, its cultivation is subject to
official concessions and prescriptions. Experiments hitherto made
show that the cultivation of Oriental tobacco may. profitably be
extended in Italy. The yield for 1901 was 5528 tons, but a large
increase took place subsequently, eleven million new plants having
been added in southern Italy in 1905.
Tile chief textile plants are
hemp,
flax and cotton. Hemp is largely cultivated in the
provinces of Turin, Ferrara, Bologna, Foril, Ascoli Piceno and
Caserta. Bologna hemp is specially valued. Flax covers about
160,000 acres, with a product, in fibre, amounting to about 20,000
tons. Cotton (Gossypium herbaceum), which at the beginning of the
19th century, at the time of the Continental
blockade, and again during the
American War
of Secession, was largely cultivated, is now grown only in
parts of Sicily and in a few southern provinces.
Sumach, liquorice and
madder are also grown in the south.
The vine is cultivated throughout the length and breadth of
Italy, but while in some of the districts of the south and centre
it occupies from 10 to 20% of the cultivated area, in some of the
northern provinces, such as Sondrio, Belluno, Grosseto, &c.,
the average is only about I or 2% The methods of cultivation are
varied; but the planting of the vines by themselves in long rows of
insignificant bushes is the exception. In Lombardy, Emilia,
Romagna, Tuscany, the Marches, Umbria and the southern provinces,
they are trained to trees which are either left in their natural
state or subjected to pruning and pollarding. In Campania the vines
are allowed to climb freely to the tops of the poplars. In the rest
of Italy the
elm and the
maple are the trees mainly employed
as supports. Artificial props of several kindswires, cane work,
trellis work, &c.are also in use in many districts (in the
neighborhood of Rome canes are almost exclusively employed), and in
some the plant is permitted to trail along the ground. The vintage
takes place, according to locality and climate, from the beginding
of September to the beginning of November. The vine has been
attacked by the Oidium Tuckeri, the
Phylloxera vastatrix and the Peronospora
viticola, which in rapid succession wrought great havoc in Italian
vineyards. American vines, are. however, immune and have been
laraelv adonted. The production of
wine in the vintage of 1907, which was
extraordinarily abundant all over the country, was estimated at
1232 million gallons (56 million hectolitres), the average for
1901f 903 being some 352 million gallons less; of this the probable
home
consumption was
estimated at rather over half, while a considerable amount remained
over from 1906. The exportation in I902 only reached about 45
million gallons (and even that is double the average), while an
equally abundant vintage in France and Spain rendered the
exportation of the balance of 1907 impossible, and fiscal
regulations rendered the
distillation of the superfluous amount
difficult. The quality, too, owing to bad weather at the time of
vintage, was not good; Italian wine, indeed, never is sufficiently
good to compete with the best wines of other countries, especially
France (thotigh there is more opening for Italian wines of the
Bordeaux and,Burgundy type);
nor will many kinds of it stand keeping, partly owing to their
natural qualities and partly to the insufficient care devoted to
their preparation. There has been some improvement, however, while
some of the heavier white wines, noticeably the
Marsala of Sicily, have excellent keeping
qualities. The area cultivated as vineyards has increased
enormously, from about 4,940,000 acres to 9,880,000 acres, or about
14% of the total area of the country. Over-production seems thus to
be a considerable danger, and improvement of quality is rather to
be sought after. This has been encouraged by government prizes
since 1904. -
Next to cereals and the vine the most important object of
cultivation is the olive. In Sicily and the provinces of Reggio,
Catanzaro, Cosenza and Lecce this tree flourishes without shelter;
as far north as Rome, Aquila and Teramo it reqtiires only the
slightest protection; in the rest of the peninsula itruns the risk
of damage by
frost every ten
years or so. The proportion of ground under olives is from 20 to
36% at Porto Maurizio, and in Reggio, Lecce, Ban, Chieti and
Leghorn it averages from 10 to 19%. Throughout Piedniont, Lombardy,
Venetia and the greater part of Einilia, the tree is of little
importance. In the olive there is great variety of kinds, and the
methods of cultivation differ greatly in different districts; in
Ban, Chieti and Lecce, for instance, there are regular woods of
nothing but olive-trees, while in middle Italy there are
olive-orchards with the interspaces occupied by crops of variotis
kinds. The Tuscan
oils from Lucca,
Calci and Buti are considered the best in the world; those of Ban,
Umbria and western Liguria rank next. The wood of the olive is also
used for the manufacture of small articles. The olive-growing area
occupies about 3.5% of the total area of the country, and the crop
in 1905 produced about 75,000,000 gallons of oil. The falling off
of the crop, especially in 1899, was due to bad seasons and to
insects, notably the Cycloconium oleog-inum, and the Dacus oleae,
or oil-fly, which have ravaged the olive-yards, and it is
noticeable that lately good and bad seasons see1n to alternate;
between 1900 and 1905 the crops were alternately one half of, and
equal to, that of the latter year. With the development of
agricultural knowledge, notable improvements have been effected in
the manufacture of oil. Tile steam mills give the best results. The
export trade, however, is decreasing considerably, while the home
consumption is increasing. In 1901, 1985 imperial tuns of oil were
shipped from
Gallipoli
for abroadtwo-thirds to the
United
Kingdom, one-third to Russiaand 666 to Italian ports; while in
1904 the figures were reversed, 1633 tuns going to Italian ports,
and only 945 tuns to foreign ports. The other principal port of
shipping is Gioia Tauro, 30
m. N.N.E. of
Reggio Calabria. A certain amount of
linseed-oil is made in
Lombardy, Sicily, Apulia and Calabria; colza in Piedmont, Lombardy,
Venetia and Emilia; and
castor-oil in Venetia and Sicily. The
product is principally used for industrial purposes, and partly in
the preparation of food, but the amount is decreasing.
The cultivation of oranges, lemons and their congeners
(collectively designated in Italian by the term agrumi) is of
comparatively modern date, the introduction of the Citrus
Bigarcidia being probably due to the
Arabs. Sicily is the chief centre of
cultivationthe area occupied by lemon and orange orchards in the
province of Palermo alone having increased from ff525 acres in 1854
to 54,340 in 1874. Reggio Calabria, Catanzaro, Cosenza, Lecce,
Salerno, Naples and Caserta are the continental provinces which
come next after Sicily. In Sardinia the cultivation is extensive,
but receives little attention. Both crude and concentrated
lime-juice is exported, and essential
oils are extracted from the rind of the agrumi, more particularly
from that of tile lemon and the berganlot. In northern and central
Italy, except in the province of Brescia, the agrumi are almost
non-existent. The trees are planted on irrigated soil and the fruit
gathered between November and August. Considerable trade is done in
agro di limone or lemon
extract, which forms the basis of
citric acid. Extraction
is extensively carried on in the provinces of Messina and
Palermo.
Among other fruit trees,
apple-trees have special importance. Almonds are
widely cultivated in Sicily, Sardinia and the sor~ithern provinces;
walnut trees throughout the
peninsula, their wood being more important than their fruit; hazel
nuts, figs, prickly pears (used in the south and the islands for
hedges,
their fruit being a minor consideration), peaches, pears,
locust beans and pistachio nuts
are among the other fruits. The
mulberry-tree (Morus
alba), whose leaves serve as food for silkworms,
is cultivated in every region,, considerable progress having been
made in its cultivation and in the rearine of silkworms since 18co.
Silkworm-rearinr establishments of importance now exist in the
Marches, Umbria, in the Abruzzi, Tuscany, Piedmont and Venetia. The
chief
silk-producing provinces arc
Lombardy, Venetia and Piedmont. During the period 1900190 the
average annual production of silk cocoons was 53,500 tons, an of
silk 5200 tons.
The great variety in physical and social conditions throughout
the peninsula gives corresponding variety to the methods of
agriculture. In the
rotation of crops there is an amazing diversityshifts of two years,
three years, four years, six years, and in many cases whatever
order strikes the fancy of the farmer. The fields of Tuscany for
the most part bear wheat one year and maize the next, in perpetual
interchanges, relieved to some extent by green crops. A similar
method prevails in the Abruzzi, and in the provinces of Salerno,
Benevento and Avellino. In Lombardy a six-year shift is common:
either wheat, clover, maize, rice, rice, rice (the last year
manured with lupines) or maize, wheat followed by clover, clover,
clover ploughed in, and rice, rice and rice manured with lupines.
The Emilian region is one where regular rotations are best
observeda common shift being
grain, maize, clover, beans and vetches, &c.,
grain, which has the disadvantage of the grain crops succeeding,
each other. In the province of Naples, Caserta, &c., the method
of fallows is widely adopted, the ground often being left in this
state for fifteen or twenty years; and in some parts of Sicily
there is a regular interchange of
fallow and crop year by year. The following
scheme indicates a common Sicilian method of a type which has many
varieties: fallow, grain, grain, pasture, pastureother two
divisions of the area following the same order, but beginning
respectively with the two years of grain and the two of
pasture.
Woods and forests play an important part, especially in regard
to the consistency of the soil and to the character of the water~
courses. The chestnut is of great value for its wood and ~ is
furnished by the oak and beech, and pine and
fir forests ~ S~ of the Alps and Apennines.
Notwithstanding the efforts of the government to unify and co-
ordinate the
forest laws previously
existing in the various states, deforestation has continued in many
regions. This has been due to
speculation, to the unrestricted pasturage
of goats, to the rights which many communes have over the forests,
and to some extent to excessive
taxation, which led the proprietors to cut and
sell the trees and then abandon the ground to the Treasury. The
results areaa lack of
water-supply and of water-power, the
streams becoming mere torrents for a short period and perfectly dry
for the rest of the year; lack of a sufficient supply of
timber; the denudation of the
soil on the hills, and, where the valleys below have insufficient
drainage, the formation of swamps. If the available water-power of
Italy, already very considerable, be harnessed, converted into
electric power (which is already being done in some districts), and
further increased by reafforestation, the effect upon the
industries of Italy will be incalculable, and the importation of
coal will be very materially diminished. The area of forest is
about 14.3% of the total, and of the chestnut-woods 1.5 more; and
its products in 1886 were valued at 3~,520,0o0 (not including
chestnuts). A quantity of it is really brushwood, used for the
manufacture of
charcoal
and for
fuel, coal being little
used except for manufacturing purposes. Forest nurseries have also
been founded.
According to an approximate calculation the number of head of
Live live stock in Italy in 1890 was 16,620,000, thus divided: k
horses, 720,000; asses, 1,000,000; mules, 300,000
S oc cattle, 5,000,000;
sheep, 6,000,ooo; goats, 1,800,000;
swine, 1,8oo,ooo.
The breed of cattle most widely distributed is that known as the
Podolian, usually with white or grey coat and enormous horns. Of
the numerous sub-varieties, the finest is said to be that of the
Val di Chiana, where the animals are
stall-fed all the year round; next is ranked the
so-called Valle Tiberina type. Wilder varieties roam in vast herds
over the Tuscan and Roman maremmas, and the corresponding districts
in Apulia and other regions. In the Alpine districts there is a
stock distinct from the Podolian, generally called razza montanina.
These animals are much smaller in stature and more regular in form
than the Podolians; they are mainly kept for
dairy purposes. Another stock, with no close
allies nearer than the south of France, is found in the plain of
Racconigi and
Carmagnola; the
mouse-colored Swiss breed occurs in the neighborhood of Milan; the
Tirolese breed stretches south to Padua and Modena; and a
red-coated breed named of Reggio or Friuli is familiar both in what
were the duchies of Parma and Modena, and in the provinces of
lJdine and Treviso. In Sicily the so-called
Modica race is of note; and in Sardinia there is
a distinct stock which seldom exceeds the weight of 700 lb.
Buffaloes are kept in several districts, more particularly of
southern Italy.
Enormous flocks are possessed by professional sheep-farmers, who
pasture them in the mountains in the summer, and bring them down to
the plains in the winter. At Saluzzo in Piedmont there is a stock
with
hanging ears, arched
face and tall stature, kept for its dairy qualities; and in the
Biellese the
merino breed is
maintained by some of the larger proprietors. In the upper valleys
of the Alps there are many local varieties, one of which at Ossola
is like the Scottish blacklace. Liguria is not much adapted for
sheep-farming on a large scale; but a number of small flocks come
down to thc plain of Tuscany in the winter. With the exception of a
few subAlpine districts near Bergamo and Brescia, the great Lombard
plain is decidedly unpastoral. The Bergamo sheep is the largest
breed in the country; that of Cadore and Belluno approaches it in
size. In the Venetian districts the farmers often have small
stationary flocks. Throughout the Roman province, and IJmbria,
Apulia, the Abruzzi, Basilicata and Calabria, is found in its full
development a remarkable system of
pastoral migration with the change of seasons which
has been in existence from the most ancient times, and has
attracted attention as much by its picturesqueness as by its
industrial importance (see APULIA). Merino sheep have been
acclimatized in the Abruzzi, Capitanata and Basilicata. The number
of sheep, however, is on the decrease. Similarly, the number of
goats, which are reared only in hilly regions, is decreasing,
especially on account of the existing forest laws, as they are the
chief enemies of young plantations. Horse-breeding is on the
increase. The state helps to improve the
breeds
by placing choice stallions at the disposal of private breeders at
a low
tariff. The exportation
is, however, unimportant, while the importation is largely on the
increase, 46,463 horses having been imported in 1902.
Cattle-breeding varies with the different regions. In upper Italy
cattle are principally reared in pens and stalls; in central Italy
cattle are allowed to run half wild, the stall system being little
practised; in the south and in the islands cattle are kept in the
open
air, few shelters being
provided. The erection of shelters, however, is encouraged by the
state. Swine are extensively reared in many provinces. Fowls are
kept on all farms and, though methods are still antiquated, trade
in fowls and eggs is rapidly increasing.
In 1905 Italy exported 32,786 and imported 17,766 head of
cattle; exported 33,574 and imported 6551 sheep; exported 95,995
and imported 1604 swine. The former two show a very large decrease
and the latter a large increase on the export figures for 1882. The
export of agricultural products shows a large increase.
The north of Italy has long been known for its great dairy
districts. Parmesan
cheese,
otherwise called Lodigiano (from Lodi) or grana, was presented to
King
Louis XII. as early
as 1509. Parmesan is not confined to the province from which it
derives its name; it is manufactured in all that part of Emilia in
the neighborhood of the P0, and in the provinces of Brescia,
Bergamo, Pavia, Novara and Alessandria.
Gorgonzola, which takes its name from a town
in the province, has become general throughout the whole of
Lombardy, in the eastern parts of the ancient provinces, and in the
province of Cuneo. The cheese known as the cacio-cavallo is
produced in regions extending from 370 to 430 N. lat. Gruyre,
extensively manufactured in
Switzerland and France, is also produced in
Italy in the Alpine regions and in Sicily. With the exception of
Parmesan, Gorgonzola, La Fontina and Gruyre, most of the Italian
cheese is consumed in the locality of its production. Co-operative
dairy farms are numerous in north Italy, and though only about half
as many as in 1889 (114 in 1902) are better organized. Modern
methods have been introduced.
The drainage of marshes and marshy lands has considerably
extended. A law passed on the 22nd of March 1900 gave a B a,
special impulse to this form of enterprise by fixing the ratio r
naze. of expenditure
incumbent respectively upon the State, ~ the
provinces, the communes, and the owners or other private
individuals directly interested.
The Italian Federation of Agrarian Unions has greatly
contributed to agricultural progress. Government travelling
teachers
aria of agriculture, and
fixed schools of viticulture, also do good A2~~ work. Some unions
annually purchase large quantities ~cono of merchandise for their
members, especially chemical
mica.
manures. The importation of
machinery amounted to over 5000 tons in 1901.
Income from land has diminished on the whole. The chief
diminution has taken place in the south in regard to oranges and
lemons, cereals and (for some provinces) vines. Since 1895,
however, the heavy import corn duty has caused a slight rise in the
income from corn lands. The principal reasons for the general
decrease are the fall in prices through foreign competition and the
closing of certain markets, the diseases of plants and the
increased outlay required to combat them, and the growth of State
and local taxation. One of the great evils of Italian agricultural
taxation is its lack of
elasticity and of
adaptation to local conditions. Taxes are
not sufficiently proportioned to what the land may reasonably be
expected to produce, nor sufficient
allowance made for the exceptional conditions
of a southern climate, in which a few hours bad weather may destroy
a whole crop. The Italian agriculturist has come to look (and often
in vain) for action on a large scale from the state, for
irrigation, drainage of
uncultivated low-lying land, which may be made fertile, river
regulation, &c.; while to the small proprietor the state often
appears only as a hard and inconsiderate tax-gatherer.
The relations between owners and tillers of the soil are still
regulated by the ancient forms of agrarian contract, which have
remained almost untouched by social and political changes. The
possibility of reforming these contracts in some parts of the
kingdom has been studied, in the hope of bringing them into closer
harmony with the needs of rational cultivation and the exigencies
of social justice.
Peasant proprietorship is
most common in Lombardy and Piedmont, but it is also found
elsewhere. Large farms are f&und in certain of the more open
districts; but in Italy generally, and especially in Sardinia, the
land is very much subdivided. The followfng forms of contract are
most usual in the several regions: In Piedmont the mezzadria
(mttayage), the terzieria, the colonia parziaria, the boarla, the
schiavenza and the affitto, or
lease, are most usual. Under mezzadria the
contract generally lasts three years. Products are usually divided
in equal proportions between the owner and the tiller. The owner
pays the taxes, defrays the cost of preparing the ground, and
provides the necessary implements. Stock usually belongs to the
owner, and, even if kept on the half-and-half system, is usually
bought by him. The peasant, or mezzadro, provides labor. Under
terzieria the owner furnishes stock, implements and seed, and the
tiller retains only one-third of the principal products. In the
colonia parziaria the peasant executes all the agricultural work,
in return for which he is housed
rent-free, and receives onesixth of the corn,
one-third of the maize and has a small money wage. This contract is
usually renewed from year to year. The boaria is widely diffused in
its two forms of cascinafatta and paghe. In the former case a
peasant family undertakes all the necessary work in return for
payment in money or kind, which varies according to the crop; in
the latter the money wages and the payment in kind are fixed
beforehand. Schiavanza, either simple or with a share in the crops,
is a form of contract similar to the boaria, but applied
principally to large holdings. The wages are lower than under the
boaria. In the affitto, or lease, the proprietor furnishes seed and
the implements. Rent varies according to the quality of the
soil.
In Lombardy, besides the mezzadria, the lease is common, but the
ierzieria is rare. The lessee, or farmer, tills the soil at his own
risk; usually he provides live stock, implements and capital, and
has no right to
compensation for ordinary improvements,
nor for extraordinary improvements effected without the landlords
consent. He is obliged to give a
guarantee for the fulfilment of his
engagements. In some places he pays an annual
tribute in grapes, corn and other produce. In
some of the Lombard mezzadria contracts taxes are paid by the
cultivator.
In Venetia it is more common than elsewhere in Italy for owners
to till their own soil. The prevalent forms of contract are the
mezzadria and the lease. In Liguria, also, mezzo4,ia and lease are
the chief forms of contract.
In Emilia both mezzadria and lease
tenure are widely diffused in the provinces of
Ferrara, Reggio and Parma; but other special forms of contract
exist, known as the famiglio da spesa, boaria, braccianti obbligati
and braccianti disobbligati. In the famiglio da spesa the tiller
receives a small wage and a proportion of certain products. The
boaria is of two kinds. If the tiller receives as much as 45 lire
per month, supplemented by other wages in kind, it is said to be
boaria a salario; if the principal part of his remuneration is in
kind, his contract is called boaria a spesa.
In the Marches, Umbria and Tuscany, mezzadria prevails in its
purest form. Profits and losses, both in regard to produce and
stock, are equally divided. In some places, however, the
landlord takes two-thirds of the
olives and the whole of the grapes and the mulberry leaves.
Leasehold exists in the province of Grosseto alone. In Latium
leasehold and farming by landlords prevail, but cases of ,nezzadria
and of improvement farms exist. In the agro Romano, or zone
immediately around Rome, land is as a rule left for pasturage. It
needs, therefore, merely supervision by guardians and mounted
overseers, or butteri, who are housed and receive wages. Large
landlords are usually represented by ministri, or factors, who
direct agricultural operations and
manage the estates, but the estate is often let
to a middleman, or mercante di campagna. Wherever corn is
cultivated, leasehold predominates. Much of the work is done by
companies of peasants, who come down from the mountainous districts
when required, permanent residence not being possible owing to the
malaria. Near
Velletri and
Frosinone improvement
farms prevail. A piece of uncultivated land is made over to a
peasant for from 20 to 29 years. Vines and olives are usually
planted, the landlord paying the taxes and receiving one-third of
the produce. At the end of the contract the landlord either
cultivates his land himself or leases it, repaying to the improver
part of the expenditure incurred by him. This repayment sometimes
consists of half the estimated value of the standing crops.
In the Abruzzi and in Apulia leasehold is predominant. Usually
leases last from three to six years. In the provinces of Foggia and
Lecce long leases (up to twenty-nine years) are granted, but in
them it is explicitly declared that they do not imply enfiteusi
(perpetual leasehold), nor any other form of contract equivalent to
co-proprietorship. Mezzadria is rarely resorted to. On some
small holdings, however,
it exists with contracts lasting from two to six years. Special
contracts, known as colonie immovibili and colonie
tern poranee are applied to the latifondi or huge
estates, the owners of which receive half the produce, except that
of the vines, olive-trees and woods, which he leases separately.
Improvement contracts also exist. They consist of long leases,
under which the landlord shares the
costs of improvements and builds
farm-houses; also leases of orange and lemon
gardens, two-thirds of the prot~uce of which go to the landlord,
while the farmer contributes half the cost of farming besides the
labor. Leasehold, varying from four to six years for arable land
and from six to eighteen years for forest-land, prevails also in
Campania, Basilicata and Calabria. The estaglio, or rent, is often
paid in kind, and is equivalent to half the produce of good land
and one-third of the produce of bad land. Improvement contracts are
granted for uncultivated
bush
districts, where one fourth of the produce goes to the landlord,
and for plantations of fig-trees, olive-trees and vines, half of
the produce of which belongs to the landlord, who at the end of ten
years reimburses the
tenant
for a part of the improvements effected. Other forms of contract
are the piccola mezzadria, or sub-letting by tenants to
under-tenants, on the half-and-half system; enfiteusi, or perpetual
leases at low rentsa form which has almost died out; and mezzadria
(in the provinces of Caserta and Benevento).
In Sicily leasehold prevails under special conditions. In pure
leasehold the landlord demands at least six months rent as
guarantee, and the
forfeiture of any fortuitous advantages.
Under the gabella lease the contract lasts twenty-nine years, the
lessee being obliged to make improvements, but being sometimes
exempted from rent during the first years. Inquilinaggio is a form
of lease by which the landlord, and sometimes the tenant, makes
over to tenant or subtenant the
sowing of corn. There are various categories of
inquilinaggio, according as rent is paid in money or in kind. Under
mezzadria or metateria the landlord divides the produce with the
farmer in various proportions. The farmer provides all labor.
Latifondi farms are very numerous in Sicily. The landlord lets his
land to two or more persons jointly, who undertake to restore it to
him in good condition with one-third of it interrozzito, that is,
fallow, so as to be cultivated the following year according to
triennial rotation. These lessees are usually speculators, who
divide and sub-let the estate. The sub-tenants in their turn let a
part of their land to peasants in mezzadria, thus creating a system
disastrous both for agriculture and the peasants. At
harvest-time the produce is
placed in the barns of the lessor, who first deducts 25% as
premium, then 16% for
battiteria (the difference between corn before and after
winnowing), then deducts a proportion for rent and subsidies, so
that the portion retained by the actual tiller of the soil is
extremely meagre. In bad years the tiller, moreover, gives up seed
corn befote beginning harvest.
In Sardinia landlord-farming and leasehold prevail. In the fe~
cases of mezzadria the Tuscan system is followed.
Mines
The number of mines increased from 589 in 1881 to 1580 in 1902.
The output in 1881 was worth about 1/22,800,000, but by 1895 had
decreased to 1,800,000, chiefly on account of the fall in the price
of
sulphur. It afterwards
rose, and was worth more than 3,640,000 in 1899, falling again to
1/23,118,600 in 1902 owing to severe American competition in
sulphur (see SIcILY). The chief minerals are sulphur, in the
production of which Italy holds one of the first places,
iron,
zinc, lead; these, and, to a smaller extent,
copper of an inferior quality,
manganese and
antimony, are successfully
mined. The bulk of the sulphur mines are in Sicily, while the
majority of the lead and zinc mines are in Sardinia; much of the
lead smelting is done at Pertusola, near Genoa, the company formed
for this purpose having acquired many of the Sardinian mines. Iron
is mainly mined in Elba. Quicksilver and
tin are found (the latter in small quantities) in
Tuscany. Boracic
acid is chiefly
found near Volterra, where there is also a
little rock salt, but the main supply is
obtained by evaporation. The output nf stone from quarries is
greatly diminished (from 12,500,000 tons, worth 1/21,920,000, in
1890, to 8,000,000 tons, worth 1/2f 400,000, in 1899), a
circumstance probably attributable to the slackening of building
enterprise in many cities, and to the decrease in the demand for
stone for railway, maritime and river
embankment works. The value of the output
had, however, by 1902 risen to 1,600,000, representing a
tonnage of about 10,000,000.
There is good travertine below Tivolj and elsewhere in Italy; the
finest
granite is found at
Baveno. Lava is much used for paving-stones in the neighborhood of
volcanic districts, where pozzolana (for cement) and
pumice stone are also important.
Mtich of Italy contains
Pliocene clay, which is good for pottery and brickmaking.
Mineral springs are very numerous, and of great variety.
Fisheries
The number of boats and smacks engaged in the
fisheries has considerably
increased. In 1881 the total number was 15,914, with a tonnage of
49,103. In 1902 there were 23,098 boats, manned by 101,720 men, and
the total catch was valued at just over half a million
sterlingaccording to the government figures, which are certainly
below the truth. The value has, however, undoubtedly diminished,
though the number of boats and crews increases. Most of the fishing
boats, properly so called, start from the Adriatic coast, the
coral boats from the western
Mediterranean coast, and the sponge boats from the western
Mediterranean and Sicilian coasts. Fishing and trawling are carried
on chiefly off the Italian (especially Ligurian, Austrian and
Tunisian coasts; coral is found principally near Sardinia and
Sicily, and
sponges almost
exclusively off Sicily arid
Tunisia in tile neighborhood of
Sfax. For sponge fishing no accurate statistics
are available before 1896; in that year 75 tons of sponges were
secured, but there has been considerable diminution since, only 31
tons being obtained in 1902. A considerable proportion was obtained
by foreign boats. The island of
Lampedusa may be considered its centre. Coral
fishing, which fell off between 1889 and 1892 on account of the
temporary closing of the
Sciacca coral reefs has greatly decreased since
1884, when the fisheries produced 643 tons,-whereas in 1902 they
only produced 225 tons. The value of the product has, however,
proportionately increased, so that the sum realized was little
less, while less than half the number of men was employed.
Sardinian coral commands from 3 to 4 per kilogramme (2.204 Ib), and
is much more valuable than the Sicilian coral. The Sciacca reefs
were again closed for three winters by a
decree of 1904. The fishing is largely carried
on by boats from Tone del Greco, in the Gulf of Naples, where the
best coral beds are now exhausted. In i879 4000 men were employed;
in 1902 only just over 1oo0. In 1902 there were 48
tunny fisheries, employjng 3006 men, and 5116
tons of fish worth 80,000 were caught. Ihe main fisheries are in
Sardinia, Sicily and Elba. Anchovy and sardine fishing (the
products of which are reckoned among the general total) are also of
considerable importance, especially along the Ligurian and Tuscan
coasts. The lagoon fisheries are also of great importance, more
especially those of
Comacchio, the lagoon of Orbetello and the
Mare
Piccolo at Taranto
&c The deep-sea fishing boats in 1902 numbered 1368, with a
total tonnage of 16,149; 100 of these were coral-fishing boats and
111 sponge-fishing boats.
Industrial Progress
The industrial progress of Italy has been great since 1880. Many
articles formerly imported are now made at home, and some Italian
manufactures have begun to compete in foreign markets. Italy has
only unimportant
lignite and
anthracite mines, but
water power is abundant and has been largely applied to industry,
especially in generating
electricity. The electric power required
fcir the tramways and the illuminatiQn of Rome is entirely supplied
by turbines situated at
Tivoli, and this is the case elsewhere, and the
harnessing of this waterpower is capable of very considerable
extension. A sign of industrial development is to be found in the
growing number of manufacturing companies, both Italian and
foreign.
The chief development has taken place in mechanical industries,
though it has also been marked in
metallurgy. Sulphur
mining M h 1 supplies large industries of
sulphur-refining and grinding, - in spite of American competition.
Very little
pig iron is tries US
made, most of the iron ore being exported, and iron manufactured
consists of old iron resmelted. For steelmaking foreign pig iron is
chiefly used. The manufacture of
steel rails, carried on first at Terni
and afterwards at Savona, began in Italy in 1886. Tin has been
manufactured since 1892. Lead, antimony,
mercury and copper are also produced. The total
salt production in 1902 was 458,497 tons, of which 248,2i5 were
produced in the government salt factories and the rest in the free
salt-works of Sicily. Great progress has been made in the
manufacture of machinery; locomotives, railway carriages, electric
tram-cars, &c., and machinery of all kinds, are now largely
made in Italy itself, especially in the north and in the
neighborhood of Naples. At Turin the manufacture of motor-cars has
attained great importance and the F.I.A.T. (Fabbrica Italiana
Automobili Torino) factory employs 2000 workmen, while eight others
employ 2780 dmongst them.
The textile industries, some of which are of ancient date, are
among those that have most rapidly developed. Handlooms and small
spinTextiles ning establishments have, in the silk industry, given
place to large establishments with steam looms. The production of
raw silk at least tripled itself between 1875 and 1900, and the
value of the silks woven in Italy, estimated in 1890 to be
2,200,000, is now, on account of the development of the export
trade calculated to be almost 4,000,000. Lombardy (especially Como,
Milan and Bergamo), Piedmont and Venetia are the chief
silk-producing regions. There are several public assay offices in
Italy for silk; the first in the world was established in Turin in
1750. The cotton industry has also rapidly developed. Home products
not only supply the Italian market in increasing degree, but find
their way into foreign markets. While importation of raw cotton
increases importations of cotton
thread and of cotton stuffs have rapidly
decreased. The value of the annual produce of the various branches
of the cotton industry, which in 1885 was calculated to he
7,200,000, was in 1900, notwithstanding the fall in prices, about
12,000,000. The industry is chiefly developed in Lombardy, Piedmont
and Liguria; to some extent also in Campania, Venetia and Tuscany,
and to a less extent in Lazio (Rome), Apulia, Emilia, the Marches,
Umbria, the Abruzzi and Sicily. A government
weaving school was established in Naples in
r9o6. As in the case of cotton, Italian woollen fabrics are
conquering the home market in increasing degree. The industry
centres chiefly in Piedmont (province of Novara), Venetia (province
of Vicenza), Tuscany (Florence), Lombardy (Brescia), Campania
(Caserta), Genoa, Umbria, the Marches and Rome. To some extent the
industry also exists in Emilia, Calabria, Basilicata, the Abruzzi,
Sardinia and Sicily. It has, however, a comparatively small export
trade.
The other textile industries (flax,
jute, &c.) have made notable progress. The
jute industry is concentrated in a few large factories, which from
1887 onwards have more than supplied the home market, and have
begun considerably to export.
Chemical industries show an output worth 2,640,000 in 1902 al
against 1,040,000 in 1893. The chief products are
sulphuric
acid:
Chemicals sulphate of copper, employed chiefly as a preventive
01 certain maladies of the vine; carbonate of lead, hyper.
phosphates and
chemical manures; calcitim
carbide; explosivi
powder;
dynamite and other
explosives. Pharmaceutical industries as
distinguished from those above mentioned, have kept
pace with the general development of Italian
activity. The principal product is quinine, the manufacture of
which has acq~iired great importance, owing to its use as a
specific against malaria. Milan and Genoa are the principal
centres, and also the government military pharmaceutical factory at
Turin. Other industries of a semi-chemical character are
candle-,
soap-,
glue-, and
perfume-making, and the preparation of
india-
rubber. The last named has succeeded, by means
of the large establishments at Milan in supplying not only the
whole Italian market but an export trade.
The
match-making industry is
subject to special fiscal conditions. In 1902-1903 there were 219
match factories scattered throughout Italy, but especially in
Piedmont, Lombardy and Venetia. The number has been reduced to less
than half since 1897 by the suppression of smaller factories, while
the production has increased from 47,690 millions to 59,741
millions.
The beetroot-sugar industry has attained considerable
proportions in Umbria, the Marches, Lazio, Venetia and Piedmont
since 1890. In 1898-1899, 5972 tons were produced, while in 1905
the figure, had risen to 93,916. The rise of the industry has been
favored by protective tariffs and by a system of
excise which allows a considerable premium to
manufacturers.
Alcohol has undergone
various oscillations, according to the legislation governing
distilleries. In 1871 o~ily 20 hectolitres were produced, but in
1881 the output was 318,000 hectolitres, the maximum hitherto
attained. Since then special laws have hampered development, some
provinces, as for instance Sardinia, being allowed to manufacture
for their own consumption but not for export. In other parts the
industry is subjected to an almost prohibitive exciseduty. The
average production is about i8o,ooo hectolitres per annum. The
greatest quantity is produced in Lombardy, Piedmont, Venetia and
Tuscany. The quantity of
beer is
about the same, the greater part of the beer drunk being imported
from
Germany, while the
production of artificial
mineral waters has somewhat decreased.
There is a considerable trade (not very large for export, however)
in natural mineral Waters, which are often excellent.
Paper-making is highly developed in the provinces of Novara,
Caserta, Milan, Vicenza, Turin, Como, Lucca, Ancona, Genoa,
Brescia, Cuneo, Macerata and Salerno. The hand-made paper of
Fabriano is especially
good.
Furniture-making in different styles is carried on all over
Italy, especially as a result of the establishment of industrial
schools. Each region produces a special type, Venetia turning out
imitations of 16th- and I 7th-century styles, Tuscany the
15th-century or cinquecento style, and the Neapolitan provinces the
Pompeian style. Furniture and cabinet-making in great factories are
carried on particularly in Lombardy and Piedmont. Bent-wood
factories have been established in Venetia and Liguria.
A characteristic Italian industry is that of
straw-plaiting for
hat-making, which is carried on principally in
Tuscany, in the district of
Fermo, in the Alpine villages of the province of
Vicenza, and in some communes of the province of Messina. The
plaiting is done by country women, while the hats are made up in
factories. Both plaits and hats are largely exported.
Tobacco is entirely a government monopoly; the total amount
manufactured in 1902-1903 was 16,599 tonsa fairly constant
figure.
The finest
glass is made in
Tuscany and Venetia; Venetian glass is often colored and of
artistic form.
In the various ceramic arts Italy was once unrivalled, but the
ancient tradition for a long time lost its primeval impulse. The
works at Vinovo, which had fame in the f 8th century,, came to an
untimely end in 1820; those of Castelli (in ,
Ares the Abruzzi), which have been revived, were
supplanted f~t by Charles III.s establishment at Capodimonte, I7~
which after producing articles of surprising execution was closed
before the end of the century. The first place now belongs to the
Della Doccia works at Florence. Founded in 1735 by the marquis
Carlo Ginori, they maintained a reputation of the very highest kind
down to about 1860; but since then they have not kept pace with
their younger rivals in other lands. They still, however, are
commercially successful. Other cities where the ceramic industries
keep their ground are Pesaro,
Gubbio, Faenza (whose name long ago became the
distinctive term for the finer kind of potters work in France,
falence), Savona and Albissola, Turin, Mondovi, Cuneo,
Castellamonte, Milan, Brescia, Sassuolo, Imola, Rimini, Perugia,
Castelli, &c. In all these the older styles, by which these
places became famous in the IthI8th centuries, have been revived.
It is estimated that the total production of the finer wares
amounts on the average to 400,000 per annum. The ruder branches of
the artthe making of tiles and common waresare pretty generally
diffused.
The jewellers art received large encouragement in a country
which had so many independent courts; but nowhere has it attained a
fuller development than at Rome. A vast variety of trinketsin
coral, glass, lava, &c.is exported from Italy, or carried away
by the annual host of tourists. The copying of the paintings of the
o~ld masters is becoming an art industry of no small
mercantile import. ance
in some of the larger cities.
The production of mosaics is an industry still carried on with
much success in Italy, which indeed ranks exceedingly high in th
department. ihe great works of the Vatican are especially famous
(more than 17,000 distinct tints are employed in their
productions), and there are many other establishments in Rome. The
Florentine mosaics are perhaps better known abroad; they are
composed of larger pieces than the Roman. Those of the Venetian
artists are remarkable for the boldness of their coloring. There is
a tendency towards the fostering of feminine home
industrieslace-making,
linen-weaving, &c.
Condition of the Working Classes
The condition of the numerous agricultural laborers (who
constitute one-third of the population) is, except in some regions,
hard, and in places absolutely miserable. Much light was thrown
upon their position by the agricultural inquiry (inchiesta agraria)
completed in 1884. The large numbers of emigrants, who are drawn
chiefly from the rural classes, furnish another proof of poverty.
The terms of agrarian contracts and leases (except in districts
where mezzadria prevails in its essential form), are in many
regions disadvantageous to the laborers, who suffer from the
obligation to provide
guarantees for payment of rent, for repayment of seed corn and for
the division of products.
It was only at the close of the 19th century that the true cause
of malariathe
conveyance of the infection by the bite of
the Malaria.. Anopheles clavigerwas discovered. This
mosquito does not as a rule
enter the large towns; but low-lying coast districts and
ill-drained plains are especially subject to it. Much has been done
in keeping out the insects by fine wire netting placed on the
windows and the doors of houses, especially in the railwaymens
cottages. In 1902 the state took up the sale of quinine at a low
price, manufacturing it at the central military pharmaceutical
laboratory at Turin. Statistics show the difference produced by
this measure.
1 Pounds of Deaths by r inancia z
ear. quinine sold. Malaria.
1901-1902 -. 13,358
1902-1903 4,932 9,908
1903-1904 15,915 8,513
1904-1905 30,956 8,501
1905-1906 41,166 7,838
1906-1907 45,591 4,875
The profit made by the state, which is entirely devoted to a
special fund for means against malaria, amounted in these five
years to 41 ~759 It has been established that two 3-grain pastilles
a day are a sufficient prophylactic; and the proprietors of
malarious estates and contractors for public works in malarious
districts are bound by law to provide sufficient quinine for their
workmen, death for want of this precaution coming under the
provisions of the workmens compensation act. Much has also been,
though much remains to be, done in the way of bonificamento, i.e.
proper drainage and improvement of the (generally fertile)
low-lying and hitherto malarious plains.
In Venetia the lives of the small proprietors and of the
salaried peasants are often extremely miserable. There and in
Lombardy the disease known as
pellagra is most widely diffused. The disease
is due to poisoning by micro-organisms produced by deteriorated
maize, and can be combated by care in ripening, drying and storing
the maize. The most recent statistics show the disease to be
diminishing. Whereas in 1881 there were 104,067 (16.29 per I 000)
peasants afflicted by the disease, in 1899 there were only 72,603
(10.30 per 1000) peasants, with a maximum of 39,882 (34.32 per
1000) peasants in Venetia. and 19,557 (12.90 per 1000) peasants in
Lombardy. The decrease of the disease is a direct result of the
efforts made to combat it, in the form of special hospitals or
pellagrosarf, economic kitchens, rural bakeries and maize-drying
establishments. A bill for the better prevention of pellagra was
introduced in the spring of 1902. The deaths from it dropped in
that year to 2376, from 3054 in the previous year and 3788 in
1900.
In Liguria, on account of the comparative rarity of large
estates, agricultural laborers are in a better condition. Men
earn between Is. 3d. and 2s. Id. a
day, and women from 5d. to 8d. In Emilia the day laborers, known as
disobbligati, earn, on the contrary, low wages, out of which they
have to provide for shelter and to lay by something against
unemployment. Their
condition is miserable. In Tuscany, however, the prevalence of
mezzadria, properly so called, has raised the laborers position.
Yet in some Tusban provinces, as, for instance, that of Grosseto,
where malaria rages, laborers are organized in gangs under
corporals, who undertake harvest work. They are poverty-stricken,
and easily fall victims to
fever. In the Abruzzi and in Apulia both regular
and irregular workmen are engaged by the year. The cura tori or
curatoli (factors) receive 40 a year, with a slight interest in the
profits; the stockmen hardly earn in money and kind 13; the
muleteers and underworkmen get between 5 to 8, plus firewood, bread
and oil; irregular workmen have even lower wages, with a daily
distribution of bread, salt and oil. In Campania and Calabria the
curatoli and massari earn, in money and kind, about 12 a year;
cowmen, shepherds and multeers about 10; irregular workmen are paid
from 8~d. to Is. 8d. per day, but only find employment, on an
average, 230 days in the year. The condition of Sicilian laborers
is also miserable. The huge extent of the latzfondi, or large
estates, often results in their being left in the hands of
speculators, who exploit both workmen and farmers with such
usury that the latter are often
compelled, at the end of a scanty year, to hand over their crops to
the usurers before harvest. In Sardinia wage-earners are paid lod.
a day, with free shelter and an
allotment for private cultivation. Irregular
adult workmen earn between lod. and Is. 3d., and boys from 6d. to
iod. a day. Woodcutters and vine-waterers, however, sometimes earn
as much as 3s. a day.
The peasants somewhat rarely use animal foodthis is most largely
used in Sardinia and least in Sicilybread and polenta or macaroni
and vegetables being the
staple diet. Wine is the prevailing drink, The
condition of the workmen employed in manufactures has improved
during recent years. Wages are higher, the cost of the prime
necessaries of life is, as a rule, lower, though taxation on some
of them is still enormous; so that the remuneration of work has
improved. Taking into account the variations in wages and in the
price of wheat, it may be calculated that the number of hours of
work requisite to earn a sum equal to the price of a cwt. of wheat
fell from 183 in 1871 to 73 in 1894. In 1898 it was 105, on account
of the rise In the price of wheat, and since then up till 19o2 it
oscillated between 105 and 95.
Wages have risen from 22~6 centimes per hour (on an average) to
26.3 centimes, but not in all industries. In the mining and woollen
industries they have fallen, but have increased in mechanical,
chemical, silk and cotton industries. Wages vary greatly in
different parts of Italy, according to the cost of the necessaries
of life, the degree of development of working-class needs and the
state of working-class organization, which in some places has
succeeded in increasing the rates of pay. Women are, as a rule,
paid less than men, and though their wages have also increased, the
rise has been slighter than in the case of men. In some trades, for
instance the silk trade, women earn little more than lod. a day,
and, for some classes of work, as little as 7d. and 41/2d. The
general improvement in sanitation has led to a corresponding
improvement in the condition of the working classes, though much
still remains to be done, especially in the south. On the other
hand, it is generally the case that even in the most unpromising
inn the bedding is clean.
The number of industrial strikes has risen from year to year,
although, on account of the large number of persons involved in
some of them, the rise in the number of strikers has not sUlk
always corresponded to the number of strikes, During, es. the years
1900 and 1901 strikes were increasingly numerous, chiefly on
account of the growth of Socialist and working-class
organizations.
The greatest proportion of strikes takes place in northern
Italy, especially Lombardy and Piedmont, where manufacturing
industries are most developed. Textile, building and mining
industries show the highest percentage of strikes, since they give
employment to large numbers of men concentrated in single
localities. Agricultural strikes, though less frequent than those
in manufacturing industries, have special importance in Italy. They
are most common in the north and centre, a circumstance which shows
them to be promoted less by the more backward and more ignorant
peasants than by the better-educated laborers of Lombardy and
Emilia, among whom, Socialist organizations are widespread. Since
1901 there have been, more than once, general strikes at Milan and
elsewhere, and one in the autumn of 1905 caused great inconvenience
throughout the country, and led to no effective result.
Although in some industrial centres the working-class movement
has assumed an importance equal to that of other countries, there
is no general working-class organization comparable to the English
trade unions.
Mutual benefit and co-operative societies serve the purpose of
working-class defence or offence against the employers. In 1893,
after many vicissitudes, the Italian Socialist Labor Party was
founded, and has now become the Italian Socialist Party, in which
the majority of Italian workmen enrol themselves. Printers and
hat-makers, however, possess trade societies. In 189? an agitation
began for the organization of Chambers of Labor, intended to look
after the
technical education of workmen and
to form commissions of
arbitration in case of strikes. They act
also as employment burcaux, and are often centres of political
propaganda. At present such chambers exist in many Italian cities,
while leagues of improvement,, or of resistance, are rapidly
spreading in the country districts. In many cases the action of
these organizations has proved, at least temporarily, advantageous
to the working classes.
Labor legislation is backward in Italy, on account of the late
development of manufacturing industry and of working-class
organization. On the 17th of April 1898 a species of
Employers
Liability Act compelled employers of more than five workmen in
certain industries to insure their employees against accidents.
On the i7th of July 1898 a national fund for the
insurance of workmen
against illness and old age was founded by law on the principle of
optional registration. In addition to an initial endowment by the
state, part of the annual income of the fund is furnished in
various forms by the state (principally by making over a proportion
of the profits of the Post Office Savings Bank), and part by the
premiums of the workmen. The minimum annual premium is six lire for
an
annuity of one
lira per day at the age of sixty, and
insurance against sickness. The low level of wages in many trades
and the jealousies of the Chambers of Labor and other working-class
organizations impede rapid development.
A law came into operation in February 1908, according to which a
weekly day of rest (with few exceptions)was established on Sunday
in every case in which it was possible, and otherwise upon some
other day of the week.
The French institution of Prudhommes was introduced into Italy
in 1893, under the name of Coltegi di Probiviri. The institution
has not attained great vogue. Most of the colleges deal with
matters affecting textile and mechanical industries. Each college
is founded by royal decree, and consists of a president, with not
fewer than ten and not more than twenty members. A conciliation
bureau and a
jury are elected to deal with disputes concerning
wages, hours of work, labor contracts, &c., and have power to
settle the disputes, without
appeal, whenever the amounts involved do not exceed 1/28.
Provident institutions have considerably developed in Italy
under the forms of
savings banks, assurance companies
Provident and mutual benefit societies. Besides the Post Office
~ions. Savings Bank and the ordinary savings
banks, many co-operative credit societies and
ordinary credit banks receive deposits of savings.
The greatest number of savings banks exists in Lombardy;
Piedmont and Venetia come next. Campania holds the first place in
the south, most of the savings of that region being deposited in
the provident institutions of Naples. In Liguria and Sardinia the
habit of
thrift is less
developed. Assurance societies in Italy are subject to the general
dispositions of the commercial code regarding commercial companies.
Mutual benefit societies have increased rapidly, both because their
advantages have been appreciated, and because, until recently, the
state had taken no steps directly to insure workmen against
illness. The present Italian mutual benefit societies resemble the
ancient beneficent corporations, of which in some respects they may
be considered a continuation. The societies require government
recognition if they wish to enjoy legal rights. The state (law of
the 15th of April 1896) imposed this condition in order to
determine exactly the aims of the societies, and, while allowing
them to give help to their sick, old or feeble members, or aid the
families of deceased members, to forbid them to pay
old-age
pensions, lest they assumed burdens beyond their financial
strength. Nevertheless, the majority of societies have not sought
recognition, being suspicious of fiscal state intervention.
Co-operation,
for the various purposes of credit, distribution, production and
labor, has attained great development in Italy.
Co-o ra- Credit co-operation is represented by a special type of
association known as Peoples Banks (Banche Popolari). They are not,
as a rule, supported by workmen or peasants, but rather by small
tradespeople, manufacturers and farmers. They perform a useful
function in protecting their clients from the cruel usury which
prevails, especially in the south. A recent form of co-operative
credit banks are the Casse Rurali or rural banks, on the Raffeisen
system, which lend money to peasants and small proprietors out of
capital obtained on credit or by gift. These loans are made on
personal
security, but the
members of the bank do not contribute any
quota of the capital, though their liability is
unlimited in case of loss. They are especially widespread in
Lombardy and Venetia.
Distributive co-operation is confined almost entirely to
Piedmont, Liguria, Lombardy, Venetia, Emilia and Tuscany, and is
practically unknown in Basilicata, the Abruzzi and Sardinia.
Co-operative dairies are numerous. They have, however, much
decreased in number since 1889. More numerous are the agricultural
and viticultural co-operative societies, which have largely
increased in number. They are to be found mainly in the fertile
plains of north Italy, where they enjoy considerable success,
removing the cause of labor troubles and strikes, and providing for
cultivation on a sufficiently large scale. The richest, however, of
the co-operative societies, though few in number, are those for the
production of electricity, for textile industries and for ceramic
and glass manufactures.
Co-operation in general is most widely diffused, in proportion
to population, in central Italy; less so in northern Italy, and
much less so in the south and the islands. It thus appears that
co-operation flourishes most in the districts in which the
mezzadria system has been prevalent.
Railways
The first railway in Italy, a line I6 m. long from Naples to
Casteilammare, was opened in 1840. By i881 there were some 5500 m.
open, in 1891 some 8000 rn. while in 1901 the total length was 9317
rn. In July 1905 all the principal lines, which had been
constructed by the state, but had been since 1885 let out to three
companies (Mediterranean, Adriatic, Sicilian), were taken over by
the state; their length amounted in 1901 to 6147 m., and in f 907
to 8422 m. The minor lines (many of them narrow gauge) remain in
the hands of private companies. The total length, including the
Sardinian railways, was 10,368 m. in 1907. The state, in taking
over the Failways, did not exercise sufficient care to see that the
lines and the rolling stock were kept up to a proper state of
efficiency and adequacy for the work they had t,o perform; while
the step itself was taken somewhat hastily. The result was that for
the first two years of state administration the service was
distinctly bad, and the lack of goods trucks at the ports was
especially felt. A capital expenditure of 1/24,000,000 annually was
decided on to bring the lines up to the necessary state of
efficiency to be able to cope with the rapidly increasing traffic.
It was estimated in 1906 that this would have to be maintained for
a period of ten years, with a further total expenditure of 1/21
4,000,000 on new lines.
Comparing the state of things in 1901 with that of 1881, for the
whole country, we find the passenger and goods traffic almost
doubled (except the cattle traffic), the capital expenditure almost
doubled, the working expenses per mile almost imperceptibly
increased, and tI~
gross
receipts per mile slightly lower. The personnel had increased from
70,568 to 108,690. The construction of numerous unremunerative
lines, and the free granting of concessions to government and other
employees (and also of cheap tickets on special occasions for
congresses, &c., in various towns, without strict inquiry into
the qualifications of the claimants) will account for the failure
to realize a higher profit. The fares (in slow trains, with the
addition of 10 ~/ for expenses) are: 1st class, I ~85d.; 2nd, I3d.;
3rd, o725d. per mile. There are, however, considerable reductions
for distances over 93 m., on a scale increasing in proportion to
the distance.
The taking over of the main lines by the state has of course
produced a considerable change in the financial situation of the
railways. The state incurred in this connection a liability of some
1/22o,ooo,000, of which about 1/2I6,00o,000 represented the rolling
stock. The state has considerably improved the engines and
passenger carriages. The capital value of the whole of the lines,
rolling stock, &c., for 1 9081909 was calculated approximately
at 1/2244,f 61,400, and the profits at 1/25,295,019, or 22%.
Milan 4s the most important railway centre in the country, and
is followed by Turin, Genoa, Verona, Bologna, Rome, Naples.
Lombardy and Piedmont are much better provided with railways in
proportion to their area than any other parts of Italy; next come
Venetia, Emilia and the immediate environs of Naples.
The northern frontier is crossed by the railway from Turin to
Ventimiglia by the Col di Tenda, the Mont Cenis line from Turin to
Modane (the
tunnel is 7 m. in
length), the Simplon line (tunnel II m. in length) from Domodossola
to Brigue, the St Gotthard from Milan to Chiasso (the tunnel is
entirely in Swiss territory), the Brenner from Verona to Trent, the
line from Udine to Tarvis and the line from Venice to Triest by the
Adriatic coast. Besides these international lines the most
important are those from Milan to Turin (via Vercelli and via
Alessandria), to Genoa via
Tortona, to Bologna via Parma and Modena, to
V~rona, and the shorter lines to the district of the lakes of
Lombardy; from Turin to Genoa via Savona and via Alessandria; from
Genoa to Savona and Ventimiglia along the Riviera, and along the
south-west coast of Italy, via
Sarzana (whence a line runs to Parma) to Pisa
(whence lines run to
Pistoia
and Florence) and Rome; from Verona to Modena, and to Venice via
Padua; from Bologna to Padtia, to Rimini (and thence along the
north-east coast via Ancona, Castellammare Adriatico and Foggia to
Brindisi and Otranto), and to Florence and Rome; from Rome to
Ancona, to Castellammare Adriatico and to Naples; from Naples to
Foggia, via Metaponto (with a junction for Reggio di Calabria), to
Brindisi and to Reggio di Calabria. (For the Sicilian and Sardinian
lines, see SICILY and SARDINIA.) The speed of the trains is not
high, nor are the runs without stoppage long as a rule. One of the
fastest runs is from Rome to Orte, 52-40 m. in 69 mm., or 454o m.
per hour, but this is a double line with little traffic. The low
speed reduces the potentiality of the lines. The insufficiency of
rolling stock, and especially of goods wagons, is mainly caused by
delays in handling traffic consequent on this or other causes,
among which may be mentioned the great length ofthe single lines
south of Rome. It is thus a matter of difficulty to provide trucki
for a stidden emergency, e.g. the vintage season; and in 1905-1907
complaints were rnany,~ while the seaports were continually short
o~ trucks. This led to deficiencies in the supply of coal to the
manufacturing centres, and to some diversion elsewhere of
shipping.
Steam and Electric Tramways
Tramways with mechanical
traction have developed rapidly. Between 1875,
when the first lila was opened, and 1901, the length of the lines
grew to 1890 m. 0~ steam and 270 rn. of electric tramways. These
lines exist principally in Lombardy (especially in the province of
Milan), in Piedmont, especially in the province of Turin, and in
other regions of northern and central Italy. In the south they are
rare, on account partly of the mountainous character of the
country, and partly of the scarcity of traffic. All the important
towns of Italy are provided with internal electric tramways, mostly
with overhead wires.
Carriage-roads have
been greatly extended in modern times, although their ratio to area
varies in different localities. In north Italy there are 1480 yds.
of road per sq. m.; in central Italy 993; in southern Italy 405; in
Sardinia 596, and in Sicily only 244. They are as a rule well kept
up in north and central Italy, less so in the south, where,
especially in Calabria, many villages are inaccessible by road and
have only footpaths leading to them. By the act of 1903 the state
contributes half and the province a quarter of the cost of roads
connecting communes with the nearest railway stations or landing
places.
Inland Navigation
Navigable canals had in 1886 a total length of abput 655 m.;
they are principally situated in Piedmont, Lombardy and Venetia,
and are thus practically confined to the P0 basin. Canals lead from
Milan to the Ticino, Adda and P0. The P0 is itself navigable from
Turin downwards, but through its delta it is so sandy that canals
are preferred, the P0 di Volano ~.nd the P0 di Primaro on the
right, and the
Canale Bianco
on the left. The total length of navigable rivers is 967 m.
Posts, Telegraphs and Telephones
The number of post offices (including collettorie, or collecting
offices, which are rapidly being eliminated) increased from 2200 in
1862 to 4823 in 1881, 6700 in I891 and 8817 in 1904. In spite of a
large increase in the number of letters and post cards (i.e. nearly
10 per inhabitant per annum in 1904, as against 5-65 in 1888) the
average is considerably below that of,most other European
countries. The number of state
telegraph offices was 4603, of other offices
(railway and
tramway
stations, which accept private telegrams for transmission) 1930.
The
telephone system is
considerably developed; in 1904, 92 urban and 66 inter - urban
systems existed. They were installed by private companies, but have
been taken over by the state. International communication between
Rome and
Paris, and Italy and
Switzerland also exists. The
parcel post and money order services have
largely increased since 1887--1888, the number of parcels having
almost doubled (those for abroad are more than trebled), while the
number of money orders issued is trebled and their value doubled
(about 40,000,000). The value of the foreign orders paid in Italy
increased from 1,280,000 to ~2,356,oo0owing to the increase of
emigration and of the savings sent home by emigrants.
At the end of 1907 Italy was among the few Countries that had
not adopted the reduction of postage sanctioned at the Postal Union
congress, held in Rome in 1906, by which the rates became 23/4d.
for the first oz., and i3/4d. per oz. afterwards. The internal rate
is 15c. (i3/4d.) per 3/4 oz.; post-cards foe. (1d.), reply I5c. On
the other hand, letters within the postal district are only 5c.
(id.) per 3/4 oz. Printed matter is 2c. (Id.) per 50 grammes (s3/4
oz.). The regulations provide that if there is a greater weight of
correspondence (including bookpackets) than 13/4 lb for any
individual by any one delivery, notice shall be given him that it
is lying at the post office, he being then obliged to arrange for
fetching it. Letters insured for a fixed sum are not delivered
under any circumstances.
Money order cards are very convenient and cheap (up to 10 lire
for bc. short private
message can be written on them. Owing to the
comnaratively small amount of letters, it is found possible to have
a travelling post office on all principal trains (while almost
every
train has a travelling
sorter, for whom a compartment is reserved) without a late
fee being exacted in either case. In
the principal towns letters may be posted in special boxes at the
head office just before the departure of any given
mail train, and are conveyed direct to the
travelling post office. Another convenient arrangement is the
provision of letter-boxes on electric tramcars in some cities.
Mercantile Marine
Between the years i88i and 1905 the number of ships entered and
cleared at Italian ports decreased slightly (219,598 in 1881 and
208,737 in 1905), while their aggregate tonnage increased
(32,070,704 in 1881 and 80,782,030 in 1905). In the movement of
shipping, trade with foreign countries prevails (especially as
regards arrivals) over trade between Italian ports. Must of the
merchandise and passengers bound for and hailing from foreign ports
sail under foreign flags.
Similarly, foreign vessels prevail over Italian vessels in regard
to goods embarked. European countries absorb the greater part of
Italian sea-borne trade, whereas most of the passenger traffic goes
to North and South America. The substitution of steamships for
sailing vessels has brought about a diminution in the number of
vessels belonging to the Italian mercantile marine, whether
employed in the
coasting
trade, the fisheries or in traffic on the
high seas. Thus:
Total Steamships. Sailing Vessels.
Year. No: of Number. Tonnage Number. Tonnage Ships. (Net).
(Net)._
i881 7815 176 93,698 7,639 895,359
1905 5596 513 462,259 5,083 570,355
Among the steamers the increase has chiefly taken plac in
vessels of more than 1000 tons displacement, but the number of
large sailing vessels has also increased. The most important
Italian ports are (in order): Genoa, Naples, Palermo, Leghorn,
Messina, Venice, Catania.. .
Foreign Trade
Italian trade with foreign countries (imports and exports)
during the quinquennium 1872-1876 averaged 94,000,000 a year; in
the quinquennium 1893f 897 it fell to 88,960,000 a year. In 1898,
however, the total rose to 104,680,000, but the increase was
principally due to the extra importation of corn in that year. In
1899 it was nearly 120,000,000. Since 1899 there has been a steady
increase both in imports and exports. Thus: Trade with Foreign
Countries in 1000
Excess of Totals. Imports. Exports. Imports over Exports.
1871 81,966 38,548 43,418 4,870
1881 96,208 49,587 46,621 2,966
1891 80,135 45,063 35,072 9,991
1900 121,538 68,009 53.529 14,480
1904 140,437 76,549 63,888 12,661
1 No account has here been taken of fluctuations of
exchange.
The great extension of Italian coast-line is thought by some to
be not really a source of strength to the Italian mercantile
marine, as few of the ports have a large enough
hinterland to provide
them with traffic, and in this hinterland (except in the basin of
the Po) there are no canals or navigable rivers. Another source of
weakness is the fact that Italy is a country of transit and the
Italian mercantile marine has to enter into competition with the
ships of other countries, which call there in passing. A third
difficulty is the comparatively small tonnage and volume of Italian
exports relatively to the imports, the former in 1907 being about
one-fourth of the latter, and greatl out of proportion to the
relative value; while a fourth is the
lac of facilities for handling goods, especially in
the smaller ports.
The total imports for the first six months of 1907 amounted to
57,840,000, an increase of 7,520,000 as compared with the
corresponding period of 1906. The exports for the corresponding
period amounted to 35,840,000, a diminution of 1,520,000 as
compared with the corresponding period of 1906. The diminution was
due to a smaller exportation of raw silk and oil. The countries
with which this trade is mainly carried on are: (imports) United
Kingdom, Germany, United States, France,
Russia and India; (exports) Switzerland, United
States, Germany, France, United Kingdom and Argentina.
The most important imports are minerals, including coal and
metals (both in pig and wrought); silks, raw, spun and woven;
stone, potters earths, earthenware and glass; corn,
flour and farinaceous products;
cotton, raw, spun and woven; and live stock. The principal exports
are silk and cotton tissues, live stock, wines,
spirits and oils; corn, flour, macaroni and
similar products; and minerals, chiefly sulphur. Before the tariff
reform of 1887 manufactured articles, alimentary products and raw
materials for manufacture held the principal places in the imports.
In the exports, alimentary products came first, while raw materials
for manufacture and manufactured articles were of little account.
The transformation of Italy from a purely agricultural into a
largely industrial country is shown by the circumstance that trade
in raw stuffs, semimanufactured and manufactured materials, now
preponderates over that in alimentary products and
wholly-manufactured articles, both the importation of raw materials
and the exportation of manufactured articles having increased. The
balance of Italian trade has undergone frequent fluctuations. The
large predominance of imports over exports after 1884 was a result
of the falling off of the export trade in live stock, olive oil and
wine, on account of the closing of the French market, while the
importation of corn from Russia and the
Balkan States increased considerably.
In 1894 the excess of imports over exports fell to 2,720,000, but
by 1898 it had grown to 8,391,000, in consequence chiefly of the
increased importation of coal, raw cotton and cotton thread, pig
and cast iron, old iron, grease and oil-seeds for use in Italian
industries. In 1899 the excess of imports over exports fell to
3,006,000; but since then it has never been less than
12,000,000,
Education
Public instruction in Italy is regulated by the state, which
maintains public schools of every grade, and requires that other
public schools shall conform to the rules of the state schools. No
private person may open a school without state authorization.
Schools may be classed thus:
I. Elementary, of two grades, of the lower of which there must
legally be at least one for boys and one for girls in each commune;
while the upper grade elementary school is required in communes
having normal and secondary schools or over 4000 inhabitants. In
both the instruction is free They are maintained by the communes,
sometimes with state help.
The age limit is six to nine years for the lower grade, and up
to twelve for the higher grade, attendance being obligatory at the
latter also where it exists. 2. Secondary instruction (i.)
classical in the ginnasi and licei, the latter leading to the
universities; (ii.) technical. 3. Higher educationuniversities,
higher institutes and special schools.
Of the secondary and higher educatory methods, in the normal
schools and licei the state provides for the payment of the staff
and for scientific material, and often largely supports the ginnasi
and technical schools, which should by law be supported by the
communes. The universities are maintained by the state and by their
own ancient resources; while the higher special schools are
maintained conjointly by the state, the province, the commune and
(sometimes) the local chamber of commerce.
The number of persons unable to read and write has gradually
decreased, both absolutely and in proportion to the number of
inhabitants. The census of 1871 gave 73% of illiterates, that of
1881, 67%, and that of 1901, 56%, i.e. 5r8 for males and 60.8 for
females. In Piedmont there were 17.7% of illiterates above six
years (the lowest) and in Calabria 78.7% (the highest), the figures
for the whole country being 48~5. As might be expected, progress
has been most rapid wherever education, at the moment of national
unification, was most widely diffused. For instance, the number of
bridegrooms unable to write their names in 1872 was in the province
of Turin 26%, and in the Calabrian province of Cosenza 90%; in 1899
the percentage in the province of Turin had fallen to 5%, while in
that of Cosenza it was still 76%. Infant asylums (where the first
rudiments of instruction are imparted to children between two and a
half and six years of age) and elementary schools have increased in
number. There has been a corr~2sponding increase in the number of
scholars. Thus: Infant Asylums Daily Elementary Schools (Public and
Private). (Public and Private).
Year.
Number of Number of Number of Number of Asylums. Scholars.
Schoolrooms. Scholars.
188586 2083 240,365 53,628 2,252,898
189o91 2296 278,204 57,077 2,418,692
19o102 3314 355,594 61,777 2,733,349
The teachers in 1901-1902 numbered 65,739 (exclusive of 576
non-teaching
directors
and 322 teachers of special subjects) or about 415 scholars per
teacher.
The rate of increase in the public state-supported schools has
been much greater than in the private schools. School buildings
have been improved and the qualifications of teachers raised.
Nevertheless, many schools are still defective, both from a
hygienic and a teaching point of view; while the economic position
of the elementary teachers, who in Italy depend upon the communal
administrations and not upon the state, is still in many parts of
the country extremely low.
The law of 1877 rendering education compulsory for children
between six and nine years of age has been the principal cause of
the spread of elementary education. The law is, however,
imperfectly enforced for financial reasons. In 1901-1902 only 65%
out of the whole number of children between six and nine years of
age were registered in the lower standards of the elementary and
private schools. The evening schools have to some extent helped to
spread education. Their number and that of their scholars have,
however, decreased since the withdrawal of state subsidies. In
1871-1872 there were 375,947 scholars at the evening schools and
154,585 at the
holiday
schools, while in 1900-1901 these numbers had fallen to 94,510 and
35,460 respectively. rhese are, however, the only institutions in
which a decrease is shown, and by the law of 1906 5000 of these
institutions are to be provided in the communes where the
proportion of illiterates is highest. In 1895 they numbered 4245,
with 138,181 scholars. Regimental schools impart elementary
education to illiterate soldiers. Whereas the
levy of 1894 showed 40% of the recruits to be
completely illiterate, only 27% were illiterate when the levy was
discharged in 1897. Private institutions and working-class
associations have striven to improve the intellectual conditions of
the working classes. Popular universities have lately attained
considerable development. The number of institutes devoted to
secondary education remained almost unchanged between 1880-1881 and
1895-1896. In some places the number has even been diminished by
the suppression of private educational institutes. But the number
of scholars has considerably increased, and shows a ratio superior
to the general increase of the population. The greatest increase
has taken place in technical educarion, where it has been much more
rapid than in classical education. There are three higher
commercial schools, with academic rank, at Venice, Genoa and Ban,
and eleven secondary commercial schools; and technical and
commercial schools for women at Florence and Milan. The number of
agricultural schools has also grown, although the total is
relatively small when compared with population. The attendance at
the various classes of secondary schools in 1882 and 1902 is shown
by the following table:
1882.1902. No. of Schools.
Ginnasi Government 13,875 24,081 192
On an equal footing with govern ment schools 6,417 7,208
76&
Not on such a footing - - - 22,609 24,85oi 442
Total. - - 42,811 56,139 710
Technical schools Government 7,510 30,411 188
Onanequalfooting - - - - 8,653 12,055 101
Not on such a footing. - 8,670 3,623i 106
Total. .. 24,833 46,089 395
Licei Government 6,623 10,983 121
On an equal footing -.. 1,167 1,955 33
Notonsuchafooting. .. 4,600 4,9621 187
Total. .. 12,390 17,900 341
Technical institutes Government 5,555 9,654 54
On an equal footing. .. i,684 1,898 18
Not on such a footing... 619 378i 7
Total. .. 7,858 11,930 79
Na,ptical institutes Uovernment 758 1,878 18
On an equal footing - -. 69 38 I
Notonsuchafooting. - - - 13 29i I
Total.. - 816, 1,945 20
i 1896.
The schools which do not obtain equality with government schools
are either some of those conducted by religious orders, or else
those in which a sufficient standard is not reached. The total
number of such schools was, in 1896, 742 with 33,813 pupils.
The pupils of the secondary schools reach a maximum of 6~6o per
1000 in Liguria and 5~92 in Latium, and a minimum of 2.30 in the
Abruzzi, 227 in Calabria and 1.65 in Basilicata.
For the boarding schools, or convilli, there are only incomplete
reports except f or the institutions directly dependent on the
ministry of public instruction, which are comparatively few. The
rest are largely directed by religious institutions. In 1895-1896
there were 919 convitti for boys, with 59,066 pupils, of which 40,
with 3814 pupils, were dependent on the ministry (in 1901f 902
there were 43 of these with 4036 pupils); and 1456 for girls, with
49,367 pupils, of which only 8, with about 6oo pupils, were
dependent on the ministry.
The scuole normali or training schools (117 in number, of which
75 were government institutions) for teachers had 1329 male
students in I 9011902, showing hardly any increase, while the
female students increased from 8oo~ in 1882-1883 to 22,316 in
1895-1896, but decreased to 19,044 ifl 1901-1902, owing to the
admission of women to telegraph and telephone work. The female
secondary schools in 1881-1882 numbered 77, of which 7 were
government institutions, with 3569 pupils; in 1901f 902 there were
233 schools (9 governmental) with 9347 pupils.
The total attendance of students in the various faculties at the
different universities and higher institutes is as follows:
1882.1902.
Law 4,801 8,385
Professional diploma,
pharmacy 798 3,290
Engineering 982 1,293
Agriculture 45 507
Commerce - - 128 167
Total - 13,065 27,900
Thus a large
all-round increase in secondary and
higher education is shownsatisfactory in many respects, but showing
that more young men devote themselves to the learned professions
(especially to the law) than the economic condition of the country
will justify. There are 21 universitiesBologna, Cagliari,
Camerino, Catania,
Ferrara,Genoa,Macerata, Messina, Modena, Naples, Padua, Palermo,
Parma, Pavia, Perugia, Pisa, Rome, Sassari, Siena, Turin, Urbino,
of which Camerino, Ferrara, Perugia and Urbino are not state
institutions; university courses are also given at Aquila, Ban and
Catanzaro. Of these the most frequented in 1904-1905 were: Naples
(4745), Turin (3451), Rome (2630), Bologna (1711), Pavia (1559),
Padua (1364), Genoa (1276), and the least frequented, Cagliari
(254), Siena (235) and Sassari (200). The professors are ordinary
and extraordinary, and free professors (liberi docenti),
corresponding to the German Privatdozenten, are also allowed to be
attached to the universities.
The institutions which co-operate with the universities are the
special schools for engineers at Turin, Naples, Rome and Bologna
(and others attached to some of the universities), the higher
technical institute at Milan, the higher veterinary schools of
Milan, Naples and Turin, the institute for higher studies at
Florence (Istituto di studi superiori, pratici e di
perfezionamento), the literary and scientific academy of Milan, the
higher institutes for the training of female teachers at Florence
and Rome, the Institute of Social Studies at Florence, the higher
commercial schools at Venice, Ban and Genoa, the commercial
university founded by L. Bocconi at Milan in 1902, the higher naval
school at Genoa, the higher schools of agriculture at Milan and
Portici, the experimental
institute at Perugia, the school of forestry at Vallambrosa, the
industrial museum at Turin. The special secondary institutions,
distinct from those already reckoned under the universities and
allied schools, include an Oriental institute at Naples with 243
pupils; 34 schools of agriculture with (1904-1905) 1925 students; 2
schools of mining (at Caltanisetta and Iglesias) with (1904-1905)
83 students; 308 industrial and commercial schools with (1903-1904)
46,411 students; 174 schools of design and moulding with (1898)
12,556 students; 13 government fine art institutes (1904-1905) with
2778 students and 13 nongovernment with 1662 students; 5 government
institutes of
music with 1026
students, and 51 non-government with 4109 pupils (1904-1905).
Almost all of these show a considerable increase.
Libraries are
numerous in Italy, those even of small cities being often rich in
manuscripts and valuable works. Statistics collected in 1893-1894
and 1896 revealed the existence of 1831 libraries, either private
(but open to the public) or completely public. The public libraries
have been enormously increased since 1870 by the
incorporation of
the treasures of suppressed monastic institutions. The richest in
manuscripts is that of the Vatican, especially since the purchase
of the
Barberini Library
in 1902; it now contains over 34,000 MSS. The Vatican archives are
also of great importance. Most large towns contain important state
or communal archives, iii which a considerable amount of research
is being done by local investigators; the various societies for
local history (Societd di Storia Patria) do very good work and
issue valuable publications; the treasures which the archives
contain are by no means exhausted. Libraries and archives are under
the superintendence of the Ministry of Public Instruction. A
separate department of this ministry under a director-general has
the charge of antiquities and
fine arts, making archaeological excavations
and supervising those undertaken by private persons (permission to
foreigners, even to foreign schools, to excavate in Italy is rarely
granted), and maintaining the numerous state museums and picture
galleries. The exportation of works of art and antiquities from
Italy without leave of the ministry is forbidden (though it has in
the past been sometimes evaded). An
inventory of those subjects, the exportation
of which can in no case be permitted, has been prepared; and the
ministry has at its disposal a fund of 200,000 for the purchase of
important works of art of al] kinds.
Charities
In Italy there is no legal right in the poor to be supported by
the parish or commune, nor any obligation on the commune to relieve
the poorexcept in the case of forsaken children and the sick poor.
Public
charity is exercised through the
permanent charitable foundations (opere
pie), which are, however, very unequally
distributed in the different provinces. The districts of Italy
which show between 1881 and 1903 the greatest increase of new
institutions, or of gifts to old ones, are Lombardy, Piedmont,
Liguria, while Sardinia, Calabria and Basilicata stand lowest,
Latium standing comparatively low.
The patrimony of Italian charitable institutions is considerable
and is constantly increasing. In 188o the number of charitable
institutions (exclusive of public pawnshops, or Monti di Piet, and
other institutions which combine operations of credit with charity)
was approximately 22,000, with an aggregate patrimony of nearly
80,000,000. The revenue was about 3,600,000; after
deduction of taxes,
interest on debts, expenses of management, &c., 2,080,000.
Adding to this 1,240,000 of communal and provincial subsidies, the
product of the labor of inmates, temporary subscriptions, &c.,
the net revenue available for charity was, during i88o, 3,860,000.
Of this sum 260,000 was spent for religious purposes. Between 1881
and 1905 the bequests to existing institutions and sums left for
the endowment of new institutions amounted to about 16,604,600.
Charitable institutions take, as a rule, the two forms of
outdoor and indoor relief and attendance. The indoor institutions
are the more important in regard to endowment, and consist of
hospitals for the infirm (a number of these are situated at the
seaside); of hospitals for chronic and incurable diseases; of
orphan asylums; of poorhouses and
shelters for beggars; of infant asylums or institutes for the first
education of children under six years of age; of lunatic asylums;
of homes for the
deaf and dumb; and of institutes for the
blind. The outdoor charitable institutions include those which
distribute help in money or food; those which supply medicine and
medical help; those which aid mothers unable to
rear their own children; those which subsidize
orphans and foundlings; those which subsidize educational
institutes; and those which supply marriage portions. Between 1881
and 1898 the chief increases took place in the endowments of
hospitals; orphan asylums; infant asylums; poorhouses; almshouses;
voluntary workhouses; and institutes for the blind. The least
creditably administered of these are the asylums for abandoned
infants; in I887, of a total of 23,913, 53.77% died; while during
the years 1893-1896 (no later statistics are available) of 117,970
51.72% died. The average mortality under one year for the whole of
Italy in 1893I 896 was only 16-66%.
Italian charity legislation was reformed by the laws of 1862 and
1890, which attempted to provide efficacious protection for
endowments, and to ensure the application of the ir.come to the
purposes for which it was intended. The law considers as charitable
institutions (opere pie) all poorhouses, almshouses and institutes
which partly or wholly give help to able-bodied or infirm paupers,
or seek to improve their moral and economic condition; and also the
Congregazioni di caritd (municipal charity boards existing in every
commune, and composed of ~embers elected by the municipal council),
which administer funds destined for the poor in general. All
charitable institutions were under the protection of provincial
administrative
junta, existing
in every province, and empowered to control the management of
charitable endowments. The supreme control was vested in the
minister of the Interior. The law of 1890 also empowers every
citizen to appeal to the
tribunals on behalf of the poor, for whose benefit a given
charitable institution may have been intended. A more recent law
provides for the formation of a central body, with provincial
commissions under it. Its effect, however, has been comparatively
small.
Public pawnshops or Monti di piet numbered 555 in 1896, with a
net patrimony of 2,879,625. In that year their income, including
revenue from capital, was 416,385, and their expenditure 300,232.
The amount
lent on security was
4,153,229.
The Monti frumentarii or co-operative corn deposits, which lend
seed corn to farmers, and are repaid after harvest with interest in
kind, numbered f615 in 1894, and possessed
apatrimonyof~24o,ooo.
In addition to the regular charitable institutions, the communal
and provincial authorities exercise charity, the former (in 1899)
to the extent of 1,827,166 and the latter to the extent of 919,832
per annum. Part of these sums is given to hospitals, and part spent
directly by the communal and provincial authorities. Of the sum
spent by the communes, about 1/2 goes for the sanitary service
(doctors, midwives,
vaccination), 3/4 for the maintenance of
foundlings, i11 for the support of the sick in hospitals, and I~1
for sheltering the aged and needy. Of the sum spent by the
provincial authorities, over half goes to lunatic asylums and over
a quarter to the maintenance of
foundling hospitals. -
Religion
The great majority of Italians97 ~I2%are Roman Catholics.
Besides the ordinary Latin rite, several others are recognized. The
Armenians of Venice maintain their traditional characteristics. The
Albanians of the southern provinces still employ the Greek rite and
the
Greek
language in their public worship, and their priests, like those
of the Greek Church, are allowed to marry. Certain peculiarities
introduced by
St
Ambrose distinguish the
ritual of Milan from that of the general church.
Up to 1871 the island of Sicily was, according to the bull of
Urban II., ecclesiastically
dependent on the king, and exempt from the canonical power of the
pope.
Though the territorial authority of the papal see was
practically abolished in 1870, the fact that Rome is the seat of
the administrative centre of the vast organization of the church is
not without significance to the nation. In the same city in which
the administrative functions of the body politic are centralized
there stifi exists the court of the spiritual potentate which in
1879 consisted of 1821 persons. Protestants number some 65,000, of
whom half are Italian and half foreign. Of the former 22,500 are
Waldensians. The number of
Jews
was returned as 36,000, but is certainly higher. There are,
besides, in Italy some 2500 members of the Greek
Orthodox Church. There were in
1901 20,707 parishes in Italy, 68,444 secular clergy and 48,043
regulars (monks, lay brothers and nuns). The size of parishes
varies from province to province, Sicily having larger parishes in
virtue of the old Sicilian church laws, and Naples, and some parts
of central Italy, having the smallest. The Italian parishes had in
1901 a total gross revenue, including assignments from the public
worship endowment fund, of 1,280,000 or an average of 63 per
parish; 51% of this gross sum consists of revenue from
glebe lands.
The kingdom is divided into 264 sees and ten abbeys, or
prelatures ni4lius dioceseos. The dioceses are as follows:
A. 6 suburbicarian seesOstia and Velletri, Porto and Sta Rufina,
Albano,
Frascati,
Palestrina, Sabinaall held by
cardinal bishops.
B. 74 sees immediately subject to the Holy See, of which 12 are
archiepiscopal and 61 episcopal.
C. 37 ecclesiastical provinces, each under a
metropolitan,
cornposed of 148 suifragan dioceses. Their position is indicated in
the following table:
Metro politans. Suifragans.
Benevento. ... S. Agata de Goti, Alife, Ariano, Ascoli Satriano
Cerignola, Avellino,
Bojano, Bovino,
Larino,
Lucera, S. Severo, Telese
(Cerreto), Termoli.
Bologna Faenza, Imola. Brindisi and
Ostuni.. No suifragan.
Capua Caiazzo,
Calvi-
Teano, Caserta, IserniaVenafro,
Sessa.
Conza and Campagna. S. Angelo de Lombardi-Bisaccia, Lacedonia,
Muro Lucano.
Fermo Macerata-
Tolentino, Montalto, Ripatransone, S.
Severino.
Genoa Albenga, Bobbio, Chiavari, Savona-
Noli, Tortona, Ventimiglia.
~Iilan Bergamo, Brescia, Como,
Crema, Cremona, Lodi, Mantua, Pavia.
Otranto Gallipoli, Lecce, Ugento.
Palerrno Cefal, Mazzara, Trapani.
Pisa Leghorn,
Pescia,
Pontremoli, Volterra.
Reggio Calabria. .. Bova, Cassano, Catanzaro,
Cotrone, Gerace, Nicastro, Oppido,
NicoteraTropea, Squillace.
Salerno Acerno, Capaccio-Vallo, Diano, MarsicoNuovo and Potenza,
Nocera dci Pagani, Nusco, Policastro.
S. Sevenino. ... Cariati.
Siena Chiusi-Pienza,Grosseto,MassaMai-ittima,, Sovana-
Pitigliano.
Sorrento Castellammare.
Taranto Castellaneta, Onia.
Turin Acqul, Alba, Aosta,
Asti,
Cuneo,
Fossano, Ivrea,
Mondovi,Pinerolo, Saluzzo,Susa.
- Padua, Treviso, Verona, Vicenza.
Vercelli Alessandria della Paglia,
Biella, Casale, Mnnfprr,itn, Nnvsrs Vow~,~n
Twelve archbishops and sixty-one bishops are independent of all
metropolitan supervision, and hold directly of the Holy See. The
archbishops are those of
Amalfi, Aquila, Camerino and Treia, Catania,
Cosenza, Ferrara, Gaeta, Lucca, Perugia,
Rossano,
Spoleto, and Udine, and the bishops those of
Acireale, Acquapendente,
Alatri, Amelia, Anagni, Ancona-Umana,
Aquino-Sora-
Pontecorvo, Arezzo, Ascoli,
Assisi,
Aversa, Bagnorea,
Borgo San Donnino, Cava-
Sarno, Citt di Castello, Citt della
Pieve, Civit Castellana-Orte-Gallese, Corneto-Civita Vecchia~
Cortona, Fabriano-Matelica,
Fano,Ferentino Foggia,
Foligno, Gravina-Montepeloso, Gubbio,
Jesi, Luni-Sarzana and Bragnato, S.
Marco-Bisignano,
Marsi
(Pescina), Melfi-Rapolla Mileto, MoIf etta-
Terlizzi-Giovennazzo,Monopoli,Montalcino,M
ontefiascone,
Montepulciano, Nardo,
Narni, Nocera in Umbria,
Norcia,
Orvieto,
Osimo-
Cingoli, Parma,
Penne-
Atri,
Piacenza, Poggio Mirteto,
Recanati-Loreto,
Rieti, Segni,
Sutri-
Nepi,
Teramo, Terni, Terracina-
Piperno-Sezze, Tjvoli, Todi, Tnivento,
Troia, ValvaSulmona,
Veroli,
Viterbo-
Toscanella. Excluding the diocese of Rome
and suburbicarian sees, each see has an average area of 430 sq. m.
and a population of f2f 285 souls. The largest sees exist in
Venetia and Lombardy, and the smallest in the provinces of Naples,
Leghorn, Forli, Ancona, Pesaro, Urbino, Caserta, Avellino and
Ascoli. The Italian sees (exclusive of Rome and of the
suburbicarian sees) have a total annual revenue of 206,000 equal to
an average of 800 per see. The richest is that of Girgenti, with
6304, and the poorest that of Porto Maurizio, with only 246. In
each diocese is a
seminary
or diocesan school.
In 1855 an act was passed in the Sardinian states for the
disestablishment of all houses of the religious orders not engaged
in
preaching, teaching
or the care of the sick, of all chapters of collegiate churches not
having a cure of souls or existing ~ in towns of less than 20,000
inhabitants, and of all private ~ a benefices for which no service
was paid by the holders. OIlS.
The property and money thus obtained were used to form an
ecclesiastical fund (Cassa Ecclesiastica) distinct from the
finances of the state. This act resulted in the suppression of 274
monasteries with 3733 friars, of 61 nunneries with 1756 nuns and of
2722 chapters and benefices. In 1860 and 1861 the royal
commissioners (even before the constitution of the new kingdom of
Italy had been formally declared) issued decrees by which there
were abolished(f) in Umbria, 197 monasteries and 102 convents with
1809 male and 2393 female associates, and 836 chapters or
benefices; (2) in the Marches, 292 monasteries and 127 convents
with 2950 male and 2728 female associates; (3) in the Neapolitan
provinces, 747 monasteries and 275 convents with 8787 male and 7493
female associates. There were thus disestablished in seven or eight
years 2075 houses of the regular clergy occupied by
3I,649persons;andtheconfiscated property yielded a revenue of
398,298. And at the same time there had been suppressed 11,889
chapters and benefices of the secular clergy, which yielded an
annual income of 109,149. The value of the capital thus potentially
freed was estimated at 12,000,000; though hitherto the
ecclesiastical possessions in Lombardy, Emilia. Tuscany and Sicily
had been untouched. As yet the Cassa Ecclesiastica had no right to
dispose of the property thus entrusted to it; but in 1862 an act
was passed by which it transferred all its
real property to the national domain, and
was credited with a corresponding amount by the
exchequer. The property
could now be disposed of like the other property of the domain; and
except in Sicily, where the system of emphyteusis was adopted, the
church lands began to be sold by auction. To encourage the poorer
classes of the people to become landholders, it was decided that
the lots offered for sale should be small, and that the purchaser
should be allowed to pay by five or ten yearly instalments. By a
new act in 1866 the process of secularization was extended to the
whole kingdom. All the members of the suppressed communities
received full exercise of all the ordinary political and civil
rights of laymen; and annuities were granted to all those who had
taken permanent religious vows prior to the 18th of January 1864.
To priests and choristers, for example, of the proprietary or
endowed orders were assigned 24 per annum if they were upwards of
sixty years of age, 16 if upwards of 40, and 14, 8s. if younger.
The Cassa Ecclesiastica was abolished, and in its stead was
instituted a Fondo pet Culto, or public worship fund. From the
general
confiscation were exempted the buildings
actually used for public worship, as episcopal residences or
seminaries, &c., or which had been appropriated to the use of
schools, poorhouses, hospitals, &c.; as well as the buildings,
appurtenances,
and movable property of the abbeys of Monte
Casino, Della Cava dci Tirreni, San Martino
della Scala, Monneale, Certosa near Pavia, and other establishments
of the same kind of importance as architectural or historical
monuments. An annuity equal to the ascertained revenue of the
suppressed institutions was placed to the credit of the fund in the
government 5%
consols. A
fourth of this sum was to be handed to the communes to be employed
on works of beneficence or education as soon as a surplus was
obtained from that part of the annuity assigned for the payment of
monastic pensions; and in Sicily, 209 communes entered on their
privileges as soon as the patrimony was liquidated. Another act in
1867 decreed the suppression of certain foundations which had
escaped the action of prev1ou~ measures, put an extraordinary tax
of 30% on the whole of the patrimony of the church, and granted the
government the right of z OL ~ ,,,,ftidpnf to hrim~ into th~
treasury i6oonooo.
which were to be accepted at their nominal value as purchase
money for the alienated property. The public worship endowment fund
has relieved the state exchequer of the cost of public worship; has
gradually furnished to the poorer parish priests an addition to
their stipends, raising them to 32 per annum, with the prospect of
further raising them to 40; and has contributed to the outlay
incurred by the communes for religious purposes. The monastic
buildings required for public purposes have been made over to the
communal and provincial authorities, while the same authorities
have been entrusted with the administration of the ecclesiastical
revenues previously set apart for charity and education, and
objects of art and historical interest have been consigned to
public libraries and museums. By these laws the reception of
novices was forbidden in the existing conventual establishments the
extinction of which had been decreed, and all new foundations were
forbidden, except those engaged in instruction and the care of the
sick. But the laws have not been rigorously enforced of late years;
and the ecclesiastical possessions seized by the state were thrown
on the market simultaneously, and so realized very low prices,
being often bought up by wealthy religious institutions. The large
number of these institutions was increased when these bodies were
expelled from France.
On the 30th of June 1903 the patrimony of the endowment fund
amounted to 17,339,040, of which only 264,289 were represented by
buildings still occupied by
monks or nuns. The rest was made up of capital
and interest. The liabilities of the fund (capitalized) amounted to
10,668,105, of which monastic pensions represented a rapidly
diminishing sum of 2,564,930. The chief items of annual expenditure
drawn from the fund are the supplementary stipends to priests and
the pensions to members of suppressed religious houses. The number
of persons in
receipt of
monastic pensions on the 30th of June 1899 was 13,255; but while
this
item of expenditure will
disappear by the deaths of those entitled to pensions, the
supplementary stipends and contributions are gradually increasing.
The following table shows the course of the two main categories of
the fund from 1876 to 1902-1903:
1876.1885-1886.
Monastic pensions,
liquidation of religious property and
provision of shelter for nuns 749,172 491,339
Supplementary stipends to bishops and parochial clergy,
assignments to Sardinian clergy and expenditure for education and
charitable purposes - - 142,912 f28,52f Roman Charitable and
Religious Fund.The law of the 19th of June 1873 contained special
provisions, in conformity with the character of Rome as the seat of
the
papacy, and with the
situation created by the Law of Guarantees. According to the census
of 1871 there were in the city and province of Rome 474 monastic
establishments (311 for monks, 163 for nuns), occupied by 4326
monks and 3825 nuns, and possessing a gross revenue of 4,780,89i
lire. Of these, 126 monasteries and 90 convents were situated in
the city, 51 monasteries and 22 convents in the suburbicariates.
The law of 1873 created a special charitable and religious fund of
the city, while it left untouched 23 monasteries and 49 convents
which had either the character of private institutions or were
supported by foreign funds. New parishes were created, old parishes
were improved, the property of the suppressed religious
corporations was assigned to charitable and educational
institutions and to hospitals, while property having no special
application was used to form a charitable and religious fund. On
the 30th of June 1903 the balance-sheet of this fund showed a
credit amounting to 1,796,120 and a debit of 460,819. Expenditure
for the year 1902-1903 was 889,858 and revenue 818,674.
Constitution and Government .T he - Vatican palace itself twith
St
Peters), the Lateran
palace, and the papal
villa at
Castel Gandolfo have secured to them the privilege of
extraterritoriality by the law of 1871. The small republic of
San Marino is the only
other
enclave in Italian
territory. Italy is a constitutional monarchy, in which the
executive power belongs exclusively to the sovereign, while the
legislative power is shared by him with the parliament. He holds
supreme command by land and sea, appoints ministers and officials,
promulgates the laws, coins money, bestows honors, has the right of
pardoning, and
summons and
dissolves the parliament.
Treaties with foreign powers, however, must
have the consent of parliament. The sovereign is irresponsible, the
ministers, the
signature
of one of whom is required to give validity to royal decrees, being
responsible. Parliament consists of two chambers, the
senate and the Chamber of
Deputies, which are nominally on an equal footing, though
practically the elective chamber ~s the more important. The senate
consists of princes of the blood who have attained their majority,
and of an unlimited number of senators above forty years of age,
who are qualified under any one of twenty-one specified
categoriesby having either held high office, or attained celebrity
in science, literature, &c. In 1908 there were 318 senators
exclusive of five members of the royal family. Nomination is by the
king for life. Besides its legislative functions, the senate is the
highest court of justice in the case of political offences or the
impeachment of
ministers. The deputies to the lower house are 508 ih number, i.e.
one to every 64,893 of the population, and all the constituencies
are single-member constituencies. The party system is not really
strong. The
suffrage is
extended to all citizens over twenty-one years of age who can read
and write and have either attained a certain standard of elementary
education or are qualified by paying a rent which varies from 6 in
communes of 2500 inhabitants to 16 in communes of 15p,ooo
inhabitants, or, if peasant farmers, I6s. of rent; or by being
sharers in the profits of farms on which not less than 3, 4s. of
direct (including provincial) taxation is paid; or by paying not
less than 16 in direct (including provincial) taxation. Others,
e.g. members of the professional classes, are qualified to vote by
their position. The number of
electors (2,541,327) at the general election
in 1904 was 29% of the male population over twenty-one years of
age, and 7~6% of the total population exclusive of those
temporarily disfranchised on account of military service; and of
these 627% voted. No candidate can be returned unless he obtains
more than half the votes given and more than one-sixth of the total
number on the
register;
otherwise a second ballot must be 1898-1899.19021903. held. Nor can
he be returned under the age of thirty, and he must be qualified as
an elector. All salaried 220,479 165,144 government officials
(except minis ters, under-secretaries of state and other high
functionaries, and officers 210,020 347,940 in the army or
navy), and ecclesiastics, -, are
disqualified for election. Senators and deputies receive no
salary but have free passes on
railways throughout Italy and on certain lines of steamers.
Parliaments are quinquennial, but the king may dissolve the Chamber
of Deputies at any time, being bound, however, to convoke a new
chamber within four months. The executive must call parliament
together annually. Each of the chambers has the right of
introducing new bills, as has also the government; but all money
bills must originate in the Chamber of Deputies. The consent of
both chambers and the assent of the king is necessary to their
being passed. Ministers may attend the debates of either house but
can only vote in that of which they are members. The sittings of
both houses are public, and an absolute majority of the members
must be present to make a sitting valid. The ministers are eleven
in number and have salaries of about Iooo each; the
presidency of the council
of ministers (created in 1889) may be held by itself or (as is
usual) in conjunction with any other
portfolio. The ministries are:
interior (under whom are the prefects of the several provinces),
foreign affairs, treasury (separated from
finance in 1889), finance, public works,
justice and ecclesiastical affairs, war, marine, public
instruction, commerce, industry and agriculture, posts and
telegraphs (separated from public works in 1889). Each minister is
aided by an under-
secretary of state at a salary of
500. There is a council of state with advisory functions, which can
also decide certain questions of administration, especially
applications from local authorities and conflicts between
ministries, and a court of accounts, which has the right of
examining all details of state expenditure. In every country the
bureaucracy is abused, with more or less reason, for
Unprogressiveness, timidity and red-tape, and Italy is no exception
to the rule. The officials are not well paid, and are certainly
numerous; while the manifold checks and counterchecks have by no
means always been sufficient to prevent dishonesty. -
Titles of Honor
The former existence of so many separate sovereignties and
fountains of honor gave nse to a great many hereditary titles of
nobility. Besides many
hundreds of princes, dukes, marquesses, counts, barons and
viscounts, there are a large number of persons of patrician rank,
persons with a right to the designation nobile or signor-i, and
certain hereditary knights or cavalieri. In the Golden Book of the
Capitol (Li bro dOro del Cam fsidoglio) are inscribed 321 patrician
families, and of these 28 have the title of prince and 8 that of
duke, while the others are marquesses, counts or simply
patricians. For the
Italian orders of
knighthood see KNIGHTHOOD AND
CHIVALRY: Orders of
Knighthood. The kings uncle is duke of Aosta, his son is prince of
Piedmont and his cousin is duke of Genoa.
Justice
The judiciary system of Italy is mainly framed on the French
model. Italy has courts of cassation at Rome, Naples, Palermo,
Ttirin, Florence, 20 appeal court districts, I62 tribunal districts
and 1535 mandamenti, each with its own magistracy (pretura). In 13
of the principal towns there are also pretori who have exclusively
penal jurisdiction. For minor civil cases involving sums up to 100
lire (~4), giudici conciliator-i have also jurisdiction, while they
may act as arbitrators up to any amount by request. The Roman court
of cassation is the highest, and in both penal and civil matters
has a right to decide questions of law and disputes between the
lower judicial authorities, and is the only one which has
jurisdiction in penal cases, while sharing with the others the
right to revise civil cases.
The pretori have penal jurisdiction concerning all misdemeanours
(contravvenzioni) or offences (delitti) punishable by imprisonment
not exceeding three months or by fine not exceeding 1000 lire
(~4o). The penal tribunals have jurisdiction in cases involving
imprisonment up to ten years, or a fine exceeding 40, while the
assize courts, with a jury, deal
with offences involving imprisonment for life or over ten years,
and have exclusive jurisdiction (except that the senate is on
occasion a high court of justice) over all political offences.
Appeal may be made from the sentences of the pretori to the
tribunals, and from the tribunals to the courts of appeal; from the
assize courts there is no appeal except on a point of form, which
appeal goes to the court of cassation at Rome. This court has the
supreme power in all questions of legality of a sentence,
jurisdiction or competency.
The penal code was unified and reformed in 1890. A reform of
late years is the cond~anna condizionale, equivalent to the English
being bound over to appear for judgment if called upon, applied in
94,489 cases in 1907. In civil matters there is appeal from the
giadice conciliatore to the pretore (who has jurisdiction up to a
sum of 1500 lire =~6o), from the pretore to the civil tribunal,
from the civil tribunal to the court of appeal, and from the court
of appeal to the court of cassation.
The judges of all kinds are very poorly paid. Even the first
president of the Rome court of cassation only receives f6o0 a
year.
The statistics of civil proceedings vary considerably from
province to province. Lombardy, with 25 lawsuits per 1000
inhabitants, holds the lowest place; Emilia comes next with 3! per
1000; Tuscany has 39; Venetia, 42; Calabria, 144; Rome, 146;
Apulia, 153; and Sardinia, 360 per 1000. The high average in
Sardinia is chiefly due to cases within the competence of the
conciliation offices. The number of penal proceedings, especially
those within the competence of praetors, has also increased,,
chiefly on account of the frequency of minor contraventions of the
law referred to in the section
Crime. The ratio of criminal proceedings to
population is, as a rule, much higher in the south than in the
north.
A royal decree, dated February 1891, established three classes
of prisons: judiciary prisons, for persons awaiting examination or
persons sentenced to
arrest,
detention or seclusion for less than six months; penitentiaries of
various kinds (ergastoli, case di reclusione, detenzione or
custodia), for criminals condemned to long terms of imprisonment;
and reformatories, for criminals under age and vagabonds.
Capital
punishment was abolished in 1877, penal
servitude for life being substituted. This
generally involves solitary confinement of the most rigorous
nature, and, as little is done to occupy the mind, the criminal not
infrequently becomes insane. Certain types of dangerous individuals
are relegated after serving a sentence in the ordinary convict
prisons, and by administrative, not by judicial process, to special
penal colonies known as domicilii coatti or forced residences.
These establishments are, however, unsatisfactory, being mostly
situated on small islands, where it is often difficult to find work
for the coatti, who are free by day, being only confined at night.
They receive a small and hardly sufficient, allowance for food of
50 centesimi a day, which they are at liberty to supplement by work
if they can find it or care to do it.
Notwithstanding the construction of new prisons and the
transformation of old ones, the number of cells for solitary
confinement is still insufficient for a complete application of the
penal system established by the code of 1890, and the moral effect
of the association of the prisoners is not good, though the system
of solitary confinement as practised in Italy is little better. The
total number of prisoners, including minors and inhabitants of
enforced residences, which from 76,066 (284 per 1000 inhabitants)
on the 31st of December 1871 rose to a maximum of 80,792 on the
31st of December 1879 (287 Der boo), decreased to a minimum of
60.621 in 1806 (T.on flPr 1000), and on the 31st of December 1898
rose again to 75,470 (2.38 per 1000), of whom 7038, less than
one-tenth, were women. The lowness of the figures regarding women
is to be noticed throughout. On the 31st of December 1903 it had
decreased to 65,819, of which 6044 were women. Of these, 31,219
were in lockups, 25,145 in penal establishments, 1837 minors in
government, and 4547 in private reformatories, and 307! (males)
were inmates of forced residences.
Crime
Statistics of offences, including contravvenzioni or breaches of
by-laws and regulations, exhibit a considerable increase per
100,000 inhabitants since 1887, and only a slight diminution on the
figures of 1897. The figure was 1783.45 per 100,000 in 1887, 2I6446
in I892, 2546.49 in 1897, 2497.90 in 1902. The increase is partly
covered by contravvenzioni, but almost every class of penal offence
shows a rise except
homicide, and even in that the diminution is
slow, 5418 in 1880, 3966 in 1887, 4408 in 1892, 4005 in 1897, 3202
in 1902; and Italy remains, owing to the frequent use of the
knife, the European country lit
which it is most frequent. Libels, insults, &c., resistance to
public authority,
offences against good
customs, thefts and frauds, have increased; assaults are nearly
stationary. There is also an increase in juvenile delinquency. From
1890 to 1900 the actual number rose by one-third (from 30,108 to
43,684), the proportion to the rest of those sentenced from
one-fifth to one-fourth; while in 1905 the actual number rose to
67,944, being a considerable proportionate rise also. In Naples,
the
Camorra and in Sicily,
the
Mafia are secret societies
whose power of resistance to authority is still not
inconsiderable.
- Procedure, both civil and criminal, is somewhat slow, and the
preliminary proceedings before the juge dinstruction occupy much
time; and recent
murder
trials, by the large number of witnesses called (including experts)
and the lengthy speeches of
counsel, have been dragged out
to an unconscionable length. In this, as in the intervention of the
presiding judge, the French system has been adopted; and it is said
(e.g. by Nathan, Vent ann-i di vita -italiana, p. 241) thatthe
efforts of the juge dinstruction are, as a rule, in fact, though
not in law, largely directed to prove that the accused is guilty.
In 1902 of 884,612 persons accused of penal offencs, 13.12% were
acquitted during the period of the instruction, 30.31 by the
courts, 46.32 condemned and the rest acquitted in some other way.
This shows that charges, often involving preliminary imprisonment,
are brought against an excessive proportion of persons who either
are not or cannot be proved to be guilty. The courts of appeal and
cassation, too, often have more than they can do; in the year 1907
the court of cassation at Rome decided 948 appeals on points of law
in civil cases, while no fewer than 460 remained to be decided.
As in most civilized countries, the number of suicides in Italy
has increased from year to year.
The Italian
suicide rate
of 63.6 per 1,000,000 is, however, lower than those of
Denmark, Switzerland, Germany
and France, while it approximates to that of
England. The Italian rate is highest in the
more enlightened and industrial north, and lowest in the south.
Emilia gives a maximum rate of 10.48 per ioo,ooo, while that of
Liguria and Lazio is little lower. The minimum of 1.27 is found in
the Basilicata, though Calabria gives only 2.13. About 20% of the
total are women, and there is an increase of nearly 3% since 1882
in the proportion of suicides qader twenty years of age.
Army
The Italian army grew o~it of the old Piedmontese army with
which in the main the unification of Italy was brought about. This
unification meant for the army the absorption of contingents from
all parts of Italy and presenting serious differences in physical
and moral aptitudes, political opinions and education. Moreover the
strategic geography of the country required the greater part of the
army to be stationed permanently within reach of the north-eastern
and north-western frontiers. These conditions made a territorial
system of recruiting or organization, as understood in Germany,
practically impossible. To secure fairly uniform efficiency in the
various corps, and also as a means of unifying Italy, Piedmontese,
Umbrians and Neapolitans are mixed in the same corps and
sleep in the same barrack room. But
on leaving the colors the men disperse to their homes, and thus a
regiment has, on mobilization, to draw largely on the nearest
reservists, irrespective of the corps to which they belong. The
remedy for this condition of affairs is sought in a most elaborate
and artificial system, of transferring officers and men from one
unit to another at stated intervals in peace-time, but this is no
more than a palliative, and there are other difficulties of almost
equal importance to be surmounted. Thus in Italy the universal
service system, though probably the best organization both for the
army and the nation, works with a maximum of
friction. Army Reform, therefore, has been
very much in the forefront of late years owing to the estrangement
of Austria (whith power can mobilize much more ranidlv) himt
finsy,cisl difficulties have hitherto stood in the way of any
radical and far-reaching reforms, and even the proposals of the
Commission of 1907, referred to below, have only been partially
accepted.
The law of f875 therefore still regulates the principles of
military service in Italy, though an important modification was
made in 190719o8. By this law, every man liable and accepted for
service served for eight or nine years on the Active Army and its
Reserve (of which three to five were spent with the colors), four
or, five in the
Mobile Militia, and the rest of the
service period of nineteen years in the Territorial Militia. Under
present regulations the term of liability is divided into nine
years in the Active Army and Reserve (three or two years with the
colors) four in the Mobile MilitIa and six in the Territorial
Militia. But these figures do not represent the actual service of
every able-bodied Italian. Like almost all Universal Service
countries, Italy only drafts a small proportion of the available
recruits into the army.
The following table shows the operation of the law of 1875, with
the figures of 1871 f or comparison:
1871.1881.1891.1901
Officers 14,070 22,482 36,739 36,718
Men 521,969 1,833,554 2,821,367 3,330,202
ActingArmy & Reserve 536,039 731,149 843,160 734,401
Mobile ]\Iilitia 294,714 445,315 320,170
Territorial Militia.. - 823,970 1,553,784 2,275,631
Including officers on special service or in the reserve.
Thus, on the 30th of September 1871 the various categories of
the army included only 2% of the population, but on the 30th of
June 1898 they included 10%. But in 1901 the strength of the active
army and reserve shows a marked diminution, which became
accentuated in the year following. The table below indicates that
up to 1907 the army, though always below its nominal strength,
never absorbed more than a quarter of the available contingent.
1902.1903.1904.1906.
Liable 441,171 453,640 469,860 475,737
Physically unfit... 91,176 98,065 119,070 122,559
Struck off. ... 12,270 13,139 13,130 18,222
Failed to appear. 33,634 34,711 39,219 40,226
Put back for re-examina tion 108,835 108,618 107,173 122,205
Assigned to Territorial Militia and excused peace service.. -
92,952 96,916 94,136 87,032
Assigned to active army 102,204 102,141 97,132 87,493
Joined active army. - 88,666j 86,448 81,581 66,836
The serious condition of recruiting was quickly noticed, and the
tabulation of each years results was followed by a new draft law,
but no solution was achieved until a special commission assembled.
The inquiries made by this body revealed an unsatisfactory
condition in tile national defences, traceable in the main to
financial exigencies, and as regards recruiting a new law was
brought into force in 1 9071908.
One specially difficult point concerned the effectives of the
peacestrength army. 1-litherto the actual time of training had been
less than the nominal. The recruits due to join in November were
not incorporated till the following March, and thus in the winter
months Italy was defenceless. The army is always maintained at a
low peace effective (about one-quarter of war establishment) and
even this was reduced, by the absence of the recruits, until there
were often only i~ rank and
file
with a company, whose war strength is about 230. Even in the summer
and autumn a large proportion of the army consisted of men with but
a few months servicea highly dangerous state of things considering
the peculiar mobilization conditioss of the country. Furtherand
this case no legislation can coverthe contingent, and (what is more
serious) the reserves, are being steadily weakened by emigration.
The increase in the numbers rejected as unfit is accounted for by
the fact that if only a small proportion of the contingent can be
taken for service, the medical standard of acceptance is high.
The new recriuting scheme of I907 re-established three
categories of recruits, the 2nd
category corresponding practically to the
German Ersatz-Reserve. The men classed in it have to train for six
months, and they are called up in the late summer to bridge the The
2nd category of the 1875 law had practically ceased to exist.
gap above mentioned. The new
terms of service for the other categories have been already stated.
In consequence, in 1908, of 490,000 liable, some I 10,000 actually
joined for full training and 24,000 of the new 2nd category for
short training, which contrasts very forcibly with the feeble
embodiments of i906 and 1907. These changes threw a considerable
strain on the finances, but the
imminence of the danger caused their acceptance.
The peace strength under the new scheme is nominally 300,000,
but actually (average throughout the year) about 240,000. The army
is organized in 12 army corps (each of 2 divisions), 6 of which are
quartered on the plain of Lombardy and Venetia and on the
frontiers, and 2 more in northern Central Italy. Their headquarters
are: I. Turin, II. Alessandria, III.
Milan, IV. Genoa, V. Verona, VI.
Bologna, VII. Ancona, VIII. Florence, IX. Rome, X. Naples, XI. Ban,
XII. Palermo, Sardinian division Cagliari. In addition there are 22
Alpini battalions and 15 mountain batteries stationed on the Alpine
frontiers.
The war strength was estimated in 1901 as, Active Army (md.
Reserve) 750,000, Mobile Militia 320,000, Territorial Militia
2,300,000 (more than half of the last-named untrained). These
figures are, with a fractional increase in the Regular Army,
applicable to-day. When the 1907 scheme takes full effect, however,
the Active Army and the Mobile Militia will each be augmented by
about one-third. In 1915 the field army should, including officers
and permanent cadres, be about 1,012,000 strong. The Mobile Militia
will not, however, at that date have felt the effects of the
scheme, and the Territonial Militia (setting the drain of
emigration against the increased population) will probably remain
at about the same figure as in 1901.
The army consists of 96 three-
battalion regiments of
infantry of the line and 12 of bersaglieri
(riflemen), each of the latter having a cyclist company
(Bersaglieri cyclist battalions are being (1909) provisionally
formed); 26 regiments of
cavalry, of which 10 are lancers, each of 6
squadrons; 24 regiments of
artillery, each of 8 batteries; I I regiment
of horse artillery of 6 batteries; I of mountain artillery of 12
batteries, and 3 independent mountain batteries. The armament of
the infantry is the Mnnnlicher-Carcano magazine
rifle of I891. The field and horse artillery was
in I 909 in process of rearmament with a Krupp
quick-firer. The
garrison artillery consists of 3 coast and 3
fortress regiments, with a total of 72 companies. There are 4
regiments (if battalions) of engineers. The carabinieri or
gendarmerie, some
26,500 in number, are part of the standing army; they are recruited
from selected
volunteers from the army. In 1902 the
special corps in
Eritrea
numbered about 4700 of all ranks, including nearly 4000
natives.
Ordinary and extraordinary military expenditure for the
financial year 1898-1899 amounted to nearly 1/210,000,000, an
increase of 1/24,000,000 as compared with 1871. The Italian Chamber
decided that from the 1st of July 1901 until the 30th of June 1907
Italian military expenditure proper should not exceed the maximum
of 1/29,560,000 per annum fixed by the Army Bill of May 1897, and
that, military pensions should not exceed 1/21,440,000. Italian
military expenditure was thus until f907 1/2ff,000,000 per annum.
In 1908 the ordinary and extraordinary expenditure was
1/210,000,000. The demands of the Commission were only partly
complied with, but a large special grant was voted amounting to at
least 1/2I,ooo,000 per annum for the next
seven
years. The amount.spent is slight compared with the military
expenditure of other countries.
The Alpine frontier is fortified strongly, although the
condition of the works was in many cases considered unsatisfactory
by the 1907 Commission. The fortresses in the basin of the Po
chiefly belong to the era of divided Italy and are now out of date;
the chief coast fortresses are Vado, Genoa, Spezia, Monte
Argentaro, Gacta, Straits of Messina, Taranto, Maddalena. Rome is
plotected by a circle of forts from a coup de main from the sea,
the coast, only 12 m. off, being flat and deserted.
Navy
For purposes of naval organization the Italian coast is divided
into three maritime departments, with headquarters at Spezia,
Naples and Venice; and into two comandi militari, with headquarters
at Taranto and at the island of Maddalena. The personnel of the
navy consists of the following corps: (I) General staff; (2) naval
engineers, chiefly employed in building and repairing war vessels;
(3) sanitary corps; (4)
commissariat corps, for supplies and
account-keeping; (5) crews.
The materiel of the Italian navy has been completely
transformed, especially in Virtue of the bill of the 31st of March
1875. Old types of vessels have been sold or demolished, and
replaced by newer types.
2 This may be reduced, in consequence of the adoption of the new
Q.F.
gun, I to 6.
In March 1907 the Italian navy contained, excluding ships of no
fighting value: Effective. Completing. Projected.
Modern battleships - 4 4 3
Old battleships -. 10
Armoured cruisers. 6 2
Protected cruisers - - 14
Destroyers - - - - 13 4 10
Modern torpedo boats 34 - 15
Submarines - -- I 4 2
The four modern shipsthe
Vittorio Emanuele class, laid down in 1897have
a tonnage of 12,625, two 12-in, and twelve 8-in. guns, an I.H.P. of
19,000, and a designed speed of 22 knots, being intended to avoid
any battleship and to carry enough guns to destroy any cruiser.
The personnel on active service consisted of 1799 officers and
25,000 men, the former being doubled and the latter trebled since
1882.
Naval expenditure has enormously increased since 1871, the total
for 1871 having been about 900,000, and the total for 1905-1906
over 5~ 100,000. Violent fluctuations have, however, taken place
from year to year, according to the state of Italian finances. To
permit the steady execution of a normal
programme of
shipbuilding, the Italian Chamber, in May
1901, adopted a
resolution limiting naval expenditure,
inclusive of naval pensions and of premiums on mercantile
shipbuilding, to the sum of 4,840,000 for the following six years,
i.e. from 1st July 1901 until 30th June 1907. This sum consists of
4,240,000 of naval expenditure proper, 220,000 for naval pensions
and 380,000 for premiums upon mercantile shipbuilding. During the
financial year ending on the 30th of June 1901 these figures were
slightly exceeded.
Finance
The volume of the Italian
budget has considerably increased as regards
both income and expenditure. The income of 60,741,418 in 1881 rose
in 1899-1900 to 69,917,126; while the expenditure increased from
58,705,929 in 1881 to 69,708,706 in 1899-1900, an increase of
9,175,708 in income and 11,002,777 in expenditure, while there has
been a still further increase since, the figures for 1905-1906
showing (excluding items which figure on both sides of the account)
an increase of 8,766,995 in income and 5,434,560 in expenditure
over 1899-1900. These figures include not only the categories of
income and expenditure proper, but also those known as movement of
capital, railway constructions and part ite di giro, which do not
constitute real income and expenditure.i Considering only income
and expenditure proper, the approximate totals are:
Financial Year. Revenue. Expenditure. Surp uses or 1882
52,064,800 51,904,800 + io,00o 1885-1886 56,364,000 57,304,400
940,400
1890-1891 61,600,000 64,601,600 3,001,600
1895-1896 65,344,000 67,962,800 2,618,800
1898-1899 66,352,800 65,046,400 + 1,306,400
1899-1900 66,86o,8oo 65,323,600 + 1,537,200
1900-1901 68,829,200 66,094,400 +2,734,800
1905-1906 77,684,100 75,143,300 +2,540,900
The financial year 1862 closed with a deficit of more thai
16,000,000, which increased in 1866 to 28,840,000 on account 0 the
preparations for the war against Austria. Excepting the in creases
of deficit in 1868 and 1870, the annual deficits tended thence
forward to decrease, until in 1875
equilibrium between expendituri and revenue
was attained, and was maintained until 1881. Ad vantage was taken
of the equilibrium to abolish certain imposts amongst them the
grist tax, which prior to its gradual
repeal pro duced more than 3,200,000 a year.
From 1885-1886 onwards, outlay on public works, military and
colonial expenditure, and especially the commercial and financial
crises, contributed to produce annual deficits; but owing to
drastic reforms introduced in 1894-1895 and to careful management
the year 1898-1899 marked a return of surpluses (nearly
1,306,400).
The revenue in the Italian financial year 1905-1906 (July I,
1905 to June 30, 1906) was 102,486,108, and the expenditure
99,945,253, or, subtracting the partite di giro, 99,684,121 and
97,143,266, leaving a surplus of 2,54o,855.f The surplus was made
up by contributions from every branch of the effective revenue,
except the contributions and repayments from local authorities. The
railways showed an increase of 351,685; registration transfer and
succession, 295,560; direct taxation, 42,136 (mainly from
income tax, which more
than made up for the remission of the house tax in the districts of
Calabria visited by the
earthquake of 1906); customs and excise,
1,036,742; government monopolies, 291,027; posts, 4I,3fo;
telegraphs, 23,364; telephones, 65,771. Of the surplus 1,000,000
was allocated to the improvement of posts, telegraphs and
telephones; 1,000,000 to public works (~72o,ooo for harbour
improvement and 280,000 for internal navigation); 200,000 to the
navy (~I32,ooo for a second dry
dock at Taranto and 68,000 for coal purchase); and
200,000 as a
nucleus of a
fund for the purchase of valuable works of art which are in danger
of exportation.
The state therefore draws its principal revenues from the
imposts, the taxes and the monopolies. According to the Italian
tributary system, imposts, properly so called are those upon land,
T~aUon buildings and personal estate. The
impost upon land is based upon the cadastral
survey independently of the vicissitudes of harvests. In 1869 the
main quota to the impost was increased by one-tenth, in addition to
the extra two-tenths previously imposed in 1866. Subsequently, it
was decided to repeal these additional tenths, the first being
abolished in 1886 and the rest in 1887. On account of the
inequalities still existing in the cadastral survey, in spite of
the law of 1886 (see Agriculture, above), great differences are
found in the land tax assessments in various parts of Italy. Land
is not so heavily burdened by the government quota as by the
additional centimes imposed by the provincial and communal
authorities. On an average Italian landowners pay nearly 25% of
their revenues from land in government and local land tax. The
buildings impost has been assessed since 1866 upon the basis of
12.50% of taxable revenue. Taxable revenue corresponds to
two-thirds of actual income from factories and to three-fourths of
actual income from houses; it is ascertained by the agents of the
financial administration. In 1869, however, a third additional
tenth was added to the previously existing additional two-tenths,
and, unlike the tenths of the land tax, they have not been
abolished. At present the main quota with the additional
three-tenths amounts to 16.25% of taxable income. The imports op
incomes from personal estate (ricchezza mobile) were introduced in
1866; it applies to incomes derived from investments, industry or
personal enterprise, but not to landed revenues. It is
proportional, and is collected by deduction from salaries and
pensions paid to servants of the state, where it is assessed on
three-eighths of the income, and from interest on consolidated
stock, where it is assessed on the whole amount; and by register in
the cases of private individuals, who pay on three-fourths of their
income, professional men, capitalists or manufacturers, who pay on
one-half or nine-twentieths of their income. From 1871 to 1894 it
was assessed at 13.20% of taxable income, this quota being formed
of 12% main quota and 1.20% as an additional tenth. In 1894 the
quota, including the additional tenth, was raised to the uniform
level of 20%. One-tenth of the tax is paid to the communes as
compensation for revenues made over to the state.
Taxes proper are divided into (a) taxes on business transactions
and (b) taxes on articles of consumption. The former apply
principally to successions, stamps, registrations, mortgages,
&c.; the latter to distilleries, breweries, explosives, native
sugar and matches, though the customs revenue and octrois upon
articles of general consumption, such as corn, wine, spirits,
meat, flour,
petroleum butter,
tea,
coffee and sugar, may be
considered as belonging to thu class. The monopolies are those of
salt, tobacco and the lottery.
Since 1880, while income from the salt and
lotto monopolies
hai remained almost stationary, and that from land
tax and
octroi har -
diminished, revenue derived from all other sources has notabl)
- increased, especially that from the income tax on personal
estate and the Customs, the yield from which has been nearly
doubled.
It will be seen that the revenue is swollen by a large number o
taxes which can only be justified by necessity; the reduction and
still more, the readjustment of taxation (which now largely falls
or articles of primary necessity) is urgently needed. The governmen
- in presenting the estimates for 1907-1908 proposed to set aside -
sum of nearly 800,000 every year for this express purpose. I must
be remembered that the sums realized by the octroi go in th main to
the various communes. It is only in Rome and Naples tha S the
octroi is collected directly by the government, which pays
over~
~ certain proportion to the respective communes.
e The external taxation is not only strongly protectionist, but
i applied to goods which cannot be made in Italy; hardly anything
comes in duty free, even such articles as second-hand furniture
paying duty, unless within six months of the date at which the
importer has declared
domicile in Italy. The application too, is
somewhat rigorous, e.g. the tax on electric light is applied to
foreign ships generating their own electricity while lying in
Italian ports.
The annual consumption per inhabitant of certain kinds of food
and drink has considerably increased, e.g. grain from 270 lb per
head in 1884-1885 to 321 lb in 1901-1902 (maize reman~s almost
stationary at 158 II,); wine from 73 to 125 litres per head; oil
from 12 to 13 lb per head (sugar is almost stationary at 73/4 lb
per head, and coffee at about I Ib); salt from 14 to 16 lb per
head. Tobacco slightly diminished in weight at a little over I lb
per head, while the gross receipts are considerably increasedby
over 23/4 millions
sterling since 1884-1885---showing that the
quality consumed is much better. The annual expenditure on tobacco
was 5s. per inhabitant in 1902 1903, and is increasing.
The annual surpluses are largely accounted for by the heavy
taxation on almost everything imported into the country, i and by
the monopolies on tobacco and on salt; and are as a rule spent, and
well spent, in other ways. Thus, that of 1907-1908 was devoted
mainly to raising the salaries of government officials and
university professors; even then the maximum for both (in the
former class, for an under-secretary of state) was only 500 per
annum. The case is frequent, too, in which a project is sanctioned
by law, but is then not carried into execution, or only partly so,
owing to the lack of funds. Additional
stamp duties and taxes were imposed in 1909 to
meet the expenditure necessitated by the disastrous earthquake at
the end of 1908.
The way in which the taxes press on the poor may be shown by the
number of small proprietors sold up owing to inability to pay the,.
land and other taxes. In 1882 the number of landed proprietors was
14.52% of the population, in 1902 only 1266, with an actual
diminution of some 30,000. Had the percentage of 1882 been kept up
there would have been in 1902 600,000 more proprietors than there
were. Between 1884 and 1902 no fewer than 220,61 6 sales were
effected for failure to pay taxes, while, from 1886 to 1902, 79,208
expropriations were effected for other debts not due to the state.
In 1884 there were 20,422 sales, of which 35.28% were for debts of
4s. or less, and 5195 for debts between 4s. and 2; in 1902 there
were 4857 sales, hut only 11~o1% for debts under 4s. (the treasury
having given up proceeding in cases where the property is a tiny
piece of ground, sometimes hardly capable of cultivation), and
55.69% for debts between 4s. and 2. The expropriations deal as a
rule with properties of higher value; of these there were 3217 in
1886, 5~13 in 1892 (a period of agricultural depression), 3910 in
1902. About 22% of them are for debts under 40, about 49%
from 40 to 200, about 26% from 200 to 2000.
Of the expenditure a large amount is absorbed by interest on
debt. Debt has continually increased with the development of the
state.
~x ndl- The sum paid in interest on debt amounted to
17,640,000
~e in 1871, 19,440,000 in 1881, 25,600,000 in 1891-1892
and 27,560,000 in 1899-1900; but had been reduced to ~23,I00,409
by the 30th of June 1906. The public debt at that date was composed
as follows: Part 1.Funded Debt.
Grand Livre Amount.
Consolidated 5% 316,141,802
,, 3% 6,404,335
,, 43/4% net 28,872,511
,, 4% ,, 7,875,592
,, 34% ,, 37,689,880
Total. .. 3~6,~384,i2o Debts to be transferred to the Grand
Livre. 60,868
Perpetual annuity to the Holy See. .. 2,580,000
Perpetual debts (Modena, Sicily, Naples). 2,591,807
Total. .. 402,216,795
Part 11.Unfunded Debt.
Debts separately inscribed in the Grand Livre 10,042,027
Various railway obligations, redeemable, &c. 56,375,351
Sicilian indemnities 195,348
Capital value of annual payment to South Austrian Company
37,102,908
Long date Treasury warrants, law of July 7, 1901 1,416,200
Railway certificates (3-65% net), Art. 6 of law, June 25, 1905,
No. 261 14,220,000
Total. 119,351,834
Part I 402,216,795
Grand Total. 521,568,629
I For example, wheat, the price of which was in 1902 26 lire pe
cwt., pays a tax of 74 lire; sugar pays four times its wholesale
val,ii in tax; coffee twice its wholesale value.
The debt per head of population was, in 1905, 14, lbs. 3d., and
the interest 13S. 5d.
In July 1906 the 5% gross (4% net), and 4% net rente were
successfully converted into 33/4% stock (to be reduced to 33/4%
after five years), to a total amount of 324,017,393. The demands
for reimbursement at par represented a sum of only 187,588 and the
market value of the stock was hardly affected; while the saving to
the Treasury was to be 800,000 per annum for the first five years
and about double the amount afterwards.
Currency.The lira (plural lire) of 100 centesimi (centimes) is
equal in value to the French
franc. The total coinage (exclusive of Eritrean
currency) from the 1st of January 1862 to the end of 1907 was
1,104,667,116 lire (exclusive of recoinage), divided as follows:
gold, 427,516,970 lire;
silver, 570,097,025 lire;
nickel, 23,417,000 lire;
bronze, 83,636,121 lire. The
forced paper currency, instituted in 1866, was abolished in 1881,
in which year were dissolved the Union of Banks of Issue created in
1874 to furnish to the state treasury a milliard of lire in notes,
guaranteed collectively by the banks. Part of the Union notes were
redeemed, part replaced by 10 lire and 5 lire state notes, payable
at sight in metallic legal
tender by certain state banks. Nevertheless the
law of 1881 did not succeed in maintaining the value of the state
notes at a par with the metallic currency, and from 1885 onwards
there reappeared a gold premium, which during 1899 and 1900
remained at about 7%, but subsequently fell to about Direct
Liability of State.) Notes issued Aggregate Date. j by State Paper
State Notes. Sons de c~e,1 Banks. Currency.
Lire. Lire. Lire. Lire.
sxst December iSSi 940,oO,000 -. 735,579,f97 1,675,579,197
i886 446,665,535 ,. 1,031,869,712 0,478,535,247
,, isgi 340,949,237, - 1,121,601,079 1,463,550,316
i8g6 400,000,oO 110,000,000 0,069,233,376 f,579,233,376
0899 451,431,780 42,138,152 I,ifo,II,33o 2,673,680,262
0905 441,304,780 1,874,184 1,406,474,800 0,848,657,764
1 These ceased to have legal currency at the end of igoi; they
were notes of x and 2 lire.
Banks
Until 1893 the juridical status of the Banks of Issue was
regulated by the laws of the 3oth of April 1874 on paper currency
and of the 7th of April 1881 on the abolition of forced currency.
At that time four limited companies were authorized to issue
bank notes, namely, the
National Bank, the National Bank of Tuscany, the Roman Bank and the
Tuscan Credit Bank; and two banking corporations, the Bank of
Naples and the Bank of Sicily. In 1893 the Roman Bank was put into
liquidation, and the other three limited companies were fused, so
as to create the Bank of Italy, the privilege of issuing bank notes
being thenceforward confined to the Bank of Italy, the Bank of
Naples and the Bank of Sicily. The gold reserve in the possession
of the Banca dItalia on September 30th 1907 amounted to 32,240,984,
and the silver reserve to 4,767,861; the foreign treasury bonds,
&c. amounted to 3,324,074, making the total reserve 40,332,919;
while the circulation amounted to 54,612,234. The figures were on
the 31st of December 1906:
Paper Circulation. Reserve.
Banca dItalia. 47,504,352 36,979,235
Banca di Napoli. 13,893,152 9,756,284
Banca di Sicilia. 2,813,692 2,060,488
Total -. 64,211,196 48,796,000
This is considerably in excess of the circulation, 40,404,000,
fixed by royal decree of 1900; but the issue of additional notes
was allowed, provided they were entirely covered by a metallic
reserve, whereas up to the fixed limit a 40% reserve only was
necessary.
These notes are of 50, 100, 500 and 1000 lire; while the state
issues notes for 5, 10 and 25 lire, the currency of these at the
end of October 1906 being 17,546,967; with a total guaraotee of
15,636,000 held against them. They were in January 1908 equal in
value to the metallic currency of gold and silver.
The price of Italian consolidated 5% (gross, 4% net, allowing
for the 20% income tax) stock, which is the security most largely
negotiated abroad, and used in settling differences between large
financial institutions, has steadily risen during recent years.
After being depressed between 5885 and 1894, the prices in Italy
and abroad reached, in 1899, on the Rome
Stock Exchange, the average 01 100.83
and of 94.8 on the Paris
Bourse. By the end of 1901 the price of Italian
stock on the Paris Bourse had, however, risen to par or
thereabouts. The average price of Italian 4% in 1905 was 105.29
since the conversion to 33/4% net (to be further reduced to 31/2 in
fivt more years), the price has been about 103.5. Rates of
exchange, or, in other words the gold premium, favored Italy during
the yearr immediately following the abolition of the forced
currency in 1881
- In 1885, however, rates tended to rise, and though they fell
in I 88(they subsequently increased to such an extent as to reach
1IoA at the end of August 1894. For the next four years they
continuec low, but rose again in 1898 and 1899. in 1900 the maximum
rate was 107.32, and the minimum 105.40, but in 1901 rates fell
considerably, and were at par in 1902-1909.
There are in Italy six clearing houses, namely, the ancient one
at Leghorn, and those of Genoa, Milan, Rome, Florence and Turin,
founded since 1882.
The number of ordinary banks, which diminished between 1889 and
1894, increased in the following years, and was 158 In 1898. At the
same time the capital employed in banking decreased by nearly
one-half, namely, from about 12,360,000 in 1880 to about 6,520,000
in 1898. This decrease was due to the liquidation of a number of
large and small banks, amongst others the Bank of Genoa, the
General Bank, and the Societ di Credito Mobiliare Italiano of Rome,
and the Genoa
Discount
Bankestablishments which alone represented f4,84o,000 of paid-up
capital. Ordinary credit operations are also carried on by the
co-operative credit societies, of which there are some 700.
Certain banks make a special business of lending money to owners
iif land or buildings (credito fo,zdiario). Loans are repayable by
Agrarian instalments, and are guaranteed by first mortgages not
Credit greater in amount than half the value of the hypothecated
flanks property. The banks may buy up mortgages and advance money
on current account on the security of land or buildings. The
development of the large cities has induced these banks to turn
their attention rather to building enterprise than to mortgages on
rural property. The value of their land certificates or cartetle
fondiarie (representing capital in circulation) rose from
10,420,000 in 1881 to 15,560,000 in 1886, and to 30,720,000 in
1891, but fell to 29,320,000 in 1896, to 27,360,000 in 1898, and to
24,360,000 in 1907; the amount of money lent increased from
1/2Io,44o,000 in 1881 to 15,600,000 in 1886, and 30,800,000 in
1891, but fell to 29,320,000 in 1896, to 27,360,000 in 1899, and to
f2I,72o,000 in 1907. The diminution was due to the law of the 10th
of April 1893 upon the banks of issue, by which they were obliged
to liquidate the
loan and
mortgage business they had
previously carried on.
Various laws have been passed to facilitate agrarian credit. The
law of the 23rd of January 1887 (still in force) extended the
dispositions of the Civil Code with regard to privileges, and
established special privileges in regard to harvested produce,
produce stored in barns and
farm buildings, and in regard to
agricultural implements. Loans on mortgage may also be granted to
landowners and agricultural unions, with a view to the introduction
of agricultural improvements. These loans are regulated by special
disposition, and are guaranteed by a share of the increased value
of the land after the improvements have been carried out. Agrarian
credit banks may, with the permission of the government, issue
cartelle agrarie, or agrarian bonds, repayable by instalments and
bearing interest.
Internal Administrcztion
It was not till 1865 that the administrative unity of Italy was
realized. Up to that year some of the regions of the kingdom, such
as Tuscany, continued to have a kind of
autonomy; but by the laws of the 20th of March
the whole country was divided into 69 provinces and 8545 communes.
The extent to which communal independence had been maintained in
Italy through all the centuries of its political disintegration was
strongly in its favor. The syndic (sindaco) or chief
magistrate of the commune
was appointed by the king for three years, and he was assisted by a
municipal junta.
Local
government was modified by the law of the 10th of February 1889
and by posterior enactments. The syndics (or mayors) are now
elected by a secret ballot of the communal council, though they are
still government officials. In the provincial administrations the
functions of the prefects have been curtailed. Each province has a
prefect, responsible to and
appointed by the Ministry of the Interior, while each of the
regions (called variously circondarsi and distretti) has its
sub-prefect. Whereas the prefect was forinei-iy ex-officio
president of the provincial deputation or executive committee of
the provincial council, his duties under the present law are
reduced to mere participation in the management of provincial
affairs, the president of the provincial deputation being chosen
among and elected by the members of the deputation. The most
important change introduced by the new law has been the creation in
every province of a provincial administrative junta entrusted with
the supervision of communal administrations, a function previously
discharged by the provincial deputation. Each provincial
administrative junta is composed, in part, of government nominees,
and in larger part of elective elements, elected by the provincial
council for four years, half of whom require to be elected every
two years. The acts of communal administration requiring the
sanction of the provincial administrative junta are chiefly
financial. Both communal councils and prefects may appeal to the
government against the decision of the provincial administrative
juntas, the government being guided by the opinion of the Council
of State. Besides possessing competence in regard to local
government elections, which previously came within the jurisdiction
of the provincial deputations, the provincial administrative juntas
discharge magisterial functions in administrative affairs, and deal
with appeals presented by private persons against acts of the
communal and provincial administrations. The juntas are in this
respect organs of~the administrative
jurisprudence created in Italy by the law
of the 1st of May 1890, in order to provide juridical protection
for those rights and interests outside the competence of the
ordinary tribunals. The provincial council only meets once a year
in ordinary
session.
The former qualifications for electorship in local government
elections have been modified, and it is now sufficient to pay five
lire annually in, direct taxes, five lire of certain communal
taxes, or a certain rental (which varies according to the
population of a commune), instead of being obliged to pay, as
previously, at least five lire annually of direct taxes to the
state. In consequence of this change the number of local electors
increased by more than onethird between 1887-1889; it decreased,
however, as a result of an extraordinary revision of the registers
in 1894. The period for which both communal and provincial councils
are elected is six years, one-half being renewed every three
years.
The ratio of local electors to population is in Piedmont 79%,
but in Sicily less than. 45%. The ratio of voters to qualified
electors tends to increase; it is highest in Campania, Basilicata
and in the south generally; the lowest percentages are given by
Einilia and Liguria.
Local finance is regulated by the communal and provincial law of
May 1898, which instituted provincial administrative juntas,
empowered to examine and sanction the acts of the
coin munal financial administrations. The sanction
of the Local provincial administrative junta is necessary for sales
or ~
purchases of property, alterations of rates (although in case of
increase the junta can only act upon request of ratepayers paying
an aggregate of one-twentieth of the local direct taxation), and
expenditure affecting the communal budget for more than five,
years. The provincial administrative junta is, moreover, empowered
to order obligatory expenditure, such as the upkeep of roads,
sanitary works,
lighting,
police (i.e. the so-called
guardie di pubblica sicurezza, the carabinieri being really a
military force; only the largest towns maintain a municipal police
force), charities, education, &c., in case such expenditure is
neglected by the communal authorities. The cost of fire brigades,
infant asylums, evening and holiday schools, is classed as optional
expenditure. Communal revenues are drawn from the proceeds of
communal property, interest upon capital, taxes and local dues. The
most important of the local dues is the
gate tax, or dazio di consumo, which may be either
a surtax upon commodities (such as alcoholic drinks or meat),
having already paid customs duty at the frontier, in which case the
local surtax may not exceed 50% of the frontier duty, or an
exclusively communal duty limited to 10% on flour, bread and
farinaceous products,2 and to 20% upon other commodities. The taxes
thus vary considerably in different towns.
In addition, the communes have a right to levy a, surtax not
exceeding 50% of the quota levied by the state upon lands and
buildings; a family tax, or fuocatico, upon the total incomes of
families, which, for fiscal purposes, are divided into various
categories; a tax based upon the rent-value of houses, and other
taxes upon cattle, horses, dogs, carriages and servants; also on
licences for shopkeepers, hotel and restaurant keepers, &c.; on
the slaughter of animals, stamp duties, one-half of the tax on
bicycles, &c. Occasional sources of interest are found in the
sale of communal property, the realization of communal credits, and
the contraction of debt.
The provincial administrations are entrusted with the manage-.
ment of the affairs of the provinces in general, as distinguished
from those of the communes. Their expenditure is likewise classed
as obligatory and optional. The former category comprises the
maintenance of provincial roads,
bridges and watercourse embankments;, secondary
education, whenever this is n.ot provided for by private,
institutions or by the state (elementary education being maintained
by the communes), and the maintenance of foundlings and pauper
lunatics. Optional expenditure includes the cost of. services of
general public interest, though not strictly indispensable.
Provincial revenues are drawn from provincial property, school
taxes, tolls and surtaxes on land and buildings. The provincial
surtaxes may not exceed 5o% of the quotas levied by the state. In
1897 the total provincial revenue was 3,732,253, of which 3,460,000
was obtained from the surtax upon lands and buildings. Expenditure
amounted to 3,768,888, of which the principal items were 760,000
for roads and bridges, 520,000 for lunatic asylums, ~4o,ooo for
foundling hospitals, 320,000 for interest on debtand 200,000 for
police. Like communal revenue, provincial revenue has considerably
increased since 1880, principally on account of the increase in the
land and building surtax.
The Italian local authorities, communes and provinces alike,
have considerably increased their indebtedness since 1882, The
ratio of communal and provincial debt per inhabitant has grown from
30.79 lire (~1, 4s. 71/8d.) to 4370 lire (ii, 14s. iid.), an
increasedue in great part to the need for improved buildings,
hygienic reforms and education, but also attributable in part to
the mannerin which the finances of many communes are administered.
The total was in 1900, 49,496,193 for the communes and 6,908,022
for the provinces. The former total is more than double add the
latter more than
treble the
sum in 1873, while there is an increase of 62% in the former and
26% in the latter over the totals for 1882.
See Annuario statistico -ilaliano (not, however, issued
regularly each year) for general statistics; and other official
publications; W. Deecke, Ita.ly; a Popular Account of the ColAntry,
its People and its Institutions (translated by H. A. Nesbitt,
London, 1904); B. King and T.
Okey, Italy to-day (London, 1901); E. Nathan, Vent Anni di ua
ital,iana altraverso al(Annuario (Rome, 1906); G. Strafforello,
Geografia dellItalia (Turin, I89o19o2). - (T. As.)
History
The difficulty of Italian history lies in the fact, that until
modern times the Italians have had no political unity, no
independence, no organized existence as a nation. Split up into
numerous and mutually hostile communities, they never, through the
fourteen centuries which have elapsed since the end of the old
Western empire, shook off the yoke of foreigners completely; they
never until lately learned to merge their local and conflicting
interests in the common good of undivided Italy. Their history is
therefore not the history of a single people, centralizing and
absorbing its constituent elements by a process of continued
evolution, but of a group
of cognate populations, exemplifying
divers types of constitutional developments.
The early history of Italy will be found under ROME and allied
headings. The following account is therefore mainly concerned with
the periods succeeding AD. 476, when
Romulus Augustulus was deposed by
Odoacer. Prefixed to this are
two sections dealing respectively with (A) the ethnographical and
philological divisions of ancient Italy, and (B) the unification of
the country under Augustus, the growth of the road system and so
forth. The subsequent history is divided into five periods: (C)
From 476 to 1796; (D) From 796 to 1814; (E) From 1815 to 1870; (F)
From 1870 to 5902; (G) From 1902 to 1910.
A. Ancient Languages and Peoples
The ethnography of ancient Italy is a very complicated and
difficult subject, and notwithstanding the researches of modern
scholars is still involved in some obscurity. The great beauty and
fertility of the country, as well as the
charm of its climate, undoubtedly attracted, even
in early ages, successive swarms of invaders from the north, who
sometimes drove out the previous occupants of the most favored
districts, at others reduced them to a state of
serfdom, or settled down in the midst of them,
until the two races gradually coalesced. Ancient writers are agreed
as to the composite character of the population of Italy, and the
diversity of races that were found within the limits of the
peninsula. But unfortunately the traditions they have transmitted
to us are often various and conflicting, while the only safe test
of the affinities of nations, derived from the comparison of their
languages, is to a great extent inapplicable, from the fact that
the idioms that prevailed in Italy in and before the 5th century
B.C. are preserved, if at all, only in a few scanty and fragmentary
inscriptions, though from that date onwards we have now a very fair
record of many of them (see, e.g.
LATIN LANGUAGE,
OSCA LINGUA,
IGUVIUM, V0LScI, ETRURIA: section Language, and
below). These materials, imperfect as they are, when combined with
the notices derived from ancient writers and the evidence of
archaeological excavations, may be considered as having furnished
some results of reasonable certainty.
It must be observed that the name Italians was at one time
confined to the Oenotrians; indeed, according to
Antiochus of Syracuse (apud
Dion.
Hal. Ant. Rom. ii. 1), the name of Italy was first
still more limited, being applied only to the southern portion of
the Bruttium peninsula (now known as Calabria). B~t in the time of
that historian, as well as of
Thucydides, the names of Oenotria and
Italia, which appear to have been at that period regarded as
synonymous, had been extended to include the shore of the Tarentine
Gulf as far as
Metapontum and from thence across to the
gulfs of Laus and Posidonia on the Tyrrhenian Sea. It thus still
comprised only the two provinces subsequently known as Lucania and
Bruttium (see references s.v. Italia in R. S. Conways
Italic Dialects, p. 5). The name
seems to be a Graecized form of an Italic Vitelia, from the stem
vitlo-,
calf (Lat. vitulus, Gr.
iraXs), and perhaps to have meant calf-land, grazing-land; but the
origin is more certain than the meaning; the calf may be one of the
many animals connected with Italian tribes (see HntPINI,
SAMNITES).
Taking the term Italy to comprise the whole peninsula with the
northern region as far as the Alps, we must first distinguish the
tribe or tribes which spoke
Indo-European languages from
those who did not. To the latter category it is now possible to
refer with certainty only the Etruscans (for the
chronology and limits of
their occupation of Italian soil see ETRURIA: section Language). Of
all the other tribes that inhabited Italy down to the classical
period, of whose speech there is any record (whether explicit or in
the form of names and glosses), it is impossible to maintain that
any one does not belong to the Indo-European group. Putting aside
the Etruscan, and also the different Greek dialects of the Greek
colonies, like Cumae, Neapolis, Tarentum, and proceeding from the
south to the north, the different languages or dialects, of whose
separate existence at some time between, say, 600 and 200 B.C., we
can be, sure, may be enumerated as follows: (I) Sicel, (2) South
Oscan. and Oscan, (3) Messapian, (4) North Oscan, (5) Volscian, (6)
East Italic or
Sabellic,
(7) Latinian, (8) Sabine, (9) Iguvine or Umbrian, (10) Gallic, (11)
Ligurian and (12) Venetic.
Between several of these dialects it is probable that closer
affinities exist. (I) It is probable, though not very clearly
demonstrated, that Venetic, East Italic and Messapian are connected
together and with the ancient dialects spoken in
Illyria, so that these might be provisionally
entitled the Adriatic group, to which the language spoken. by the
Eteocretes of the city of Praesos in
Crete down to the 4th century B.C. was perhaps
akin. (2) Too little is known of the Sicel language to make clear
more than its Indo-European character. But it must be reckoned
among the languages of Italy because of the well-supported
tradition of the early existence of the Sicels in Latium (see
SIcuLI). Their possible place in
the earlier stratum of, Indo-European population is discussed under
SABINI. How far also the
language or languages spoken in Bruttium and at certain points of
Lucania, such as Anxia, differed from the Oscan of Samnium and
Campania there is not enough evidence to show (see
BRUTTII). (3) It is doubtful
whether there are any actual inscriptions which can be referred
with certainty to the language of the Ligures, but some other
evidence seems to
link them with
the -CO- peoples, whose early distribution is discussed under
VoLscI and LIGURIA. (~) It is
difficult to point to any definite evidence by which we may
determine the dates of the earliest appearance of Gallic tribes in
the north of Italy. No satisfactory collection has been made of the
Celtic inscriptions of Cisalpine
Gaul, though many are scattered about in different
museums. For our present purpose it is important to note that the
archaeological stratification in deposits like those of Bologna
shows that the Gallic period supervened upon the Etruscan. Until a
scientific collection of the local and personal names of this
district has been made, and until the archaeological evidence is
clearly interpreted, it is impossible to go beyond the region of
conjecture as to the tribe or tribes occupying the valley of the Po
before the two invasions. It is clear, however, that the Celtic and
Etruscan elements together occupied the greater part of the
district between the Apennines and the Alps down to its
Romanization, which took place gradually in the course of the 2nd
century B.C. Their linguistic neighbors were Ligurian in the south
and south-west, and the
Veneti
on the east.
We know from the Roman historians that a large force of Gauls
came as far south as Rome in the year 390 B.C., and that some part
of this
horde settled in what
was henceforward known as the Ager Gallicus, the easterdmost strip
of coast in what was later known as Umbria, including the towns of
Caesna, Ravenna and -
Ariminum. A bilingual inscription (Gallic and
Latin) of the 2nd century B.C. was found as far south as Tuder, the
modern Todi (Italic Dialects, ii. 528; Stokes, Bezzenbergers
Beifrdge, II, p. 113).
(5) Turning now to the languages which constitute the Italic
groupinthenarrowersense, (a) Oscan; (b) the dialect of Velitrae,
commonly called Volscian; (c) Latinian (i.e. Latin and its nearest
congeners, like Faliscan); and (d) Umbrian (or, as it may more
safely be called, Iguvine), two principles of classification offer
themselves, of which the first is purely linguistic, the second
linguistic and topographical. Writers on the
ethnology of Italy have been hitherto content
with the first, namely, the broad distinction. between the dialects
which preserved the IndoEuropean velars (especially the breathed
plosive q) as velars or back-palatals (gutturals), with or without
the addition of a w-
sound, and
the dialects which converted the velars wholly into labials, for
example, Latinian quis contrasted with Oscan, Volscian and Umbrian
pis (see further LATIN LANGUAGE).
This distinction, however, takes us but a little way towards an
historical grouping of the tribes, since the only Latinian dialects
of which, besides Latin, we have inscriptions are Faliscan and
Marsian (see FALISCT, MAR51); although the place-names of the
Aequi suggest that they belong to
the same group in this respect. Except, therefore, for a very small
and apparently isolated area in the north of Latium and south of
Etruria, all the tribes of Italy, though their idioms differed in
certain particulars, are left undiscriminated. This presents a
strong contrast to the evidence of tradition, which asserts very
strongly (I) the identity of the Sabines and Samnites; (2) the
conquest of an earlier population by this tribe; and which affords
(ci) clear evidence of the identity of the Sabines with the ruling
class, i.e. the patricians, at Rome itself (see SABINI; and ROME~
Early History and Ethnology).
Some
clue to this
enigma may perhaps be found in
the second principle of classification proposed by the present
writer at the Congresso Internationale di Scienze Storiche at Rome
(Atti del Con gresso, ii) in 1903. It was on that occasion pointed
out that the ethnica or tribal and oppidan names of communities
belonging to the Sabine stock were marked by the use of the suffix
-NOas in Sabini; and that there was some linguistic evidence that
this stratum of population overcame an earlier population, which
used, generally, ethnica in -CO-- or -TI- (as in Marruci, Ardeates,
transformed later into
Marrucini, A rdeatini).
The validity of this distinction and its results are discussed
under SABJNI and VoLscI, but it is well to state here its chief
consequences.
I. Latin will be counted the language of the earlier plebeian
stratum of the population of Rome and Latium, probably once spread
over a large area of the peninsula, and akin in sijme degree to the
language or languages spoken in north Italy before either the
Etruscan or the Gallic invasions began.
2. It would follow, on the other hand, that what is called Oscan
represented the language of the invading Sabines (more correctly
Safines), whose racial affinities would seem to be of a distinctly
more northern cast, and to
mark
them, like the
Dorians or
Achaeans in Greece, as an
early
wave of the invaders who
more than once in later history havevitally influenced the fortunes
of the tempting southern land into which they forced their way.
3. What is called Volscian, known only from the important
inscription of the town of Velitrae, and what is called Umbrian,
known from the famous Iguvine Tables with a few other records,
would be regarded as Safine dialects, spoken by Safine communities
who had become more or less isolated in the midst of the earlier
and possibly partly Etruscanized populations, the result being that
as early as the 4th century n.c. their language had suffered
corruptions which it escaped both in the Samnite mountains and in
the independent and self-contained community of Rome.
For fuller details the reader must be referred to the separate
articles already mentioned, and to lGuvluM,
PIcENUM, OscA LINGUA, MARSI, AEQUI, Sicuu and
LIGURIA. Such archaeological evidence as can be connected with the
linguistic data will there be discussed.
(R. S. C.)
B. Consolidation of Italy
We have seen that the name of Italy was originally applied only
to the southernmost part of the peninsula, and was only gradually
extended so as to comprise the central regions, such as Latium and
Campania, which were designated by writers as late as Thucydides
and
Aristotle as in
Opicia. The progress of this change cannot be followed in detail,
but there can be little doubt that the extension of the Roman arms,
and the gradual union of the nations of the peninsula under one
dominant power, would contribute to the introduction, or rather
would make the necessity felt, for the use of one general
appellation. At first, indeed, the term was apparently confined to
the regions of the central and southern districts, exclusive of
Cisalpine Gaul and the whole tract north of the Apennines, and this
continued to be the official or definite signification of the name
down to the end of the republic. But the natural limits of Italy
are so clearly marked that the name came to be generally employed
as a geographical term at a much earlier period. Thus we already
find
Polybius repeatedly
applying it in this wider signification to the whole country, as
far as the fOot of the Alps; and it is evident from many passages
in the Latin writers that this was the familiar use of the term in
the days of
Cicero and Caesar.
The official distinction was, however, still retained. Cisalpine
Gaul, including the whole of northern Italy, still constituted a
province, an appellation never applied to Italy itself. As such it
was assigned to
Julius Caesar,
together with Transalpine Gaul, and it was not till he crossed the
Rubicon that he entered Italy in the strict sense of the term.
Augustus was the first who gave a definite administrative
organization to Italy as a whole, and at the same time gave
official sanction to that wider acceptation of the name which had
already established itself in familiar usage, and which has
continued to prevail ever since.
The division of Italy into eleven regions, instituted by
Augustus for administrative purposes, which continued in official
use till the reign of
Constantine, was based mainly on
the territorial divisions previously existingi and preserved with
few exceptions the ancient limits.
The first region comprised Latium (in the more extended sense of
the term, as including the land of the Volsci,
Hernici and
Aurunci), together with Campania and the
district of the Picentini. It thus extended from the mouth of the
Tiber to that of the Silarus (see LATIUM).
The second region included Apulia and Calabria (the name by
which the Romans usually designated the district known to the
Greeks as Messapia or lapygia), together with the land of the
Hirpini, which had usually been
considered as a part of Samnium.
The third region contained Lucania and Bruttiuin; it was bounded
on the west coast by the Silarus, on the east by the Bradanus.
The fourth region comprised all the Samnites (except the
Hirpini), together with the Sabines and the cognate tribes of the
Frentani, Marrucini,
Marsi, Peligni,
Vestini and
Aequiculi. It was separated from Apulia on the south by the river
Tifernus, and from Picenum on the north by the Matrinus.
The fifth region was composed solely of Picenum, extending along
the coast of the Adriatic from the mouth of the Matrinus to that of
the Aesis, beyond Ancona. -
The sixth region was formed by Umbria, in the more extended
sense of the term, as including the Ager Gallicus, along the coast
of the Adriatic from the Aesis to the Ariminus, and separated from
Etruria on the west by the Tiber.
The seventh region consisted of Etruria, which preserved its
ancient limits, extending from the Tiber to the Tyrrhenian Sea, and
separated from Liguria on the north by the river Macra.
The eighth region, termed Gallia Cispadana, comprised the
southern portion of Cisalpine Gaul, and was bounded on the north
(as its name implied) by the river Padus or P0, from above
Placentia to its mouth. It was separated from Etruria and Umbria by
the main chain of the Apennines; and the river Ariminus was
substituted for the far-famed Rubicon as its limit on the
Adriatic.
The ninth region comprised Liguria, extending along the seacoast
from the Varus to the Macra, and inland as far as the river Padus,
which constituted its northern boundary from its source in Mount
Vesulus to its confluence with the
Trebia just above Placentia.
The tenth region included Venetia from the Padus and Adriatic to
the Alps, to which was annexed the neighboring peninsula of Istria,
and to the west the territory of the
Cenomani, a Gaulish tribe, extending from the
Athesis to the Addua, which had previously been regarded as a part
of
Gallia
Cisalpina.
The eleventh region, known as Gallia Transpadana, included all
the rest of Cisalpine Gau1 from the Padus on the south and the
Addua on the east to the foot of the Alps.
The arrangements thus established by Augustus continued almost
unchanged till the time of Constantine, and formed the basis of all
subsequent administrative divisions until the fall of the Western
empire.
The mainstay of the Roman military control of Italy first, and
of the whole empire afterwards, was the splendid system of roads.
As the supremacy of Rome extended itself Roads, over Italy, the
Roman road system grew step by step, each fresh conquest being
marked by the pushing forward of roads through the heart of the
newly-won territory, and the establishment of fortresses in
connection with them. It was in Italy that the military value of a
network of roads was first appreciated by the Romans, and the
lesson stood them in good stead
in the provinces. And it was for military reasons that from mere
cart-tracks they were developed into
permanent highways (T. Ashby, in Papers of the British School at
Rome, I. 129). From Rome itself roads radiated in all directions.
Communications with the south-east were mainly provided by the
Via Appia (the queen of
Roman roads, as Statius called it) and the
Via Latina, which met close to Casiinum, at
the crossing of the Volturnus, 3 m. N.W. of Capua, the second city
in Italy in the 3rd century B.C., and the centre of the road system
of Campania. Here the Via Appia turned eastward towards Beneventum,
while the Via Popiia continued in a south-easterly direction
through the Campanian plain and thence southwards through the
mountains of Lucania and Bruttii as far as Rhegium. Coast roads of
minor importance as means of through communication also existed on
both sides of the toe of the
boot.
Other roads ran south from Capua to Cumae,
Puteoli (the most important harbour of
Campania), and Neapolis, which could also be reached by a coast
road from
Minturnae on
the Via Appia. From Beneventum, another important road centre, the
Via Appia itself ran south-east through the mountains past
Venusia to Tarentum on the
south-west coast of the heel, and thence across Calabria to
Brundusium, while Trajans correction of it, following an older
mule-track, ran north-east through
the mountains and then through the lower ground of Apulia, reaching
the coast at
Barium. Both met
at Brundusium, the principal port for the East. From Aequum
Tuticum, on the Via Traiana, the Via Herculia ran to the
south-east, crossing the older Via Appia, then south to Potentia
and so on to join the Via
Popilia in the centre of Lucania.
The only highroad of importance which left Rome and ran
eastwards, the Via.Valeria, was not completed as far as the
Adriatic before the time of
Claudius; but on the north and
northwest started the main highways which communicated with central
and northern Italy, and with all that part of the Roman empire
which was accessible by land. The
Via Salaria, a very ancient road, with its
branch, the
Via
Caecilia, ran north-eastwards to the Adriatic coast and so also
did the
Via
Flaminia, which reached the coast at
Fanum Fortunae, and thence followed it
to Ariminum. The road along the east coast from Fanum Fortmrnae
down to Barium, which connected the terminations of the Via Salaria
and
Via Valeria, and
of other roads farther south crossing from Campania, had no special
name in ancient times, as far as we know. The Via Flaminia was the
earliest and most important road to the north; and it was soon
extended (in 187 B.C.) by the Via Aemilia running through
Bononia as far as Placentia, in
an almost absolutely straight line between the plain of the P0 and
the foot of the Apennines. In the same year a road was constructed
over the Apennines from Bon.onia to
Arretium, but it is difficult to suppose that
it was not until later that the
Via Cassia was made, giving a direct
communication between Arretium and Rome. The
Via Clodia was an alternative route to the
Cassia for the first portion
out of Rome, a branch having been built at the same time from
Florentia to Lucca and Luna. Along the west coast the
Via Aurelia ran up to
Pisa and was continued by another Via Aemiia to Genoa. Thence the
Via Postumia led
to Dertona, Placentia and Cremona, while the Via Aemilia and the
Via Julia
Augusta continued
along the coast into Gallia Narbonensis.
The road system of Cisalpine Gaul was mainly co1~ litioned by
the rivers which had to be crossed, and the Alpine passes which had
to be approached.
Cremona, on the north bank of the P0, was an important meeting
point of roads and Hostilia (Ostiglia) another; so also was
Patavium, farther east, and
Altinum and Aquileia farther east still. Roads, indeed, were almost
as plentiful as railways at the present day in the basin. of the
P0.
As to the roads leading out of Italy, from Aquileia roads
diverged northward into Raetia, eastward to
Noricum and
Pannonia, and southwards to the Istrian and
Dalmatian coasts. Farther west came the roads over the higher
Alpine passes the Brenner from Verona, the Septimer and the Splugen
from Clavenna (Chiavenna), the Great and the Little St Bernard from
Augusta Praetoria (Aosta),
and the Mont Genvre from Augusta Taurinorum (Turin).
Westward two short but important roads led on each side of the
Tiber to the great harbour at its mouth; while the coast of Latium
was supplied with a coast road by Septimius
Severus. To the south-west the roads were short
and of little importance.
On ancient Italian geography in general see articles in
PaulyWissowa, Realer.cyclopadie (1899, sqq.); Corpus inscriptionum
Latinarum (Berlin, 1862 sqq.); G. Strafforello, Geografia deli
Italia (Turin, 1890-1892); H. Nissen, Jtalische Landeskunde
(Berlin, 1883 1902); also references in articles ROME, LATIUM,
&c. (T. As.)
C. From 476 to 1796
The year 476 opened a new age for the Italian people. Odoacer, a
chief of the Herulians, deposed Romulus, the last Augustus of the
West, and placed the peninsula beneath the titular sway of the
Byzantine emperors. At Pavia the
barbarian conquerors of Italy proclaimed him
king, and he received from
Zeno
the dignity of Roman patrician. Thus began that system of mixed
government, Teutonic and Roman, which, in the absence of a national
monarch, impressed the institutions of new Italy from the earliest
date with
dualism. The same
revolution vested supreme authority in a non-resident and
inefficient autocrat, whose title gave him the right to interfere
in Italian affairs, but who lacked the power and will to rule the
people for his own or their advantage. Odoacer inaugurated that
long series of foreign rulersGreeks,
Franks, Germans, Spaniards and Austrians who
have successively contributed to the misgovernment of Italy from
distant seats of empire.
I. Gothic and Lombard
Kingdoms.
In 488
Theodoric,
king of the East
Goths, received
commission from the Greek
emperor, Zeno, to undertake the affairs of
Italy. He defeated Odoacer, drove him to Ravenna, besieged him
there, and in 493 completed the conquest of the country by
murdering the Herulian chief with his own hand. Theodoric respected
the Roman institutions which he found in Italy, held the Eternal
City sacred, and governed by ministers chosen from the Roman
population. He settled at Ravenna, which had been the capital of
Italy since the days of
Honorius, and which still testifies by its
monuments to the Gothic chieftains Romanizing policy. Those who
believe that the Italians would have gained strength by unification
in a single monarchy must regret that this Gothic kingdom lacked
the elements of stability. The Goths, except in the valley of the
P0, resembled an army of occupation rather than a people numerous
enough to blend with the Italic stock. Though their rule was
favorable to the Romans, they were Arians; and religious
differences, combined with the pride and jealousies of a nation
accustomed to imperial honors, rendered the inhabitants of Italy
eager to throw off their yoke. When, therefore, Justinian undertook
the reconquest of Italy, his generals,
Belisarius and
Narses, were supported by the south. The
struggle of the Greeks and the Goths was carried on for fourteen
years, between 539 and 553, when Teias, the last Gothic king, was
finally defeated in a bloody battle near Vesuvius. At its close the
provinces of Italy were placed beneath Greek dukes, controlled by a
governor-general, entitled
exarch, who ruled in the Byzantine emperors name
at Ravenna.
This new settlement lasted but a few years. Narses had employed
Lombard auxiliaries in his, campaigns against the The Goths; and
when he was recalled by ~n insulting Lombards. message from the
empress in 565, he is said to have invited this fiercest and rudest
of the Teutonic clans to seize the spoils of Italy. Be this as it
may, the Lombards, their ranks swelled by the Gepidae, whom they
had lately conquered, and by the wrecks of other barbarian tribes,
passed southward under their king
Alboin in 568. The Herulian invaders had been
but a band of adventurers; the Goths were an army; the Lombards,
far more formidable, were a nation in movement. Pavia offered
stubborn resistance; but after a three years
siege it was taken, and Alboin made it the
capital of his new kingdom.
In order to understand the future history of Italy, it is
necessary to form a clear conception of the method pursued by the
Lombards in their conquest. Penetrating the peninsula, and
advancing like a
glacier or
half-liquid stream of mud, they occupied the valley of the P0, and
moved slowly downward through the centre of the country. Numerous
as they were compared with their Gothic predecessors, they had not
strength or. multitude enough to occupy the whole peninsula.
Venice, which since the days of
Attila had offered an
asylum to Roman refugees from the northern
cities, was left untouched. So was Genoa with its Riviera. Ravenna,
entrenched within her lagoons, remained a Greek city. Rome,
protected by invincible
prestige, escaped. The sea-coast cities of the
south, and the islands, Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica, preserved
their independence. Thus the Lombards neither occupied the
extremities nor subjugated the
brain-centre of the country. The strength of
Alboins kingdom was in the north; his capital, Pavia. As his people
pressed southward, they omitted to possess themselves of the
coasts; and what was worse for the future of these conquerors, the
original impetus of the invasion was checked by the untimely murder
of Alboin in 573. After this event, the semi-independent chiefs of
the Lombard tribe, who borrowed the title of dukes from their Roman
predecessors, seem to have been contented with consolidating their
power in the districts each had occupied. The duchies of Spoleto in
the centre, and of Benevento in the south, inserted
wedge-like into the middle of the
peninsula, and enclosing independent Rome, were but loosely united
to the kingdom at Pavia. Italy was broken up into districts, each
offering points for attack from without, and fostering the seeds of
internal revolution. Three separate capitals must be discriminated
Pavia, the seat of the new Lombard kingdom; Ravenna, the garrison
city of the Byzantine emperor; and Rome, the rallying point of the
old nation, where the successor of St
Peter was already beginning to assume that
national
protectorate which proved so influential
in the future.
It is not necessary to write the history of the Lombard kingdom
in detail. Suffice it to say that the rule of the Lombards proved
at first far more oppressive to the native population, and was less
intelligent of their old customs, than that of the Goths had been.
Wherever the Lombards had the upper hand, they placed the country
under military rule, resembling in its genera] character what we
now know as the feudal system. Though there is reason to suppose
that the Roman laws were still administered within the cities, yet
the Lombard code was that of the kingdom; and the Lombards being
Arians, they added the oppression of religious intolerance to that
of martial despotism and barbarous cupidity. The Italians were
reduced to the last extremity when
Gregory the Great (590604), having strengthened
his position by diplomatic relations with the duchy of Spoleto, and
brought about the conversion of the Lombards to orthodoxy, raised
the cause of the remaining Roman population throughout Italy. The
fruit of his policy, which made of Rome a counterpoise against the
effete empire of the Greeks upon the one hand and against the
pressure of the feudal kingdom on the other, was seen in the
succeeding century. When
Leo the Isaurian published his decrees
against the worship of images in 726,
Gregory II. allied himself with
Liudprand, the Lombard
king, threw off
allegiance to
Byzantium, and established the autonomy of
Rome. This pope initiated the dangerous policy of playing one
hostile force off against another with a view to securing
independence. He used the Lombards in his struggle with the Greeks,
leaving to his successors the duty of checking these unnatural
allies. This was accomplished by calling the Franks in against the
Lombards. Liudprand pressed hard, not only upon the Greek dominions
of the exarchate, but also upon Rome. His successors, Rachis and
Aistolf, attempted to follow the same game of conquest. But the
popes,
Gregory III.,
Zachary and
Stephen
II., determining at any cost to espouse the national cause and
to aggrandize their own office, continued to rely upon the Franks.
Pippin twice crossed the Alps,
and forced Aistolf to relinquish his acquisitions, including
Ravenna, Pentapolis, the coast towns of Romagna and some cities in
the duchy of Spoleto. These he handed over to the pope, of Rome.
This donation of Pippin in 756 confirmed the papal see in the
protectorate of the Italic party, and conferred upon it sovereign
rights. The virtual outcome of the contest carried on by Rome since
the year 726 with Byzantium and Pavia was to place the popes in the
position held by the Greek exarch, and to confirm the limitation of
the Lombard kingdom. We must, however, be cautious to remember that
the south of Italy was comparatively unaffected. The dukes of the
Greek empire and the Lombard dukes 1 Benevento, together with a few
autonomous commercial cities, still divided Italy below the
Campagna of Rome (seeL0MBARDs).
II. Frankish Emperors.
The Franko-Papal
alliance, which conferred a
crown on Pippin and sovereign rights upon the see
of Rome, held within itself that ideal of mutually Charles
supporting papacy and empire which exercised so the iireat powerful
an influence in medieval history. When Charles the Great
(Charlemagne) deposed his father-in- lin~as. law
Desiderius, the last
Lombard king, in 774, and when he received the circlet of the
empire from
Leo Ill, at Rome ~fl
800, he did but complete and ratify the compact offered to his
grandfather,
Charles Martel, by Gregory III. The
relations between the new emperor and the pope were ill defined;
and this proved the source of
infinite disasters to Italy and Europe in the
sequel. But for the moment each seemed necessary to the other; and
that sufficed. Charles took possession of the kingdom of Italy, as
limited by Pippins settlement. The pope was confirmed in his
rectorship of the cities ceded by Aistolf, with the further
understanding, tacit rather than expressed, that, even as he had
wrung these provinces for the Italic people from both Greeks and
Lombards, so in the future he might claim the protectorate of such
portions of Italy, external to the kingdom, as he should be able to
acquired This, at any rate, seems to be the meaning of that obscure
re-settlement of the peninsula which Charles effected. The kingdom
of Italy, transmitted on his death by Charles the Great, and
afterwards Confirmed to his grandson Lotbar by the peace of
Verdun in 843, stretched from the
Alps to Terracina. The duchy of Benevento remained tributary, but
independent. The cities of Gaeta and Naples, Sicily and the
so-called Theme of Lombardy in South Apulia and Calabria, still
recognized the Byzantine emperor. Venice stood aloof, professing a
nominal allegiance to the East. The parcels into which the Lombards
had divided the peninsula remained thus virtually unaltered, except
for the new authority acquired by the see of Rome.
Internally Charles left the affairs of the Italian kingdom much
as he found them, except that he appears to have pursued the policy
of breaking up the larger fiefs of the Lombards, substituting
counts for their dukes, and adding to the privileges of the
bishops. We may reckon these measures among the earliest advantages
extended to the cities, which still contained the bulk of the old
Roman population, and which were destined to intervene with
decisive effect two centuries later in Italian history. It should
also here be noticed that the changes introduced into the holding
of the fiefs, whether by altering their boundaries or substituting
Frankish for Lombard vassals, were chief among the causes why the
feudal system took no permanent hold in Italy.
Feudalism was not at any time a national
institution. The
hierarchy of dukes and marquises and counts
consisted of foreign soldiers imposed on. the indigenous
inhabitants; and the rapid succession of conquerors, Lombards,
Franks and Germans following each other at no long interval, and
each endeavouring to weaken the remaining strength of his
predecessor, prevented this
alien hierarchy from acquiring ixity by
permanence of tenure. Among the many miseries .nflicted upon Italy
by the frequent changes of her northern rulers, this at least may
be reckoned a blessing.
The Italians acknowledged eight kings of the house of Charles
the Great, ending in
Charles the Fat, who was deposed in
888. Fr8nkislj After them followed ten sovereigns, some of whom
have been misnamed Italians by writers too eager to catch at any
resemblance of national
glory
for a ~ people passive in the hands of foreign masters. The truth
is that no period in Italian history was less really glorious than
that which came to a close in 961 by Berengar II.s cession of his
rights to Otto the Great. It was a period marked in the first place
by the conquests of the
Saracens, who began. to occupy Sicily early in
the 9th century, overran Calabria and Apulia, took Ban and
threatened Rome. In the second place it was marked by a restoration
of the Greeks to power. In 890 they established themselves again at
Ban, and ruled the Theme of Lombardy by means of an officer
entitled Catapan. In the third place it was marked by a decline of
good government in Rome. Early in the 10th century the papacy fell
into the hands of a noble family, known eventually as the counts of
Tusculum, who almost
succeeded in rendering the office hereditary, and in uniting the
civil and ecclesiastical functions of the city under a single
member of their house. It is not necessary to relate the scandals
of Marozias and Theodoras female reign, the infamies of
John XII. or the intrigues
which tended to convert Rome into a duchy~ The most important fact
for the historian of Italy to notice is that during this time the
popes abandoned, not only their high duties as chiefs of
Christendom, but also their protectorate of Italian liberties. A
fourth humiliating
episode
in this period was the invasion of the Magyar barbarians, who
overran the north of Italy, and reduced its fairest provinces to
the condition of a
wilderness. Anarchy and misery are indeed
the main features of that long space of time which elapsed between
the death of Charles the Great and the descent of Otto. Through the
almost impenetrable darkness and confusion we only discern this
much, that Italy was powerless to constitute herself a nation.
The discords which followed on the break-up of the Carolingian
power, and the weakness of the so-called Italian emperors, who were
unable to control the feudatories (marquises of Ivrea and Tuscany,
dukes of Friuli and Spoleto), from whose ranks they sprang, exposed
Italy to ever-increasing misrule. The country by this time had
become thickly covered over with castles, the seats of greater or
lesser nobles, all of whom were eager to detach themselves from
strict allegiance to the Regno. The cities, exposed to pillage by
Huns in the north and Saracens in
the south, and ravaged on the coast by Norse pirates, asserted
their right to enclose themselves with walls, and taught their
burghers the use of arms. Within the
circuit of their ramparts, the bishops already
began to exercise authority in rivalry with the counts, to whom,
since the days of Theodoric, had been entrusted the government of
the Italian burghs. Agreeably to feudal customs, these nobles, as
they grew in power, retired from the town, and built themselves
fortresses on points of vantage in the neighborhood. Thus the
titular king of Italy found himself simultaneously at war with
those great vassals who had chosen him from their own class, with
the turbulent factions of the Roman
aristocracy, with unruly bishops in the
growing cities and with the multitude of minor counts and barons
who occupied the open lands, and who changed sides according to the
interests of the moment. The last king of the quasi-Italian
succession, Berengar II., marquis of Ivrea (951961), made a
vigorous effort to restore the authority of the regno; and had he
succeeded, it is not impossible that now at the last moment Italy
might have become an independent nation. But this attempt at
unification was reckoned to Berengar for a crime. He only won the
hatred of all classes, and was represented by the obscure
annalists of that period as
an oppressor of the church and a remorseless
tyrant. In Italy, divided between feudal nobles
and almost hereditary ecclesiastics, of foreign blood and alien
sympathies, there was no national feeling. Berengar stood alone
against a multitude, unanimous in their intolerance of discipline.
His predecessor in the kingdom, Lothar, had left a young and
beautiful widow, Adelheid. Berengar imprisoned her upon the Lake of
Como, and threatened her with a forced marriage to his son
Adalbert. She escaped to the
castle of
Canossa, where the great count of Tuscany
espoused her cause, and appealed in her behalf to Otto the Saxon.
The king of Germany descended into Italy, and took Adelheid in
marriage. After this episode Berengar was more discredited and
impotent than ever. In the extremity of his fortunes he had
recourse himself to Otto, making a formal cession of the Italian
kingdom, in his own name and that of his son Adalbert, to the Saxon
as his overlord. By this slender tie the crown of Italy was joined
to that of Germany; and the formal right of the elected king of
Germany to be considered king of Italy and emperor may be held to
have accrued from this epoch.
III. The German Emperors.
Berengar gained nothing by his act of obedience to Otto. The
great Italian nobles, in their turn, appealed to Germany. Otto
entered Lombardy Saxon in 961, deposed Berengar, assumed the crown
in San and FranAmbrogio at Milan, and in 962 was proclaimed conlan
emperor by John XII. at Rome. Henceforward ~ Italy changed masters
according as one or other of the German families assumed supremacy
beyond the Alps. It is one of the strongest instances furnished by
history of the
fascination exercised by an idea that the
Italians themselves should have grown to glory in this dependence
of their nation upon Caesars who had nothing but a name in common
with the Roman Imperator of the past.
The first thing we have to notice in this revolution which
placed Otto the Great upon the imperial throne is that the Italian.
kingdom, founded by the Lombards, recognized by the Franks and
recently claimed by eminent Italian feudatories, virtually ceased
to exist. It was merged in the German kingdom; and, since for the
German princes Germany was of necessity their first care, Italy
from this time forward began to be left more and more to herself.
The central authority of Pavia had always been weak; the regno had
proved insufficient to combine the nation. But now even that
shadow of union disappeared, and
the Italians were abandoned to the slowly working influences which
tended to divide them into separate states. The most brilliant
period of their chequered history, the period which includes the
rise of communes, the exchange of municipal liberty for despotism
and the gradual discrimination of the five great powers (Milan,
Venice, Florence, the Papacy and the
kingdom of Naples), now begins. Among
the centrifugal forces which determined the future of the Italian
race must be reckoned, first and foremost, the new spirit of
municipal independence. We have seen how the cities enclosed
themselves with walls, and how the bishops defined their authority
against that of the counts. Otto encouraged this revolution by
placing the enclosures of the chief burghs beyond the jurisdiction
of the counts. Within those precincts the bishops and the citizens
were independent of all feudal masters but the emperor. He further
broke the power of the great vassals by redivisions of their feuds,
and by the creation of ~iew marches which he assigned to his German
followers. In this way, Qwing to the dislocation of the ancient
aristocracy, to the enlarged jurisdiction,of a power so democratic
as the episcopate, and to the increased privileges of the burghs,
feudalism received a powerful check in Italy. The Italian people,
that people which gave to the world the commerce and the arts of
Florence, was not indeed as yet apparent. But the conditions under
which it could arise, casting from itself all foreign and feudal
trammels, recognizing its true past in ancient Rome, and
reconstructing a civility out of the ruins of those glorious
memories, were now at last granted. The nobles from this time
forward retired into the country and the mountains, fortified
themselves in strong places outside the cities, and gave their best
attention to fostering the rural population. Within the cities and
upon the open lands the Italians, in this and the next century,
doubled, trebled and quadrupled their numbers. A race was formed
strong enough to keep the empire itself in check, strong enough,
except for its own internecine contests, to have formed a nation
equal to its happier neighbors.
The recent scandals of the papacy induced Otto to deprive the
Romans of their right to elect popes. But when he died in 973, his
son Otto 11. (married to
Theophano of the imperial Byzantine house)
and his grandson,
Otto
III., who descended into Italy in 996, found that the affairs
of Rome and of the southern provinces were more than even their
imperial powers could cope with. The
faction of the counts of Tusculum raised its
head from time to time in the Eternal City, and Rome still claimed
to be a
commonwealth. Otto III.s untimely death in
1002 introduced new discords. Rome fell once more into the hands of
her nobles. The Lombards chose Ardoin, marquis of Ivrea, for king,
and Pavia supported his claims against those of
Henry of
Bavaria, who had been elected in Germany. Milan
sided with Henry; and this is perhaps the first eminent instance of
cities being reckoned powerful allies in the Italian disputes of
sovereigns. It is also the first instance of that bitter
feud between the two great capitals
of Lombardy, a feud rooted in ancient antipathies between the Roman
population of
Mediolanum and the Lombard garrison of
Alboins successors, which proved so disastrous to the national
cause. Ardoin retired to a monastery, where he died in 1015. Henry
nearly destroyed Pavia, was crowned in Rome and died in 1024. After
this event Heribert, the
archbishop of..Milan, invited Conrad, the
Franconian king of Germany, into Italy, and crowned him with the
iron crown of the kingdom.
The intervention of this man, Heribert, compels us to turn a
closer glance upon the cities of North Italy. It is here, at the
Heribert present epoch and for the next two centuries, that the and
the
pith and
nerve of the Italian nation must be sought;
Lombard and among the burghs of Lombardy, Milan, the eldest burghs.
daughter of ancient Rome, assumes the lead. In Milan we hear for
the first time the word Comune. In Milan the citizens first form
themselves into a Parlamento. In Milan the archbishop organizes the
hitherto voiceless, defenceless population into a community capable
of expressing its needs, and an army ready to maintain its rights.
To Heribert is attributed the invention of the
Carroccio, which played so singular and
important a part in the warfare of Italian cities. A huge
car drawn by oxen, bearing the standard
of the
burgh, and carrying an
altar with the host, this
carroccio, like the
ark of the
Israelites, formed a rallying point in battle, and reminded the
armed artisans that they had a city and a church to fight for. That
Heriberts
device proved
effectual in raising the spirit of his burghers, and consolidating
them into a formidable band of warriors, is shown by the fact that
it was speedily adopted in all the free cities. It must not,
however, be supposed that .at this epoch the liberties of the
burghs were fully developed. The mass of the people remained
unrepresented in the government; and even if the consuls existed in
the days of Heribert, they were but humble legal officers,
transacting business for their constituents in the courts of the
bishop and his viscount. It still
needed nearly a century of struggle to render the burghers
independent of lordship, with a fully organized commune,
self-governed in its several assemblies. While making these
reservations, it is at thesame time right to observe that certain
Italian communities were more advanced upon the path of
independence than others. This is specially the case with the
maritime ports. Not to mention Venice, which has not yet entered
the Italian community, and remains a Greek free city, Genoa and
Pisa were rapidly rising into ill-defined autonomy. Their command
of fleets gave them incontestable advantages, as when, for
instance,
Otto II. employed
the Pisans in 980 against the Greeks in Lower Italy, and the Pisans
and Genoese together attacked the Saracens of Sardinia in 1017.
Still, speaking generally, the age of independence for the burghs
had only begun when Heribert from Milan undertook the earliest
organization of a force that was to become
paramount in peace and war.
Next to Milan, and from the point of view of general politics
even more than Milan, Rome now claims attention. The destinies of
Italy depended upon the character which Rome. the see of St Peter
should assume. Even the liberties of her republics in the north
hung on the issue of a contest which in the 11th and 12th centuries
shook Europe to its farthest boundaries. So fatally were the
internal affairs of that magnificent but unhappy country bound up
with concerns which brought the forces of the civilized world into
play. Her ancient prestige, her geographical position and the
intellectual primacy of her most noble children rendered Italy the
battleground of principles that set all Christendom in motion, and
by the clash of which she found herself for ever afterwards
divided. During the reign of
Conrad II., the party of the counts of
Tusculum revived in Rome; and Crescentius, claiming the title of
consul in. the imperial city,
sought once more to control the election of the popes. When
Henry III., the son of
Conrad, entered Italy in 1046, he found three popes in Rome. These
he abolished, and, taking the appointment into his own hands, gave
German bishops to the see. The policy thus initiated upon the
precedent laid down by Otto the Great was a remedy for pressing
evils. It saved Rome from becoming a duchy in the hands of the
Tusculum house. But it neither raised the prestige of the papacy,
nor could it satisfy the Italians, who rightly regarded the Roman
see as theirs. These German popes were short-lived and inefficient.
Their appointment, according to notions which defined themselves
within the church at this epoch, was simoniacal; and during the
long minority of
Henry
IV., who succeeded his father in 1056, the terrible Tuscan
monk, Hildebrand of Soana, forged
weapons which he used with deadly effect against the presumption of
the empire. The condition of the church seemed desperate, unless it
could be purged of crying scandals of the subjection of the papacy
to the great Roman nobles, of its subordination to the German
emperor and of its internal demoralization. It was Hildebrands
policy throughout three papacies, during which he controlled the
counsels of the Vatican, and before he himself assumed the
tiara, to prepare the mind of Italy
and Europe for a mighty change. His programme included these three
points: (I) the
celibacy
of the clergy; (2) the abolition of ecclesiastical appointments
made by the secular authority; (3) the vesting of the papal
election in the hands of the Roman clergy and people, presided over
by the
curia of cardinals. How
Hildebrand paved the way for these reforms during the pontificates
of
Nicholas II. and
Alexander II., how
he succeeded in raising the papal office from the depths of
degradation and subjection to illimitable sway over the minds of
men in Europe, and how his warfare with the empire established on a
solid basis the still doubtful independence of the Italian burghs,
renewing the long neglected protectorate of the Italian race, and
bequeathing to his successors a national policy which had been
forgotten by the popes since his great predecessor Gregory II.,
forms a chapter in European history which must now be interrupted.
We have to foJiow the fortunes of unexpected allies, upon whom in
no small measure his success depended.
In order to maintain some thread of continuity through the
perplexed and tangled vicissitudes of the Italian race, it has been
Norman necessary to disregard
those provinces which did not ~ immediately contribute to the
formation of its history.
of the For this reason we have left the whole of the south up to
the present point unnoticed. Sicily in the hands ot the Mussulmans,
the Theme of Lombardy abandoned to the weak
suzerainty of the Greek catapans, the
Lombard duchy of Benevento slowly falling to pieces and the
maritime republics of Naples, Gaeta and Amalfi extending their
influence by commerce in the Mediterranean, were in effect detached
from the Italian regno, beyond the jurisidiction of Rome, included
in no parcel of Italy proper. But now the moment had arrived when
this vast group of provinces, forming the future kingdom of the Two
Sicilies, was about to enter definitely and decisively within the
bounds of the Italian community. Some Norman adventurers, on
pilgrimage to St Michaels
shrine on Monte Gargano, lent
their swords in 1017 to the Lombard cities of Apulia against the
Greeks. Twelve years later we find the
Normans settled at Aversa under their Count
Rainuif. From this station as a centre the little band of
adventurers, playing the Greeks off against the Lombards, and the
Lombards against the Greeks, spread their power in all directions,
until they made themselves the most considerable force in southern
Italy William of Hauteville was proclaimed count of Apulia. His
half-brother, Robert Wiskard or Guiscard, after defeating the papal
troops at Civitella in 1053, received from
Leo IX. the in.vestiture of all present and
future conquests in Apulia, Calabria and Sicily, which he agreed to
hold as fiefs of the Holy See. Nicholas II. ratified this grant,
and confirmed the title of count. Having consolidated their
possessions on the mainland, the Normans, under Robert Guiscards
brother, the great Count
Roger,
undertook the conquest of Sicily in 1060. After a prolonged
struggle of
thirty years, they wrested the whole
island from tile Saracens; and Reger, dying in 1101, bequeathed to
his son Roger a kingdom in Calabria and Sicily second to none in
Europe for wealth and magnificence. This, while the elder branch of
the Hauteville family still held the title and domains of the
Apulian duchy; but in 1127, upon the death of his cousin Duke
William, Roger united the whole of the future
realm. In. 1130 he assumed the style of king of
Sicily, inscribing upon his
sword the famous
hexameter Appulus et Calaber Siculus mihi
servit et Afer.
This Norman conquest of the two Sicilies forms the most romantic
episode in medieval Italian history. By the consolidation of
Apulia, Calabria and Sicily into a powerful kingdom, by checking
the growth of the maritime republics and by recognizing the
over-lordship of the papal see, the house of Hauteville influenced
the destinies of Italy with more effect than any of the princes who
had previously dealt with any portion of the peninsula. Their
kingdom, though Naples was from time to time separated from Sicily,
never quite lost the cohesion they had given it; and all the
disturbances of equilibrium in Italy were due in after days to
papal manipulation of the rights acquired by Robert Guiscards act
of
homage. The southern regno,
in the hands of the popes, proved an insurmountable obstacle to the
unification of Italy, led to French interference in Italian
affairs, introduced the Spaniard and maintained in those rich
southern provinces the reality of feudal
sovereignty long after this alien element
had been eliminated from the rest of Italy (see NORMANS; SICILY:
History).
For the sake of clearness, we have anticipated the course of
events by nearly a century. We must now return to the date of ~,
Hildebrands elevation to the papacy in 1073, whet ~ he chose the
memorable name of
Gregory VII. Ir tares the next year after
his election Hildebrand convenec a council, and passed measures
enforcing the celibac)
of the clergy. In 1075 he caused the
investiture of ecclesiastica dignitaries by
secular potentates of any degree to be condemned These two reforms,
striking at the most cherished privileges ant most deeply-rooted
self-indulgences of the aristocratic
caste ii Europe, inflamed the bitterest
hostility. Henry IV., king o Germany, but not crowned emperor,
convened a diet in th~
following year at
Worms,
where Gregory was deposed and excommunicated. The pope followed
with a
counter excommunication, far more formidable,
releasing the kings subjects from their oaths of allegiance. War
was thus declared between the two chiefs of western Christendom,
that war of investitures which out-lasted the lives of both Gregory
and Henry, and was not terminated till the year 1122. The dramatic
episodes of this struggle are too well known to be enlarged upon.
In his singlehanded
duel with the
strength of Germany, Gregory received material assistance from the
Countess
Matilda of Tuscany. She was the last
heiress of the great house of Canossa, whose fiefs stretched from
Mantua across Lombardy, passed the Apennines, included the Tuscan
plains, and embraced a portion of the duchy of Spoleto. It was in
her castle of Canossa that Henry IV. performed his three days
penance in the winter of 1077;
and there she made the cession of her vast domains to the church.
That cession, renewed after the death of Gregory to his successors,
conferred upon the popes indefinite rights, of which they
afterwards availed themselves in the consolidation of their
temporal power. Matilda died in the year 1115. Gregory had passed
before her from the scene of his contest, an exile at Salerno,
whither
Robert
Guiscard carried him in 1084 from the anarchy of rebellious
Rome. With unbroken spirit, though the objects of his life were
unattained, though Italy and Europe had been thrown into confusion,
and the issue of the conflict was still doubtful, Gregory expired
in 1085 with these words on his lips: I loved justice, I hated
iniquity, therefore in banishment I die.
The greatest of the popes thus breathed his last; but the new
spirit he had communicated to the papacy was not destined to expire
with him. Gregorys immediate successors, Victor Ill., Urban II. and
Paschal II., carried
on his struggle with Henry IV. and his imperial antipopes,
encouraging the emperors son to rebel against him, and stirring up
Europe for the first crusade. When Henry IV. died, his own sons
prisoner, in 1106,
Henry V.
crossed the Alps, entered Rome, wrung the imperial
coronation from Paschal
II. and compelled the pope to grant his claims on the investitures.
Scarcely had he returned to Germany when the Lateran disavowed all
that the pope had done, on the
score that it had been extorted by force. France
sided with the church. Germany rejected the bull of investiture. A
new descent into Italy, a new seizure of Rome, proved of no avail.
The emperors real weakness was in Germany, where his subjects
openly expressed their discontent. He at last abandoned the contest
which had distracted Europe. By the
concordat of Worms, 1122, the emperor
surrendered the right of investiture by ring and staff, and granted
the right of election to the clergy. The popes were henceforth to
be chosen by the cardinals, the bishops by the chapters subject to
the popes approval. On the other hand the pope ceded to the emperor
the right of investiture by the
sceptre. But the main issue of the struggle was
not in these details of ecclesiastical government; principles had
been at stake far deeper and more widely reaching. The respective
relations of pope and emperor, ill-defined in the compact between
Charles the Great and
Leo
III., were brought in question, and Che two chief potentates
-of Christendom, no longer tacitly concordant, stood against each
other in irreconcilable rivalry. Upon this point, though the battle
seemed to be a drawn one, the popes were really victors. They
remained independent of the emperor, but the emperor had still to
seek the crown at their hands. The pretensions of Otto the Great
and Henry III. to make popes were gone for ever (see PAPACY;
INVESTITURE).
IV. Age of the Communes.
The final gainers, however, by the war of investitures were the
Italians. In the first place, from this time forward, owing to the
election of popes by the Roman curia, the Holy See remained in the
hands ~ of Italians; and this, though it was by no means an cities.
unmixed good, was a great glory to the nation. In the next place,
the antagonism of the popes to the emperors, whicl became
hereditary in the Holy College, forced the former tc - assume the
protectorate of the national cause. But by far tht greatest profit
the Italians reaped was the emancipation of theh burghs. During the
forty-seven years war, when pope and emperor were respectively
bidding for their affiance, and offering concessions to secure
their support, the communes grew in self-reliance, strength and
liberty. As the bishops had helped to free them from subservience
to their feudal masters, so the war of investitures relieved them
of dependence on their bishops. The age of real autonomy,
signalized by the supremacy of consuls in the cities, had
arrived.
In the republics, as we begin to know them after the war of
investitures, government was carried on by officers called consuls,
varying in number according to custom and according to the division
of the town into districts. These magistrates, as we have already
seen, were originally appointed to control and protect the humbler
classes. But, in proportion as the people gained more power in the
field the consuls rose into importance, superseded the bishops and
began to represent the city in transactions with its neighbors.
Popes and emperors who needed the assistance of a city, had to seek
it from the consuls, and thus these officers gradually converted an
obscure and indefinite authority into what resembles the presidency
of a commonwealth. They were supported by a deliberative assembly,
called credenza, chosen from the more distinguished citizens. In
addition to this
privy council, we find a gran consiglio,
consisting of the burghers who had established the right to
interfere immediately in public affairs, and a still larger
assembly called parlamenlo, which included the whole adult
population. Though the institutions of the communes varied in
different localities, this is the type to which they all
approximated. It will be perceived that the type was rather
oligarchical than strictly democratic. Between the parlamento and
the consuls with their privy council, or credenza, was interposed
the gran consiglio of privileged burghers. These formed the
aristocracy of the town, who by their wealth and birth held its
affairs within their custody. There is good reason to believe that,
when the term popolo occurs, it refers to this body and not to the
whole mass of the population. The comune included the entire
citybishop, consuls,
oligarchy, councils, handicraftsmen,
proletariate. The popolo was the governing or upper class. It was
almost inevitable in the transition from feudalism to
democracy that this
intermediate ground should be traversed; and the peculiar Italian
phrases, primo popolo, secondo popolo, terzo pa
polo, and so forth, indicate successive changes,
whereby the oligarchy passed from one stage to another in its
progress toward absorption in democracy or tyranny.
Under their consuls the Italian burghs rose to a great height of
prosperity and splendour. Pisa built her Duomo. Milan undertook the
irrigation works which enriched the soil of Lombardy for ever.
Massive walls, substantial edifices, commodious seaports, good
roads, were the benefits conferred by this new government on Italy.
It is also to be noticed that the people now began to be conscious
of their past. They recognized the fact that their blood was Latin
as distinguished from Teutonic, and that they must look to ancient
Rome for those memories which constitute a pecples
nationality. At this
epoch the study of
Roman
law received a new impulse, imd thu. is the real meaning of the
legend that Pisa, glorious through her consuls, brought the
pandects in a single codex
from Amalfi. The very name consul, no less than the Romanizing
character of the best
architecture of the time, points to the
same revival of antiquity.
The rise of the Lombard communes produced a sympathetic
revolution in Rome, which deserves to be mentioned in this
place.
A monk, named Arnold of Brescia, animated with the Republic
.
in Rome spint of the Milanese, stirred up the Romans to shake
off the temporal sway of their bishop. He attempted~
in fact, upon a grand scale what was being slowly and quietly
effected in the northern cities. Rome, ever mindful of hei unique
past, listened to Arnolds preaching. A senate wal established, an.d
the republic was proclaimed. The title of patrician was revived and
offered to Conrad, king of Italy, but not crowned emperor. Conrad
refused it, and the Romans conferred it upon one of their own
nobles. Though these institutions borrowed high-
sounding titles from antiquity, they wen in
reality imitations of the Lombard civic system. The patrician stood
for the consuls. The senate, composed of nobles, represented the
credenza and the gran consiglio. The pope was unable to check this
revolution, which is now chiefly interesting as further proof of
the insurgence of the Latin as against the feudal elements in Italy
at this period (see ROME: History).
Though the communes gained so much by the war of investitures,
the division of the country between the popes and emperors parties
was no small price to pay for inde- Munlelpendence. It inflicted
upon Italy the ineradicable pal wars. curse of party-warfare,
setting city against city, house against house, and rendering
concordant action for a national end impossible. No sooner had the
compromise of the
investitures been conduded than it was
manifest that the burghers of the new
enfranchised communes were resolved to turn their arms against each
other. We seek in vain an obvious motive for each separate quarrel.
All we know for certain is that1 at this epoch, Rome attempts to
ruin Tivoli, and Venice Pisa; Milan fights with Cremona, Cremona
with Crema, Pavia with Verona, Verona with Padua, Piacenza with
Parma, Modena and Reggio with Bologna, Bologna and Faenza with
Ravenna and Imola, Florence and Pisa with Lucca and Siena, and so
on through the whole list of cities. The nearer the neighbors, the
more rancorous and internecine is the strife; and, as in all cases
where animosity is deadly and no grave local causes of dispute are
apparent, we are bound to conclude that some deeply-seated
permanent uneasiness goaded these fast growing communities into
rivalry. Italy was, in. fact, too small for her children. As the
towns expanded, they perceived that they must mutually exclude each
other. They fought for bare existence, for primacy in commerce, for
the command of seaports, for the keys of mountain passes, for
rivers, roads and all the avenues of wealth and plenty. The popes
cause and the emperors cause were of comparatively little moment to
Italian burghers; and the names of
Guelph and Ghibelline, which before long began
to be heard in every street, on every market-place, had no meaning
for them. These watchwords are said to have arisen in Germany
during the disputed succession of the empire between 1135 and 1152,
when the Welfs of Bavaria opposed the Swabian princes of
Waiblingen origin. But in
Italy, although they were severally identified with the papal and
imperial parties, they really served as symbols for jealousies
which altered in complexion from time to time and place to place,
expressing more than antagonistic political principles, and
involving differences vital enough to split the social fabric to
its foundation.
Under the imperial rule of Lothar the Saxon (1125-1137) and
Conrad the Swabian (1138I I 52), these civil wars increased in
violence owing to the absence of authority. Neither Swablan Lothar
nor Conrad was strong at home; the former emperors. had no
influence in Italy, and the latter never entered Italy at all. But
when Conrad died, the electors chose his nephew
Frederick, surnamed
Barbarossa, who united
the rival honors of
Welf and
Waiblingen, to succeed him; and it was soon obvious that the empire
had a master powerful Fmder!ck of brain and firm of will. Frederick
immediately B~barossa determined to reassert the imperial rights in
his and the southern provinces, and to check the warfare of the
Lombard burghs. When he first &ossed the Alps in 1154
cIties.
Lombardy was, roughly speaking, divided between two parties, the
one headed by Pavia professing loyalty to the empire, the other
headed by Milan ready to oppose its claims. The municipal
animosities of the last quarter of a century gave substance to
these factions; yet neither the imperial nor, the anti-imperial
party had any real community of interest with Frederick. He came to
supersede self-government by consuls, to deprive the cities of the
privilege of making war on their own account and to extort his
regalian rights of forage, food and lodging for his armies. It was
only the habit of interurban
jealousy which prevented the communes from at
once combining to resist demands which threatened their liberty of
action, and would leave them passive at the pleasure of a foreign
master The diet was opened at Roncaglia near Piacenza, where
Fredericli listened to the complaints of Como and Lodi against
Milan, of Pavia against Tortona and of the marquis of Montferrat
against Asti and
Chieri. The
plaintiffs in each case were imperialists; and Fredericks first
action was to redress their supposed grievances. He laid waste
Chieri, Asti and Tortona, then took the Lombard crown at Pavia,
and, reserving Milan for a future day, passed southward to Rome.
Outside the gates of Rome he was met by a deputation from the
senate he had come to supersede, who addressed him in words
memorable for expressing the republican spirit of new Italy face to
face with autocratic feudalism: Thou wast a stranger, I have made
thee a citizen; it is Rome who speaks: Thou
earnest as an alien from beyond the Alps, I
have conferred on thee the principality. Moved only to scorn and
indignation by the
rhetoric of these presumptuous enthusiasts,
Frederick marched into the Leonine city, and took the imperial
crown from the hands of
Adrian IV. In return for this compliance, the
emperor delivered over to the pope his troublesome rival Arnold of
Brescia, who was burned alive by
Nicholas Breakspear, the only English
successor of St Peter. The gates of Rome itself were shut against
Frederick; and even on this first occasion his good understanding
with Adrian began to suffer. The points of dispute between them
related mainly to Matildas
bequest, and to the kingdom of Sicily, which
the pope had rendered independent of the empire by renewing its
investiture in the name of the Holy See. In truth, the papacy and
the empire had become irreconcilable. Each claimed illimitable
authority, and neither was content to abide within such limits as
would have secured a mutual tolerance. Having obtained his
coronation, Frederick withdrew to Germany, while Milan prepared
herself against the
storm which
threatened. In the ensuing struggle with the empire, that great
city rose to the altitude of patriotic heroism. By their sufferings
no less than by their deeds of daring, her citizens showed
themselves to be
sublime,
devoted and disinterested, winning the purest laurels which give
lustre to Italian story. Almost in Fredericks presence, they
rebuilt Tortona, punished Pavia, Lodi, Cremona and the marquis of
Montferrat. Then. they fortified the Adda and Ticino, and waited
for the emperors next descent. He came in 1158 with a large army,
overran Lombardy, raised his imperial allies, and sat down before
the walls of Milan.
Famine
forced the burghers to partial obedience, and Frederick held a
victorious diet at Roncaglia. Here the jurists of Bologna appeared,
armed with their new
lore of Roman
law, and expounded Justinians code in the interests of the German
empire. It was now seen how the absolutist doctrines of
autocracy developed in
Justinians age at Byzantium would bear fruits in the development of
an imperial idea, which was destined to be the fatal
mirage of medieval Italy.
Frederick placed judges of his own appointment, with the title of
podest, in all the Lombard commu1ies; and this stretch of his
authority, while it exacerbated his foes, forced even his friends
to join their ranks against him. The war, meanwhile, dragged on.
Crema yielded after an heroic siege in 1160, and was abandoned to
the
cruelty of its fierce
rival Cremona. Milan was invested in 1161, starved into
capitulation after
nine months resistance, and given up to total destruction by the
Italian imperialists of Fredericks army, so stained and tarnished
with the vindictive passions of municipal rivalry was even this,
the one great glorious strife of Italian annals. Having ruined his
rebellious city, but not tamed her spirit, Frederick withdrew
across the Alps. But, in the interval between his second and third
visit, a league was formed against him in north-eastern Lombardy.
Verona, Vicenza, Padua, Treviso, Venice entered into a compact to
defend their liberties; and when he came again in 1163 with a
brilliant staff of German knights, the
imperial cities refused to
join his standards. This vas the first and ominous sign of a coming
change.
Meanwhile the election of
Alexander III. to the papacy in 1159
added a powerful ally to the
republican party. Opposed by an
anti-pope whom the emperor favored, Alexander found it was his
truest policy to rely for support upon the antiimperialist
communes. They in return gladly accepted a champion who lent them
the prestige and influence of the church. When Frederick once more
crossed the Alps in 1166, he advanced on Rome, and besieged
Alexander in the Coliseum. But the affairs of Lombardy left him no
leisure to persecute a recalcitrant pontiff. In April 1167 a new
league was formed between Cremona, Bergamo, Brescia, Mantua and
Ferrara. In. December of the same year this league allied itself
with the elder Veronese league, and received the addition. of
Milan, Lodi, Piacenza, Parma, Modena and Bologna. The famous league
of Lombard cities, styled Concordia in its acts of settlement, was
now established. Novara, Vercelli, Asti and Tortona swelled its
ranks; only Pavia and Montferrat remained imperialist between. the
Alps and Apennines. Frederick fled for Lombard his life by the Mont
Cenis, and in 1168 the town of Alessandria was erected to keep
Pavia and the marquisate in check. In the emperors absence,
Raven.na, Rimini, Imola and Foril joined the league, which now
called itself the Society of Venice, Lombardy, the March, Romagna
and Alessandria. For the fifth time, in 1174, Frederick entered his
rebellious dominions. The fortress town of Alessandria stopped his
progress with those mud walls contemptuously named of straw, while
the forces of the league assembled at Modena and obliged him to
raise the siege. In the spring of 1176 Frederick threatened Milan.
His army found itself a little to the north of the town near the
village of
Legnano, when the
troops of the city, assisted only by a few allies from Piacenza,
Verona, Brescia, Novara and Vercelli, met and overwhelmed it. The
victory was complete. Frederick escaped alone to Pavia, whence he
opened negotiations with Alexander. In consequence of these
transactions, he was suffered to betake himself unharmed to Venice.
Here, as upon neutral ground, the emperor met the pope, and a truce
for six years was concluded with the Lombard burghs. Looking back
from the vantage-ground of history upon the issue of this long
struggle, we are struck with the small results which satisfied the
Lombard communes. They had humbled and utterly defeated their
foreign lord. They had proved their strength in combination. Yet
neither the acts by which their league was ratified nor the terms
negotiated for them by their patron Alexander evince the smallest
desire of what we now understand as national independence. The name
of Italy is never mentioned. The supremacy of the emperor is not
called in question. The conception of a permanent confederation,
bound together in offensive and defensive alliance for common
objects, has not occurred to these hard fighters and stubborn
asserters of their civic privileges. All they claim is municipal
autonomy; the right to manage their own affairs within the city
walls, to fight their battles as they choose, and to follow their
several ends unchecked. It is vain. to lament that, when they might
have now established Italian independence upon a secure basis, they
chose local and municipal privileges. Their mutual jealousies,
combined with the prestige of the empire, and possibly with the
selfishness of the pope, who had secured his own position, and was
not likely to foster a national spirit that would have threatened
the ecclesiastical supremacy, deprived the Italians of the only
great opportunity they ever had of forming themselves into a
powerful nation.
When the truce expired in 1183, a permanent peace was ratified
at
Constance. The
intervening years had been spent by the Lombards, not irs
consolidating their union, but in attempting to secure special
privileges for their several cities. Alessandria della Paglia,
glorious by ~ her resistance to the emperor in 1174, had even
changed her name to Cesarea! The signatories of the peace of
Constance were divided between leaguers and imperialists. On the
one side we find Vercelli, Novara, Milan, Lodi, Bergamo, Brescia,
Mantua, Verona, Vicenza, Padua, Treviso, Bologna, Faenza, Modena,
Reggio, Parma, Piacenza; on the other, Pavia, Genoa, Alba, Cremona,
Como, Tortona, Asti, Cesarea. Venice, who had not yet entered the
Italian community, is conspicuous by her absence. According to the
terms of this treaty, the communes were confirmed in their right of
self-government by con6uls, and their right of warfare. The emperor
retained the supreme courts of appeal within the cities, and his
claim for sustenance at their expense when he came into Italy.
The privileges confirmed to the Lombard cities by the peace of
Constance were extended to Tuscany, where Florence, having War of
ruined Fiesole, had begun her career of freedom and clues
prosperity. The next great chapter in the history of against
Italian evolution is the war of the burghs against the nobles,
nobles. The consular cities were everywhere surrounded by castles;
and, though the feudal lords had been weakened by the events of the
preceding centuries, they continued to be formidable enemies. It
was, for instance, necessary to the well-being of the towns that
they should possess territory round their walls, and this had to be
wrested from the nobles. We cannot linger over the details of this
warfare. It must suffice to say that, partly by mortgaging their
property to rich burghers, partly by entering the service of the
cities ~s condottieri (mercenary leaders), partly by espousing the
cause of one town against another, and partly by forced submission
after the siege of their strong places, the counts were gradually
brought into connection of dependence on the communes. These, in
their turn, forced the nobles to leave their castles, and to reside
for at least a portion of each year within the walls. By these
measures the counts became citizens, the rural population ceased to
rank as serfs, and the Italo-Roman population of the towns absorbed
into itself the remnants of Franks, Germans and other foreign
stocks. It would be impossible to
exaggerate the importance of this revolution, which ended by
destroying the last vestige of feudality, and prepared that common
Italian people which afterwards distinguished itself by the
creation of European culture. But, like all the vicissitudes, of
the Italian race, while it was a decided step forward in one
direction, it introduced a new source of discord. The associated
nobles proved ill neighbors to the peaceable citizens. They
fortified their houses, retained their military habits, defied the
consuls, and carried on feuds in the streets and squares. The war
against the castles became a war against the palaces; and the
system of government by consuls proved inefficient to control the
clashing elements within the state. This led to the establishment
of podests, who represented a compromise between two radically
hostile parties in the city, and whose business it was to arbitrate
and keep the peace between them. Invariably a foreigner, elected
for a year with power of life and death and control of the armed
force, but subject to a strict account at the expiration of his
office, the podest might be compared to a
dictator invested with limited authority. His
title was derived from that of Frederick Barharossas judges; but he
had no dependence on the empire. The citizens chose him, and
voluntarily submitted to his rule. The podest marks an essentially
transitional state in civic government, and his intervention paved
the way for despotism.
The thirty years which elapsed between Frederick Barbarossas
death in 1190 and the coronation of his grandson
Frederick II.
in 1220 form one of the most momentous epochs in Innocent
Italian history. Barbarossa, perceiving the advantage that would
accrue to his house if he could join the crown of Sicily to that of
Germany, and thus deprive the popes of their allies in Lower Italy,
procured the marriage of his son
Henry VI. to Constance, daughter of King
Roger, and heiress of the Hauteville dynasty. When
William II., the last
monarch of the Norman race, died, Henry VI. claimed that kingdom in
his wifes right, and was recognized in 1194. Three years afterwards
he died, leaving a son, Frederick, to the care of Constance, who in
her turn died in 1198, bequeathing the young prince, already
crowned king of Germany, to the guardianship of
Innocent III. It was
bold policy to confide Frederick to his greatest enemy and rival;
but the pope honorably discharged his duty, until his
ward outgrew the years of tutelage,
and became a fair mark for ecclesiastical hostility. Fredericks
long minority was occupied by Innocents pontificate. Among the
principal events of that reign must be reckoned the foundation of
the two orders, Franciscan and Dominican, who were destined to form
a militia for the holy see in conflict with the empire and the
heretics of Lombardy.
A second great event was the fourth crusade, undertaken in 1198,
which established the naval and commercial supremacy of the
Italians in the Mediterranean. The Venetians, who contracted for
the transport of the crusaders, and whose blind
doge Dandolo was first to land in
Constantinople,
received one-half and onefourth of the divided Greek empire for
their spoils. The Venetian ascendancy in the
Levant dates from this epoch; for, though the
republic had no power to occupy all the domains ceded to it,
Candia was taken, together with
several small islands and stations on the mainland. The formation
of a Latin empire in the East increased the popes prestige; while
at home it was his policy to organize Countess Matildas heritage by
the formation of Guelph leagues, over which he presided. This is
the meaning of the three leagues, in the March, in the duchy of
Spoleto and in Tuscany, which now combined the chief cities of the
papal territory into allies of the holy see. From the Tuscan league
Pisa, consistently Ghibelline, stood aloof. Rome itself again at
this epoch established a republic, with which Innocent would not or
could not interfere. The thirteen districts in their council
nominated four caporioni, who acted in
concert with a senator, appointed, like the
podest of other cities, for supreme judicial functions. Meanwhile
the Guelph and Ghibelline factions were beginning to divide Italy
into minute parcels. Not only did commune range itself against
commune under the two rival flags, but party rose up against party
within the city walls. The introduction of the factions into
Florence in 1215, owing to a private quarrel between the
Buondelmonti, Amidei and Donati, is a celebrated instance of what
was happening in every burgh.
Frederick II. was left without a rival for the imperial throne
ifl 1218 by the-death of
Otto
IV., and on the 22nd of November 1220, Honorius III., Innocents
successor, crowned him in Rome. It was impossible for any section
of the Italians to mistake the gravity of his access to power.
pero~ In his single person he combined the prestige of empire with
the crowns of Italy, Sicily, Sardinia, Germany and
Burgundy; and in 1225, by
marriage with
Yolande de
Brienne, he added that of
Jerusalem. There was no prince greater or
more formidable in the habitable globe. The communes, no less than
the popes, felt that they must prepare themselves for contest to
the death with a power which threatened their existence. Already in
1218, the Guelphs of Lombardy had resuscitated their old league,
and had been defeated by the Ghibellines in a battle near Ghibello.
Italy seemed to lie prostrate before the emperor, who commanded her
for the first time from the south as well as from the north, In
1227 Frederick, who h1d promised to lead a crusade, was
excommunicated by
Gregory
IX. because he was obliged by illness to defer his undertaking;
and thus the spiritual power declared war upon its rival. The
Guelph towns of Lombardy again raised their levies. Frederick
enlisted his Saracen troops at Nocera and Luceria, and appointed
the terrible Ezzelino da Romano his
vicar in. the Marches of Verona to quell their
insurrection. It was I 236, however, before he was able to take the
field himself against the Lombards. Having established Ezzelino in
Verona, Vicenza and Padua, he defeated the Milanese and their
allies at Cortenuova in 1237, and sent their carroccio as a
trophy of his victory to Rome.
Gregory IX. feared lest the Guelph party would be ruined by this
check. He therefore made alliance with Venice and Genoa, fulminated
a new excommunication against Frederick, and convoked a council at
Rome to ratify his ban in 1241. The Genoese undertook to bring the
French bishops to this council. Their fleet was attacked at
Meloria by the Pisans, and
utterly defeated. The French prelates went in silver chains to
prison. in the Ghibelline capital
of Tuscany. So far Frederick had been successful at all points. In
1243 a new pope,
Innocent IV., was elected, who prosecuted
the war with still bitterer spirit. Forced to fly to France, he
there, at
Lyons, in 1245,
convened a council, which enforced his condemnation of the emperor.
Fredericks subjects were freed from their allegiance, and he was
declared dethroned and deprived o~ all rights. Five times king and
emperor as he was, Frederick, placed under the ban of the church,
led henceforth a doomed existence. The
mendicant monks stirred
up the populace to acts of fanatical enmity. To plot against him,
to attempt his life by
poison
or the sword, was accounted virtuous. His secretary, Piero delle
Vigne, was wrongly suspected of conspiring. The crimes of his vicar
Ezzelino, who laid whole provinces waste and murdered men by
thousands in his Paduan prisons, increased the horror with which he
was regarded. Parma revolted from him, and he spent months in
1247-1248 vainly trying to reduce this one time faithful city. The
only gleam of success which shone on his ill fortune was the
revolution which placed Florence in the hands of the Ghibellines in
1248. Next year Bologna rose against him, defeated his troops and
took his son
Enzio, king of
Sardinia, prisoner at Fossaita. Hunted to the ground and
broken-hearted, Frederick expired at the end of 1250 in his Apulian
castle of Fiorentino. it is difficult to judge his career with
fairness. The only prince who could, with any probability of
success, have established the German rule in Italy, his ruin proved
the impossibility of that long-cherished scheme. The nation had
outgrown dependence upon foreigners, and after his death no German
emperor interfered with anything but miserable failure in Italian
affairs. Yet from many points of view it might be regretted that
Frederick was not suffered to rule Italy. By birth and breeding an
Italian, highly gifted and widely cultivated, liberal in his
opinions, a patron. of literature, a founder of universities, he
anticipated the spirit of
the Renaissance. At his court Italian
started into being as a language. His laws were wise. He was
capable of givingto Italy a large and noble culture. But the
commanding greatness of his position proved his ruin. Emperor and
king of Sicily, he was the natural enemy of popes, who could not
tolerate so overwhelming a rival, After Fredericks death, the popes
carried on their war for eighteen years against his descendants.
The cause of his son Conrad was sustained in Lower Italy by
Manfred, one of Fredericks many
natural children; and, when Frede- Conrad died in 1254, Manfred
still acted as vicegerent ricks for the Swabians, who were now
represented by a boy SUCCCS
Conradin. Innocent IV. and
Alexander IV.
continued sors. to make head against the Ghibelline party. The most
dramatic incident in this struggle was the crusade preached against
Ezzelino. This tyrant had made himself justly odious; and when he
was hunted to death in 1259, the triumph was less for the Guelph
cause than for humanity outraged by the iniquities of such a
monster. The battle between
Guelph and Ghibelline raged with unintermitting fury. While the
former faction gained in Lombardy by the
massacre of Ezzelino, the latter revived in
Tuscany after the battle of Montaperti, which in 1260 placed
Florence at the discretion of the Ghibellines. Manfred, now called
king of Sicily, headed the Ghibellines, and there was no strong
counterpoise against him. In this necessity
Urban IV. and
Clement 1V. invited Charles of Arijou to
enter italy and take the Guelph command. They made him senator of
Rome and vicar of Tuscany, and promised him the investiture of the
regno provided he stipulated that it should not be held in
combination with the empire. Charles accepted these terms, and was
welcomed by the Guelph party as their chief throughout Italy. He
defeated Manfred in a battle at Grandella near Benevento in 1266.
Manfred was killed; and, when Conradin, a lad of sixteen, descended
from Germany to make good his claims to the kingdom, he too was
defeated at
Tagliacozzo in 1267. Less lucky than his
uncle, Conradin escaped with his life, to die upon a
scaffold at Naples. His
glove was carried to his cousin
Constance, wife of Peter of
Aragon, the last of th great Norman-Swabian
family. Enzio died in his prison foul years later. The popes had
been successful; but they hac purchased their bloody victory at a
great cost. This firsi invitation to French princes brought with it
incalculable evils.
Charles of
Anjou, supported
by Rome, and recognized a~ chief in Tuscany, was by far the most
formidable of the Italiar potentates. In his turn he now excited
the jealousy of th popes, who began~ though cautiously, to cast
their -f*elght iflt(the Ghibelline scale. Gregory initiated the
policy of establish ing an equilibrium between the parties, which
was carried ou by his successor
Nicholas III. Charles was forced to resigr
the senatorship of Rome and the signoria of Lombardy and Tuscany.
In 1282 he received a more decided check, when Sicily rose against
him in the famous rebellion of the
Vespers. Civil Wan He lost the island, which
gave itself to Aragon; and of Gue!phs thus the kingdom of Sicily
was severed from that of anj Naples, the dynasty in the one being
Spanish and Ghibelline, in the other French and Guelph. Mean-
flCS.
while a new emperor had been elected, the prudent Rudolf of
Habsburg, who abstained from
interference with Italy, and who confirmed the territorial
pretensions of the popes by
solemn charter in 1278. Henceforth Emilia,
Romagna, the March of Ancona, the patrimony of St Peter and the
Campagna of Rome held of the Holy See, and not of the empire. The
impei~ial
chancery,
without inquiring closely into the deeds furnished by the papal
curia, made a
deed of gift, which
placed the pope in the position of a temporal sovereign. While
Nicholas III. thus bettered the position of the church in Italy,
the Guelph party grew stronger than ever, through the crushing
defeat of the Pisans by the Genoese at Meloria in 1284. Pisa, who
had ruined Amalfi, was now ruined by Genoa. She never held her head
so high again after this victory, which sent her best and bravest
citizens to die in the Ligurian dungeons. The Mediterranean was
left to be fought for by Genoa and Venice, while Guelph Florence
grew still more powerful in Tuscany. Not long after the battle of
Meloria Charles of Anjou died, and was succeeded by his son
Charles II. of Naples,
who played no prominent part in Italian affairs. The Guelph party
was held together with a less tight hand even in cities so
consistent as Florence. Here in the year 1300 new factions,
subdividing the old
Guelphs and Ghibellines under
the names of Neri and Bianchi, had acquired such force that
Boniface VIII., a
violently Guelph pope, called in
Charles of Valois to pacify the
republic and undertake the charge of Italian affairs.
Boniface was a passionate and
unwise man. After quarrelling with the French
king, Philip le
Bel, he fell into the hands of the
Colonna family at Anagni, and
died, either of the violence he there received or of
mortification, in
October 1303.
After the short papacy of
Benedict XI. a Frenchman, Clement V., was
elected, and the seat of the papacy was transferred to
Avignon. Thus began that
Babylonian exile of the popes which placed them in subjection to
the French Jatio~ crown and ruined their prestige in Italy. Lasting
of the seventy years, and joining on to the sixty years
of ?P~cYtO the Great
Schism, this enfeeblement of the papal Vig 0
authority, coinciding as it did with the practical elimination
of the empire from Italian affairs, gave a long period of
comparative independence to the nation. Nor must it be forgotten
that this exile was due to the policy which induced the pontiffs,
in their detestation of Ghibellinism, to rely successively upon the
houses of Anjou and o Valois. This policy it was which justified
Dantes fierce epigramthe puttaneggiar co regi.
The period we have briefly traversed was immortalized by
Dante in an epic which from one
point of view might be called the poem of the Guelphs and
Ghibellines. From the foregoing bare narration of events it is
impossible to estimate the importance of these parties, or to
understand theil bearing on subsequent Italian history. We are
therefore forced to pause awhile, and probe beneath the surface.
The civil wars may be regarded as a continuation of the previous
municipal struggle, intensified by recent hostilities between the
burghers and the nobles. The quarrels of the church and empire lend
pretexts and furnish war-cries; but the real question at issue is
not the supremacy of pope or emperor. The conflict is a social one,
between civic and feudal in.stitution.s, between commercial and
military interests, between progress and conservatism. Guelph
aemocracy and industry idealize the pope. The banner of the church
waves above the camp of those who aim at positive prosperity and
republican equality. Ghibelline aristocracy and immobility idealize
the emperor. The prestige of the empire~ based upon Roman law and
feudal tradition, attracts imaginatiw patriots and systematic
thinkers. The two ideals are counter posed and mutually excltisive.
No city calls itself either Guelpi or Ghibelline till it has
expelled one-half of its inhabitants; for each party is resolved to
constitute the state according to its own conception, and the
affirmation of the, one
programme is the negation of the other. The Ghibelline honestly
believes that the Guelphs will reduce society to
chaos. The Guelph is persuaded that the
Ghibeffines wifi annihilate freedom and strangle commerce. The
struggle is waged by two sets of men who equally love their city,
but who would fain rule it upon diametrically opposite principles,
and who fight to the death for its possession. This contradiction
enters into the minutest details of lifearmorial
bearings, clothes, habits at
table, symbolize and accentuate the difference. Meanwhile each
party forms its own organization of chiefs, finance-officers and
registrars at home, and sends ambassadors to foreign cities of the
same complexion. A network of party policy embraces and dominates
the burghs of Italy, bringing the most distant centres into
relation, and by the very division of the country augmenting the
sense of nationality. The Italians learn through their discords at
this epoch that they form one community. .The victory in the
conflict practically falls to the hitherto unenfranchised
plebeians. The elder noble families die out or lose their
preponderance~ In some cities, as notably in. Florence after the
date 1292, it becomes criminal to be scioperato, or unemployed in
industry. New houses rise into importance; a new commercial
aristocracy is formed. Burghers of all denominations are enrolled
in one or other of the arts or
gilds, and these trading companies furnish the
material from which the government or signoria bf the city is
composed. Plebeian handicrafts assert their right to be represented
on an equality with learned professions and wealthy corporations.
The ancient classes are confounded and obliterated in a population
more homogeneous, more adapted for democracy and despotism.
In addition to the parliament and the councils which have been
already enumerated, we now find a council of the party New con-
established within the city. This body tends to stitution become a
little state within the state, and, by conof the free trolling the
victorious majority, disposes of the cities, government as it
thinks best. The consuls are merged in ancients or priors, chosen
from the arts. A new magistrate, the gonfalonier of justice,
appears in some of the Guelph cities, with the special duty of
keeping the insolence of the nobility in check. Meanwhile the
podest still subsists; but he is no longer equal to the task d
maintaining an equilibrium of forces. He sinks more and more into a
judge, loses more and more the character of dictator. His ancient
place is now occupied by a new functionary, no longer acting as
arbiter, but concentrating the forces of the triumphant party. The
captain of the people, acting as head of the ascendant Guelphs or
Ghibellines, undertakes the responsibility of proscriptions,
decides on questions of policy, forms alliances, declares war. Like
all officers created to meet an emergency, the limitations to his
power are illdefined, and he is often little better than an
autocrat.
V. Age of the Despots.
Thus the Italians, during the heat of the civil wars, were
ostensibly divided between partisans of the ~ ~ empire and
partisans of the church. After the death Tyrannies, of Frederick
II. their affairs were managed by Manfred and by Charles of Anjou,
the supreme captains of the parties, under whose orders acted the
captains of the people in each city. The contest being carried on
by warfare, it followed that these captains in the burghs were
chosen on account of military skill; and, since the nobles were men
of arms by profession, members of ancient houses took the lead
again in towns where they had been absorbed into the bourgeoisie.
In this way, after the downfall of the Ezzelini of Romano, the
Della Scala dynasty arose in Verona, and the Carraresi in Padua.
The Estensi made themselves lords of Ferrara; the Torriani headed
the Guelphs of Milan. At Ravenna we find the Polenta family, at
Rimini the Malatestas, at Parma the Rossi, at Piacenza the Scotti,
at Faenza the Manfredi. There is not a burgh of northern Italy but
can trace the rise of a dynastic house to the vicissitudes of this
period. In Tuscany, where the Guelph party was very strongly
organized, and the commercial constitution of Florence kept the
nobility in check, the communes remained as yet free from
hereditary masters. Yet generals from time to time arose, the
Conte Ugolino della Gheradesca at
Pisa, Uguccione della Faggiuola at Lucca, the Conte Guido di
Montefeltro at Florence, who threatened the liberties of Tuscan
cities with military despotism.
Left to themselves by absentee emperors and exiled popes, the
Italians pursued their own course of development unchecked. After
the commencement of the 14th century, the civil wars decreased in
fury, and at the same time it was perceived that their effect had
been to confirm tyrants in their grasp upon free cities. Growing up
out of the captain of the people or signore of the commune, the
tyrant annihilated both parties for his own profit and for the
peace of the state. He used the dictatorial powers with which he
was invested to place himself above the law, resuming in his person
the state-machinery which had preceded him. In him, for the first
time, the city attained selfconsciousness; the blindly working
forces of previous revolutions were combined in the will of a
ruler. The tyrants general policy was to favor the multitude at the
expense of his own caste. He won favor by these means, and
completed the levelling down of classes, which had been proceeding
ever since the emergence of the communes.
In I309 Robert, grandson of Charles, the first Angevine
sovereign, succeeded to the throne of Naples, and became the leader
of the Guelphs in Italy. In the next year Henry D ~t VII. of
Luxembourg cro~sed the Alps soon after his ofeccjv~ election to the
empire, and raised the hopes of the wars.
Ghibellines. Dante from his mountain solitudes
Advent of passionately called upon him to play
the part of a
Messiah. But
it was now impossible for any German to control the Garden of the
Empire. Italy had entered on a new phase of her existence, and the
great poets De monarchia represented a
dream of the past which could not be realized.
Henry established imperial vicars in the Lombard towns, confirming
the tyrants, but gaining nothing for the empire in exchange for the
titles he conferred. After receiving the crown in Rome, he died at
Buonconvento, a little walled town south of Siena, on his backward
journey in 1313. The profits of his inroad were reaped by despots,
who used the Ghibelline prestige for the consolidation of their own
power. It is from this epoch that the supremacy of the
Visconti, hitherto the
unsuccessful rivals of the Guelphic Torriani for the signory of
Milan, dates. The Scaligers in Verona and the Carraresi in Padua
were strengthened; and in Tuscany Castruccio Castracane, Ugucciones
successor at Lucca, became formidable. In 1325 he defeated the
Florentines at
Alto Pascio, and
carried home their carroccio as a trophy of his victory over the
Guelphs. Louis of Bavaria, the next emperor, made a similar
excursion in the year 1327, with even greater loss of
imperialprestige. He deposed Galeazzo Visconti on his downward
journey, and offered Milan for a sum of money to his son Azzo upon
his return. Castruccio Castracane was nominated by him duke of
Lucca; and this is the first instance of a dynastic title conferred
upon an Italian adventurer by the emperor. Castruccio dominated
Tuscany, where the Guelph cause, in the weakness of King Robert,
languished. But the adventurers death in 1328 saved the stronghold
of republican institutions, and Florence breathed freely for a
while again. Can Grande della Scalas death in the next year
inflicted on ,the Lombard Ghibellines a loss hardly inferior to
that of Castruccios on their Tuscan allies. Equally contemptible in
its political results and void of historical interest was the brief
visit of
John of
Bohemia, son of
Henry
VII., whom the Ghibellines next invited to assume their
leadership. He sold a few privileges, conferred a few titles, and
recrossed the Alps in 1333. It is clear that at this time the fury
of the civil wars was spent. In spite of repeated efforts on the
part of the Ghibellines, in spite of King Roberts supine
incapacity, the imperialists gained no permanent advantage. The
Italians were tired of f,ghting, and the leaders of both factions
looked exclusively to their own interests. Each city which had been
the
cradle of freedom
thankfully accepted a master, to qutmch the conflagration of party
strife, encouragt trade, and make the handicraftsmen comfortable.
Even the Florentines in 1342 submitted for a few months to the
despotism of the duke of
Athens. They conferred the signory upon him for
life; and, had he not mismanaged matters, he might have held the
city in his grasp. Italy was settling cown and turning her
attention to home comforts, arts and literature. Boccaccio, the
contented
bourgeois,
succeeded to Dante, the fierce aristocrat.
The most marked proof of the change which came over Italy
towards the middle of the I4th century is furnished by the
companies of
adventure.
It was with their own militia that the burghers won freedom in the
war of independence, subdued the nobles, and fought the battles of
the parties. But from this time forward they laid down their arms,
and played the game of warfare by the aid of mercenaries.
Ecclesiastical overlords, interfering ~from a distance in. Italian
politics; prosperous republics, with plenty of money to spend but
no leisure or inclination for camp-life; cautious tyrants, glad of
every pretext to emasculate their subjects, and courting popularity
by exchanging
conscription for taxationall combined to
favor the new system.
Mercenary troops are said to have been first
levied from disbanded Germans, together with
Breton and English adventurers, whom the
Visconti and Castruccio took into their pay. They soon appeared
under their own captains, who hired them out to the highest bidder,
or marched them on marauding expeditions up and down the less
protected districts. The names of some of these earliest captains
of adventure, Fra Moriale, Count Lando and Duke Werner, who styled
himself the Enemy of God and
Mercy, have been preserved to us. As the
companies grew in size and improved their discipline, it was seen
by the Italian nobles that this kind of service offered a good
career for men of spirit, who had learned the use of arms. To leave
so powerful and profitable a calling in the hands of foreigners
seemed both dangerous and uneconomical. Therefore, after the middle
of the century, this profession fell into the hands of natives. The
first Italian who formed an exclusively Italian company was
Alberico da Barbiano, a nobleman of Romagna, and founder of the
Milanese house of Belgiojoso. In his school the great condottieri
Braccio da Montone and
Sforza
Attendolo were formed; and henceforth the battles of Italy were
fought by Italian generals commanding native troops. This was
better in some respects than if the mercenaries had been
foreigners. Yet it must not be forgotten that the new companies of
adventure, who decided Italian affairs for the next century, were
in no sei~se patriotic. They sold themselves for money,
irrespective of tile cause which they upheld; and, while changing
masters, they had no care for any interests but their own. The name
condottiero, derived from condolta, a paid contract to supply so
many fighting men in serviceable order, sufficiently indicates the
nature of the business. In the hands of able captains, like
Francesco Sforza or Piccinino, these mercenary troops became moving
despotisms, draining the country of its wealth, and always eager to
fasten and found tyrannies upon the provinces they had been
summoned to defend. Their generals substituted heavy-armed cavalry
for the old militia, and introduced systems of campaigning which
reduced the art of war to a game of skill. Battles became all but
bloodless;
diplomacy and
tactics superseded feats of
arms and hard blows in pitched fields. In this way the Italians
lost their military vigour, and wars were waged by despots from
their cabinets, who pulled the strings of puppet captains in their
pay. Nor were the people only enfeebled for resistance to a real
foe; the whole political spirit of the race was demoralized. The
purely selfish bond between condottieri and their employers,
whether princes or republics, involved intrigues and treachery,
checks and counterchecks, secret terror on the one hand and
treasonable practice on the other, which ended by making statecraft
in Italy synonymous with perfidy.
It must further be noticed that the rise of mercenaries was
synchronous with a change in the nature of Italian despotism. The
tyrants, as we have already seen, established themselves as
captains of the people, vicars of the empire, vicars for the
church, leaders of the Guelph and Ghibelline parties. They were
accepted by a population eager for repose, who had merged old class
distinctions in the conflicts of preceding centuries. They rested
in large measure on the favor of the multitude, Chan~ and pursued a
policy of sacrificifig to their interests In type the nobles. It
was natural that these self-made of desprinces should seek to
secure the peace which pollsm. they had promised in their cities,
by freeing the people from military service and disarming the
aristocracy. As their tenure of power grew firmer, they advanced
dynastic claims, assumed titles, and took the style of petty
sovereigns. Their government became paternal; and, though there was
no limit to their cruelty when stung by terror, they used the
purse rather than the sword,
bribery at home and treasonable
intrigue abroad in preference to coercive measures or open war.
Thus was elaborated the type of
despot which attained completeness in Gian
Galeazzo Visconti and Lorenzo de
Medici. No longer a tyrant of Ezzelinos stamp,
he reigned by intelligence and terrorism masked beneath a smile. He
substituted cunning and corruption for violence. The lesser people
tolerated him because he extended the power of their city and made
it beautiful with public buildings., The bourgeoisie, protected in
their trade, found it convenient to support him. The nobles, turned
into courtiers, placemen, diplomatists and men of affairs, ended by
preferring his authority to the alternative of democratic
institutions. A
lethargy
of well-being, broken only by the pinch of taxation for war-costs,
or by outbursts of frantic ferocity and lust in the less
calculating tyrants, descended on the population of cities which
had boasted of their freedom. Only Florence and Venice, at the
close of the period upon which we are now entering, maintained
their republican independence. And Venice was ruled by a close
oligarchy; Florence was passing from the hands of her oligarchs
into the power of the Medicean merchants.
Between the year 1305, when Clement V. settled at Avignon, and
the year 1447, when
Nicholas V. re-established the papacy upon a
solid basis at Rome, the Italians approximated D~cr1mimore nearly
to self-government than at any other nation of epoch of their
history. The conditions which have the five been described, of
despotism, mercenary warfare and bourgeois prosperity, determined
the character of this epoch, which was also the period when the
great achievements of the Renaissance were prepared. At the end of
this century and a half, five principal powers divided the
peninsula; and their confederated action during the next forty-five
years (1447-1492) secured for Italy a season of peace and brilliant
pro,sperity. These five powers were the kingdom of Naples, the
duchy of Milan, the republic of Florence, the republic of Venice
and the papacy. The subsequent events of Italian history will be
rendered most intelligible if at this point we trace the
development of these five constituents of Italian greatness
separately.
When Robert of Anjou died in 1343, he was succeeded by his
grand-daughter
Joan, the childless
wife of four successive husbands,
Andrew of
Hungary, Louis of Taranto, Th ~
James of Aragon and Otto of
Brunswick. Charles of Si~Iles. Durazzo, the
last male
scion of the Angevine
house in Lower Italy, murdered Joan in 1382, and held the kingdom
for five years. Dying in 1387, he transmitted Naples to his son
Ladislaus, who had no children, and was followed in 1414 by his
sister Joan II. She too, though twice married, died without issue,
having at one time adopted
Louis III. of
Provence and his brother Ren, at another
Alfonso V. of Aragon, who inherited the crown of Sicily. After her
death in February 1435 the kingdom was fought for between Ren of
Anjou and Alfonso, surnamed the Magnanimous. Ren found supporters
among the Italian princes, especially the Milanese Visconti, who
helped him to assert his claims with arms. During the war of
succession which ensued, Alfonso was taken prisoner by the Genoese
fleet in August 1435, and was sent a prisoner to Filippo Maria at
Milan. Here he pleaded his own cause so powerfully, and proved so
incontestably the advantage which might ensue to the Visconti from
his alliance, if he held the regno, that he obtained his I release
and, recognition as king. From the end of the year 1435
Alfonso reigned alone and undisturbed in Lower Italy, combining
for the first time since the year 1282 the crowns of Sicily and
Naples. The former he held by
inheritance, together with that of Aragon.
The latter he considered to be his by conquest. Therefore, when he
died in 1458, he bequeathed Naples to his natural son
Ferdinand, while Sicily and
Aragon passed together to his brother
John, and so on to Ferdinand the
Catholic. The twenty-three
years of Alfonsos reign were the most prosperous and splendid
period of South Italian history. He became an Italian in taste and
sympathy, entering with enthusiasm into the humanistic ardour of
the earlier Renaissance, encouraging men of letters at his court,
administering his kingdom on the principles of an enlightened
despotism, and lending his authority to establish that equilibrium
in the peninsula upon which the politicians of his age believed,
not without reason, that Italian independence might be secured.
The last member of the Visconti family of whom we had occasion
to speak was Azzo, who bought the city in 1328 from Duchy of Louis
of Bavaria. His uncle Lucchino succeeded, but Milan. was murdered
in 1349 by a wife against whose life he had been plotting.
Lucchinos brother John, arch bishop of Milan, now assumed the
lordship of the city, and extended the power of the Visconti over
Genoa and the whole of north Italy, with the exception of Piedmont,
Verona, Mantua, Ferrara and Venice. The greatness of the family
dates from the reign of this masterful
prelate. He died in 1354, and his heritage was
divided between three members of his house, Matteo,Bernab and
Galeazzo. In the next year Matteo, being judged incompetent to
rule, was assassinated by order of his brothers, who made an equal
partition of their
subject citiesBernab residing in Milan, Galeazzo in Pavia. Galeazzo
was the wealthiest and most magnificent Italian of his epoch. He
married his daughter Violante to our duke of Clarence, and his son
Gian Galeazzo to a daughter of King John of France. When he died in
1378, this son resolved to reunite the domains of the Visconti;
and, with this object in view, he plotted and executed the murder
of his uncle Bernab. Gian Galeazzo thus became by one stroke the
most formidable of Italian despots. Immured in his castle at Pavia,
accumulating wealth by systematic taxation and methodical economy,
he organized the mercenary troops who eagerly took service under so
good a paymaster; and, by directing their operations from his
cabinet, he threatened the whole of Italy with conquest. The last
scions of the Della Scala family still reigned in Verona, the last
Carraresi in Padua; the Estensi were powerful in Ferrara, the
Gonzaghi in Mantua. Gian Galeazzo, partly by force and partly by
intrigue, discredited these minor despots, pushed his dominion to
the very
verge of Venice, and,
having subjected Lombardy to his sway, proceeded to attack Tuscany.
Pisa and Perugia were threatened with extinction, and Florence
dreaded the advance of the Visconti arms, when the
plague suddenly cut short his
career of treachery and conquest in the year 1402. Seven years
before his death Gian Galeazzo bought the title of duke of Milan
and count of Pavia from the emperor
Wenceslaus, and there is no doubt that he
was aiming at the sovereignty of Italy. But no sooner was he dead
than the essential weakness of an artificial state, built up by
cunning and perfidious policy, with the aid of bought troops,
dignified by no dynastic title, and consolidated by no sense of
loyalty, became apparent. Gian Galeazzos duchy was a masterpiece of
mechanical contrivance, the creation of a scheming
intellect and lawless will.
When the mind which had planned it was withdrawn, it fell to
pieces, and the very hands which had been used to build it helped
to scatter its fragments. The Viscontis own generals, Facino Cane,
Pandolfo Malatesta, Jacopo dal Verme, Gabrino Fondulo, Ottobon
Terzo, seized upon the tyranny of several Lombard cities. In others
the petty tyrants whom thc Visconti had uprooted reappeared. The
Estensi recovered theii grasp upon Ferrara, and the Gonzaghi upon
Mantua. Venici strengthened herself between the Adriatic and the
Alps. Florenc reassumed her Tuscan
hegemony. Other communes which stit preserved
the shadow of independence, like Perugia and Bologna began once
more to dream of republican freedom under theii own leading
families. Meanwhile Gian Galeazzo had left two sons, Giovanni Maria
and Filippo Maria. Giovanni, a monster of cruelty and lust, was
assassinated by some Milanese nobles in 1412; and now Filippo set
about rebuilding his fathers duchy. Herein he was aided by the
troops of Facino Cane, who, dying opportunely at this period, left
considerable wealth, a welltrained band of mercenaries, and a
widow,
Beatrice di Tenda.
Filippo married and then beheaded Beatrice after a
mock trial for
adultery, having used her money and her
influence in reuniting several subject cities to the crown of
Milan. He subsequently spent a long, suspicious, secret and
incomprehensible career in the attempt to piece together Gian
Galeazzos Lombard state, and to carry out his schemes of Italian
conquest. In this endeavour he met with vigorous opponents. Venice
and Florence, strong in the strength of their resentful
oligarchies, offered a determined resistance; nor was Filippo equal
in ability to his father. His infernal cunning often defeated its
own aims, checkmating him at the point of achievement by
suggestions of duplicity or terror. In the course of Filippos wars
with Florence and Venice, the greatest generals of this age were
formedFrancesco Carmagnola, who was beheaded between the columns at
Venice in 1432; Niccol Piccinino, who died at Milan in 1444; and
Francesco Sforza, who survived to seize his masters heritage in
1450. Son of Attendolo Sforza, this Francesco received the hand of
Filippos natural daughter, Bianca, as a reward for past service and
a
pledge of future support.
When the Visconti dynasty ended by the dukes death in 1447, he
pretended to espouse the cause of the Milanese republic, which was
then re-established; but he played his cards so subtly as to make
himself, by the help of Cosimo de Medici in Florence, duke de facto
if not de jure. Francesco Sforza was the only condottiero among
many aspiring to be tyrants who planted themselves firmly on a
throne of firstrate importance. Once seated in the duchy of Milan,
he displayed rare qualities as a ruler; for he not only entered
into the spirit of the age, which required humanity and culture
from a despot, but he also knew how to curb his desire for
territory. The conception of confederated Italy found in him a
vigorous supporter. Thus the limitation of the Milanese duchy under
Filippo Maria Visconti, and its consolidation under Francesco
Sforza, were equally effectual in preparing the
balance of
power to which Italian politics now tended.
This balance could not have been established without the
concurrent aid of Florence. After the
expulsion of the duke of Athens in 1343, and
the great plague of 1348, the Florentine proletariate rose up
against the merchant princes. This insurgence of the artisans, in a
republic which had been remodelled upon economical principles by
Giano della Bellas constitution of 1292, reached a climax in 1378,
when the Ciompi rebellion placed the city for a few years in the
hands of the Lesser Arts. The revolution was but temporary, and was
rather a symptom of democratic tendencies in the state than the
sign of any capacity for government on the part of the working
classes. The necessities of war and foreign affairs soon placed
Florence in the power of an oligarchy headed by the great Albizzi
family. They fought the battles of the republic with success
against the Visconti, and widely extended the Florentine domain
over the Tuscan cities. During their season of ascendancy Pisa was
enslaved, and Florence gained the access to the sea. But throughout
this period a powerful opposition was gathering strength. It was
led by the Medici, who sided with the common people, and increased
their political importance by the
accumulation and wise employment of vast
commercial wealth. In 1433 the Albizzi and the Medici came to open
strife. Cosimo de Medici, the chief of the opposition, was exiled
to Venice. In the next year he returned, assumed the presidency of
the
democratic
party, and by a system of corruption and popularity-
hunting, combined with the
patronage of arts and letters, established himself as the real but
unacknowledged dictator of the commonwealth. Cosimo abandoned the
policy of his predecessors. Instead of opposing Francesco Sforza in
Milan, he lent him his prestige and influence, foreseeing that the
dynastic future of his own family and the pacification of Italy
might be secured by a balance of power in which Florence should
rank on equal terms with Milan and Naples.
The republic of Venice differed essentially from any other state
in Italy; and her history was so separate that, up to this Venice
point, it would have been needless to interrupt the narrative by
tracing it. Venice, however, in the 14th century took her place at
last as an Italian power on an equality at least with the very
greatest. The constitution of the commonwealth had slowly matured
itself through a series of revolutions, which confirmed and defined
a type of singular stability. During the earlier days of the
republic the doge had been a prince elected by the people, and
answerable only to the popular assemblies. In 1032 be was obliged
to act in concert with a senate, called pregadi; and in 1172 the
grand council, which became the real sovereign of the state, was
formed. The several steps whereby the members of the grand council
succeeded in eliminating the people from a share in the government,
and reducing the doge to the position of their ornamental
representative, cannot here be described. It must suffice to say
that these changes culminated in 1297, when an act was passed for
closing the grand counci], or in other words for confining it to a
fixed number of privileged families, in whom the government was
henceforth vested by hereditary right. This ratification of the
oligarchical principle, together with the establishment in 1311 of
the Council of Ten, completed that famous constitution which
endured till the extinction of the republic in 1797. Meanwhile,
throughout the middle ages, it had been the policy of Venice to
refrain from conquests on the Italian mainland, and to confine her
energies to commerce in the East. The first entry of any moment
made by the Venetians into strictly Italian affairs was in 1336,
when the republics of Florence and St Mark allied themselves
against Mastino della Scala, and the latter took possession of
Treviso. After this, for thirty years, between 1352 and 1381,
Venice and Genoa contested the supremacy of the Mediterranean.
Pisas maritime power having been extinguished in the battle of
Meloria (1284), the two surviving republics had no rivals. They
fought their duel out upon the
Bosporus, off Sardinia, and in the Morea, with
various success. From the first great encounter, in 1355, Venice
retired we]l-nigh exhausted, and Genoa was so crippled that she
placed, herself under the protection of the Visconti. The second
and decisive battle was fought upon the Adriatic. The Genoese fleet
under Luciano Doria defeated the Venetians off
Pola in 1379, and sailed without opposition to
Chioggia, which was stormed and taken. Thus the Venetians found
themselves blockaded in their own lagoons. Meanwhile a fleet was
raised for their relief by Carlo Zeno in the Levant, and the
admiral Vittore Pisani, who had
been imprisoned after the defeat at Pola, was released to lead
their
forlorn hope
from the city side. The Genoese in their turn were now blockaded in
Chioggia, and forced by famine to surrender. The losses of men and
money which the war of Chioggia, as it was called, entailed, though
they did not immediately depress the spirit of the Genoese
republic~ signed her naval ruin. During this second struggle to the
death with Genoa, the Venetians had been also at strife with the
Carraresi of Padua and the Scaligers of Verona. In 1406, after the
extinction of these princely houses they added Verona, Vicenza and
Padua to the territories they claimed on terra firma. Their career
of conquest, and their new policy of forming Italian alliances and
entering into the management of Italian affairs were confirmed by
the long dogeship of
Francesco Foscari (1423-1457), who
must rank with Alfonso, Cosimo de Medici, Francesco Sforza and
Nicholas V., as a joint-founder of confederated Italy. When
Constantinople fell in 1453, the old ties between Venice and the
Eastern empire were broken, and she now entered on a wholly new
phase of her history. Ranking as one of the five Italian powers,
she was also destined to defend Western Christendom against the
encroachments of the Turk in Europe. (Se VENICE: History.)
By their settlement in Avignon, the popes relinquished their
protectorate of Italian liberties, and lost their position as
Italiar potentates. Rienzis revolution in Rome (3471354), and hi~
establishment of a republic upon a fantastic basis, half classical
half feudal, proved the
temper
of the times; while the rise of dynastic families in the cities of
the church, claiming the title of papal vicars, but acting in their
own interests, Tb weakened the authority of the Holy See. The pre-
Paacy. datory expeditions of Bertrand du Poiet and Robert of
Geneva were as ineffective as the
descents of the emperors; and, though the cardinal Albornoz
conquered Romagna and the March in 1364, the legates who resided in
those districts were not long able to hold them against their
despots. At last
Gregory
XI. returned to Rome; and
Urban VI., elected in 1378, put a final end to
the Avignonian exile. Still the Great Schism, which now distracted
Western Christendom, so enfeebled the papacy, and kept the Roman
pontiffs so engaged in ecclesiastical disputes, that they had
neither power nor leisure to occupy themselves seriously with their
temporal affairs. The threatening presence of the tWo princely
houses of
Orsini and Colonna,
alike dangerous as friends or foes, rendered Rome an unsafe
residence. Even when the schism was nominally terminated in 1415 by
the
council of Constance, the next two
popes held but a
precarious grasp upon their Italian.
domains.
Martin V.
(1417143,) resided principally at Florence.
Eugenius IV. (1431-1447) followed his
example. And what
Martin
managed to regain
Eugenius
lost. At the same time, the change which had now come over Italian
politics, the desire on all sides for a settlement, and the growing
conviction that a federation was necessary, proved advantageous to
the popes as sovereigns. They gradually entered into the spirit of
their age, assumed the style of despots and made use of the
humanistic movement, then at its height, to place themselves in a
new relation to Italy. The election of Nicholas V. in 1447
determined this revolution in the papacy, and opened a period of
temporal splendour, which ended with the establishment of the popes
as sovereigns.
Thomas of
Sarzana was a distinguished humanist. Humbly born, he had been
tutor in the house of the Albizzi, and afterwards librarian of the
Medici at Florence, where he imbibed the politics together with the
culture of the Renaissance, Soon after assuming the tiara, he found
himself without a rival in the church; for the schism ended by
Felix V.s
resignation in 1449. Nicholas fixed his residence in Rome, which he
began to rebuild and to fortify, determining to render the Eternal
City once more a capital worthy of its
high place in Europe. The Romans were
flattered; and, though his reign was disturbed by republican
conspiracy, Nicholas V.
was able before his death in 1455 to secure the modern status of
the pontiff as a splendid patron and a wealthy temporal
potentate.
Italy was now for a brief space independent. The humanistic
movement had created a common culture, a common language and sense
of common nationality. The five great powers, with their
satellitesdukes of Savoy and Co~n~ede~ Urbino, marquesses of
Ferrara and Mantua, republics Italy.
of Bologna, Perugia, Sienawere constituted. All political
institutions tended toward despotism. The Medici became yearly more
indispensable to Florence, the Bentivogli more autocratic in
Bologna, the Baglioni in Perugia; and even Siena was ruled by the
Petrucci. But this despotism was of a mild type. The princes were
Italians; they shared-the common enthusiasms of the nation for art,
learning, literature and science; they studied how to
mask their tyranny with arts
agreeable to the multitude. When Italy had reached this point,
Constantinople was taken by the
Turks. On all sides it was felt that the Italian
alliance must be tightened; and one of the last, best acts of
Nicholas V.s pontificate was the appeal in 1453 to the five great
powers in federation. As regards their common opposition to the
Turk, this appeal led to nothing; but it marked the growth of a new
Italian consciousness.
Between 1453 and 1492 Italy continued to be prosperous and
tranquil. Nearly all wars during this period were undertaken either
to check the growing power of Venice or to further th ambition of
the papacy. Having become despots, the popes sought to establish
their relatives in principalities. The worc nepotism acquired new
significance in the reigns of
Sixtus IV and
Innocent VIII. Though the country was
convulsed by rn great struggle, these forty years witnessed a truly
appallin~
increase of olitical crime. To be a prince was tantamount to
being the mark of secret conspiracy and assassination. Among the
most noteworthy examples of such attempts maybe mentioned the
revolt of the barons against
Ferdinand I. of Naples (1464), the murder
of Galeazzo Maria Sforza at Milan (1476) and the plot of the Pazzi
to destroy the Medici (1478). After Cosimo de Medicis death in
1464, the presidency of the Florentine republic passed to his son
Piero, who left it in 1469 to his sons Lorenzo and Giuliano. These
youths assumed the style of princes, and it was against their lives
that the Pazzi, with the sanction of Sixtus IV., aimed their blow.
Giuliano was murdered, Lorenzo escaped, to tighten his grasp upon
the city, which now loved him and was proud of him. During the
following fourteen years of his brilliant career he made himself
absolute master of Florence, and so modified her institutions that
the Medici were henceforth necessary to the state. Apprehending the
importance of Italian federation, Lorenzo, by his personal tact and
prudent leadership of the republic, secured peace and a common
intelligence between the five powers. His own family was fortified
by the marriage of his daughter to a son of Innocent VIII., which
procured his son Giovannis elevation~to the cardinalate, and
involved two Medicean papacies and the future dependence of
Florence upon Rome.
VI. Age of Invasions
The year 1492 opened a new age for Italy. In this year Lorenzo
died, and was succeeded by his son, the vain and weak Piero; France
passed beneath the personal control of the inexperienced
Charles viii. VIII.;
the fall of
Granada freed
Spain from her embarrassments;
Columbus discovered America, destroying the
commercial supremacy of Venice; last, but not least, Roderigo
Borgia assumed the tiara with the famous title of
Alexander VI. In this
year the short-lived federation of the five powers was shaken, and
Italy was once more drawn into the vortex of Europe~n affairs. The
events which led to this disaster may be briefly told. After
Galeazzo Marias assassination, his crown passed to a boy, Gian
Galeazzo, who was in due course married to a grand-daughter of
Ferdinand I. of Naples. But the government of Milan remaned in the
hands of this youths uncle, Lodovico, surnamed II Moro. Lodovico
resolved to become duke of Milan. The king of Naples was his
natural enemy, and he had cause to suspect that Piero de Medici
might abandon his alliance. Feeling himself alone, with no right to
the title he was bent on seizing, he had recourse to Charles VIII.
of France, whom he urged to make good his claim to the kingdom of
Naples. This claim, it may be said in passing, rested on the will
of King Ren of Anjou. After some hesitation, Charles agreed to
invade Italy. He crossed the Alps in 1495, passed through Lombardy,
entered Tuscany, freed Pisa from the yoke of Florence, witnessed
the expulsion of the Medici, marched to Naples and was crowned
tliereall this without striking a blow. Meanwhile Lodovico procured
his nephews death, and raised a league against the French in
Lombardy. Charles hurried back from Naples, and narrowly escaped
destruction at Fornovo in the passes of the Apennines. He made good
his retreat, however, and returned to France in 1495. Little
remained to him of his light acquisitions; but he had convulsed
Italy by this invasion, destroyed her equilibrium, exposed her
military weakness and political disunion, and revealed her wealth
to greedy and more powerful nations.
The princes of the house of Aragon, now represented by
Frederick, a son of Ferdinand I., returned to Naples. Florence Louk
xii. made herself a republic, adopting a form of constitution
analogous to that of Venice. At this crisis she was ruled by the
monk
Girolamo Savonarola, who inspired
the people with a thirst for freedom, preached the necessity of
reformation, and placed himself in direct antagonism to Rome. After
a short but eventful career, the influence of which was long
effective, he lost his hold upon the citizens. Alexander VI.
procured a mock trial, and his enemies burned him upon the Piazza
in 1498. In this year Louis XII. succeeded Charles VIII. upon the
throne of France. As duke of
Orleans he had certain claims to Milan through
his grandmother Valentina, dap~hter of Gian Galeazzo, the first
duke. They were not valid, for the investiture of the duchy had
been granted only to male heirs. But they served as a sufficient
pretext, and in. 1499 Louis entered and subdued the Milanese.
Lodovico escaped to Germany, returned the next year, was betrayed
by his Swiss mercenaries and sent to die at
Loches in France. In 1500 Louis made the blunder
of calling Ferdinand the Catholic to help him in the conquest of
Naples. By a treaty signed at Granada, the French and Spanish kings
were to divide the spoil. The conquest was easy; but, when it came
to a partition, Ferdinand played his ally false. He made himself
supreme over the Two Sicilies, which he now reunited under a single
crown. Three years later, unlessoned by this experience, Louis
signed the treaty of
Blois
(1504), whereby be invited the emperor
Maximilian to aid him in the subjugation of
Venice. No policy could have been less far-sighted; for
Charles V., joint heir to
Austria, Burgundy,
Castile
and Aragon, the future overwhelming rival of France, was already
born.
The stage was now prepared, and all the actors who were destined
to accomplish the ruin of Italy trod it with their armies. Spain,
France, Germany, with their Swiss auxiliaries, had been summoned
upon various pretexts to partake her provinces. Then, too late,
patriots like
Machiavelli perceived the suicidal self-
indulgence of the past,
which, by substituting mercenary troops for national militias, left
the Italians at the absolute discretion. of their neighbors.
Whatever parts the Italians themselves played in the succeeding
quarter of a century, the game was in the hands of French, Spanish
and German invaders. Meanwhile, no scheme for combination against
common foes arose in the peninsula. Each petty potentate strove for
his own private advantage in the confusion; and at this epoch the
chief gains accrued to the papacy. Aided by his terrible son,
Cesare Borgia,
Alexander VI. chastised the Roman nobles, subdued Romagna and the
March, threatened Tuscany, and seemed to be upon the point of
creating a Central Italian state in favor of his progeny, when he
died suddenly in 1503. His conquests reverted to the Holy See.
Julius II., his bitterest
enemy and powerful successor, continued
Alexanders policy, but no longer in the
interest of his own relatives. It became the nobler ambition of
Julius to aggrandize the church, and to reassume the protectorate
of the Italian people. With this object, he secured Emilia, carried
his victorious arms against Ferrara, and curbed the tyranny of the
Baglioni in Perugia. Julius II. played a perilous game; but the
stakes were high, and he fancied himself strong enough to guide the
tempest he evoked. Quarrelling with the Venetians In 1508, he
combined the forces of all Europe by the league of Cambray against
them; and, when he had succeeded in his first purpose of humbling
them even to the
dust, he turned
round in 1510, uttered his famous resolve to expel the barbarians
from Italy, and pitted the Spaniards against the French. It was
with the Swiss that he hoped to effect this revolution; but the
Swiss, now interfering for the first time as principals in Italian
affairs, were incapable of more than adding to the already
maddening distractions of the people. Formed for mercenary warfare,
they proved a perilous instrument in the hands of those who used
them, and were hardly less injurious to their friends than to their
foes. In 1512 the battle of Ravenna between the French troops and
the allies of JuliusSpaniards, Venetians and Swisswas fought.
Gaston de
Foix bought a doubtful
victory dearly with his death; and the allies, though beaten on the
banks of the Ronco, immediately afterwards expelled the French from
Lombardy. Yet Julius II. had failed, as might have been fOreseen.
He only exchanged one set of foreign masters for another, and
taught a new barbarian race how pleasant were the plains of Italy.
As a consequence of the battle of Ravenna, the Medici returned in
1512 to Florence.
When
Leo X. was elected in
1513, Rome and Florence rejoiced; but Italy had no repose. Louis
XII. had lost the game, and the Spaniards were triumphant. But new
actors appeared upon the scene, and the same old struggle was
resumed with fiercer energy. By the victory of Marignano ~n. 1515
Francis I., having now
succeeded to the throne of France, regained the Milanese, and broke
the power of the Swiss, who held it for Massimiliano Sforza, the
titular duke. Leo for a while relied on
Francis; for the vast power of Charles V., who
succeeded to the empire in 1519, as in 1516 he had succeeded to the
crowns of Spain and Lower Italy, threatened the whole of Europe. It
was Leos nature, however, to be inconstant. In 1521 he changed
sides, allied himself to Charles, and died after
hearing that the imperial troops had again
expelled the French from Milan. During the next four years the
Franco-
Spanish war dragged on in
Lombardy until the decisive battle of Pavia in 1525, when Francis
was taken prisoner, and Italy lay open to the Spanish armies.
Meanwhile Leo X. had been followed by
Adrian VI., and Adrian by
Clement VII., of the
house of Medici, who had long ruled Florence. In the reign of this
pope Francis was released from his prison in
Madrid (1526), and
Clement
hoped that he might still be used in the Italian interest as a
counterpoise to Charles. It is impossible in this place to follow
the tangled intrigues of that period. The year 1527 was signalized
by the famous
sack of Rome. An
army of mixed German and Spanish troops, pretending to act for the
emperor, but which may rather be regarded as a vast marauding
party, entered Italy under their leader Frundsberg. After his
death, the
Constable de
Bourbon took command of
them; they marched slowly down, aided by the marquis of Ferrara,
and unopposed by the duke of Urbino, reached Rome, and took it by
assault. The constable was
killed in the first onslaught; Clement was imprisoned in the castle
of St Angelo; Rome was abandoned to the rage of 30,000 ruffians. As
an immediate result of this
catastrophe, Florence shook off the Medici,
and established a republic. But Clement, having made peace with the
emperor, turned the remnants of the army which had sacked Rome
against his native city. After a desperate resistance, Florence
fell in 1530. Alessandro de Medici was placed there with the title
of duke of Civit di Penna; and, on his murder in 1537, Cosimo de
Medici, of the younger branch of the ruling house, was made duke.
Acting as lieutenant for the Spaniards, he subsequently (1555)
subdued Siena, and bequeathed to his descendants the
grand-duchy of Tuscany.
VII. Spanish-Austrian Ascendancy.
It was high time, after the sack of Rome in 1527, that Charles
V. should undertake Italian affairs. The country was exposed to
anarchy, Settlement of which this had been the last and most
disgraceby Spain. ful example. The Turks were threatening western
Europe, and Luther was inflaming Germany. By the treaty of
Barcelona in 1529 the pope
and emperor made terms. By that of Cambray in the same year France
relinquished Italy to Spain. Charles then entered the port of
Genoa, and on the 5th of November met Clement VII. at Bologna. He
there received the imperial crown, and summoned the Italian princes
for a settlement of all disputed claims. Francesco Sforza, the last
and childless heir of the ducal house, was left in Milan till his
death, which happened in 1535. The republic of Venice was respected
in her liberties and Lombard territories. The Este family received
a
confirmation of
their duchy of Modena and Reggio, and were invested in their
fief of Ferrara by the pope. The
marquessate of Mantua was made a duchy; and Florence was secured,
as we have seen, to the Medici. The great gainer by this settlement
was the papacy, which held the most substantial Italian province,
together with a prestige that raised it far above all rivalry. The
rest of Italy, however parcelled, henceforth became but a
dependence upon Spain. Charles V., it must be remembered, achieved
his conquest and confirmed his authority far less as emperor than
as the heir of Castile and Aragon. A Spanish
viceroy in Milan and another in Naples,
supported by Rome and by the minor princes who followed the policy
dictated to them from Madfid, were sufficient to preserve the whole
peninsula in a state of somnolent inglorious servitude.
From 1530 until 1796, that is, for a period of nearly three
centuries, the Italians had no history of their own. Their annals
are filled with records of dynastic changes and redistributions of
territory, consequent upon treaties signed by foreign powers, in
the settlement of quarrels which no wise concerned the people.
Italy only too often became the
theatre of desolating and distracting wars. But
these wars were fought for the most part by alien armies; the
points at issue were decided beyond the Alps; the gains accrued to
royal families whose names were unpronounceable by southern
tongues. The affairs of Europe during the years when Habsburg and
Bourbon fought their domestic battles with the blood of noble races
may teach grave lessons to all thoughtful men of our days, but none
bitterer, none fraught with more insulting recollections, than to
the Italian people, who were haggled over like dumb driven cattle
in the mart of chaffering kings. We cannot wholly acquit the
Italians of their share of blame. When they might have won national
independence, after their warfare with the Swabian emperors, they
let the golden opportunity slip. Pampered with commercial
prosperity, eaten to the core with inter-urban rivalries, they
submitted to despots, renounced the use of arms, and offered
themselves in the hour of need, defenceless and disunited to the
shock of puissant nations. That
they had created modern civilization for Europe availed them
nothing. Italy, intellectually first among the peoples, was now
politically and practically last; and nothing to her historian is
more heartrending than to
watch
the gradual extinction of her spirit in this age of
slavery.
In 1534 Alessandro
Farnese, who owed his elevation to his sister
Giulia, one of Alexander VI.s mistresses, took the tiara with the
title of
Paul III. It was
his ambition to create a duchy for his family; and with this object
he
Pont!!! gave Parma and Piacenza
to his son
Pier Luigi. After
~,iii. much wrangling between the French and Spanish parties, the
duchy was confirmed in 1586 to Ottaviano Farnese and his son
Alessandro, better known as
Philip II.s general, the prince of Parma.
Alessandros descendants reigned in Parma and Piacenza till the year
1731. Paul III.s pontificate was further marked by important
changes in the church, all of which confirmed the spiritual
autocracy of Rome. In 1540 this pope approved of Loyolas
foundation, and secured the powerful militia of the Jesuit order.
The
Inquisition was established with almost unlimited powers in
Italy, and the press was placed under its jurisdiction. Thus free
thought received a check, by which not only ecclesiastical but
political tyrants knew how to profit. Henceforth it was impossible
to publish or to utter a word which might offend the despots of
church or state; and the Italians had to amuse their leisure with
the polite triflings of academics. In 1545 a council was opened at
Trent for
the
reformation of church discipline and the promulgation of
orthodox doctrine. The decrees of this council defined Roman
Catholicism against the Reformation; and, while failing to
regenerate morality, they enforced a hypocritical observance of
public decency. Italy to outer view put forth blossoms of hectic
and hysterical piety, though at the core her clergy and her
aristocracy were more corrupt than ever.
In 1556
Philip II.,
by the
abdication of
his father Charles V., became king of Spain. He already wore the
crown of the Two Sicilies, and ruled the duchy of Milan. In the
next year Ferdinand, brother of Charles, was elected emperor. The
French, meanwhile, had not entirely abandoned their claims on
Italy. Gian Pietro Caraffa, who was made pope in 1555 with the name
of
Paul IV., endeavoured to
revive the ancient papal policy of leaning upon France. He
encouraged the duke of
Guise to
undertake the conquest of Naples, as Charles of Anjou had been
summoned by his predecessors. But such schemes were now obsolete
an& anachronistic. They led to a languid lingering Italian
campaign, which was settled far beyond the Alps by Philips
victories over the French at St Quentin and
Gravelines. The peace of Cteau Cambresis,
signed in 1559, left the Spanish monarch undisputed lord of Italy.
Of free commonwealths there now survived only Venice, which,
together with Spain, achieved for Europe the victory of Lepanto in
1573; Genoa, which, after the ineffectual Fieschi revolution in
1547,
abode beneath the rule of
the great Doria family, and held a feeble sway in Corsica; and the
two insignificant republics of Lucca and San
Marino.
The tuture hope of Italy, however, was growing in a remote and
hitherto neglected corner.
Emmanuel Philibert, duke of Savoy,
represented the oldest and not the least illustrious reigning house
in Europe, and his descendants were destined to achieve for Italy
the independence which no other power or prince had given her since
the fall of ancient Rome. (See SAvoy, HOUSE or.)
When Emmanuel Philibert succeeded to his father
Charles III. in 1553,
he was a duke without a duchy. But the princes of the
house of Savoy
were a race of warriors; and what Emmanuel Philibert lost as
sovereign he regained as captain of adventure in the service of his
cousin Philip II. The treaty of Cteau Cambresis in 1559, and the
evacuation of the Piedmontese cities held by French and Spanish
troops in 1574, restored his state. By removing the capital from
Chambry to Turin, he completed the transformation of the dukes of
Savoy from Burgundian into Italian sovereigns. They still owned
Savoy beyond the Alps, the plains of
Bresse, and the
maritime province of Nice.
Emmanuel Philibert was succeeded by his son
Charles
Emmanuel I., who married
Catherine, a daughter of Philip II. He seized
the first opportunity of annexing Saluzzo, which had been lost to
Savoy in the last two reigns, and renewed the disastrous policy of
his grandfather Charles III. by invading Geneva and threatening
Provence. Henry IV. of France forced him in 1601 to relinquish
Bresse and his Burgundian possessions. In return he was allowed to
keep Saluzzo. All hopes of conquest on the transalpine side were
now quenched; but the keys of Italy had been given to the dukes of
Savoy; and their attention was still further concentrated upon
Lombard conquests. Charles
Emmanuel now attempted the acquisition of
Montferrat, which was soon to become vacant by the death of
Francesco
Gonzaga, who held
it together with Mantua. In order to secure this territory, he went
to war with
Philip
III. of Spain, and allied himself with Venice and the
Grisons to expel the Spaniards
from the Valtelline. When the male line of the Gonzaga family
expired in i62~, Charles, duke of
Nevers, claimed Mantua and Montferrat in right
of his wife, the only daughter of the last duke. Charles Emmanuel
was now checkmated by France, as he had formerly been by Spain. The
total gains of all his strenuous endeavours amounted to the
acquisition of a few places on the borders of Montferrat.
Not only the Gonzagas, but several other ancient ducal families,
died out about the date which we have reached. The ~ legitimate
line of the Estensi ended in 1597 by the Vion of death of Alfonso
II., the last duke of Ferrara. He oIdducai left his domains to a
natural relative, Cesare dEste, families, who would in earlier days
have inherited without dispute, for bastardy had been no
bar on more than one occasion in the
Este
pedigree.
Urban VIII., however, put
in a claim to Ferrara, which, it will be remembered, had been
recognized a papal fief in 1530. Cesare dEste had to content
himself with Modena and Reggio, where his descendants reigned ,as
dukes till 1794. Under the same pontiff, the Holy See absorbed the
duchy of Urbino on the death of
Francesco Maria II., the last
representative of Montefeltro and Della Rovere. The popes were now
masters of a fine and compact territory, embracing no
inconsiderable portion of Countess Matildas
legacy, in addition to Pippins donation, and the
patrimony of St Peter. Meanwhile Spanish fanaticism, the
suppression of the
Huguenots in France and the Catholic policy
of Austria combined to strengthen their authority as pontiffs.
Urbans predecessor,
Paul V.,
advanced so far as to extend his spiritual jurisdiction over
Venice, which, up to the date of his election (1605), had resisted
all encroachments of the Holy See. Venice offered the single
instance in Italy of a national church. The republic managed the
tithes, and the clergy
acknowledged no chief above their own
patriarch. Paul V. now forced the Venetians
to admit his ecclesiastical supremacy; but they refused to readmit
the
Jesuits, who had been
expelled in 1606. This, if we do not count the
proclamation of
James I. of England (1604), was
the earliest instance of the orders banishment from a state where
it had proved disloyal to the commonwealth.
Venice rapidly declined throughout the 17th century. The loss of
trade consequent upon the closing of
Egypt and the Levant, together with the discovery
of America and ~e~ilne the sea-route to the
Indies, had dried up her thief of Vonl~e source
of wealth. Prolonged warfare with the Otto- and mans, who forced
her to abandon Candia in 1669, Spain. as they had robbed her of
Cyprus in 570, still further
crippled her resources. Yet she kept the Adriatic free of pirates,
notably by suppressing the sea-robbers called Uscocchi (1601-1617),
maintained herself in the
Ionian Islands, and in 1684 added one
more to the series of victorious episodes which render her annals
so romantic. In that year Francesco
Morosini, upon whose
tomb we still may read the title Peloponnesiacus,
wrested the whole of the Morea from the Turks. But after his death
in 1715 the republic relaxed her hold upon his conquests. The
Venetian nobles abandoned themselves to indolence and vice. Many of
them fell into the
slough of
pauperism, and were
saved from
starvation
by public doles. Though the signory still made a brave show upon
occasions of
parade, it was
clear that the state was rotten to the core, ahd sinking into the
decrepitude of dotage. The Spanish monarchy at the same epoch
dwindled with apparently less reason. Philips Austrian successors
reduced it to the rank of a secondary European power. This decline
of vigour was felt, with the customary effects of discord and bad
government, in Lower Italy. The revolt of
Masaniello in Naples (1647), followed by
rebellions at Palermo and Messina, which placed Sicily for a while
in the hands of
Louis
XIV. (1676-1678) were symptoms of progressive anarchy. The
population, ground down by preposterous taxes, ill-used as only the
subjects of Spaniards, Turks or Bourbons are handled, rose in blind
exasperation against their oppressors. It is impossible to attach
political importance to these revolutions; nor did they bring the
people any appreciable good. The destinies of Italy were decided in
the cabinets and on the battlefields of northern Europe. A Bourbon
at
Versailles, a
Habsburg at
Vienna, or a
thick-lipped Lorrainer, with a stroke of his pen, wrote off
province against province, regarding not the populations who had
bled for him or thrown themselves upon his mercy.
This inglorious and passive chapter of Italian history is
continued to the date of
the French Revolution with the
records of three dynastic wars, the
war of the Spanish
succession, the war of the
Polish succession, the
war of the Austrian ~5~s
of succession, followed by three European treaties, ~ which brought
them respectively to diplomatic terminations. Italy, handled and
rehandled, settled and resettled, upon each of these occasions,
changed masters without caring or knowing what befell the
principals in any one of the disputes. Humiliating to human nature
in general as are the annals of the 18th-century campaigns in
Europe, there is no point of view from which they appear in a light
so tragi-comic as from that afforded by Italian history. The system
of setting nations by the ears with the view of settling the
quarrels of a few reigning houses was reduced to absurdity when the
people, as in these cases, came to be partitioned and exchanged
without the assertion or negation of a single principle affecting
their interests or rousing their emotions.
In 1700 Charles II. died, and with him ended the Austrian family
in Spain. Louis XIV. claimed the throne for Philip, duke of Anjou.
Charles,
archduke of
Austria, opposed him. The dispute was fought out in
Flanders; but Spanish
Lombardy felt the shock, as usual, of the French and Austrian
dynasties. The French armies were more than once defeated by
Prince Eugene of Savoy, who
drove them out of Italy in 1707. Therefore, in the peace of
Utrecht (1713), the services of
the house of Savoy had to be duly recognized. Victor Amadeus II.
received Sicily with the title of king. Montferrat and Alessandria
were added to his northern provinces, and his state was recognized
as independent.
Charles of Austria, now emperor,
took Milan, Mantua, Naples and Sardinia for his portion of the
Italian spoil. Philip founded the Bourbon line of Spanish kings,
renouncing in Italy all that his Habsburg predecessors had gained.
Discontented with this diminution of the Spanish heritage,
Philip V. married Elisabetta
Farnese, heiress to the last duke of Parma, in 1714. He hoped to
secure this duchy for his son,
Don Carlos; and Elisabetta further brought
with her a claim to the grand-duchy of Tuscany, which would soon
become vacant by the death of Gian Gaston.e de Medici. After this
marriage
Philip broke the
peace of Europe by invading Sardinia. The Quadruple Alliance was
formed, and the new king of Sicily was punished for his supposed
adherence to Philip V. by the forced exchange of Sicily for the
island of Sardinia. It was thus that in 1720 the house~ of Savoy
assumed, the
regal title which
it bore until the declaration of the Italian kingdom in the last
century. Victor AmadeusIl.sreignwasof greatimport- I ance in the
history of his state. Though a despot, as all Inonarchs were
obliged to be at that date, he reigned with prudence, probity and
zeal for the welfare of his subjects. He took public education out
of the hands of the Jesuits, which, for the future development of
manliness in his dominions, was a measure of incalculable value.
The duchy of Savoy in his days became a kingdom, and Sardinia,
though it seemed a poor exchange for Sicily, was a far less
perilous possession than the larger and wealthier island would have
been. In 1730 Victor Amadeus abdicated in favor of his son Charles
Emmanuel
III. Repenting of this step, he subsequently attempted to
regain Turin, but was imprisoned in. the castle of Rivoli, where he
ended his days in 1732.
The War of the Polish Succession which now disturbed Europe is
only important in Italian history because the treaty of Vienna in
1738 settled the disputed affairs of the duchies Polish of Parma
and Tuscany. The duke Antonio Farnese acreS died ill 1731; the
grand-duke Gian Gastone
de Medici died in 737. In the duchy of Parma Don Carlos had already
been proclaimed. But he was now transferred to the Two Sicilies,
while Francis of
Lorraine,
the husband of
Maria
Theresa, took Tuscany and Parma. Milan and Mantua remained in
the hands of the Austrians. On this occasion Charles Emmanuel
acquired Tortona and Novara.
Worse complications ensued for the Italians when the emperor
Charles VI., father of
Maria Theresa, died in i74o. The three branches of the Bourbon
house, ruling in France, Austrian Spain and the Sicilies, joined
with
Prussia, Bavaria and
the kingdom of Sardinia to despoil Maria Theresa of her heritage.
Lombardy was made the seat of war; and here the king of Sardinia
acted as in some sense the arbiter of the situation. After war
broke out, he changed sides and supported the Habsburg-Lorraine
party. At first, in 1745, the Sardinians were defeated by the
French and Spanish troops. But Francis of Lorraine, elected emperor
in that year, sent an army to the kings support, which in 1746
obtained a
signal victory over
the Bourbons at Piacenza. Charles Emmanuel now threatened Genoa.
The Austrian soldiers already held the town. But the citizens
expelled them, and the republic kept her independence. In 1748 the
treaty of
Aix-la-Chapelle, which put an end to
the War of the Austrian Succession, once more redivided Italy.
Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla were formed into a duchy for
Don Philip, brother of Charles III. of
the Two Sicilies, and son of Philip V. of Spain. Charles III. was
confirmed in his kingdom of the Two Sicilies. The Austrians kept
Milan and Tuscany. The duchy of Modena was placed under the
protection of the French. So was Genoa, which in 1755, after Paolis
insurrection against the misgovernment of the republic, ceded her
old domain of Corsica to France.
From the date of this settlement until 1792, Italy enjoyed a
period of repose and internal amelioration under her numerous
Forty- paternal despots. It became the fashion during these four
forty-four years of peace to encourage the industrial years
population and to experiment alize in economical re
pea~. forms. The Austrian government in Lombardy
under Maria Theresa was characterized by improved agriculture,
regular administration, order, reformed taxation and increased
education.. A considerable amount of local autonomy was allowed,
and dependence cn Vienna was very slight and not irksome. The
nobles and the clergy were rich and influential, but kept in order
by the civil power. There was no feeling of nationality, but the
people were prosperous, enjoyed profound peace and were placidly
content with the existing order of things. On the death of Maria
Theresa in 1780, the emperor
Joseph II. instituted much wider reforms.
Feudal privileges were done away with, clerical influence
diminished and many monasteries and convents suppressed, the
criminal law rendered
more humane and
torture
abolished largely as a result of G. Beccarias famous pamphlet Dei
delitli e delle pene. At the same time Josephs administration was
more arbitrary, and local autonomy was to some extent curtailed.
His anti-clerical laws produced some ill-feeling among the more
devout part of the population. On the whole the Austrian rule in.
pre-revolutionary days was beneficial and far from oppressive, and
helped Lombardy to recover from the ill-effects of the Spanish
domination. It did little for the moral education of the people,
but the same criticism applies more or less to all the European
governments of the day. The emperor Francis I. ruled the
grand-duchy of Tuscany by lieutenants until his death in 1765, when
it was given, as an. independent state, to his second son,
Peter Leopold. The reign
of this duke was long remembered as a period of internal
prosperity, wise legislation and important public enterprise.
Leopold, among other useful works, drained the Val di Chiana, and
restored those fertile upland plains to agriculture. In 1790 he
succeeded to the empire, and left Tuscany to his son Ferdinand. The
kingdom of Sardinia was administered upon similar principles, but
with less of geniality. Charles Emmanuel made his will law, and
erased the remnants of free institutions from his state. At the
same time he wisely followed his fathers policy with regard to
education and the church. This is perhaps the best that can be said
of a king who incarnated the stolid
absolutism of the period. From this date,
however, we are able to trace the revival of independent thought
among the Italians. The European ferment of ideas which preceded
the French Revolution expressed itself in men like Alfieri, the
fierce denouncer of tyrants, Beccaria, the philosopher of criminal
jurisprudence,
Volta, the
physicist, and numerous political economists of Tuscany. Moved
partly by external influences and partly by a slow internal
reawakening, the people was preparing for the efforts of the I9th
century. The papacy, during this period, had to reconsider the
question of the Jesuits, who made themselves universally odious,
not only in Italy, but also in France and Spain. In the pontificate
of
Clement XIII
they ruled the Vatican, and almost succeeded in embroiling the pope
with the concerted Bourbon potentates of Europe. His successor,
Clement XIV. suppressed
the order altogether by a brief of 1773. (J. A. S.)
D. Italy in the Napoleonic Period, 1796-1814
The campaign of 1796 which led to the awakening of the Italian
people to a new consciousness of unity and strength is detailed in
the article
NAPOLEONIC CAMPAIGNS. Here we can
attempt only a general survey of the events, political, civic and
social, which heralded the Risorgimento in its first phase. It is
desirable in the first place to realize the condition of Italy at
the time when the irruption of the French and the expulsion of the
Austrians opened up a new political vista for that oppressed and
divided people.
For many generations Italy had been bandied to and fro between.
the Habsburgs and the Bourbons The decline of French influence at
the close of the reign of Louis XIV.
left the Habsburgs and the Spanish Bourbons without ~ serious
rivals. The former possessed the rich duchies Frecch of Milan
(including Mantua) and Tuscany; while Revolu through a marriage
alliance with the house of Este UoI, of Modena (the Archduke
Ferdinand had married the heiress of Modena) its influence over
that duchy was supreme. It also had a few fiefs in Piedmont and in
Genoese territory. By marrying her daughter, Maria Amelia, to the
young duke of Parma, and another daughter, Maria Carolina, to
Ferdinand of Naples, Maria Theresa consolidated Habsburg influence
in the north and south of the peninsula. The Spanish Bourbons held
Naples and Sicily, as well as the duchy of Parma.
Of the nominally independent states the chief were the kingdom
of Sardinia, ruled over by the house of Savoy, and comprising
Piedmont, the isle of Sardinia and nominally Savoy and Nice, though
the two provinces last named had virtually been lost to the
monarchy since the campaign of 1793. Equally extensive, but less
important in the political sphere, were the Papal States and
Veneti, the former torpid under the obscurantist rule of pope and
cardinals, the latter enervated by luxury and the policy of unmanly
complaisance long pursued by doge and council. The ancient rival of
Venice, Genoa, was likewise far gone in decline. The small states,
Lucca and San Marino, completed the
map of Italy. The worst governed part of the
peninsula was the south, where feudalism lay heavily on the
cultivators and corruption pervaded all ranks. Milan and Piedmont
were comparatively well governed; but repugnance to Austrian rule
in the former case, and the contagion of French Jacobinical
opinions in the latter, brought those populations into increasing
hostility to the rulers. The democratic propaganda, which was
permeating all the large towns of the peninsula, then led to the
formation of numerous and powerful clubs and secret societies; and
the throne of Victor Amadeus III., of the house of Savoy, soon
began to totter under the blows delivered by the French troops at
the mountain barriers of his kingdom and under the insidious
assaults of the friends of liberty at Turin. Plotting was rife at
Milan, as also at Bologna, where the memory of old liberties
predisposed men to cast off clerical rule and led to the first
rising on behalf of Italian liberty in the year 1794. At Palermo
the Sicilians struggled hard to establish a republic in place of
the odious government of an alien dynasty.
Bona- The anathemas of the pope, the bravery of
Piedmontese and Austrians, and the subsidies of Great
Britain failed to keep the
league of Italian princes against France intact. The grand-duke of
Tuscany was the first of the European sovereigns who made peace
with, and recognized the French republic, early in 1795. The first
fortnight of Napoleons campaign of 1796 detached Sardinia from
alliance with Austria and England. The enthusiasm of the Italians
for the young Corsican liberator greatly helped his progress. Two
months later Ferdinand of Naples sought for an
armistice, the central duchies were easily
overrun, and, early in 1797, Pope
Pius VI. was fain to sign terms of peace with
Bonaparte at Tolentino,
practically ceding the northern part of his states, known as the
Legations. The surrender of the last Habsburg stronghold, Mantua,
on the 2nd of February 1797 left the field clear for the erection
of new political institutions.
Already the men of Reggio, Modena and Bologna had declared for a
democratic policy, in which feudalism and clerical rule should have
no place, and in which manhood suffrage, TahdeaCnIes~ together with
other rights promised by Bonaparte Republin to the men of Milan in
May 1796, should form the basis of a new order of things. In
,taking this step the Modenese and Romagnols had the encouragement
of Bonaparte, despite the orders which the French
directory sent to him in a
contrary sense. The result was the formation of an assembly at
Modena which abolished feudal dues and customs, declared for
manhood suffrage and established the Cispadane Republic (October
1796).
The close of Bonapartes victorious campaign against the Archduke
Charles in 1797 enabled him to mature those designs respecting
Venice which are detailed in the article
NAPOLEON. On a far higher level was his
conduct towards the Milanese. While the French directory saw in
that province little more than a district which might be plundered
and bargained for, Bonaparte, though by no means remiss in the
exaction of gold and of artistic treasures, was laying the
foundation of a friendly republic. During his sojourn at the castle
of Montebello or Mombello, near I\Iilan, he commissioned several of
the leading men of northern Italy to draw up a project of
constitution and list of reforms for that province. Meanwhile he
took care to curb the excesses of the Italian
Jacobins and to
encourage the Moderates, who were favorable to the French
connection as promising a guarantee against Austrian domination and
internal anarchy. He summed up his conduct in the letter of the 8th
of May 1797 to the French directory, I cool the hot heads here and
warm the cool ones. The Transpadane Republic, or, as it was soon
called, the Cisalpine 7l~~ Republic, began its organized life on
the 9th of July Republic. 1797, with a brilliant festival at Milan.
The constitution was modelled on that of the French directory, and,
lest there should be a majority of clerical or Jacobinical
deputies, the French Republic through its general, Bonaparte,
nominated and appointed the first deputies
and administrators of the
new government. In the same month it was joined by the Cispadane
Republic; and the terms of the treaty of Campo Formio (October 17,
1797), while fatal to the political life of Venice, awarded to this
now considerable state the Venetian territories west of the river
Adige. A month later, under the pretence of stilling the civil
strifes in the Valtelline, Bonaparte absorbed that Swiss district
in the Cisalpine Republic, which thus included all the lands
between Como and Verona on the north, and Rimini on the south.
Early in the year 1798 the Austrians, in pursuance of the scheme
of partition agreed on at Campo Formio, entered Venice and brought
to an end its era of independence which had lasted some 1100 years.
Venice with its mainland End of the territories east of the Adige,
inclusive of Istria and Dalmatia, went to the Habsburgs, while the
Venetian isles of the Adriatic (the lonian Isles) and the Venetian
fleet went to strengthen France for that eastern expedition on
which Bonaparte had already set his heart. Venice not only paid the
costs of the war to the two chief belligerents, but her naval
resources also helped to
launch the young general on his career of
eastern adventure. Her former rival, Genoa, bad also been
compelled, in June 1797, to
bow
before the young conqueror, and had undergone at his hands a
remodelling on the lines already followed at Milan. The new Genoese
republic, French in all but name, was renamed the Ligurian
Republic.
Before he set sail for Egypt, the French had taken possession of
Rome. Already maste,rs of the papal fortress of Ancona, they began
openly to
challenge the
popes authority F~nch at the Eternal City itself. Joseph Bonaparte,
then occupaFrench
envoy to the
Vatican, encouraged democratic tion of manifestations; and one of
them, at the close of 1797, Rome. led to a scuffle in which a
French general, Duphot, was killed. The French directory at once
ordered its general, Berthier, to march to Rome: the Roman
democrats proclaimed a republic on the 15th of February 1798, and
on their invitation Berthier and his troops marched in. The pope,
Pius VI., was forthwith haled away to Siena and a year later to
Valence in the south of France,
where he died. Thus fell the temporal power. The liberators of Rome
thereupon proceeded to
plunder the city in a way which brought shame
on their cause and disgrace (perhaps not wholly deserved) on the
general left in command, Massna.
These events brought revolution to the gates of the kingdom of
Naples, the worst-governed part of Italy, where the boorish king,
Ferdinand IV. (il
r lazzarone, he was termed), N I
and his whimsical
consort, Maria Carolina, scarcely apes. held in
check the discontent of their own subjects. A British fleet under
Nelson, sent into the
Mediterranean in May 1798 primarily for their defence, checkmated
the designs of Bonaparte in Egypt, and then, returning to Naples,
encouraged that court to adopt a spirited policy. It is now known
that the influence of Nelson and of the British ambassador, Sir
William
Hamilton, and Lady
Hamilton precipitated the rupture between
Naples and France. The results were disastrous. The Neapolitan
troops at first occupied Rome, but, being badly handled by their
leader, the Austrian general, Mack, they were soon scattered in
flight; and the Republican troops under General The Championnet,
after crushing the stubborn resistance Parthenoof the lazzaroni,
made their way into Naples and
paean proclaimed the Parthenopaean Republic
(January 23, Republic. 1799). The Neapolitan Democrats chose five
of their leading men to be directors. and tithes and feudal dues
and customs were abolished. Much good work was done by the
Republicans during their brief tenure of power,but it soon came to
an endowing to the course of events which favored a reaction
against France. The directcrs of Paris, not content with
overrunning and plundering Switzerland, had outraged German
sentiment in many ways. Further, at the close of 1798 they
virtually compelled the young king of Sardinia, Charles Emmanuel
IV., to abdicate at Turin. He retired to the island of Sardinia,
while the French despoiled Piedmont, thereby adding fuel to the
resentment rapidly growing against them in every part of
Europe.
The outcome of it all was the War of the Second
Coalition, in which Russia,
Austria, Great Britain, Naples and some secondary states of Germany
took part. The incursion Suvarov In itaiy. of an Austro-
Russian army, led by that
strange but magnetic being, Suvarov, decided the campaign in
northern Italy. The French, poorly handled by Schrer and Srurier,
were everywhere beaten, especially at Magnano (April 5) and Cassano
(April 27). Milan and Turin fell before the allies, and
Moreau, who took over the
command, had much difficulty in making his way to the Genoese
coast-line. There he awaited the arrival of Macdonald with the an y
of Naples. That general, Championnets successor, had been compelled
by these reverses and by the threatening pressure of Nelsons fleet
to evacuate Naples and central Italy. In many parts the peasants
and townsfolk, enraged by the
licence of the French, hung on his flank and
rear. The republics set up by the French at Naples, Rome and Milan
collapsed as soon as the French troops retired; and a reaction in
favor of clerical and Austrian influence set in with great
violence. For the events which then occurred at Naples, so
compromising to the reputation of Nelson, see NELSON and NAPLES.
Sir William Hamilton was subsequently recalled in a manner closely
resembling a disgrace, and his place was taken by Paget, who
behaved with mote dignity and tact.
Meanwhile Macdonald, after struggling through central Italy, had
defeated an Austrian force at Modena (June 12, 1799), but Suvarov
was able by
swift movements
utterly to overthrow him at the Trebbia (June 1719). The
wreck of his force drifted away
helplessly towards Genoa. A month later the ambitious young
general, Joubert, who took over Moreaus command and raffled part of
Macdonalds following, was utterly routed by the Austro-Russian army
at Novi (August 15) with the loss of 12,000 men. Joubert perished
in the battle. The growing friction between Austria and Russia led
to the transference of Suvarov and his Russians to Switzerland,
with results which were to be fatal to the allies in that quarter.
But in Italy the Austrian successes continued. Melas defeated
Championnet near Coni on the 4th of November; and a little later
the French garrisons at Ancona and Coni surrendered. The tricolour
which floated triumphantly over all the strongholds of Italy early
in the year, at its close waved only over Genoa, wher Massna
prepared for a stubborn defence. Nice and Savoy also seemed at the
mercy of the invaders. Everywhere the old order of things was
restored. The death of the aged Pop Pius VI. at Valence (August 29,
1799) deprived the French of whatever advantage they had hoped to
gain by dragging him into exile; on the 24th of March 1800 the
conclave, assembled for
greater security on the island of San Giorgio at Venice, electec a
new pontiff, Pius VII.
Such was the position of affairs when Bonaparte returnec from
Egypt and landed at Frjus. The contrast presented b)
his triumphs, whether real or imaginary, to the reverso Campaiza
sustained by the armies of the French directory,
wa~
Marengo. fatal to that
body and to popular institutions in France After the coup detat of
Brumaire (November 1799)
he as First Con~uI, began to~ organize an expedition against th~
Atistrians (Russia having now retired from the coalition), ii
northern Italy. The campaign culminating at Marengo wu the result.
By that triumph (due to Desaix and Kellermani rather than directly
to him), Bonaparte consolidated his owi position in France and
again laid Italy at his feet. The Austriai general, Melas, signed
an armistice whereby he was to retir with his army beyond the river
Mincio. Ten days earlier, namely on the 4th of June, Massna had
been compelled by
hunger to
capitulate at Genoa; but the success at Marengo, followed up by
that of Macdonald in north Italy, and Moreat~ at Hohenlinden
(December 2, 1800), brought the emperor Francis to sue for peace
which was finally concluded -. Treaty of at Luneville on the 9th of
February 1801. The Lunville. Cisalpine and Ligurian Republics
(reconstituted soon after Marengo) were recognized by Austria on
condition that they were independent of France. The rule of Pius
VII. over the Papal States was admitted; and Italian affairs were
arranged much as they were at Campo Formio: Modena and Tuscany now
reverted to French control, their former rulers being promised
compensation in Germany. Naples, easily worsted by the French,
under Miollis, left the British alliance, and made peace by the
treaty of Florence (March 1801), agreeing to withdraw her troops
from the Papal States, to cede Piombino and the Presidii (in
Tuscany) to France and to close her ports to British ships and
commerce. King Ferdinand also had to accept a French garrison at
Taranto, and other points in the south.
Other changes took place in that year, all of them in favor of
France. By complex and secret bargaining with the court of Madrid,
Bonaparte procured the cession to France Napoleons of
Louisiana, in
North America, and
Parma; while reorganthe duke of Parma (husband of an infanta of
Spain) 1zat1o~ of was promoted by him to the duchy of Tuscany, now
1t8tV. renamed the kingdom of Etruria. Piedmont was declared to be
a military division at the disposal of France (April 21, r8oi); and
on the 21st of September 1802, Bonaparte, then First Consul for
life, issued a decree for its definitive incorporation in the
French Republic. About that time, too, Elba fell into the hands of
Napoleon. Piedmont was organized in six departments on the model of
those of France, and a number of French veterans were settled by
Napoleon in and near the fortress of Alessandria. Besides copying
the Roman habit of planting military colonies, the First Consul
imitated the old conquerors of the world by extending and
completing the road-system of his outlying districts, especially at
those important passes, the Mont Cenis and Simplon. He greatly
improved the rough track over the
Simplon Pass, so that, when finished in
1807, it was practicable for artillery. Milan was the
terminus of the road, and the
construction of the Foro Buonaparte and the completion of the
cathedral added dignity to
the Lombard capital. The Corniche road was improved; and public
works in various parts of Piedmont, and the Cisalpine and Ligurian
Republics attested the foresight and wisdom of the great organizer
of industry and quickener of human energies. The universities of
Pavia and Bologna were reopened and made great progress in this
time of peace and growing prosperity. Somewhat later the Pavia
] was begun in order to connect
Lake Como with the Adriatic
for
barge-traffic.
The personal nature of the tic binding Italy to France was
illustrated by a .curious incident of the winter of I8o2I8O3~
Bonaparte, now First Consul for life, felt strong enough to impose
his will on the Cisalpine Republic and to set at
defiance one of the
stipulations of the treaty of Lunville. On the pretext 01
consolidating that republic, he invited 450 of its leading men tc
come to Lyons to a consulta. In reality he and his agents hac
already provided for the passing of proposals which were agreeable
to him. The deputies having been dazzled by I tes anc reviews,
Talleyrand and Marescalchi, ministers of foreign affain at Paris
and Milan, plied them with hints as to the course to th followed by
the consulta; and, despite the rage of the mon democratic of their
number, everything corresponded to thi wishes of the First Consul.
It remained to find a chief. Ver) many were in favor of Count
Melzi, a Lombard noble, who hat been chief of the executive at
Milan; but again Talleyrand ant French agents set to work on behalf
of their master, with thi result that he was elected president for
ten years. He accepte that office because, as he frankly informed
the deputies, he ha(found no one who for his services rendered to
his country his authority with the people and his separation from
part~
has deserved such an office. Melzi was elected vice-president
with merely honorary functions. The constitution comprised a
consulla charged with executive duties, a legislative body of 150
members and a court charged with the maintenance of the fundamental
laws. These
three bodies were to be chosen
by three electoral colleges consisting of (a) landed proprietors,
(b) learned men. and clerics, (c) merchants and traders, holding
their sessions biennially at Milan, Bologna and Brescia
respectively. In practice the consulta could override the
legislature; and, as the consulta was little more than the organ of
the president, the whole constitution may be pronounced as
autocratic as that of France after the changes brought about by
Bonaparte in August 1802. Finally we must note that the Cisalpine
now took the name of the Italian Republic, and that by a concordat
with the pope, Bonaparte regulated its relations to the Holy See in
a manner analogous to that adopted in the famous French concordat
promulgated at
Easter 1802
(see CONCORDAT). It remains to add that the Ligurian Republic and
that of Lucca remodelled their constitutions in a way somewhat
similar to that of the Cisalpine.
Bonapartes ascendancy did not pass unchallenged. Many of the
Italians retained their enthusiasm for democracy and national
independence. In 1803 movements in these directions Kingdom .
of itaLy. took place at Rimim, Brescia and Bologna; but they
were sharply repressed, and most Italians came to acquiesce in the
Napoleonic supremacy as inevitable and indeed beneficial. The
complete disregard shown by Napoleon for one of the chief
conditions of the treaty of Lunville (February 1801)that
stipulating for the independence of the Ligurian and Cisalpine
Republicsbecame more and more apparent every year. Alike in
political and commercial affairs they were for all practical
purposes dependencies of France. Finally, after the proclamation of
the French empire (May 18, 1804) Napoleon proposed to place his
brother Joseph over the Italian state, which now took the title of
kingdom of Italy. On Joseph declining, Napoleon finally decided to
accept the crown which Melzi, Marescalchi, Serbelloni and others
begged him to assume. Accordingly, on the 26th of May i8o5, in the
cathedral at Milan, he crowned himself with the iron crown of the
old Lombard kings, using the traditional formula, God gave it me:
let him beware who touches it. On the 7th of June he appointed his
step-son,
Eugene Beauharnais, to be
viceroy.
Eugene soon found
that his chief duty was to enforce the wifi of Napoleon. The
legislature at Milan having ventured to alter some details of
taxation, Eugene received the following rule of conduct from his
step-father: Your system of government is simple: the emperor wills
it to be thus. Republicanism was now everywhere discouraged. The
little republic of Lucca, along with Piombino, was now awarded as a
principality by the emperor to Elisa Bonaparte and her husband,
Bacciocchi.
In June 1805 there came a last and intolerable affront to the
emperors of Austria and Russia, who at that very time were seeking
to put bounds to Napoleons ambition and to redress the balance of
power. The French emperor, at the supposed request of the doge of
Genoa, declared the Ligurian Republic to be an integral part of the
French empire. This defiance to the sovereigns of Russia and
Austria rekindled the flames of war. The third coalition was formed
between Great Britain, Russia and Austria, Naples soon joining its
ranks.
For the chief events of the ensuing campaigns see NAPOLEONIC
CAMPAIGNS. While Massna pursued the Austrians into their own lands
at the close of I8o5, Italian forces under Eugene and Gouvion St
Cyr (q.v.) held their ground against allied forces landed at
Naples. After
Austerlitz (December 2, 1805) Austria made
peace by the treaty of
Pressburg, ceding to the kingdom of Italy her
part of Venetia along with the provinces of Istria and Dalmatia.
Napoleon then turned fiercely against Maria Carolina of Naples
upbraiding her with her perfidy. He sent Joseph Bonaparte and
Massna southwards with a strong column, compelled the Anglo-Russian
forces to evacuati Naples, and occupied the south of the peninsula
with littli opposition except at the fortress of Gaeta. The Bourbon
courl sailed away to Palermo, where it remained for eight years
under the protection afforded by the British fleet and a British
army of occupation. On the 15th of February 18o6 Joseph Bonaparte
entered Naples in triumph, hi~
troops capturing there two hundred pieces of
cannon. in Naples. Gaeta, however, held out
stoutly against the French.
Sir Sidney Smith with a
British
squadron captured
Capri (February 18o6), and the peasants of the Abruzzi and Calabria
soon began to give trouble. Worst of all was the arrival of a small
British force in Calabria under Sir John.
Stuart, which
beat off with heavy loss an attack imprudently
delivered by General Rynier on. level ground near the village of
Maida (July 4). The steady volleys
of Kempts light infantry were fatal to the French, who fell back in
disorder under a
bayonet
charge of the victors, with the loss of some 2700 men. Calabria now
rose in. revolt against King Joseph, and the peasants dealt out
savage reprisals to the French troops. On the 18th
of July, however, Gaeta surrendered to Massna, and that marshal,
now moving rapidly southwards, extricated Rynier, crushed the
Bourbon rising in Calabria with great barbarity, and compelled the
British force to re-embark for Sicily. At Palermo Queen Maria
Carolina continued to make vehement but futile efforts for the
overthrow of King Joseph.
It is more important to observe that under Joseph and his
ministers or advisers, including the Frenchmen Roederer, Dumas,
Miot de Melito and the Corsican Saliceti, great progress
was made in abolishing feudal laws and customs, in reforming the
judicial procedure and criminal laws on the model of the
Code Napoleon, and
in attempting the beginnings of elementary education. More
questionable was Josephs policy in closing and confiscating the
property of 213 of the richer monasteries of the land. The monks
were pensioned off, but though the confiscated property helped to
fill the empty coffers of the state, the measure aroused widespread
alarm and resentment among that superstitious people.
The peace of
Tilsit (July
7, 1807) enabled Napoleon to press on his projects for securing the
command of the Mediterranean, thenceforth a fundamental
axiom of his policy. Consequently,
in. the autumn of 1807 he urged on Joseph the adoption of vigorous
measures for the capture of Sicily. Already, in the negotiations
with England during the summer of 1806, the emperor had shown his
sense of the extreme importance of gaining possession of that
island, which indeed caused the breakdown of the peace proposals
then being considered; and now he ordered French squadrons into the
Mediterranean in order to secure
Corfu and Sicily. His plans respecting Corfu
succeeded. That island and some of the adjacent isles fell into the
hands of the French (some of them were captured by British troops
in 180910); but Sicily remained unassailable. Capri, however, fell
to the French on the 18th of October 1808, shortly after the
arrival at Naples of the new king, Murat.
This ambitious marshal, brother-in-law of Napoleon, foiled in
his hope of gaining the crown of Spain, received that of Naples in
the summer of 1808, Joseph Bonaparte being moved M
from Naples to Madrid. This arrangement pleased King of neither
of the relatives of the emperor; but his will Naples, now was law
on the continent. Joseph left Naples on the 23rd of May 18o8; but
it was not until the 6th of September that
Joachim Murat made his entry. A fortnight
later his consort
Caroline
arrived, and soon showed a vigour and restlessness of spirit which
frequently clashed with the dictates of her brother, the emperor
and the showy, unsteady policy of her consort. The Spanish national
rising of 1808 and thereafter the
Peninsular War diverted Napoleons
attention from the affairs of south Italy. In June 1809, during his
campaign against Austria, Sir John Stuart with an Anglo-Sicilian
force sailed northwards, captured Ischia and threw Murat into great
alarm; but on the news of the Austrian defeat at
Wagram Stuart sailed back again.
It is now time to turn to the affairs of central Italy. Early it
18o8 Napoleon. proceeded with plans which he had secretl) concerted
after the treaty of Tilsit for transferring the infantf of Spain
who, after the death of her consort, reigned at Florence on behalf
of her young son,
Charles Louis, from
her kingdom of Etruria to the little principality of
Entre
Douro e Ceeral Minho which he proposed to carve out from the
north Y~ of
Portugal.
Etruria reverted to the French empire, but the Spanish princess and
her son did not receive the promised
indemnity. Elisa Bonaparte and her husband,
Bacciocchi, rulers of Lucca and Piombino, became the heads of the
administration in Tuscany, Elisa showing decided governing
capacity.
The last part of the peninsula to undergo the Gallicizing
influence was the papal dominion. For some time past the relations
between Napoleon and the pope, Pius VII., had been Napoleon
severely strained, chiefly because the emperor insisted ~pacj~ on
controlling the church, both in France and in the kingdom of Italy,
in a way inconsistent with the traditions of the Vatican, but also
because the pontiff refused to grant the divorce between Jerome
Bonaparte and the former Miss Patterson on which Napoleon early in
the year 1806 laid so much stress. These and other disputes led the
emperor, as successor of
Charlemagne, to treat the pope in a very
highhanded way. Your Holiness (he wrote) is sovereign of Rome, but
I am its emperor; and he threatened to annul the presumed donation
of Rome by Charlemagne, unless the pope yielded implicit obedience
to him in all temporal affairs. He further exploited the
Charlemagne tradition for the benefit of the continental system,
that great
engine of
commercial war by which he hoped to assure the ruin of England.
This aim prompted the annexation of Tuscany, and his intervention
in the affairs of the Papal States. To this the pope assented under
pressure from Napoleon; but the latter soon found other pretexts
for intervention, and in February 1808 a French column under
Miollis occupied Rome, and deposed the papal authorities. Against
this violence Pius VII. protested in vain. Napoleon sought to push
matters to an extreme, and on the 2nd of April Annexa- he adopted
the rigorous measure of annexing to the tion of the kingdom of
Italy the papal provinces of Ancona, Papal Urbino, Macerata and
Camerina. This measure, which States, seemed to the pious an act of
sacrilege, and to
Italian patriots an
outrage
on the only independent sovereign of the peninsula, sufficed for
the present. The outbreak of war in Spain, followed by the rupture
with Austria in the spring of 1809, distracted the attention of the
emperor. But after the occupation of Vienna the conqueror dated
from that capital on the 17th of May 1809 a decree virtually
annexing Rome and the Painmonium Petri to the French empire. Here
again he cited the action of Charlemagne, his august predecessor,
who had merely given certain domains to the bishops of Rome as
fiefs, though Rome did not thereby cease to be part of his
empire.
In reply the pope prepared a bull of excommunication against
those who should infringe the prerogatives of the Holy See in this
matter. Thereupon the French general, Miollis, who still occupied
Rome, caused the pope to be arrested and carried him away
northwards into Tuscany, thence to Savona; finally he was taken, at
Napoleons orders, to
Fontainebleau. Thus, a second time, fell
the temporal power of the papacy. By an imperial decree of the I7th
of February 1810, Rome and the neighboring districts, including
Spoleto, became part of the French empire. Rome thenceforth figured
as its second city, and entered upon a new life under the
administration of French officials. The Roman territory was divided
into two departmentsthe Tiber and Trasimenus; the Code Napoleon was
introduced, public works were set on foot and great advance was
made in the material sphere. Nevertheless the harshness with which
the emperor treated the Roman clergy and suppressed the monasteries
caused deep resentment to the orthodox.
There is no need to detail the fortunes of the Napoleonic states
in Italy. One and all they underwent the influences emanating
Character from Paris; and in respe& to civil administration, of
Napo- law, judicial procedure, education and public works, Ieon~s
they all experienced great benefits, the results of which rule,
never wholly disappeared. On the other hand, they suffered from the
rigorous measures of the continental system, which seriously
crippled trade at the ports and were not compensated by the
increased facilities for trade with France which Napoleon opened
up. The drain of men to supply his armies in Germany, Spain and
Russia was also a serious loss. A powerful Italian corps marched
under Eugene
Beauharnais to
Moscow, and distinguished itself at
Malo-Jaroslavitz, as also during th~ horrors of the retreat in the
closing weeks of 1812. It is said that out of 27,000 Italians who
entered Russia with Eugene, only 333 saw their country again. That
campaign marked the beginning of the end for the Napoleonic
domination in Italy as else- Collapse where. Murat, left in command
of the Grand Army at of ?VapoVilna, abandoned his charge and
in the next year made Icons overtures to the allies who coalesced
against Napoleon. rule.
For his vacillations at this time and his final fate, see MURAT.
Here it must suffice to say that the uncertainty caused by his
policy in 1813-1814 had no small share in embarrassing Napoleon and
in precipitating the downfall of his power in Italy. Eugene
Beauharnais, viceroy of the kingdom of Italy, showed both constancy
and courage; but after the battle of
Leipzig (October 1619, 1813) his power crumbled
away under the assaults of the now victorious Austrians. By an
arrangement with Bavaria, they were able to march through Tirol and
down the valley of the Adige in force, and overpowered the troops
of Eugene whose position was fatally compromised by the defection
of Murat and the dissensions among the Italians. Very many of them,
distrusting both of these kings, sought to act independently in
favor of an Italian republic. Lord
William Bentinck with an AngloSicilian
force landed at Leghorn on the 8th of March 1814, and issued a
proclamation to the Italians bidding them rise against Napoleon in
the interests of their own freedom. A little later he gained
possession of Genoa. Amidst these schisms the defence of Italy
collapsed. On the 16th of April 1814 Eugene, on hearing of
Napoleons overthrow at Paris, signed an armistice at Mantua by
which he was enabled to send away the French troops beyond the Alps
and entrust himself to the consideration of the allies. The
Austrians, under General
Bellegarde, entered Milan without
resistance; and this event precluded the restoration of the old
political order.
The arrangements made by the allies in accordance with the
treaty of Paris (June I 2, 1814) and the Final Act of the
congress of
Vienna (June 9, 1815), imposed on Italy boundaries which,
roughly speaking, corresponded to those of the pre-Napoleonic era.
To the kingdom of Sardinia, now reconstituted under Victor Emmanuel
I., France ceded its old provinces, Savoy and Nice; and the allies,
especially Great Britain and Austria, insisted on the addition to
that monarchy of the territories of the former republic of Genoa,
in respect of which the king took the title of duke of Genoa, in
order to strengthen it for the duty of acting as a buffer state
between France and the smaller states of central Italy. Austria
recovered the Milanese, and all the possessions of the old Venetian
Republic on the mainland, including Istria and Dalmatia. The lonian
Islands, formerly belonging to Venice, were, by a treaty signed at
Paris on the 5th of November 1815, placed under the protection of
Great Britain. By an instrument signed on the 24th of April 1815,
the Austrian territories in north Italy were erected into the
kingdom of
Lombardo-Venetia, which, though an integral
part of the Austrian empire, was to enjoy a separate
administration, the
symbol of
its separate individuality being the coronation of the emperors
with the ancient iron crown of Lombardy (Proclamation de lempereur
dAutriche, &c., April 7, 1815, State Papers, ii. 906).
Francis IV., son of the
archduke
Ferdinand of Austria and Maria
Beatrice, daughter of Ercole Rinaldo, the last of the Estensi, was
reinstated as duke of Modena. Parma and Piacenza were assigned to
Marie Louise,
daughter of the Austrian emperor and wife of Napoleon, on behalf of
her son, the little Napoleon, but by subsequent arrangements
(1816-1817) the duchy was to revert at her death to the Bourbons of
Parma, then reigning at Lucca. Tuscany was restored to the
grand-duke
Ferdinand
III. of Habsburg-Lorraine. The duchy of Lucca was given to
Marie Louise of BourbonParma, who, at the death of Marie Louise of
Austria, would return to Parma, when Lucca would be handed over to
Tuscany. The pope, Pius VII., who had long been kept under
restraint by Napoleon at
Fontainebleau, returned to Rome in May 1814, and was recognized by
the congress of Vienna (not without some demur on the part of
Austria) as the sovereign of all the former possessions of the Holy
See. Ferdinand IV. of Naples, not long after the death of his
consort, Maria Carolina, in Austria, returned from Sicily to take
possession of his dominions on the mainland. He received them back
in their entirety at the hands of the powers, who recognized his
new title of Ferdinand I. of the Two Sicilies. The rash attempt of
Murat in the autumn of 1815, which led to his death at Pizzo in
Calabria, enabled the Bourbon dynasty to crush malcontents with all
the greater severity. The reaction, which was dull and heavy in the
dominions of the pope and of Victor Emmanuel, systematically harsh
in the Austrian states of the north, and comparatively mild in
Parma and Tuscany, excited the greatest loathing in southern Italy
and Sicily, because there it was directed by a dynasty which had
aroused feelings of hatred mingled with contempt.
There were special reasons why Sicily should harbour these
feelings against the Bourbons. During eight years (1806-1814) the
chief places of the island had been garrisoned by British troops;
and the commander of the force which upheld the tottering rule of
Ferdinand at Palermo naturally had great authority. The British
government, which awarded a large annual
subsidy to the king and queen at Palermo,
claimed to have some control over the administration. Lord William
Bentinck finally took over large administrative powers, seeing that
Ferdinand, owing to his dulness, and Maria Carolina, owing to her
very suspicious intrigues with Napoleon, could never be trusted.
The contest between the royal power and that of the Sicilian
estates threatened to bring matters to a deadlock, until in 1812,
under the impulse of Lord William Bentinck, a constitution modelled
largely on that of England was passed by the estates. After the
retirement of the British troops in 1814 the constitution lapsed,
and the royal authority became once more absolute. But the memory
of the benefits conferred by the English constitution remained
fresh and green amidst the arid waste of repression which followed.
It lived on as one of the impalpable but powerful influences which
spurred on the Sicilians and the democrats of Naples to the efforts
which they put forth in 1821, 1830, 1848 and 186o:
This result, accruing from British intervention, was in some
respects similar to that exerted by Napoleon on the Italians of the
mainland. The brutalities of Austrias white coats in the north, the
unintelligent repression then characteristic of the house of Savoy,
the petty spite of the duke of Modena, the medieval obscurantism of
pope and cardinals in the middle of the peninsula and the clownish
excesses of Ferdinand in the south, could not blot out from the
minds of the Italians the recollection of the benefits derived from
the just laws, vigorous administration and enlightened aims of the
great emperor. The hard but salutary training which they had
undergone at his hands had taught them that they were the equals of
the northern races both in the council chamber and on the field of
battle. It had further revealed to them that truth, which once
grasped can never be forgotten, that, despite differences of
climate, character and speech, they were in all essentials a
nation. (J. Hr.. R.)
E. The Risorgimento, 1815-1870
As the result of the Vienna treaties, Austria became the real
mistress of Italy. Not only
did she govern Lombardy and Venetia directly, but Austrian princes
ruled in Modena, Parma and Tuscany; Piacenza, Ferrara and Comacchio
had Austrian garrisons; Prince Metternich, the Austrian chancellor,
believed that he could always secure the election of an Austrophil
pope, and Ferdinand of Naples, reinstated by an Austrian army, had
bound himself, by a secret article of the treaty of June 12, 1815,
not to introduce methods of government incompatible with those
adopted in Austrias Italian possessions. Austria also concluded
offensive and defensive alliancqs with Sardinia Tuscany and Naples;
and Metternichs ambition was to make Austrian predominance over
Italy still more absolute, by placing an Austrian archduke on the
Sardinian throne.
Victor Emmanuel I., the king of Sardinia, was the only native
ruler in the peninsula, and the Savoy dynasty was popular with all
classes. But although welcomed with enthusiasm Reaction on his
return to Turin, he introduced a system of in the reaction which,
if less brutal, was no less uncom- Italian promising than that of
Austrian archdukes or Bourbon States. princes. His object was to
restore his dominions to the conditions preceding the French
occupation. The French system of taxation was maintained because it
brought in ampler revenues; but feudalism, the antiquated
legislation and bureaucracy were revived, and all the officers and
officials still living who had served the state before the
Revolution, many of them now in their dotage, were restored to
their posts; only nobles were eligible for the higher government
appointments; all who had served under the French administration
were dismissed pr reduced in rank, and in the army beardless scions
of the aristocracy were placed over the ,heads of war-worn veterans
who had commanded regiments in Spain and Russia. The influence of a
bigoted priesthood was re-established, and every form of
intellectual and moral torment, everything save actual persecution
and physical torture that could be inflicted on- the impure was
inflicted (Cesare Balbos Autobiography). All this soon provoked
discontent among the educated classes. In Genoa the government was
particularly unpopular, for the Genoese resented being handed over
to their old enemy Piedmont like a
flock of sheep. Nevertheless the king strongly
disliked the Austrians, and would willingly have seen them driven
from Italy.
In Lombardy French rule had ended by making itself unpopular,
and even before the fall of Napoleon a national party, called the
Italici p-un, had begun to advocate the independence of Lombardy,
or even its union with Sardinia. At first a part of the population
were content with Austrian rule, which provided an honest and
efficient administration; but the rigid system of centralization
which, while allowing the semblance of local autonomy, sent every
minute question for settlement to Vienna; the severe police
metho4ls; the bureaucracy, in which the best appointments were
usually conferred on Germans or Slays wholly dependent on Vienna,
proved galling to the people, and in view of the growing
disnffection the country was turned into a vast armed camp. In
Modena Duke Francis proved a cruel tyrant. In Parma, on the other
hand, there was very little oppression, the French codes were
retained, and the council of state was consulted on all legislative
matters. Lucca too enjoyed good government, and the peasantry were
well cared for and prosperous. In Tuscany the rule of Ferdinand and
of his minister Fossombroni was mild and benevolent, but enervating
and demoralizing. The Papal States were ruled by a unique system of
theocracy, for not only
the head of the state but all the more important officials were
ecclesiastics, assisted by the Inquisition, the Index and all the
paraphernalia of
medieval church government. The administration ~ was inefficient
and corrupt, the censorship uncompromising, the police ferocious
and oppressive, although quite unable to cope with the prevalent
anarchy and
brigandage; the antiquated pontifical
statutes took the place of the French laws, and every vestige of
the vigorous old communal independence was swept away. In Naples
King Ferdinand retained some of the laws and institutions of Murats
rgime, and many of the functionaries of the former government
entered Naples his service; but he revived the Bourbon tradition,
the odious police system and the censorship; and a degrading
religious bigotry, to which the masses were all too much inclined,
became the basis of government and social iife. The upper classes
were still to a large extent inoculated with French ideas, but the
common people were either devoted to the dynasty or indifferent. In
Sicily, which for centuries had enjoyed a feudal constitution
modernized and Anglicized under British auspices in 1812, and where
anti-Neapolitan feeling was strong, autonomy was suppressed, the
constitution abolished in 1816, and the island, as a reward for its
fidelity to the dynasty, converted into a Neapolitan province
governed by Neapolitan bureaucrats.
To the mass of the people the restoration of the old governments
undoubtedly brought a sense of relief, for the terrible drain in
men and money caused by Napoleon.s wars had caused much discontent,
whereas now there was a prospect of peace and rest. But the
restored governments in their terror of revolution would not
realize that the late rgime had wafted a breath of new life over
the country and left ineffaceable traces in the way of improved
laws, efficient administration, good roads and the sweeping away of
old abuses; while the new-born idea of Italian unity, strengthened
by a national pride revived on many a stricken field from Madrid to
Moscow, was a force to be reckoned with. The oppression and follies
of the restored governments made men forget the evils of French
rule and remember only its good side. The masses were still more or
less indifferent, but among the nobility and the educated middle
Secret classes, cut off from all part in free political life, there
societies, was developed either the spirit of despair at Italys The
Car.. moral degradation, as expressed in the writings of bonarl.
Foscolo and Leopardi, or a passion. of hatred and revolt, which
found its manifestation, in spite of severe laws, in the
development of secret societies. The most important of these were
the
Carbonari lodges,
whose objects were the expulsion of the foreigner and the
achievement of constitutional freedom (see CARBONARI).
When Ferdinand returned to Naples in 1815 he found the kingdom,
and especially the army, honeycombed with CarbonarQevolu- ism, to
which many noblemen and officers were tiot, if, affiliated; and
although the police instituted prosecuNaples, tions and organized
the counter-movement of the 1820. Calderai, who may be compared to
the Black Hundreds of modern Russia, the revolutionary spirit
continued to grow, but it was not at first anti-dynastic. The
granting of the Spanish constitution of 1820 proved the signal for
the beginning of the Italian. liberationist movement; a military
mutiny led by two officers,
Silvati and Morelli, and the
priest Menichini, broke out at Monteforte, to
the cry of God, the King, and the Constitution! The troops sent
against them commanded by General
Guglielmo Pepe, himself a Carbonaro,
hesitated to act, and the king, finding that he could not count on
the army, granted the constitution (July 13, 1820), and appointed
his son Francis
regent. The
events that followed are described in the article on the history of
Naples (q.v.). Not only did the constitution, which was modelled on
the impossible Spanish constitution of 1812, prove unworkable, but
the powers
of the Grand Alliance, whose
main object was to keep the peace of Europe, felt themselves bound
to interfere to prevent the evil precedent of a successful military
revolution. The diplomatic developments that led to tijie
intervention of Austria are sketched elsewhere (see EUROPE:
History); in general the result of the deliberations of the
congresses of
Troppau and
Laibach was to establish, not
the general right of intervention claimed in. the Troppau
Protocol, but the special
right of Austria to safeguard her interests in Italy. The defeat of
General Pepe by the Austrians at Rieti (March 7, 1821) and the
re-establishment of King Ferdinands autocratic power under the
protection of Austrian bayonets were the effective assertion of
this principle.
The movement in Naples had been purely local, for the Neapolitan
Carbonari had at that time no thought save of Naples; it was,
moreover, a movement of the middle ~ 517 and upper classes in which
the masses took little Piedmont. interest. Immediately after the
battle of Rieti a Carbonarist mutiny broke out in Piedmont
independently of events in the south. Both King Victor Emmanuel and
his brother Charles Felix had no sons, and the heir presumptive to
the throne was Prince
Charles Albert, of the
Carignano branch of the
house of Savoy. Charles
Albert felt a certain interest in
Liberal ideas and was always surrounded by young nobles of
Carbonarist and anti-Austrian tendencies, and was therefore
regarded with suspicion by his royal relatives, Metter nich, too,
had an instinctive dislike for him, and proposed to exclude him
from the succession by marrying one of the kings daughters to
Francis of Modena, and getting the
Salic law abolished so that the succession
would pass to the duke and Austria would thus dominate Piedmont.
The Liberal movement had gained ground in Piedmont as in Naples
among the younger nobles and officers, and the events of Spain and
southern Italy aroused much excitement. In March 1821, Count
Santorre di Santarosa and other conspirators informed Charles
Albert of a constitutional and anti-Austrian plot, and asked for
his help. After a momentary hesitation he informed the king; but at
his request no arrests were made, and no precautions were taken. On
the 10th of March the garrison of Alessandria mutinied, and its
example was followed on the 12th by that of Turin, where the
Spanish constitution was demanded, and the black, red and blue
flag of the Carbonari paraded the
Streets. The next day the king abdicated after appointing Charles
Albert regent. The latter immediately proclaimed the constitution,
but the new king, Charles Felix, who was at Modena at the time,
repudiated the regents acts and exiled him to Tuscany; and, with
his consent, an Austrian army invaded Piedmont and crushed the
constitutionalists at Novara. Many of the conspirators were
condemned to death, but all succeeded in escaping. Charles Felix
was most indignant with the ex-regent, but he resented, as an.
unwarrantable interference, Austrias attempt to have him excluded
from the Succession at the
congress of Verona (1822). Charles
Alberts somewhat equivocal conduct also roused the hatred of the
Liberals, and for a long time the esecrato Carignano was regarded,
most unjustly, as a traitor even by many who were not
republicans.
Carbonarism had been. introduced into Lombardy by two Romagnols,
Count Laderchi and Pietro Maroncelli, but the leader of the
movement was Count F. Confalonieri, who was in favor of an Italian
federation composed lEngelsm of northern Italy under the house of
Savoy, central bardy. Italy under the pope, and the kingdom of
Naples. There had been some mild plotting against Austria in Milan,
and an attempt was made to co-operate with the Piedmontese movement
of 1821; already in. 1820 Maroncelli and the poet
Silvio Pellico
had been arrested as Carbonari, and after the movement in Piedmont
more arrests were made. The mission of Gaetano Castiglia and
Marquis Giorgio Pallavicini to Turin, where they had interviewed
Charles Albert, although without any definite resultfor
Confalonieri had warned the prince that Lombardy was not ready to
risewas accidentally discovered, and Confalonieri was himself
arrested. The plot would never have been a menace to Austria but
for her treatment of the conspirators. Pellico and Maron.celli were
immured in the Spielberg; Confalonieri and two dozen others were
condemned to death, their sentences being, however, commuted to
imprisonment in that same terrible fortress. The heroism of the
prisoners, and Silvio Pellicos account of his imprisonment (Le mie
Prigioni), did much to enlist the sympathy of Europe for the
Italian cause.
During the next few years order reigned in Italy, save for a few
unimportant outbreaks in the Papal States; there was, however,
perpetual discontent and agitation, especially The Papal in
Romagna, where misgovernment was extreme. States. Under Pius VII.
and his minister Cardinal Consalvi oppression had not been very
severe, and Metternichs proposal to establish a central
inquisitorial tribunal for political offences throughout Italy had
been rejected by the papal government. But on the death of Pius in
I823, his successor
Leo XII.
(Cardinal Della Genga) proved a ferocious reactionary under whom
barbarous laws were enacted and torture frequently applied. The
secret societies, such as the Carbonari, the Adelfi and the
Bersaghieri dAmerica, which flourished in. Romagna, replied to
these persecutions by assassinating the more brutal officials ans
spies. The events of 1820-1821 increased the agitation in Romagna,
and in 1825 large numbers of persons were condemned to death,
imprisonment or exile. The society of the Sanfedisti, formed of the
dregs of the populace, whose object was to murder every Liberal,
was openly protected and encouraged. Leo died in 1829, and the
mild, religious Pius VIII. (Cardinal Castiglioni)
only reigned until 1830, when
Gregory XVI. (Cardinal Cappellari)
was elected through Austrian influence, and proved another
zelante. The July revolution in Paris and the declaraRoil,; tion of
the new king,
Louis Philippe, that France, as 1830. a
Liberal monarchy, would not only not intervene in the internal
affairs of other countries, but would not permit other powers to do
so, aroused great hopes among the oppressed peoples, and was the
immediate cause of a revolution in Romagna and the Marches. In
February 1831 these provinces rose, raised the red, white and green
tricolor (which henceforth took the place of the Carbonarist colors
as the Italian flag), and shook off the papal yoke with surprising
ease.1 At Parma too there was an outbreak and a demand for the
constitution; Marie Louise could not grant it because of her
engagements with Austria, and, therefore, abandoned her dominions.
In Modena Duke Francis, ambitious of enlarging his territories,
coquetted with the Carbonari of Paris, and opened indirect
negotiations with Menotti, the revolutionary leader in his state,
believing that he might assist him in his plans. Menotti, for his
part, conceived the idea of a united Italian state under the duke.
A rising was organized for February 1831; but Francis got wind of
it, and, repenting of his dangerous dallying with revolution,
arrested Menotti and fled to Austrian territory with his prisoner.
In his absence the insurrection. took place, and Biagio Nardi,
having been elected dictator, proclaimed that Italy is one; the
Italian nation one sole nation. But the French king soon abandoned
his principle of non-intervention. on which the Italian
revolutionists had built their hopes; the Austrians intervened
unhindered; the old governments were re-established in Parma,
Modena and Romagna; and Menotti and many other patriots were
hanged. The Austrians evacuated Romagna in July, but another
insurrection having broken out immediately afterwards which the
papal troops were unable to quell, they returned. This second
intervention gave umbrage to France, who by way of a counterpoise
sent a force to occupy Ancona. These two foreign occupations, which
were almost as displeasing to the pope as to the Liberals, lasted
until 1838. The powers, immediately after the revolt, presented a
memorandum to Gregory recommending certain moderate reforms, but no
attention was paid to it. These various movements proved in the
first place that the masses were by no means ripe for revolution,
and that the idea of unity, although now advocated by a few
revolutionary leaders, was far from being generally accepted even
by the Liberals; and, secondly, that, in spite of the indifference
of the masses, the despotic governments were unable to hold their
own without the assistance of foreign bayonets.
On the 27th of April 1831, Charles Albert succeeded Charles
Felix on the throne of Piedmont. Shortly afterwards he received
Mazzini a letter from an unknown person, in which he was and
exhorted with fiery eloquence to place himself at the Young head of
the movement for liberating and uniting italY. Italy and expelling
the foreigner, and told that he was free to choose whether he would
be the first of men or the last of Italian tyrants. The author was
Giuseppe Mazzini, then a young man of twenty-six years, who, though
in theory a republican, was ready to accept the leadership of a
prince of the house of Savoy if he would guide the nation to
freedom. The only result of his letter, however, was that he was
forbidden to re-enter Sardinian territory. Mazzini, who had learned
te distrust Carbonarism owing to its lack of a guiding principle
and its absurd paraphernalia of ritual and
mystery, had conceived the idea of a more
serious political association for the emancipation of his country
not only from foreign and domestic despotisn~ but from national
faults of character; and this idea he hac materialized in the
organization of a society called the Giovani Italia (Young Italy)
among the Italian refugees at
Marseilles After the events of 1831 he
declared that the liberation of Ital) could only be achieved
through unity, and his great merit lie~
i Among the insurgents of Romagna was
Louis Napoleon,
after wards emperor of the French.
in having inspired a large number of Italians with that idea at
a time when provincial jealousies and the difficulty of
communications maintained separatist feelings. Young Italy spread
to all centres of Italian exiles, and by means of literature
carried on an active propaganda in Italy itself, where the party
came to be called Ghibellini, as though reviving the traditions of
medieval anti-Papalism. Though eventually this activity of the
Giovane Italia supplanted that of the older societies, in practice
it met with no better success; the two attempts to invade Savoy in
the hope of seducing the army from its allegiance failed miserably,
and only resulted in a series of barbarous sentences of death and
imprisonment which made most Liberals despair of Charles Albert,
while they called down much criticism on Mazzini as the organizer
of raids in which he himself took no part. He was now forced to
leave France, but continued his work of agitation from London. The
disorders in Naples and Sicily in 1837 had no connection with
Mazzini, but the forlorn hope of the brothers Bandiera, who in 1844
landed on the Calabrian coast, was the work of the Giovane Italia.
The rebels were captured and shot, but the significance of the
attempt lies in the fact that it was the first occasion on which
north Italians (the Bandieras were Venetians and officers in the
Austrian navy) had tried to raise the standard of revolt in the
south.
Romagna had continued a
prey to
anarchy ever since 1831; the government organized armed bands
called the Centurioni (descended from the earlier Sanfedisti), to
terrorize the Liberals, while the secret societies continued their
propaganda by deeds. It is noteworthy that Romagna was the only
part of Italy where the revolutionary movement was accompanied by
murder. In 1845 several outbreaks occurred, and a band led by
Pietro Renzi captured Rimini, whence a proclamation drawn up by L.
C. Farini was issued demanding the reforms advocated by the powers
memorandum of 1831. But the movement collapsed without result, and
the leaders fled to Tuscany.
Side by side with the Mazzinian propaganda in favor of a united
Italian republic, which manifested itself in secret societies,
plots and insurrections, there was another Liberal movement based
on the education of opinion and on economic development. Liberalism
In Piedmont, in spite of the governments reactionary and methods, a
large part of the population were genuinely ~ attached to the Savoy
dynasty, and the idea of a regenera- meat tion of Italy under its
auspices began to gain ground.
Some writers proclaimed the necessity of building railways,
developing agriculture and encouraging industries, before resorting
to revolution; while others, like the Tuscan
Gino
Capponi, inspired by the example of England and France, wished
to make the people fit for freedom by means of improved schools,
books and
periodicals.
Vincenzo Gioberti published in 1843
his famous treatise Del primato morale e civile degli Italiani, a
work, which, in striking contrast to the prevailing
pessimism of the day,
extolled the past greatness and achievements of the Italian people
and their present virtues. His political ideal was a federation of
all the Italian states under the presidency of the pope, on a basis
of Catholicism, but without a constitution. In spite of all its
inaccuracies and exaggerations the book served a useful purpose in
reviving the self-respect of a despondent people. Another work of a
similar kind was Le Speranze dItalia (1844) by the Piedmontese
Count
Cesare Balbo. Like Gioberti he
advocated a federation of Italian states, but he declared that
before this could be achieved Austria must be expelled from Italy
and compensation found for her in the Near East by making her a
Danubian powera curious forecast that Italys liberation would begin
with an eastern war. He extolled Charles Albert and appealed to his
patriotism; he believed that the church was necessary and the
secret societies harmful; rqpresentative government was
undesirable, but he advocated a consultative assembly. Above all
Italian character must be reformed and the nation educated. A third
important publication was
Massimo dAzeglios Degli ultimi casi di Romagna,
in which the author, another Piedmontese nobleman, exposed papal
misgovernment while condemning the secret societies and advocating
open resistance and protest. He upheld the papacy in principle,
regarded Austria as the great enemy of Italian regeneration, and
believed that the means of expelling her were only to be found in
Piedmont.
Besides the revolutionists and republicans who promoted con~
spiracy and insurrection whenever possible, and the moderates or
Neo-Guelphs, as Giobertis followers were called, we must mention
the Italian exiles who were learning the art of war in foreign
countriesin Spain, in~ Greece, in aas
Poland, in South Americaand those other exiles
who, ~rn CX CS Paris or London, eked out a bare subsistence by
teaching Italian or by their pen, and laid the foundations of that
love of Italy which, especially in England, eventually brought the
weight of diplomacy into the scales for Italian freedom. All these
forces were equally necessarythe revolutionists to keep up
agitation and make government by bayonets impossible; the moderates
to curb the impetuosity of the revolutionists and to present a
scheme of society that was neither reactionary nor anarchical; the
volunteers abroad to gain military experience; and the more
peaceful exiles to spread the name of Italy among foreign peoples.
All the while a vast amount of revolutionary literature was being
printed in Switzerland, France and England, and smuggled into
Italy; the poet Giusti satirized the Italian princes, the dramatist
G. B. Niccolini blasted tyranny in his tragedies, the novelist
Guerrazzi re-evoked the memories of the last struggle for
Florentine freedom in LAssedio di Firenze, and Verdis operas
bristled with political double entendres which escaped the
censor but were understood and
applauded by the
audience.
On the death of Pope Gregory XVI. in 1846 Austria hoped to
secure the election of another zealot; but the Italian cardinals,
who did~not want an Austrophil, finished the conclave EJection of..
--
Pius IX. before the arrival of Cardinal Gaysruck, Austria s
mouthpiece, and in June
elected Giovanni Maria Mastai Ferretti as Pius IX. The new pope,
who while bishop of Imole had evinced a certain interest in
Liberalism, was a kindly man, of inferior intelligence, who thought
that all difficulties could be settled with a little good-will,
some reforms and a political
amnesty. The amnesty which he granted was the
beginning of the immense if short-lived popularity which he was to
enjoy. But he did not move so fast in the path of reform as was
expected, and agitation continued throughout the papal states.i In
1847 some administrative reforms were enacted, the laity were
admitted to certain offices, railways were talked about, and
political
newspapers
permitted. In April Pius created a Consulta, or consultative
assembly, and soon afterwards a council of ministers and a
municipality for
Rome. Here he would willingly have stopped, but he soon realized
that he had hardly begun. Every fresh reform
edict was greeted with demonstrations of
enthusiasm, but the ominous cry Viva Pio Nono
solo! signified dissatisfaction with the whole
system of government. A lay ministry was now demanded, a
constitution, and an Italian federation for war against Austria.
Rumours of a reactionary plot by Austria and the Jesuits against
Pius, induced him to create a national guard and to appoint
Cardinal Ferretti as secretary of state.
Events in Rome produced widespread excitement throughout Europe.
Metternich had declared that the one thing which had not entered
into his calculations was a Liberal pope, only that was an
impossibility; still he was much disturbed by Piuss attitude, and
tried to stem the revolutionary
tide by frightening the princes. Seizing the
agitation in Romagna as a pretext, he had the town of Ferrara
occupied by Austrian troops, which provoked the indignation not
only of the Liberals but also of the pope, for according to the
treaties Austria had the right of occupying the citadel alone.
There was great resentment throughout Italy, and in answer to the
popes request Charles Albert declared that he was with him in
everything, while from South America
Giuseppe Garibaldi wrote to offer
his services to Hi~ Holiness. Charles Albert, although mahftaining
his reactionary policy, had introduced administrative reforms,
built railways, reorganized the army and developed the resources of
the country. He had little sympathy with Liberalism and abhorred
revolution, but his hatred of Austria and his resentment at the
galling tutelage to which she subjected him had gained strength
year by year. Religion was still his dominant passion, and when a
pope in Liberal guise appeared on the scene and was bullied by
Austria, his two strongest feelingspiety and hatred of
Austriaceased Qevolu- to be incompatible. In 1847 Lord Minto
visited the tionary Italian courts to try to induce the
recalcitrant despots agitation, to mend their ways, so as to avoid
revolution and war, 1847. the latter being Englands especial
anxiety; this mission, although not destined to produce much
effect, aroused extravagant hopes among the Liberals. Charles
Louis, the
opera Douffe duke of
Lucca, who had coquetted with Liberalism in the past, now refused
to make any concessions to his subjects, and in Ferdinand III.
since 1824) to whom it would have reverted in any :ase at the
death of the duchess of Parma. At the same time Leopold ceded
Lunigiana to Parma and Modena in equal parts, tn arrangement which
provoked the indignation of the in~iabitants of the district
(especially of those destined to be ruled ~y
Francis V. of Modena, who had succeeded to
Francis IV. in 1846), and led to disturbances at Fivizzano. In
September 1847, Leopold gave way to .the popular agitation for a
national guard, n spite of Metternichs threats, and allowed greater
freedom of Lhe press; every concession made by the pope was
followed by Semands for a similar measure in Tuscany.
Ferdinand I. of the Two Sicilies had died in 1825, and was
succeeded by Francis I. At the latters death in 1830 Ferdinand now
flew to arms, and the Austrian garrisons, except in the
Quadrilateral
(Verona, Peschiera, Mantua and Legnano) were expelled. In Venice
the people, under the leadership of Manin, rose in arms and forced
the military and civil governors (Counts
Zichy and Palify) to sign a capitulation on the
22nd of March, after which the republic was proclaimed. At Milan,
where there was a division of opinion between tha monarchists under
Casati and the republicans under Cattaneo, a provisional
administration was formed and the question of the form of
government postponed for the moment. The duke of Modena and Charles
Louis of Parma (Marie Louise was now dead) abandoned their
capitals; in both cities provisional governments were set up which
subsequently proclaimed annexation to Piedmont. In Rome the pope
gave way to popular clamour, granting one concession after another,
and on the 8th of February he publicly called down Gods blessing on
Italythat Italy hated by the Austrians, whose name it had hitherto
been a crime to mention. On the iath of March he appointed a new
ministry, under Cardinal Antonelli, which included several Liberal
laymen, such as
Marco Minghetti, G. Pasolini, L. C.
Farini and Count G. Recchi. On the 11th a constitution drawn up by
a commission of cardinals, without the knowledge of the ministry,
was promulgated, a constitution which attempted the impossible task
of reconciling the popes temporal power with free institutions. In
the meanwhile preparations for war against Austria were being
carried on with Piuss sanction.
There were now three main political tendencies, viz, the union
of north Italy under Charles Albert and an alliance with the pope
and Naples, a federation of the different states under their
present rulers, and a united republic of all Italy. All parties,
however, were agreed in favor of war against Austria, for which the
peoples forced their unwilling rulers to prepare. But the only
state capable of taking the initiative was Piedmont, and the king
still hesitated. Then came the news of the Five Days of Milan,
which produced the wildest excitement in Turin; unless First war
the army were sent to assist the struggling Lombards of Italy at
once the dynasty was in
jeopardy. Cavours stirring against articles in
the Risorgimento hastened the kings decision, Austria. and on the
23rd of March he declared war (see for the military events
ITALIAN WARS,
184870). But much precious time had been lost, and even then the
army was not ready. Charles Albert could dispose of 90,000 men,
including some 30,000 from central Italy, but he took the field
with only half his force. He might yet have cut off Radetzky on his
retreat, or captured Mantua, which was only held by 300 men. But
his delays lost him both chances and enabled Radetzky to receive
reinforcements from Austria. The pope, unable to resist the popular
demand for war, allowed his army to depart (March 23) under the
command of General Durando, with instructions to act in concert
with Charles Albert, and he corresponded with the grand-duke of
Tuscany and the king of Naples with a view to a military alliance.
But at the same time, fearing a schism in the church should he
attack Catholic Austria, he forbade his troops to do more than
defend the frontier, and in his
Encyclical of the 29th of April stated that,
as head of the church, he could not declare war, but that he was
unable to prevent his subjects from following the example of other
Italians. He then requested Charles Albert to take the papal troops
under his command, and also wrote to the emperor of Austria asking
him voluntarily to relinquish Lombardy and Venetia. Tuscany and
Naples had both joined the Italian league; a Tuscan army started
for Lombardy on the 3oth of April, and 17,000 Neapolitans commanded
by Pepe (who had returned after 28 years of exile) went to assist
Durando in intercepting the Austrian reinforce1irnts under Nugent.
The Piedmontese defeated the enemy ~t Pastrengo (April 30), but did
not profit by the victory. The Neapolitans reached Bologna on the
17th of May, but in the meantime a dispute had broken out at Naples
between the king and parliament as to the nature of the royal oath;
a cry of
treason was raised
by a group of factious youngsters, barricades were erected and
street fighting ensued (May Is). On. the 17th Ferdinand dissolved
parliament and recalled the army.
On receiving -the order to return, Pepe, after hesitating for
some time between his oath to the king and his desire to fight for
Italy, finally resigned his commission and crossed the P0 with a
few thousand men, the rest of his force returning south. The
effects of this were soon felt. A force of Tuscan volunteers was
attacked by a superior body of Austrians at Curtatone and Montanaro
and defeated after a gallant resistance on the 27th of May; Charles
Albert, after wasting precious time round Peschiera, which
capitulated on the 3oth of May, defeated Radetzky at
Goito. But the withdrawal of the
Neapolitans left Durando too weak to intercept Nugent and his
30,000 men; and the latter, although harassed by the inhabitants of
Venetia and repulsed at Vicenza, succeeded in joining Radetzky, who
was soon further reinforced from Tirol. The whole Austrian army now
turned on Vicenza, which after a brave resistance surrendered on
the Ioth of June. All Venetiaexcept the capital was thus once more
occupied by the Austrians. On the 23rd, 24th and 25th of July
(first battle of Custozza) the Piedmontese were defeated and forced
to retire on Milan with Radetzkys superior force in pursuit. The
king was the ,object of a hostile demonstration in Milan, and
although he was ready to defend the city to the last, the town
council negotiated a capitulation with Radetzky. The
mob, egged on by the republicans, attacked the
palace where the king was lodged, and he escaped with difficulty,
returning to Piedmont with the remnants of his army. On the 6th of
August Radetzky re-entered Milan, and three days later an armistice
was concluded between Austria and Piedmont, the latter agreeing to
evacuate Lombardy and Venetia. The offer of French assistance, made
after the proclamation of the republic in the spring of 1848, had
been rejected mainly because France, fearing that the creation of a
strong Italian state would be a danger to her, would have demanded
the cession of Nice and Savoy, which the king refused to
consider.
Meanwhile, the republic had been proclaimed in. Venice; but on
the 7th of July the assembly declared in favor of
fusion with Piedmont, and Manin, who had been
elected president resigned his powers to the royal com- Danicle
Mania and missioners. Soon after
Custozza, however, the Veni~
Austrians blockaded the city on the land side. In Rome the popes
authority weakened day by day, and disorder increased. The Austrian
attempt to occupy Bologna was repulsed by the citizens, but
unfortunately this success was followed by anarchy and murder, and
Farini only with difficulty restored a semblance of order. The
Mamiani ministry having failed to achieve anything, Pius summoned
Pellegrino Rossi,
a learned lawyer who had long been exiled in France, to form a
cabinet. On the 15th of November he was assassinated, and as no one
was punished for this crime the insolence of the disorderly
elements increased, and shots were exchanged with the Swiss Guard.
The terrified pope fled in disguise to Gaeta (November 25), and
when parliament requested him to return he refused even to receive
the deputation. This meant a complete rupture; on the 5th of
February 1849 a constituent assembly was summoned, and on. the gth
it voted the downfall of the temporal power and proclaimed the
republic. Mazzini hurried p~c7ama to Rome to see his dream
realized, and was chosen tlon,of the head of the Triumvirate. On.
the 18th Pius invited Roman the armed intervention of France,
Austria, Naples Republk~ and Spain to restore his authority. In.
Tuscany the government drifted from the moderates to the extreme
democrats; the
Ridolfi
ministry was succeeded after Custozza by that of Ricasoli, and the
latter by that of Capponi. The lower classes provoked disorders,
which were very serious at Leghorn, and were only quelled by
Guerrazzis energy. Capponi resigned in October 1848, and Leopold
reluctantly consented to a democratic ministry led by Guerrazzi and
Montanelli, the former a very ambitious and unscrupulous man, the
latter honest but fantastic. Following the Roman example, a
constituent assembly was demanded to vote on union with Rome and
eventually with the rest of Italy. The grand-duke, fearing an
excommunication from the pope, refused the request, and left
Florence for Siena and S. Stefano; on the 8th of February 1849 the
republic was proclaimed, and on the 2 1st, at the pressing request
of the pope and the king of Naples, Leopold went to Gaeta.
Ferdinand did not openly break his constitutional promises until
Sicily was reconquered. His troops had captured Messina after a
bombardment which
earned him the
sobriquet
of King Bomba; Catania and Syracuse fell soon after, hideous
atrocities being everywhere committed with his sanction. He now
prorogued parliament, adopted stringent measures against the
Liberals, and retired to Gaeta, the haven of refuge for deposed
despots.
But so long as Piedmont was not completely crushed none of the
princes dared to take decisive measures against their subjects; in
spite of Custozza, Charles Albert still had an army, and Austria,
with revolutions in Vienna, Hungary and
Bohemia on her hands, could not intervene. In
Piedmont the Pinelli-Revel ministry, which had continued the
negotiations for an alliance with Leopold and the pope, resigned as
it could not count on a parliamentary majority, and in December the
returned exile Gioberti formed a new ministry. His proposal to
reinstate Leopold and the pope with Piedmontese arms, so as to
avoid Austrian intervention, was rejected by both potentates, and
met with opposition even in Piedmont, which would thereby have
forfeited its prestige throughout Italy. Austrian
mediation was now imminent,
as the Vienna revolution had been crushed, and the new emperor,
Francis
Joseph, refused to consider any settlement other than on the
basis of the treaties of 1815. But Charles Charles Albert, who,
whatever his faults, had a generous Albertre- nature, was
determined that so long as be had an news the army in being he
could not abandon the Lombards War, and the Venetians, whom he had
encouraged in their resistance, without one more effort, though he
knew full well that he was staking all on a desperate
chance. On the 12th of March
1849, he denounced the armistice, and, owing to the want of
confidence in Piedmontese
strategy after 1848, gave the chief command to
the Polish General Chrzanowski. His forces amounted to 80,000 men,
including a Lombard corps and some Roman, Tuscan and other
volunteers. But the discipline and moral of the army were shaken
and its organization faulty. General Ramorino, disobeying his
instructions, failed to prevent a corps of Austrians under Lieut.
Field-Marshal dAspre from seizing
Mortara, a
fault for which he was afterwards courtmartialled
and shot, and after some preliminary fighting Radetzky won the
decisive battle of Novara (March 23) which broke up the Piedmontese
army. The king, who had sought death in vain
all day, had to
ask terms of Radetzky; the latter demanded Accession a slice of
Piedmont and the heir to the throne (Victor of Victor Emmanuel) as
a
hostage, without a
reservation for
Emmanuel the consent of parliament. Charles Albert, realizing ~ his
own failure and thinking that his son might obtain better terms,
abdicated and departed at once for Portugal, where he died in a
monastery a few months later. Victor Emmanuel went in person to
treat with Radetzky on the 24th of March. The Field-Marshal
received him most courteously and offered not only to waive the
demand for a part of Piedmontese territory, but to enlarge the
kingdom, on condition that the constitution should be abolished and
the blue Piedmontese flag substituted for the tricolor. But the
young king was determined to abide by his fathers oath, and had
therefore to agree to an Austrian occupation of the territory
between the P0, the Ticino and, the Sesia, and of half the citadel
of Alessandria, until peace should be concluded, the evacuation of
all districts occupied by his troops outside Piedmont, the
dissolution of his
corps of Lombard, Polish and Hungarian volunteers and the
withdrawal of his fleet from the Adriatic.
Novara set Austria free to reinstate the Italian despots.
Ferdinand at once re-established autocracy in Naples; though the
struggle in Sicily did not end until May, when Palermo, after a
splendid resistance, capitulated. In Tuscany disorder continued,
and although Guerrazzi, who had been appointed dictator, saved the
country from complete anarchy, a large part of the population,
especially among the peasantry, was still oyal to the grand-duke.
After Novara the chief question was iow to avoid an Austrian
occupation, and owing to the prevailing ~onfusion the town council
of Flor~nce took matters into its)Wfl hands and declared the
grand-duke reinstated, but on a ~onstitutional basis and without
foreign help (April 12). Leopold iccepted as regards the
constitution, but said nothing about oreign intervention. Count
Serristori, the grand-ducal comiiissioner, arrived in Florence on
the 4th of May 1849; the -iational guard was disbanded; and on the
25th, the Austrians inder dAspre entered Florence.
On the 28th of July Leopold returned to his capital, and
while :hat event was welcomed by a part of the people, the
fact that ~e had come under Austrian protection ended by destroying
all loyalty to the dynasty, and consequently contributed not a
little to Italian unity.
In Rome the triumvirate decided to defend the republic to the
last. The city was quieter and more orderly than it had ever been
before, for Mazzini and Ciceruacchio success- Gactb~di fully
opposed all class warfare; and in April the defenders received a
priceless addition to their strength in the person of Garibaldi,
who, on the outbreak of the revolution in 1848, had returned with a
few of his followers from his exile in South America, and in April
1849 entered Rome with some 500 men to fight for the republic. At
this time France, as a counterpoise to Austrian intervention in
other parts of Italy, decided to restore the pope, regardless of
the fact that this action would necessitate the crushing of a
sister France republic. As yet, however, no such intention was and
the publicly avowed. On the 25th of April General Roman Oudinot
landed with 8000 men at Civitavecchia, and Republl4 on the 3oth
attempted to capture Rome by suprise, but was completely defeated
by Garibaldi, who might have driven the French into the sea, had
Mazzini allowed him to leave the city. The French republican
government, in. order to gain tim.e for reinforcements to arrive,
sent
Ferdinand de Lesseps to pretend to
treat with Mazzini, the envoy himself not being a party to this
deception. Mazzini refused to allow the French into the city, but
while the negotiations were being dlagged on Oudinots force was
increased to 35,000 men. At the same time an Austrian army was
marching through the Legations, and Neapolitan and Spanish troops
were advancing from the south. The
Roman army (20,000 men) was commanded by
General Rosselli, and included, besides Garibaldis red-shirted
legionaries, volunteers from all parts of Italy, mostly very young
men, many of them wealthy and of noble family. The Neapolitans were
ignominiously beaten in May and retired to the frontier; on the 1st
of June Oudinot declared that he would attack Rome on the 4th, but
by beginning operations on the 3rd, when no attack was expected, he
captured an important position in the Pamphili gardens.
In Spite of this success, however, it was not until the end of
the month, and after desperate fighting, that the French penetrated
within the walls and the defence ceased (June 29). The Assembly,
which had continued in session, was dispersed by the French troops
on the 2nd of July, but Mazzini escaped a week later. Garibaldi
quitted the city, followed by 4000 of his men, and attempted to
join the defenders of Venice. In spite of the fact that he was
pursued by the armies of four Powers, he succeeded in reaching San
Marino; but his force melted away and, after hiding in the marshes
of Ravenna, he fled across the peninsula, assisted by nobles,
peasants and priests, to the Tuscan coast, whence he reached
Piedmont and eventually America, to await a new call to fight for
Italy (see GARIBALDI).
After a heroic defence, conducted by Giuseppe Martinengo,
Brescia was recaptured in April by the Austrians under Lieut.
Field-Marshal von Haynau, the atrocities which Reducfollowed
earning for Haynau the name of The tion of
Hyena of Brescia. In May they seized Bologna,
Venkeby and Ancona in June, restoring order in those towns Austria.
by the same methods as at Brescia. Venice alone still held out;
after Novara the Piedmontcse commissioners withdrew and Manin again
took charge of the government. The assembly voted: Venice resists
the Austrians at all costs, and the citizens and soldiers,
strengthened by the arrival of volunteers from all parts of Italy,
including Pepe, who was given the chief command of the defenders,
showed the most splendid devotion in their hopeless task. By the
end of May the city was blockaded by land and sea, and in July the
bombardment began. On the 24th the city, reduced by famine,
capitulated on favorable terms. Manin, Pepa and a few others were
excluded from the amnesty and went into exile.
Thus were despotism and foreign predominance re-established
throughout Italy save in Piedmont. Yet the terrible year was by no
means all loss. The Italian cause had been crushed, but revolution
and war had strengthened the feeling of unity, for Neapolitans had
fought for Venice, Lombards for Rome, Piedmontese for all Italy.
Piedmont was shown to possess the qualities necessary to constitute
the nucleus of a great nation. It was now evident that the federal
idea was impossible, for none of the princes except Victor Emmanuel
could be trusted, and that unity and freedom could not be achieved
under a republic, for nothing could be done without the Piedmontese
army, which was royalist to the core. All reasonable men were now
convinced that the question of the ultimate form of the Italian
government was secondary, and that the national efforts should be
concentrated on the task of expelling the Austrians; the form of
government could be decided afterwards. Liberals were by no means
inclined to despair of accomplishing this task; for hatred of the
foreigners, and of the despots restored by their bayonets, had been
deepened by the humiliations and cruelties suffered during the war
into a passion common to all Italy.
When the terms of the Austro-Piedmontese armistice were
announced in the Chamber at Turin they aroused great indignation,
but the king succeeded in convincing the deputies Piedmont that
they were inevitable. The peace negotiations after the dragged on
for several months, involving two changes of ministry, and DAzeglio
became premier. Through Anglo-French mediation Piedmonts war
indemnity was reduced from 230,000,000 to 75,000,000 lire, but the
question of the amnesty remained. The king declared himself ready
to go to war again if those compromised in the Lombard revolution
were not freely pardoned, and at last Austria agreed to amnesty all
save a very few, and in August the peace terms were agreed upon.
The Chamber, however, refused to ratify them, and it was not until
the kings eloquent appeal from Moncalieri to his peoples loyalty,
and after a dissolution and the election of a new parliament, that
the treaty was ratified (January 9, 1850). The situation in
Piedmont was far from promising, the exchequer was empty, the army
disorganized, the country despondent and suspicious of the king. If
Piedmont was to be fitted for the part which optimists expected it
to play, everything must be built up anew. Legislation had to be
entirely reformed, and the bill for abolIshing the special
jurisdiction for the clergy (foro ecclesiastico) and other medieval
privileges aroused the bitter opposition of the Vatican as well as
of the Piedmontese clericals. This same year (1850)
Cavour, who had been in
parliament avour. for some time and had in his speech of the 7th of
March struck the first note of encouragement after the gloom of
Novara, became minister of agriculture, and in 1851 also assumed
the portfolio of finance. He ended by dominating the cabinet, but
owing to his having negotiated a union of the Right Centre and the
Left Centre (the Con nubio) in the conviction that the country
needed the moderate elements of both parties, he quarrelled with
DAzeglio (who, as an uncompromising conservative, failed to see the
value of such a move) and resigned. But DAzeglio was not equal to
the situation, and he, too, resigned in November 1852; whereupon
the king appointed Cavour
prime minister, a position which with
short intervals he held until his death.
The Austrians in the period from 1849 to 1859, known as the
dccennio della resistenza (decade of resistance), were made to feel
that they were in a conquered country where they could have no
social intercourse with the people; for no self-respecting Lombard
or Venetian would even speak to an Austrian. Austria, on theother
hand, treatedher Italian subjects with great severity.
The Italian provinces were the most heavily taxed in the whole
empire, and much of the money thus levied was spent either for the
benefit of other provinces or to pay for the huge army of
occupation and the fortresses in Ausfrian Italy. The promise of a
constitution for the empire, ~,~after made in 1849, was never
carried out; the government of Lombardo-Venetia was vested in
Field-Marshal Radetzky; and although only very few of the
revolutionists were excluded from the amnesty, the carrying of arms
or the distribution or possession of revolutionary literature was
punished with death. Long terms of imprisonment and the
bastinado, the latter even
inflicted on women, were the penalties for the least expression of
anti-Austrian opinion.
The Lombard republicans had been greatly weakened by the events
of 1848, but Mazzini still believed that a bold act by a few
revolutionists would make the people rise en masse and expel the
Austrians. A conspiracy, planned with the object, among others, of
kidnapping the emperor
while on a visit to Venice and forcing him to make concessions, was
postponed in consequence of the coup detat by which Louis Napoleon
became emperor of the French (1852); but a chance discovery led to
a large number of arrests, and the
state trials at Mantua, conducted in the
most shamelessly inquisitorial manner, resulted in five death
sentences, including that of the priest Tazzoli, and many of
imprisonment for long terms. Even this did not convince Mazzini of
the hopelessness of such attempts, for he was out of touch with
Italian public opinion, and he greatly weakened his influence by
favoring a crack-brained outbreak at Milan on the 6th of February
1853, which was easily quelled, numbers of the insurgents being
executed or imprisoned. Radetzky, not satisfied with this, laid an
embargo on the property of
many Lombard emigrants who had settled in Piedmont and become
naturalized, accusing them of complicity. The Piedmontese
government rightly regarded this measure as a violation of the
peace treaty of 1850, and Cavour recalled the Piedmontese minister
from Vienna, an action which was endorsed by Italian public opinion
generally, and won the approval of France and England.
Cavours ideal for the present was the expulsion of Austria from
Italy and the expansion of Piedmont into a north Italian kingdom;
and, although he did not yet think of Italian unity as a question
of practical policy, he began to foresee it as a future
possibility. But in reorganizing the shattered finances of the
state and preparing it for its greater destinies, he had to impose
heavy taxes, which led to rioting and involved the minister himself
in considerable though temporary unpopularity. His ecclesiastical
legislation, too, met with bitter opposition from the Church.
But the question was soon forgotten in the turmoil caused by the
Crimean War. Cavour
believed that by taking part in the war his country would gain for
itself a military status and a place in the councils of the great
Powers, and ~ establish claims on Great Britain and France for the
realization of its Italian ambitions. One section of public opinion
desired to make Piedmonts co-operation subject to definite promises
by the Powers; but the latter refused to bind, themselves, and both
Victor Emmanuel and Cavour realized that, even without such
promises, participation would give Piedmont a claim. There was also
the danger that Austria might join the allies first and Piedmont
be, left isolated; but there were also strong arguments on the
other side, for while the Radical party saw no obvious reason why
Piedmont should fight other peoples battles, and therefore opposed
the alliance, there was the risk that Austria might join the
al]iance together with Piedmont, which would have constituted a
disastrous situation. Da Bormida, the minister for foreign affairs,
resigned nab rather than agree to the proposal, and other statesmen
ana the were equally opposed to it.
But afterlong negotiations Congress the treaty of alliance was
signed in January 1855, and
iris,
while Austria remained neutral, a well-equipped Piedmontese force
of 15,000 men, under General La
Marmora, sailed for the
Crimea. Everything turned out as Cavour had
hoped.
The Piedmontese troops distinguished themselves in the field,
gaining the sympathies of the French and English; and at the
subsequent congress of Paris (1856), where Cavour himself was
Sardinian representative, the Italian question was discussed, and
the intolerable oppression of the Italian peoples by Austria and
the despots ventilated.
Austria at last began to see that a policy of
coercion was useless and
dangerous, and made tentative efforts at conciliation. Taxation was
somewhat reduced, the censorship was made less severe, political
amnesties were granted, humaner officials were appointed and the
Congregations (a sort of shadowy consultative assembly) were
revived. In 1856 the emperor and empress visited their Italian
dominions, but were received with icy coldness; the following year,
on the retirement of Radetzky at the age of ninety-three, the
archduke Maximilian, an abie, cultivated and kind-hearted man, was
appointed viceroy. He made desperate efforts to conciliate the
population, and succeeded with a few of the nobles, who were led to
believe in the possibility of an Italian confederation, including
Lombardy and Venetia which would be united to Austria by a personal
union alone; but the immense majority of all classes rejected these
advances, and came to regard union with Piedmont with increasing
favor.
Meanwhile Francis V. of Modena, restored to his duchy by
Austrian bayonets, continued to govern according to the traditions
Restored of his house. Charles II. of Parma, after having been
~vera- reinstated by the Austrians, abdicated in favor of his meats
son Charles III. a drunken libertine and a cruel tyrant ~ (May
1849); the latter was assassinated in 1854, and a regency under his
widow, Marie Louise, was insti tuted during which the government
became somewhat more tolerable, although by no means free from
political persecution; in 1857 the Austrian troops evacuated the
duchy.
Leopold of Tuscany suspended the
constitution, and in 1852 formally abolished it by order from
Vienna; he also concluded atreatyof semi-subjection with Austria
and a Concordat with the pope for granting fresh privileges to the
Church. His government, however, was not characterized by cruelty
like those of his brother despots, and Guerrazzi and the other
Liberals of 1849, although tried and sentenced to long terms of
imprisonment, were merely exiled. Yet the opposition gained
recruits among all the ablest and most respectable Tuscans. In
Rome, after the restoration of the temporal power by the French
troops, the pope paid no attention to Louis Napoleons advice to
maintain some form of constitution, to grant a general amnesty, and
to secularize the administration. He promised, indeed, a
consultative council of state, and granted an amnesty from which no
less than 25,000 persons were excluded; but on his return to Rome
(12th April 1850), after he was quite certain that France had given
up all idea of imposing constitutional limitations on him, he
re-established his government on the old lines of priestly
absolutism, and, devoting himself to religious practices, left
political affairs mostly to the astute cardinal Antonelli, who
repressed with great severity the political agitation which still
continued. At Naples a trifling disturbance in September 1849, led
to the
lion oi arrest of a large
number of persons connected with the Liberals Unitd Italiana, a
society somewhat similar to the in Naples. Carbonari. The prisoners
included Silvio Spaventa,
Luigi Settembrini, Carlo Poerio and
many other cultured and worthy citizens. Many condemnations
followed, and hundreds of politicals were immured in hideous
dungeons, a state of things which provoked Gladstones famous
letters to Lord
Aberdeen,
in which Bourbon rule was branded for all time as the negation of
God erected into a system of government. But oppressive, corrupt
and inefficient as it was, the government was not confronted by the
uncompromising hostility of the whole people; the ignorant
priest-ridden masses were either indifferent or of mildly Bourbon
sympathies; the opposition was constituted by the educated middle
classes and a part of the aobility. The revolutionary attempts of
Bentivegna in Sicily ~I856) and of the Mazzinian
Carlo Pisacane,
who landed at Sapri in Calabria with a few followers in 1857,
failed from lack of Dopular support, and the leaders were
killed.
The decline of Mazzinis influence was accompanied by the rise of
a new movement in favor of Italian unity under Victor Emmanuel,
inspired by the Milanese marquis Giorgio New Pallavicini, who had
spent 14 years in the Spielberg, Unio~lsi and by Manin, living in
exile in Paris, both of them moveex-republicans who had become
monarchists. The meat. propaganda was organized by the Sicilian La
Farina by means of the Societd Nazionale. All who accepted the
motto Unity, Independence and
Victor Emmanuel were admitted into the society. Many of the
republicans and Mazzinians joined it, but Mazzini himself regarded
it with no sympathy. In the Austrian provinces and in the duchies
it carried all before it, and gained many adherents in the
Legations, Rome and Naples, although in the latter regions the
autonomist feeling was still strong even among the Liberals. In
Piedmont itself it was at first less successful; and Cavour,
although he aspired ultimately to a united Italy with Rome as the
capital,1 openly professed no ambition beyond the expulsion of
Austria and the formation of a North Italian kingdom. But he gave
secret encouragement to the movement, and ended by practically
directing its activity through La Farina. The king, too, was in
close sympathy with the societys aims, but for the present it was
necessary to
hide this attitude
from the eyes of the Powers, whose sympathy Cavour could only hope
to gain by professing hostility to everything that savoured of
revolution. Both the king and his minister realized that Piedmont
alone, even with the help of the National Society, could not expel
Austria from Italy without foreign assistance. Piedmontese finances
had been strained to breaking-point to organize an army obviously
intended for other than merely defensive purposes. Cavour now set
himself to the task of isolating Austria and securing an alliance
for her expulsion. A British alliance would have been preferable,
but the British government was too much concerned with the
preservation of European peace. The emperor Napoleon, almost alone
among Frenchmen, had genuine Italian sympathies. Napoleon But were
he to intervene in Italy, the intervention Ita~ly. a would not only
have to be successful; it would have to bring tangible advantages
to France. Hence his hesitations and vacillations, which Cavour
steadily worked to overcome. Suddenly on the 14th of January 1858
Napoleons life was attempted by
Felice Orsini a Mazzinian Romagnol, who
believed that Napoleon was the chief obstacle to the success of the
revolution in Italy. The attempt failed and its author was caught
and executed, but while t appeared at first to destroy Napoleons
Italian sympathies and led to a sharp interchange of notes between
Paris and Turin, the emperor was really impressed by the attempt
and by Orsinis letter from prison exhorting him to intervene in
Italy. He realized how deep the Italian feeling for independence
must be, and that a refusal to act now might result in further
attempts on his life, as indeed Orsinis letter stated. Consequently
negotiations with Cavour were resumed, and a meeting with him was
arranged to take place at
Plombires (20th and 21st of July 1858). There
it was agreed that France should supply 200,000 men and Piedmont
100,000 for the expulsion of the Austrians from Italy, that
Piedmont should be expanded into a kingdom of North Italy, that
central Italy should form a separate kingdom, on the throne of
which the emperor contemplated placing one of his own relatives,
and Naples another, possibly under Lucien Murat; the pope, while
retaining only the Patrimony of St Peter (the Roman province),
would be president of the Italian confederation. In exchange for
French assistance Piedmont would cede Savoy and perhaps Nice to
France; and a marriage between Victor Emmanuels daughter Clothilde
and Jerome Bonaparte, to which Napoleon attached great importance,
although not made a definite condition, was also discussed. No
written agreement, however, was signed.
I La Farinas Epistolario, n. 426.
On the 1st of January 1859, Napoleon astounded the diplomatic
world by remarking to Baron Hubner, the Austrian ambassador, at the
New Years reception at the Tuileries, that he regretted that
relations between France and Austria were not so good as they had
been; and at the opening of the Piedmontese parliament on the 10th
Victor Emmanuel pronounced the memorable words that he could not be
insensible to the cry of
pain (ii
grido di dolore) which reached him from all parts of Italy. Yet
after these warlike declarations and after the signing of a
military convention at Turin, the king agreeing to all the
conditions proposed by Napoleon, the latter suddenly became pacific
again, and adopted the Russian suggestion that Italian affairs
should be settled by a congress. Austria agreed on condition that
Piedmont should disarm and should not be admitted to the congress.
Lord
Malmesbury urged
the Sardinian government to yield; but Cavour refused to disarm, or
to accept the principle of a congress, unless Piedmont were
admitted to it on equal terms with the other Powers. As neither the
Sardinian nor the Austrian government seemed disposed to yield, the
idea of a congress had to be abandoned. Lord Malmesbury now
proposed that all three Powers should disarm simultaneously and
that, as suggested by Austria, the precedent of Laibach should be
followed and all the Italian states invited to plead their cause at
the bar of the Great Powers.
To this course Napoleon consented, to the despair of King Victor
Emmanuel and Cavour, who saw in this a proof that he wished to back
out of his engagement and make war impossible. When war seemed
imminent volunteers from all parts of Italy, especially from
Lombardy, had come pouring into Piedmont to enrol themselves in the
army or in the specially raised volunteer corps (the cornrnand of
which was given to Garibaldi), and to go to Piedmont became a test
of patriotism throughout the country. Urged by a
peremptory message from
Napoleon, Cavour saw the necessity of bowing to the will of Europe,
of disbanding the volunteers and reducing the army to a peace
footing. The situation, however, was saved by a false move on the
part of Austria. At Vienna the war party was in the ascendant; the
convention for disarmament had been signed, but so far from its
being carried out, the reserves were actually called out on the
12th of April; and on the 23rd, before Cavours decision was known
at Vienna, an Austrian
ultimatum reached Turin, summoning Piedmont
to disarm within three days on pain of invasion. Cavour was filled
with joy at the turn affairs had taken, for Austria now appeared as
the aggressor. On the fiat 29th Francis Joseph declared war, and
the next day 1859 his troops crossed theTicino, a move which was
followed, as Napoleon had stated it would be, by a French
declaration of war. The military events of the Italian war of 1859
are described under ITALIAN WARS. The actions of Montebello (May
20), Palestro (May 3f) and
Melegnano (June 8) and the battles of
Magenta (June ~) and
Solferino (June 24) all
went against the Austrians. Garibaldis volunteers raised the
standard of insurrection and held the field in the region of the
Italian lakes. After Solferino the allies prepared to besiege the
Quadrilateral. Then Napoleon suddenly drew back, unwilling, for
many reasons, to continue the campaign. Firstly, he doubted whether
the allies were strong enough to attack the Quadrilateral, for he
saw the defects of his own armys organization; secondly, he began
to fear intervention by Prussia, whose attitude appeared menacing;
thirdly, although really anxious to expel the Austrians from Italy,
he did not wish to create a too powerful Italian state at the foot
of the Alps, which, besides constituting a potential danger to
France, might threaten the popes temporal power, and Napoleon
believed that he could not stand without the clerical vote;
fourthly, the war had been declared against the wishes of the great
majority of Frenchmen and was even now far from popular.
Consequently, to the surprise of all Europe, while the allied
forces were drawn up ready for battle, Napoleon, without consulting
Victor Emmanuel, sent General Fleury on the 6th of July to Francis
Joseph to ask for an armistice, which was agreed to. The king was
now informed, and on the 8th Generals Vaillant, Della Rocca and
Hess met at Villafranca and arranged
an armistice until the 15th of August. But the king and Cavour were
terribly upset by this move, which meant peace without Venetia;
Cavour hurried to the kings headquarters at Monzambano Armistice
and in excited, almost disrespectful, language implored ~0ranca~
him not to agree to peace and to continue the war alone, relying on
the Piedmontese army and a general Italian revolution. But Victor
Emmanuel on this occasion proved the greater statesman of the two;
he understood that, hard as it was, he must content himself with
Lombardy for the present, lest all be lost. On the 11th the two
emperors met at Villafranca, where they agreed that Lombardy should
be ceded to Piedmont, and Venetia retained by Austria but governed
by Liberal methods; that the rulers of Tuscany, Parma and Modena,
who had been again deposed, should be restored, the Papal States
reformed, the Legations given a separate administration and the
pope made president of an Italian confederation including Austria
as mistress of Venetia. It was a revival of the old impossible
federal idea, which would have left Italy divided and dominated by
Austria and France. Victor Emmanuel regretfully signed the peace
preliminaries, adding, however, pour ce qui me concerne (which
meant that he made no undertaking with regard to central Italy),
and Cavour resigned office.
The Lombard campaign had produced important effects throughout
the rest of Italy. The Sardinian government had formally invited
that of Tuscany to participate in Unionist the war of liberation,
and on the grand-dtike rejecting movethe proposal, moderates and
democrats combined to ments in present an ultimatum to Leopold
demanding that he ~~-~ should abdicate in favor of his son, grant a
constitu- ~~ tion and take part in the campaign. On his refusal
Florence rose as one man, and he, feeling that he could not rely on
his troops, abandoned Tuscany on. the 27th of April 1859. A
provisional government was formed, led by Ubaldino Peruzzi, and was
strengthened on the 8th of May by the inclusion of Baron
Bettino Ricasoli, a man of
great force of character, who became the real head of the
administration, and all through the ensuing critical period aimed
unswervingly at Italian unity. Victor Emmanuel, at the request of
the people, assumed the protectorate over Tuscany, where he was
represented by the Sardinian minister Boncompagni. On the 23rd of
May Prince Napoleon, with a French army corps, landed at Leghorn,
his avowed object being to threaten the Austrian flank; and in June
these troops, together with a Tuscan contingent, departed for
Lombardy. In the duchy of Modena an insurrection had broken out,
and after Magenta Duke Francis joined the Austrian army in
Lombardy, leaving a regency in charge. But on the I4th of June the
municipality formed a provisional government and proclaimed
annexation to Piedmont; L. C. Farini was chosen dictator, and 4000
Modenese joined the allies. The duchessregent of Parma also
withdrew to Austrian territory, and on the 11th of June annexation
to Piedmont was proclaimed. At the same time the Austrians
evacuated the Legations and Cardinal Milesi, the papal
representative, departed. The municipality of Bologna formed a
Giunta, to which Romagna and the Marches adhered, and invoked the
dictatorship of Victor Emmanuel; at Perugia, too, a provisional
government was constituted under F. Guardabassi. But the Marches
were soon reoccupied by pontifical troops, and Perugia fell, its
capture being followed by an indiscriminate massacre of men, women
and children. Tn July the marquis DAzeglio arrived at Bologna as
royal commissioner.
After the meetings at Villafranca Napoleon returned to France.
The question of the cession of Nice and Savoy had not been raised;
for the emperor had not fulfilled his part of the
bargain, that he would drive
the Austrians out of Italy, since Venice was yet to be freed. At
the same time he was resolutely opposed to the Piedmontese
annexations in central Italy. But here Cavour intervened, for he
was determined to maintain the annexations, at all costs. Although
he had resigned, he remained In reality the emperor was
contemplating an Etrurian kingdom with the prince at its head.
in office until Rattazzi could form a new ministry; and while
officially recalling the royal commissioners according to the
preliminaries of Villafranca, he privately encouraged them to
remain and organize resistance to the return of the despots, if
necessary by force (see CAvouR). Farini, who in August was elected
dictator of Parma as well as Modena, and Ricasoli, who since, on
the withdrawal of the Sardinian commissioner Boncompagni, had
become supreme in Tuscany, were now the men who by their energy and
determination achieved the annexation of central Italy to Piedmont,
in spite of the strenuous opposition of the French emperor and the
weakness of many Italian Liberals. In August Marco Minghetti
succeeded in forming a military league and a customs union between
Tuscany, Romagna and the duchies, and in procuring the adoption of
the Piedmontese codes; and envoys were sent to Paris to mollify
Napoleon. Constituent assemblies met and voted for unity under
Victor Emmanuel, but the king could not openly accept the proposal
owing to the emperors opposition, backed by the presence of French
armies in Lombardy; at a word from Napoleon there might have been
an Austrian, and perhaps a Franco-Austrian, invasion of central
Italy. But to Napoleons statement that he could not agree to the
unification of Italy, as he was bound by his promises to Austria at
Villafranca, Victor Emmanuel replied that he himself, after Magenta
and Solferino, was bound in honor to link his fate with that of the
Italian people; and Genetal
Manfredo Fanti was sent by the Turin
government to organize the army of the Central League, with
Garibaldi under him.
The terms of the treaty of peace signed at
Zurich on the 10th of November were practically
identical with those of the preT liminaries of Villafranca. It was
soon evident, however, ~reatYoI that the Italian question was far
from being settled.
Central Italy refused to be bound by the treaty, and offered the
dictatorship to Prince Carignano, who, himself unable to accept
owing to Napoleons opposition, suggested Boncompagni, who was
accordingly elected. Napoleon now realized that it would be
impossible, without running serious risks, to oppose the movement
in favor of unity. He suggested an international congress on the
question; inspired a pamphlet, Le Pape el le Con grs, which
proposed a reduction of the papal territory, and wrote to the pope
advising him to cede Romagna in order to obtain better guarantees
for the rest of his dominions. The proposed congress fell through,
and Napoleon thereupon raised the question of the cession of Nice
and Savoy as the price of his consent to the union of the central
provinces with the Italian kingdom. In January 1866 the Rattazzi
ministry fell, after completing the fusion of Lombardy with
Piedmont, and Cavour was again summoned by the king to the head of
affairs.
Cavour well knew the unpopularity that would fall upon him by
consenting to the cession of Nice, the birthplace of Garibaldi, and
Savoy, the cradle of the royal house; but he realized the necessity
of the sacrifice, if central Italy was to be won. The negotiations
were long drawn out; for Cavour struggled to save Nice and Napoleon
was anxious to make conditions, especially as regards Tuscany. At
last, on the 24th of March, the treaty was signed whereby the
cession was agreed upon, but subject to the vote of the populations
concerned and ratification by the Italian parliament. The king
having formally accepted the voluntary annexation of the duchies,
Tuscany and Romagna, appointed the prince of Carignano viceroy with
Ricasoli as governor-general (22nd of March), and was immediately
afterwards excommunicated by the pope. On the 2nd of April 1860 the
new Italian parliament, including members from central Italy,
assembled at Turin. Three weeks later the treaty of Turin ceding
Savoy and Nice to France was ratified, though not without much
opposition, and Cavour was fiercely reviled for his share in the
transaction, especially by Garibaldi, who even contemplated an
expedition to Nice, but was induced to desist by the king.
In May 1859 Ferdinand of Naples was succeeded by his son
Francis II., who gave no
signs of any intention to change his fathers policy, and, in spite
of Napoleons advice, refused to grant a constitution or to enter
into an alliance with Sardinia. The result was a revolutionary
agitation which in Sicily, stirred up by Mazzinis agents, Rosalino
Pilo and
Francesco Crispi, culminated, on the
5th of April 1860, in open NII,S revolt. An invitation had been
sent Garibaldi to put Fraiwis II. himself at the head of the
movement; at first he had refused, but reports of the progress of
the insurrection soon determined him to risk all on a bold stroke,
and on the 5th of May he embarked at
Quarto, near Genoa, with Bixio, the Hungarian
Trr and some 1000 picked followers, on two steamers. The
preparations for the expedition, openly made, were viewed by Cavour
with mixed feelings. With its object he sympathized; yet he could
not give official sanction to an armed attack on a friendly power,
nor on the other hand could he forbid an action enthusiastically
approved by public opinion. He accordingly directed the Sardinian
admiral Persano only to arrest the expedition should it touch at a
Sardinian port; while in reply to the indignant protests of the
continental powers he disclaimed all knowledge of the affair. On
the 11th Garibaldi landed at Marsala, without opposition, defeated
the Neapolitan forces at
Calatafimi on the 15th, and on the 27th
entered Palermo in triumph, where he proclaimed himself, in King
Victor Emmanuels name, dictator of Sicily. By the end of July,
after the hard-won victory of Milazzo, the whole island, with the
exception of the citadel of Messina and a few unimportant ports,
was in his hands.
From Cavours point of view, the situation was now one of extreme
anxiety. It was certain that, his work in Sicily done, Garibaldi
would turn his attention to the Neapolitan dominions on the
mainland; and beyond these lay Umbria and the Marches andRome. It
was all-important that whatever victories Garibaldi might win
should be won for the Italian kingdom, and, above all, that no
ill-timed attack on the Papal States should provoke an intervention
of the powers. La Farina was accordingly sent to Palermo to urge
the immediate annexation of Sicily to Piedmont. But Garibaldi, who
wished to keep a free hand, distrusted Cavour and scorned all
counsels of expediency, refused to agree; Sicily was the necessary
base for his projected invasion of Naples; it would be time enough
to announce its union with Piedmont when Victor Emmanuel had been
proclaimed king of United Italy in Rome. Foiled by the dictators
stubbornness, Cavour had once more to take to underhand methods;
and, while continuing futile negotiations with King Francis, sent
his agents into Naples to stir up disaffection and create a
sentiment in favor of national unity strong enough, in any event,
to force Garibaldis hand.
On the 8th of August, in spite of the protests and threats of
most of the powers, the Garibaldians began to cross the Straits,
and in a short time 20,000 of them were on the mainland. The
Bourbonists in Calabria, utterly disorganized, broke before the
invincible red-shirts, and the 40,000 men defending the
Salerno-Avellino line made no better resistance, being eventually
ordered to fall back on the Volturno. On t~he 6th of September King
Francis, with his family and several of the ministers, sailed for
Gaeta, and the next day Garibaldi entered Naples alone in advance
of the army, and was enthusiastically welcomed. He proclaimed
himself dictator of the kingdom, with Bertani as secretary of
state, but as a proof of his loyalty he consigned the Neapolitan
fleet to Persano.
His rapid success, meanwhile, inspired both the French emperor
and the government of Turin with misgivings. There was a danger
that Garibaldis entourage, composed of ex-Mazzinians, might induce
him to proclaim a republic ~~ir and march on Rome; which would have
meant French intervention and the undoing of all Cavours work. King
Victor Emmanuel and Cavour both wrote to Garibaldi urging him not
to spoil all by aiming at too much. But Garibaldi poured scorn on
all suggestions of compromise; and Cavour saw that the situation
could only be saved by the armed participation of Piedmont in the
liberation of south Italy.
~ but al troops, under General Lamoricire, were I~reparing to
too press it. Had they succeeded, the position of the Pied- viti
ntese in Romagna would have been imperilled; had they ne~ ed, the
road would have been open for Garibaldi to march Rome, In the
circumstances, Cavour decided that Piedmont sole ,st anticipate
Garibaldi, occupy Umbria and the Marches anc 1 place Italy, between
the red-shirts and Rome. His excuse s the popes refusal to dismiss
his foreign levies (September 7). ~ the 11th of September a
Piedmontese army of 35,000 men of ~ ssed the frontier at La
Cattolica,; on the 18th the pontifical Th ny was crushed at
Castelfidardo; and when, on the 29th, sep coria fell, TJmbria and
the Marches were in the power of we!
dmont, On the 15th of October King Victor Emmanuel giv ssed the
Neapolitan border at the head of his troops. sup :t had been a
race between Garibaldi and the Piedmontese. gen f we do not arrive
at the Volturno before Garibaldi reachts Cattolica, Cavour had
said, the monarchy is lost, and Italy ~re 1 remain in the
prison-house of the Revolution. 1 Fortun- am Iy for his policy, the
red-shirts had encountered a formidable;tacle to their advance in
the Neapolitan army entrenched the Volturno under the guns of
Ca~ua. On the x9th of dis~)tember the Garibaldians began their
attack on this, position Ita h their usual impetuous valour; but
they were repulsed der tin and again, and it was not tifi the 2nd
of October, after vol wo days pitched battle, that they succeeded
in carrying the the ,ition. The way was now open for the advance of
the Pied- upi ntese, who, save at Isemnia, encountered practically
no in istance. On the 2gth Victor Emmanuel and Garibaldi met,
for:
I on the 7th of November they entered Naples together. the
ribaldi now resigned his authorit~ into the kings hands and, qw
using the title and other honor~ offered to him, retired to his tha
tnd home of
Caprera.1, all
~aeta remained still to be taken. The Piedmontese under an tldini
had begun the siege on the 5th of November, but it was He ~ not
until the 10th of January ~86i, when at the age ,o! the instance of
Great Britain Napoleon withdrew his qu ted squadron, that the
blockade could be made complete. pal ~dom On the 13th of February
the fortress surrendered, sol Francis and his family having
departed by sea for lasi al territory. The citadel of Messina.
capitulated on the 2 21ld, adi I Civitella del Tronto, the last
stronghold of Bourbonism, haf the 21st of March. On the 18th of
February the first Italian at~ ~liament met at Turin, and Victor
Emmanuel was proclaimed shi~ g of Italy. The new kingdom was
recognized by Great 1 tam within a fortnight, by France three
months later, and the sequently by ptber powers. It included the
whole peninsula bri ept Venetia and Rome, and these the govei~nment
and the Ita fion were determined to annex sooner or later., sep un-
reb diate attention. The country had to be built up and converted
34~
from an agglomeration of ,scattered medieval princi- I Ic bleins
palities into a unified modern nation. The first question abi C W
which arose was that of brigandage in thesoutli. Brigand- age had
always existed in the Neapolitan kingdom, largely me
rand- owing to the poverty of the
people; but the evil was now Wa:
aggravated by the mistake of the new government in a 11
drsmissing the Bourbon troops, and then calling them out cen an
as recruits. A great many turned brigands rather than serve tin,
and together with the remaining adherents of Bourbon rule and wa
lefactors of all kinds, were made use of by the ex-king and his ma
ourage to harass the Italian administration. Bands of desperadoes
Ri(re formed, commanded by the most infamous criminals and by h~s
cigners who came to fight in what they were led to believe was 1
Italian Vende, but which was in reality a c~impaign of butchery cot
1 plunder. Villages were sacked, and burnt, men,, women and anc
ldren mutilated, tortured or roasted alive, and women outraged. brc
e authors of these deeds when pursued by troops fled into papal MI
ritory, where they were welcomed by the authorities and allowed .,
refit and raise fresh recruits under the
aegis of the Church. The ph~ me organizers of the
movement were King Franciss uncle, the bo mt of Trapani, and Mons.
de Mrode, a Belgian ecclesiastic who an(
N. Bianchi, Crivour, p. 118. ing He asked for the Neapolitan
viceroyalty for life, which the king pre -y wrsely refused. in in
spite of extreme severity, justifiable in the circumstances, it l
four ot fIve years completely to suppress the movement. Its lity,
indeed, was largely due to the mistakes made by the administration,
conducted as this was by officials ignorant of;hern conditions and
out of sympathy with a people far more aitive than in any Other
part of the peninsula. Politically, its outcome was to prove the
impossibility of allowing the continu1 of an independent Roman
state in the heart of Italy.
nother of the governments difficulties was the question of what
0 with Garibaldis volunteers,
Fanti, the minister of war, had e armies to
incorporate in that of Piedmont, viz, that ~
Intral Italy, that of the Bourbons and that of Garibaldi. bald?
first caused no difficulty; the rank and file of the nd were mostly
disbanded, but a number of the officers tee: 1 taken into the
Italian army; the third offered a more)Us problem. Garibaldi
demanded that all his officers should be n equivalent rank in the
Italian army, and in this he had the port of Fanti. Cavour, on the
other hand, while anxious to deal irously with the Garibaldians,
recognized the impossibility of such urse, which would not only
have offended the conservative spirit :he Piedmontese military
caste, which disliked and despised 101am troops, but would almost
certainly have introduced into the y an element of indiscipline and
disorder.
~n the 18th of April the question of the volunteers
was :ussed in one of the most dramatic sittings of the ian
parliament. Garibaldi, elected member for Naples, ouficed Cavour in
unmeasured terms for his treatment of the inteers and for the
cession of Nic,e, accusing him of leading country to civil war.
These charges produced a tremendous
oar, but Bixio by a splendid appeal for
concord succeeded :alming
the two adversaries. On the 23rd of April they were nally
reconciled in the presence of the king, but the scene of 18th: of
April hastened Cavours end. In May the Roman stion was discussed in
parliament. Cavour had often declared tin the end the capital of
Italy must be Rome, for it alone of abLcnLLp~, ass L~AS O~V.~La.5
~jassL,asssassD U~ .JaLAISLAJ ~isLas blU
escia), and in the meute which followed several persons were ele
~t. Garibaldi now became an opponent of the ministry, and brc
ribaldi in June went to Sicily, where, after taking counsel En
iRome. with his former followers, he decided on an immediate am
tair of
raid on Rome. He summoned
his legionaries,, and in wh p7 August crossed over to Calabria with
xooo men. His ces me, intentions in the main were still loyal, for
be desired cal to capture Rome for the kingdom; and he did his tio
st to avoid the regulars tardily sent against him. On the of th of
August 1862, however, he encountered a forte under Bis Jiavicini at
Aspromonte, and, although Garibaldi ordered his in. m not to fire,
some of the raw Sicilian. volunteers discharged a Ita volleys which
were returned by the regulars. Garibaldi pri:
nself was seriously wounded and tal~en prisoner. He was shut thi
in the fortress of Varignano, and after endless discussions as to
Au jether he should be tried or not, the question was settled by an
To ii hetti amnesty. The affair made the ministry so unpopular Na
n~sV. that it was forced to resign. Farini, who succeeded, suf
retired almost at once on account of ill-health, and th inghetti
became premier, with
Visconti-Venosta as
minister its foreign affairs. The financial situation continued to
be em iously embarrassing; deficit was piled on deficit, loan upon
res fn, and the service of the debt rose from 9o,ooo,ooo lire in th
60 to 2?O,000,000 in 1864. a Negotiations were resumed with
Napoleon for the evacuation ad Rome by the French troops; but the
emperor, though he saw by wee that the temporal power could not for
ever be supported sti Jy and by French bayonets, desired some
guarantee that the Pr Roman evacuation should not be followed, at
all events wa ,stion. immediately, by an Italian occupation, lest
Catholic an inion should lay the blame for this upon France.
Ultimately e two governments concluded a convention on the 15th of
cor ptember 1864, whereby France agreed to withdraw her troops thi
m Rome so soon as the papal army should be reorganized, tre at the
outside within two years, Italy undertaking not to to Lack it nor
permit others to do so, and to transfer the capital pe:
m Turin to some other city within six months. The change of ho
pital would have the appearance of a definite
abandonment of On e
Roma capitale programme, although in
reality it was to be ItI
Irely a tappa (stage) on the way. The convention was kept
secret, pital but the last clause leaked out and caused the
bitterest arr as- feeling among the people of Turin, who would have
asf red to been resigned to losing the capital provided it were La
~rence, transferred to Rome, but resented the fact that it was un
to be established in any other city, and that the conntion was made
without consulting parliament. Demonstra- Pd ins were held which
were repressed with unnecessary violence, coi d although the change
o~ capital was not unpopular in the rest of as ~ly, where the
Piemonte~isrno of the new rgime was beginning thi arouse jealousy,
the secrecy with which the affair was arranged un d the
shooting down of the people
in Turin raised such a storm w~ disapproval that the king for the
first time used his privilege vim of dismissing the ministry. Under
La Marmoras ad- be ~rznora ministration the September convention
was ratified, de:
~iJstry. and the capital was transferred to Florence the
follow-, thi ing year. This affair resulted in an important bu
litical change, for the Piedmontese deputies, hitherto the th
Llwarks of moderate conservatism, now shifted to the Left or 3rf
nstitutional opposition. At Meanwhile, the Venetian question was
becoming more and ce ore acute. Every Italian felt the presence of
the Austrians in in the lagoons as a national humiliation, and
between ml ::~~:: I8~9 and 1866 countless plots were hatched
for their Ta expulsion. But, in spite of the sympathy of the king,
Dl e attempt to raise armed bands in Venetia had no success, and wa
became clear that the foreigner could only be driven from the of
ninsula by regular war. To wage this alone Italy was still too Te
~ak, and it was necessary to look round for an ally. Napoleon,
.JJL.OIJLLa US 5 usa .L4)~., VYSIS..JA iIU~4QLILiCU 5Sf) ~4IC *UJLC
O55iC~~4VC nents among the French clergy against his government,
had ught him once more into harmony with the views of Victor
manuel; but he dared not brave French public opinion by ther war
with Austria, nor did Italy desire an alliance Lch would only have
been bought at the price of further dons. There remained Prussia,
which, now that the Danish apaign of 1864 was
otTer, was completing ,her preparais for the
final struggle with Austria for the hegemony Germany; and Napoleon,
who saw in the furthering of marcks plans the surest means of
securing his own influence divided Europe, willingly lent his aid
in negotiating a PrussoIn the summer of 1865 Bismarckmade formal
posals to La Marmora; but the pourparlers were interrupted by
conclusion of the convention of
Gastein (August 14), to which stria agreed
partly under pressure of the Prusso-Italian enlenle. Italy the
convention seemed like a betrayal; to ~ poleon it was a set-back
which he tried to retrieve by Italian gesting to Austria the
peaceful cession of Venetia to ~t1t~u,ce Italian kingdom, in order
to prevent any danger of of 1866. siliance with Prussia. This
proposal broke on the refusal of the peror Francis Joseph to cede
Austrian territory except as the lIt of a struggle; and Napoleon,
won over by Biswarck at famous interview at
Biarritz, once more took.up the ides of
Prusso-Italian offensive and defensive alliance. This was ually
conduded on the 8th of April 1866. Its terms, dictated a natural
suspicion on the part of the Italian government,)ulated that it
should only become effective in the event of issia declaring war on
Austria within three months. Peace not to be concluded until Italy
should have received Venetia, I Prussia an equivalent territory in
Germany.
riplicatiofas. On the 12th of June Napoleon, whose policy
oughout had been obscure and contradictory, signed a secret
sty with Austria, under which Venice
was to be handed over him, to be given to Italy in the event of her
making a separate bce. La Marmora, however, who believed himself
bound in iour to Prussia, refused to enter into a separate
arrangement. the 16th the Prussians began hostilities, and on the
20th ly declared war.
Jictor Emmanuel took the supreme command of the Italian sy, and
La Marmora resigned the premiership (which was umed by Ricasoli),
to become chief of the staff. R 11 Marmora had three army corps
(130,000 men) Imi~~ry. ~er his immediate command, to operate on the
ncio, while Cialdini with 80,000 men was to operate on the The
Austrian southern army consisting of 95,000 men was amanded by the
archduke
Albert, with General von John chief of the staff. On the 23rd
of June La Marmora crossed Minclo, and on the 24th a battle was
fought at Custozza, ler circumstances highly disadvantageous to the
Italians, ich after a stubborn contest ended in a crushing Austrian
tory. Bad
generalship, bad organization ~tnd the jealousy ween La Marmora and
Della Rocca were responsible for this eat. Custozza might have been
afterwards retrieved,, for Italians had plenty of fresh troops
besides Cialdinis army; nothing was done, as both the king and La
Marraora believed situation to be much worse than it actually wa,s.
On the of July the Prussians completely defeated the ,,, strians at
Koniggrtz, and on the 5th Austria Led Venetia to Napoleon,
accepting his, mediation gratz. favor of peace, The Italian
jron-clad fleet comnded by the incapable Persano, afier wasting
much time at ranto and Ancona, made an unsuccessful, attack on the
lmatian island of
Lissa on the
18th of July1 an4 pn the 20th s completely defeated by the Austrian
squadron, consisting wooden ships, but commanded by the capable
Admiral ~ethoff.
)n the 22nd Prussia, without consulting Italy, made an armisI
with Austria, while Italy ob~a~ned an eight days truce on fdition
of evacuating the Trentino, which had almost entirely fallen into
the hands of Garibaldi and his volunteers. Ricasoli wished to go on
with the war, rather than accept Venetia as a gift from France; but
the king and La Marmora saw that peace must be made, as the whole
Austrian. army of 350,000 men was now free to fall on Italy. An
armistice was accordingly signed at Cormons on the 12th of August;
Austria handed Venetia over to General Leboeuf, representing Venice
Napoleon; and on the 3rd of October peace between un11e Austria and
Italy was concluded at Vienna. On the 19th Leboeuf handed Venetia
over to the Venetian representatives, and at the
plebiscite held on the
21st and 22nd, 647,246 votes were returned in favor of union with
Italy, only 69 against it. When this result was announced to the
king by a deputation from Venice he said: This is the finest day of
my life; Italy is made, but it is not complete. Rome was still
wanting.
Custozza and Lissa were not Italys only misfortunes in i866.
There had been considerable discontent in ~Sicily, where the
government had made itself unpopular. The priestt~ hood and the
remnants of the Bourbon party fomented 1866. an agitation, which in
September culminated in an attack on Palermo by 3000 armed
insurgents, and in similar outbreaks elsewhere. The revolt was put
down owing to the energy of the
mayor of Palermo, Marquis A. Di Rudini, and the
arrival of reinforcements. The Ricasoli cabinet fell over the law
against the religious houses, and was succeeded R ~ ~ by that of
Rattazzi, who with the support of the Left ~flinistiy. was
apparently more fortunate. The French regular troops were withdrawn
from Rome in December 1866; but the pontifical forces were largely
recruited in France and commanded by officers of the imperial army,
and service under the pope was considered by the French war office
as equivalent to service in France. This was a violation of the
letter as well as of the spirit of the September convention, and a
stronger and more straightforward statesman than Rattazzi would
have declared Italy absolved from its provisions. Mazzini now
wanted to promote an insurrection in Roman territory, whereas
Garibaldi advocated an invasion from without. He delivered a series
of violent speeches against the papacy, and made open preparations
for a raid, which were not interfered with by the government; but
on. the 23rd of September 1867 Rattazzi had him suddenly arrested
and confined to Caprera. In spite of the vigilance of the warships
he escaped on the s4th of GarIbaldi October and landed in. Tuscany.
Armed bands had ~ already entered papal territory, but achieved
nothing in particular. Their presence, however, was a sufficient
excuse for Napoleon, under pressure of the clerical party, to send
another expedition to Rome (26th of October). Rattazzi, after
ordering a body of troops to enter papal territory with no definite
object, now resigned, and was succeeded by Menabrea. .
Minist~. Menabrea. Garibaldi joined the bands on the 23rd, but
his ill-armed and ill-disciplined force was very inferior to his
volunteers of 49, o and 66. On the 24th he captured Monte Rotondo,
but did not enter Rome as the expected insurrection had not broken
out. On the 29th a French force, under de Failly, ari-ived, and on
the 3rd of November a battle ~, took place at Mentana between 4000
or 500o redMentana. shirts and a somewhat superior force of French
and pontificals. The Garibaldians, mowed down by the new French
chassept rifles, fought until their last cartridges were exhausted,
and retreated the next day towards the Italian frontier, leaving
800 prisoners.
The affair of Mentana caused considerable excitement throughout
Europe, and the Roman question entered on an acute stage. Napoleon
suggested his favorite expedient of a congress but the proposal
broke down owing to Great Britains refusa:
to participate; and Rouher, the French premier, declared ir the
Chamber (5th of December 1867) that France could never permit the
Italians to occupy Rome. The attitude of Franci strengthened that
anti-French feeling in. Italy which had begut with Villafranca; and
Bismarck was not slow to
make us~ of this hostility, with a view to preventing Italy from
takinj sides with France against Germany in the struggle between
the two powers which he saw to be inevitable. At the same time
Napoleon was making overtures both to Austria and to Italy,
overtures which were favorably received. Victor Emmanuel was
sincerely anxious to assist Napoleon, for in spite of Nice and
Savoy and Mentana he felt a chivalrous desire to help the man who
had fought for Italy. But with the French at Civitavecchia (they
had left Rome very soon after Mentana) If war for France was not to
be thought of, and Napoleon would not promise more than the literal
observance of the September convention. Austria would not join
France unless Italy did the same, and she realized that that was
impossible unless Napoleon gave way about Rome. Consequently the
negotiations were suspended. A
scandal concerning the tobacco monopoly led to
the fall of Menabrea, who was succeeded in. December I~S~IY. 1869
by
Giovanni Lanza,
with Visconti-Venosta at the
foreign office and Q. Sella as finance
minister. The latter introduced a sounder financial policy, which
was maintained until the fall of the Right in 1876. Mazzini, now
openly hostile to the monarchy, was seized with a perfect monomania
for insurrections, and promoted various small risings, the only
effect of which was to show how completely his influence was
gone.
In December 1869 the XXI.
oecumenical council began its sittings in
Rome, and on the 18th of July 1870 proclaimed the
infallibility of
the pope (see
VATICAN COUNCIL). Two days previously
Napoleon. had declared war on Prussia, and immediately afterwards
he withdrew his troops from Civitavecchia; but he persuaded Lanza
to promise to abide by the September convention, and it was not
until after Worth and
Gravelotte that he offered to give Italy a
free hand to occupy Rome. Then it was too late; Victor Emmanuel
asked
Thiers if he could give
his word of honor that with 100,000 Italian troops France could be
saved, but Thiers remained silent. Austria replied like Italy: It
is too late. On the 9th of August Italy made a declaration of
neutrality, and three
weeks later ViscontiVenosta informed the powers that Italy was
about to occupy Rome. On the 3rd of September the news of
Sedan reached Florence, and with
the fall of Napoleons empire the September convention ceased to
have any value. The powers having engaged to abstain from
intervention in italian affairs, Victor Emmanuel addressed a letter
to Pius IX. asking him in the name of religion and peace to accept
Italian protection instead of the temporal power, to which the pope
replied that he Italian would only yield to force. On the 11th of
September occupaGeneral Cadorna at the head of 60,000 men entered
ilon of papal territory. The garrison of Civitavecchia sur- Rome.
rendered to Bixio, but the 10,000 men in Rome, mostly French,
Belgians, Swiss and Bavarians, under Kanzler, were ready to fight.
Cardinal Antonelli would have come to terms, but the pope decided
on making a sufficient show of resistance to prove that he was
yielding to force. On the 20th the Italians began the attack, and
General
Maze de la Roches division
having effected a
breach in
the Porta Pia, the pope ordered the garrison to cease fire and the
Italians poured into the Eternal City followed by thousands of
Roman exiles. By
noon the whole
city on the left of the Tiber was occupied and the garrison laid
down their arms; the next da~, at the popes request, the Leonine
City on the right bank was also occupied. It had been intended tc
leave that part of Rome to the pope, but by the earnest desin of
the inhabitants it too was included in the Italian kingdom At the
plebiscite there were 133,681 votes for union and I 50~ against it.
In July 1872 King Victor Emmanuel made hi~ solemn entry into Rome,
which was then declared the capita of Italy. Thus, after a struggle
of more than half a century, ix spite of apparently insuperable
obstacles, the liberation an the unity of Italy were
accomplished.
Bibliography.
A vast amount of material on the Risorgimenti has been published
both in Italy and abroad as well as numeron works of a literary and
critical nature. The most detailed Italiai history of the period is
Carlo Tivaronis Storia critica del Rlsorgs menlo Italiano in 9
vols. (Turin, 1888-1897), based on a diligent
stud of the original authorities and containing a
large amount of informa tion; the author is a Mazzinian, which fact
should be taken mt account, but he generally quotes the opinions of
those who disagree with him as well. Another voluminous but less
valuable work is F. Bertolinis Storia dItalia dat 1814 al 1878, in
2 parts (Milan, 1880 1881). L. Chialas Lettere del Conte di Cavour
(~ vols., Turin, 1883 1887) and D. Zanichellis Scritti del Conte di
Cavour (Bologna, 1892) are very important, and so are Prince
Metternichs 7ff moires (7 vols., Paris, f881). P. Orsis LItaiia
moderna (Milan, 1901) should also be mentioned. N. Bianchis Storia
della diplomazza euro pea in Italsa (8 vols., Turin, 1865) is an
invaluable and thoroughly reliable work. See also Zinis Storia d
Italic (4 vols., Milan, 1875); Gualterios Gil ultimi rivolgimenti
italiani (4 vols., Florence, 1850) is important for the period from
1831 to 1847, and so also is L. Farinas Sloria dIlalia dcl 1815 at
1849 (5 vols., Turin, 1851); ~V. R. Thayers
Dawn of Italian Independence (Boston, 1893) is
gushing and not always accurate; C. Cants Dell indipendenza
italiana cronistoria (Naples, 1872-1877) is reactionary and often
unreliable; V. Bersezio, Ii Regno di Vittorio Emanuele II (8 vols.,
Turin, 1889, &c.). For English readers Countess F. Martinengo
Cesarescos Liberation of Italy (London, 1895) is to be strongly
recommended, and is indeed, for accuracy, fairness and
synthesis, as well as for
charm of style, one of the very best books on the subject in any
language;
Bolton Kings History
of Italian Unity (2 vols., London, 1899) is bulkier and less
satisfactory, but contains a useful bibliography. A succinct
account of the chief events of the period will be found in Sir
Spencer Walpoles History of Twenty-Five Years (London, 1904). See
also the Cambridge Modern History, vols. x. and xi. (Cambridge,
1907, &c.), where full bibliographies will be found. (L.
V.*)
F. History, 1870-1902
The downfall of the temporal power was hailed throughout Italy
with unbounded enthusiasm. Abroad, Catholic countries Italian at
first received the tidings with resignation, and occupa.
Protestant countries with
joy. In France, where the Uon of Government of National Defence had
replaced the Rome. Empire, Crmieux, as president of the government
delegation at
Tours, hastened to
offer his congratulations to Italy. The occupation of Rome caused
no surprise to the French government, which had been forewarned on
11th September of the Italian intentions. On that occasion
Jules Favre had recognized
the September convention to be dead, and, while refusing explicitly
to denounce it, had admitted that unless Italy went to Rome the
city would become a prey to dangerous
agitators. At the same time he made it clear
that Italy would occupy Rome upon her own responsibility. Agreeably
surprised by this attitude on the part of France, Visconti-Venosta
lost no time in conveying officially the thanks of Italy to the
French government. He doubtless foresaw that the language of Favre
and Crmieux would not be endorsed by the French Clericals. Prussia,
while satisfied at the fall of the temporal power, seemed to fear
lest Italy might recompense the absence of French opposition to the
occupation of Rome by armed intervention in favor of France.
Bismarck, moreover, was indignant at the connivance of the Italian
government in the Garibaldian expedition to
Dijon, and was irritated by Visconti-Venostas
plea in the Italian parliament for the integrity of French
territory. The course of events in France, however, soon calmed
German apprehensions. The advent of Thiers, his attitude towards
the
petition of French
bishops on behalf of the pope, the recall of Senard, the French
minister at Florencewho had written to congratulate Victor Emmanuel
on the capture of Romeand the instructions given to his successor,
the comte de Choiseul, to absent himself from Italy at the moment
of the kings official entry into the new capital (2nd July 1871),
together with the haste displayed in appointing a French ambassador
to the Holy See, rapidly cooled the cordiality of Franco-Italian
relations, and reassured Bismarck on the score of any dangerous
intimacy between the two governments.
The friendly attitude of France towards Italy during the period
immediately subsequent to the occupation of Rome seemed to cow and
to dishearten the Vatican. For Attitude a few weeks the relations
between the Curia and the ~ Italian authorities were marked by a
conciliatory spirit. The secretary-general of the Italian foreign
office, Baron Blanc, who had accompanied General Cadorna to Rome,
was received almost daily by Cardinal Antonelli, papal secretary of
state, in order to settle innumerable questions arising out of the
Italian occupation. The royal commissioner for finance, Giacomelli,
had, as a precautionary measure, seized the pontifical treasury;
but upon being informed by Cardinal Antonelli that among the funds
deposited in the treasury were 1,000,000 crowns of Peters Pence
offered by the faithful to the pope in person, the commissioner was
authorized by the Italian council of state not only to restore this
sum, but also to indemnify the Holy See for moneys expended for the
service of the October
coupon
of the pontifical debt, that debt having been taken over by the
Italian state. On the 29th of September Cardinal Ant onelli further
apprised Baron Blanc that he was about to issue drafts for the
monthly payment of the 50,000 crowns inscribed in the pontifical
budget for the maintenance of the pope, the Sacred College, the
apostolic palaces and the papal guards. The Italian treasury at
once honored all the papal drafts, and thus contributed a first
instalment of the
3,225,000 lire per annum afterwards placed by Article 4 of the Law
of Guarantees at the disposal of the Holy See. Payments would have
been regularly continued had not pressure from the French Clerical
party coerced the Vatican into refusing any further instalment.
Once in possession of Rome, and guarantor to the Catholic world
of the spiritual independence of the pope, the Italian government
prepared juridically to regulate its relations to the Holy See. A
bill known as the Law of Law Guarantees was therefore framed and
laid before parliament. The measure was an
amalgam of Cavours scheme for a
free church in a free
state, of Ricasolis Free Church Bill, rejected by parliament four
years previously, and of the proposals presented to Pius IX. by
Count Ponza di San Martino in September 1870. After a debate
lasting nearly two months the Law of Guarantees was adopted in
secret ballot on the 21st of March 1871 by 185 votes against
106.
It consisted of two parts. The first, containing thirteen
articles, recognized (Articles 1 and 2) the person of the pontiff
as sacred and intangible, and while providing for free discussion
of religious questions, punished insults and outrages against the
pope in the same way as insults and outrages against the king.
Royal honors were attributed to the pope (Article 3), who was
ftirther guaranteed the same
precedence as that accorded to him by other
Catholic sovereigns, and the right to maintain his Noble and Swiss
guards. Article 4 allotted the pontiff an annuity of 3,225,000 lire
(~I29,ooo) for the maintenance of the Sacred College, the sacred
palaces, the congregations, the Vatican chancery and the diplomatic
service. The sacred palaces, museums and libraries were, by Article
5, exempted from all taxation, and the pope was assured perpetual
enjoyment of the Vatican and Lateran buildings and gardens, and of
the papal villa at Castel Gandolfo. Articles 6 and 7 forbade access
of any Italian official or
agent
to the above-mentioned palaces or to any eventual conclave or
oecumenical council without special authorization from the pope,
conclave Or council. Article 8 prohibited the seizure or
examination of any ecclesiastical papers, documents, books or
registers of purely spiritualcharacter. Article 9 guaracteed to the
pope full freedom for the exercise of his spiritual ministry, and
provided for the publication of pontifical announcements on the
doors of the Roman churches and basilicas. Article 10 extended
immunity to ecclesiastics
employed by the Holy See, and bestowed upon foreign ecciesiastics
in Rome the personal rights of Italian citizens. By Article 11,
diplomatists accredited to the Holy See, and papal diplomatists
while in Italy, were placed on the same footing as diplomatists
accredited to the Quirinal. Article 12 provided for the
transmission free of cost in Italy of all papal telegrams and
correspondence both with bishops and foreign governments, and
sanctioned the establishment, at the expense of the Italian state,
of a papal telegraph office served b~ papal officials in
communication with the Italian postal and telegraph system. Article
13 exempted all ecclesiastical seminaries,
academies, colleges and schools for the
education of priests in the city of Rome from all interference on
the part of the Italian government.
This portion of the law, designed to reassure foreign Catholics,
met with little opposition; but the second portion, regulating the
relations between state and church in Italy, was sharply criticized
by deputies who, like Sella, recognized the ideal of a free church
in a free state to be an impracticable dream. The second division
of the law abolished (Article 14) all restrictions upon the right
of meeting of members of the clergy. By Article 15 the government
relinquished its rights to apostolic
legation in Sicily, and to theap. pointment of
its own nominees to the chief benefices throughout the kingdom.
Bishops were further dispensed from
swearing fealty tc the king, though, except in
Rome and suburbs, the choice of bishop1 was limited to
ecclesiastics of Italian nationality. Article If abolished the need
for reyal
exequatur and
placet for ecclesiastical publications, but stibordinated the
enjoyment of temporalities by bishops and priests to the concession
of state exequalur and placet. Article 17 maintained the
independence of the
ecclesiastical Jurisdiction
in spiritual and disciplinary matters, but reserved for the state
the exclusive right to carry out coercive measures.
On the 12th of July 1871, Articles 268, 269 and 270 of the
Italian Penal Code were so modified as to make ecclesiastics liable
to imprisonment for periods varying from six months to five years,
and to fines from 1000 to 3000 lire, for spoken or written attacks
against the laws of the state, or for the fomentation of disorder.
An encyclical of Pius IX. to the bishops of the Catholic Church on
the 15th of May 1871 repudiated the Law of Guarantees, and summoned
Catholic princes to co-operate in restoring the temporal power.
Practically, therefore, the law has remained a one-sided enactment,
by which Italy considers herself bound, and of which she has always
observed the spirit, even though the exigencies of self-defence may
have led in some minor respects to non-observance of the letter.
The annuity payable to the pope has, for instance, been made
subject to quinquennial
prescription, so that in the event of
tardy recognition of the law the Vatican could at no time claim
payment of more than five years annuity with interest.
For a few months after the occupation of Rome pressing questions
incidental to a new change of capital and to the administration of
a new domain distracted public attention from the real condition of
Italian affairs. The rise of the Tiber and the flooding of Rome in
December 1870 (tactfully used by Victor Emmanuel as an opportunity
for a first visit to the new capital) illustrated the imperative
necessity of reorganizing the drainage of the city and of
constructing the Tiber embankment. In spite of pressure from the
French government, which desired Italy to maintain Florence as the
political and to regard Rome merely as the moral capital of the
realm, the government offices and both legislative chambers were
transferred in 1871 to the Eternal City. Early in the year the
crown prince Humbert with the Princess Margherita took up their
residence in the Quirinal Palace, which, in view of the Vatican
refusal to deliver up the keys, had to be opened by force. Eight
monasteries were expropriated to make room for the chief state
departments, pending the construction of more suitable edifices.
The growth of Clerical influence in France engendered a belief that
Italy would soon have to defend with the sword her newly-won unity,
while the tremendous lesson of the Franco-Prussian War convinced
the military authorities of the need for thorough military reform.
General
Ricotti Magnani, minister of
war, therefore framed an Army Reform Bill designed to bring the
Italian army as nearly as possible up to the Prussian standard.
Sella, minister of finance, notwithstanding the sorry
plight of the Italian exchequer,
readily granted the means for the reform. We must arm, he said,
since we have overturned the papal throne, and he pointed to France
as the quarter from which attack was most likely to come.
Though perhaps less desperate than during the previous decade,
the condition of Italian finance was precarious indeed. With
Finance taxation screwed up to breaking point on personal and real
estate, on all forms of commercial and industrial activity, and on
salt, flour and other necessaries of life; with a deficit of
8,500,000 for the current year, and the prospect of a further
aggregate deficit of
Li ~,ooo,ooo
during the next quinquennium, Sellas heroic struggle against
national
bankruptcy
was still far from a successful termination. He chiefly had borne
the brunt and won the laurels of the unprecedented fight against
deficit in which Italy had been involved since 1862. As finance
minister in the Rattazzi cabinet of that year he had been
confronted with a public debt of nearly 120,000,000, and with an
immediate deficit of nearly 18,000,000. In 1864, as minister in the
La Marmora cabinet, he had again to face an excess of expenditure
over income amounting to more that 14,600,000. By the seizure and
sale of Church lands, by th sale of state railways, by economy to
the
bone and on onc supreme
occasion by an appeal to taxpayers to advance a years quota of the
land-tax, he had met the most pressing engagements of that
troublous period. The king was persuaded to forge one-fifth of his
civil list, ministers
and the higher civil servants were required to relinquish a portion
of their meagre salaries, but, in spite of all, Sella had found
himself in 1865 compelled to propose the most hated of fiscal
burdensa grist tax on cereals. This tax (macinato) had long been
known in Italy. Vexatious methods of
assessment and collection had made it so
unpopular that the Italian government in 1859-1860 had thought it
expedient to abolish it throughout the realm. Sella hoped by the
application of a mechanical meter both to obviate the odium
attaching to former methods of collection and to avoid the
maintenance of an army of inspectors and tax-gatherers, whose
stipends had formerly eaten up most of the proceeds of the impost.
Before proposing the reintroduction of the tax, Sella and his
friend Ferrara improved and made exhaustive experiments with the
meter. The result of their efforts was laid before parliament in
one of the most monumental and most painstaking preambles ever
prefixed to a bill. Sella, nevertheless, fell before the storm of
opposition which his scheme aroused. Scialoja, who succeeded him,
was obliged to adopt a similar proposal, but parliament again
proved refractory. Ferrara, successor of Scialoja, met a like fate;
but Count Cambray-Digny, finance minister in the Menabrea cabinet
of 1868-1869, driven to find means to cover a deficit aggravated by
the interest on the Venetian debt, succeeded, with Sellas help, in
forcing a Grist Tax Bill through parliament, though in a form of
which Sella could not entirely approve. When, on the 1st of January
1869, the new tax came into force, nearly half the flour-mills in
Italy ceased work. In many districts the government was obliged to
open mills on its own account. Inspectors and tax-gatherers did
their work under police protection, and in several parts of the
country riots had to be suppressed menu inililari. At first the net
revenue from the impost was less than 1,100,000; but under Sellas
firm administration (1869-1873), and in consequence of improvements
gradually introduced by him, the net return ultimately exceeded
3,200,000. The parliamentary opposition to the impost, which the
Left denounced as the tax on hunger, was largely factitious. Few,
except the open partisans of national bankruptcy, doubted its
necessity; yet so strong was the current of feeling worked up for
party purposes by opponents of the measure, that Sellas achievement
in having by its means saved the financiai.situation of Italy
deserves to rank among the most noteworthy performances of modern
parliamentary statesmanship.
Under the stress of the appalling financial conditions
represented by chronic deficit, crushing taxation, the heavy
expenditure necessary for the consolidation of the kingdom, the
reform of the army and the interest on the pontifical debt, Sella,
on the 11th of December 1871, exposed to parliament the financial
situation in all its nakedness. He recognized that considerable
improvement had already taken place. Revenue from taxation had
risen in a decade from 7,000,000 to 20,200,000; profit on state
monopolies had increased from 7,000,000 to 9,400,000; exports had
grown to exceed imports; income from the working of telegraphs had
tripled itself; railways had been extended from 2200 to 6200
kilometres, and the annual travelling public had augmented from
15,000,000 to 25,000,000 persons. The serious feature of the
situation lay less in the income than in the intangible
expenditure, namely, the vast sums required for interest on the
various forms of public debt and for pensions. Within ten years
this category of outlay had increased from 8,000,000 to 28,800,000.
During the same period the assumption of the Venetian and Roman
debts, losses on the issue of loans and the accumulation of annual
deficits, had caused public indebtedness to rise from 92,000,000 to
328,000,000, no less than f 100,000,000 of the latter sum having
been sacrificed in premiums and commissions to bankers and
underwriters of loans. By economies and new taxes Sella had reduced
the deficit to less than 2,000,000 in 1871, but for 1872 he found
himself confronted with a total expenditure of 8,ooo,ooo in excess
of revenue. He therefore proposed to mak over the treasury service
to the state banks, to increase th~ forced currency, to raise the
stamp and registration duties and to impose a new tax on textile
fabrics. An optional conversion of sundry internal loans into
consolidated stock at a lower rate of interest was calculated to
effect considerable saving. The battle over these proposals was
long and fierce. But for the tactics of Rattazzi, leader of the
Left, who, by basing his opposition on party considerations,
impeded the secession of Minghetti and a part of the Right from the
ministerial majority, Sella would have been defeated. On the 23rd
of March 1872, however, he succeeded in carrying his programme,
which not only provided for the pressing needs of the moment, but
laid the foundation of the much-needed equilibrium between
expenditure and revenue.
In the spring of 1873 it became evident that the days of the
Lanza-Sella cabinet were numbered. Fear of the advent of a Radical
administration under Rattazzi alone prevented the Minghettian Right
from revolting against the government. The Left, conscious of its
strength, impatiently awaited the moment of accession to power.
Sella, the real head of the Lanza cabinet, was worn out by four
years continuous work and disheartened by the perfidious
misrepresentation in which Italian politicians, particularly those
of the Left, have ever excelled. By sheer force of will he
compelled the Chamber early in 1873 to adopt some minor financial
reforms, but on the 29th of April found himself in a minority on
the question of a credit for a proposed state
arsenal at Taranto. Pressure from all sides of
the House, however, induced the ministry to retain office until
after the debate on the application to Rome and the Papal States of
the Religious Orders Bill (originally passed in 1866)a measure
which, with the help of Ricasoli, was carried at the end of May.
While leaving intact the general houses of the various
confraternities (except that of the Jesuits), the bill abolished
the Religious corporate
personality of religious orders, handed
over Bill, their schools and hospitals to civil administrators,
placed their churches at the disposal of the secular clergy, and
provided pensions for nuns and monks, those who had families being
sent to reside with their relatives, and those who by reason of age
or bereavement had no home but their monasteries being allowed to
end their days in religious houses specially set apart for the
purpose. The proceeds of the sale of the suppressed convents and
monasteries were partly converted into pensions for monks and nuns,
and partly allotted to the municipal charity boards which had
undertaken the educational and charitable functions formerly
exercised by the religious orders. To the pope was made over 16,000
per annum as a contribution to the expense of maintaining in Rome
representatives of foreign orders; the Sacred College, however,
rejected this endowment, and summoned all the suppressed
confraternities to reconstitute themselves under the ordinary
Italian law of association. A few days after the passage of the
Religious Orders Bill, the death of Rattazzi (5th June 1873)
removed all probability of the immediate advent of the Left. Sella,
uncertain of the loyalty of the Right, challenged a vote on the
immediate discussion of further financial reforms, and on the 23rd
of June was overthrown by a coalition of the Left under Depretis
with a part of the Right under Minghetti and the Tuscan Centre
under Correnti. The administration which thus fell was
unquestionably the most important since the death of Cavour. It had
completed national unity, transferred the capital to Rome, overcome
the chief obstacles to financial equilibrium, initiated military
reform and laid the foundation of the relations between state and
church.
The succeeding I~linghetti-Visconti-Venosta cabinetwhich held
office from the 10th of July 1873 to the 18th of March 1876
Mlaghetti. continued in essential points the work of the preceding
administration. Minghettis finance, though less clearsighted and
less resolute than that of Sella, was on the whole prudent and
beneficial. With the aid of Sella he concluded conventions for the
redemption of the chief Italian railways from their French and
Austrian proprietors. By dint of expedients he gradually overcame
the chronic deficit, and, owing to the normal increase of revenue,
ended his term of office with the announcement of a surplus of some
720,000. The question whether this surplus was real or only
apparent has been much debated, but t,here is no reason to doubt
its substantial reality. It left out of account a sum of 1,000,000
for railway construction which was covered by credit, but, on the
other hand, took no note of 360,000 expended in the redemption of
debt. Practically, therefore, the Right, of which the Minghetti
cabinet was the last representative administration, left Italian
finance with a surplus of 80,000. Outside the all-important domain
of finance, the attention of Minghetti and his colleagues was
principally absorbed by strife between church and state, army
reform and railway redemption. For some time after the occupation
of Rome the pope, in order to substantiate the pretence that his
spiritual freedom had been diminished, avoided the creation of
cardinals and the nomination of bishops. On the 22nd of December
1873, however, he unexpectedly created twelve cardinals, and
subsequently proceeded to nominate a number of bishops.
ViscontiVenosta, who had retained the portfolio for foreign affairs
in the Minghetti cabinet, at once drew the attention of the
European powers to this proof of the popes spiritual freedom and of
the imaginary nature of his imprisonment in the Vatican. At the
same time he assured them that absolute liberty would be guaranteed
to the deliberations of a conclave. In relation to the Church in
Italy, Minghettis policy was less perspicacious. He let it be
understood that the announcement of the appointment of bishops and
the request for the royal exequatur might he made to the government
impersonally by the
congregation of bishops and regulars, by a
municipal council or by any other corporate bodya concession of
which the bishops were quick to take advantage, but which so
irritated Italian political opinion that, in July 1875, the
government was compelled to withdra~w the temporalities of
ecclesiastics who had neglected to apply for the cxc quatur, and to
evict sundry bishops who had taken possession of their palaces
without authorization from the state. Parliamentary pressure
further obliged Bonghi, minister of public instruction, to compel
clerical seminaries either to forgo the instruction of lay pupils
or to conform to the laws of the state in regard to inspection and
examination, an
ordinance which gave rise to conflicts
between ecclesiastical and lay authorities, and led to the forcible
dissolution of the Mantua seminary and to the suppression of the
Catholic university in Rome. -
More noteworthy than its management of internal affairs were the
efforts of the Minghetti cabinet to strengthen and consolidate
national defence. Appalled by the weakness, or rather the
non-existence, of the navy, Admiral
Saint-Bon, with his coadjutor
Signor Brin, addressed ~form. himself earnestly to the task of
recreating the fleet, which had never recovered from the effects of
the disaster of Lissa. During his three years of office he laid the
foundation upon which Brin was afterwards to build up a new Italian
navy. Simultaneously General Ricotti Magnani matured the army
reform scheme which he had elaborated under the preceding
administration. His bill, adopted by parliament on the 7th of June
1875, still forms the ground plan of the Italian army.
It was fortunate for Italy that during the whole period 1869
1876 the direction of her foreign policy remained in the
experienced hands of Visconti-Venosta, a statesman whose Foreign
trustworthiness, dignity and moderation even political policy
opponents have been compelled to recognize. Diplo- ~e1~s the matic
records fail to substantiate the accusations of g lack of
initiative and instability of political criterion currently brought
against him by contemporaries. As foreign minister of a young state
which had attained unity in defiance of the most formidable
religious organization in the world and in opposition to the
traditional policy of France, it could but be ViscontiVenostas aim
to uphold the dignity of his country while convincing European
diplomacy that United Italy was an element of order and progress,
and that the spiritual independence of the Roman pontiff had
suffered no diminution. Prudence, moreover, counselled
avoidance of all action
likely to serve the predominant anti-Italian party in France as a
pretext for violent intervention in favor of the pope. On the
occasion of the Metrical Congress, which met in Paris in 1872, he,
however, successfully protested against the recognition of the
Vatican delegate, Father Secchi, as a representative of a state,
and obtained from Count de Rmusat, French foreign minister, a
formal declaration that the presence of Father Secchi on that
occasion could not constitute a diplomatic precedent. The
irritation displayed by Bismarck at the Francophil attitude of
Italy towards the end of the
Franco-German War gave place to a
certain show of
goodwill
when the great chancellor found himself in his turn involved in a
struggle against the Vatican and when the policy of Thiers began to
strain Franco-Italian relations. Thiers had consistently opposed
the emperor Napoleons pro-Italian policy. In the case of Italy, as
in that of Germany, he frankly regretted the constitution of
powerful homogeneous states upon the borders of France. Personal
pique accentuated this feeling in regard to Italy. The refusal of
Victor
Emmanuel II. to meet Thiers at the opening of the Mont Cenis
tunnel (a refusal not unconnected with offensive language employed
at Florence in October 1870 by Thiers during his European tour, and
with his instructions to the French minister to remain absent from
Victor Emmanuels official entry into Rome) had wounded the amour
propre of the French statesman, and had decreased whatever
inclination he might otherwise have felt to oppose the French
Clerical agitation for the restoration of the temporal power, and
for French interference with the Italian Religious Orders Bill.
Consequently relations between France and Italy became so strained
that in 1873 both the French minister to the Quirinal and the
Italian minister to the Republic remained for several months absent
from their posts. At this juncture the emperor of Austria invited
Victor Emmanuel to visit the Vienna Exhibition, and the Italian
government received a confidential intimation that acceptance of
the invitation to Vienna would be followed by a further invitation
from
Berlin. Perceiving the
advantage of a visit to the imperial and apostolic court after the
Italian occupation of Rome and the suppression of the religious
orders, and convinced of the value of more cordial intercourse with
the German empire, Visconti-Venosta and Minghetti advised their
sovereign to accept both the Austrian and the subsequent German
invitations. The visit to Vienna took place on the 17th to the 22nd
of September, and that to Berlin on the 22nd to the 26th of
September 1873, the Italian monarch being accorded in both capitals
a most cordial reception, although the contemporaneous publication
of La Marmoras famous pamphlet, More Light on 1/fe Events of i866,
prevented intercourse between the Italian ministers and Bismarck
from being entirely confidential. ViscontiVenosta and Minghetti,
moreover, wisely resisted the chancellors pressure to override the
Law of Guarantees and to engage in an Italian Kulturkampf.
Nevertheless the royal journey contributed notably to the
establishment of cordial relations between Italy and the central
powers, relations which were further strengthened by the visit of
the emperor Francis Joseph to Victor Emmanuel at Venice in April
1875, and by that of the German emperor to Milan in October of the
same year. Meanwhile Thiers had given place to Marshal Macmahon,
who effected a decided improvement in Franco-Italian relations by
recalling from Civitavecchia the cruiser Ornoque, which since 1870
had been stationed in that port at the disposal of the pope in case
he should desire to quit Rome. The foreign policy of
ViscontiVenosta may be said to have reinforced the international
position of Italy without sacrifice of dignity, and without the
vacillation and short-sightedness which was to characterize the
ensuing administrations of the Left.
The fall of the Right on the 18th of March 1876 was an event
destined profoundly and in many respects adversely to affect the
course of Italian history. Except at rare and not auspicious
intervals, the Right had held office from 1849 to 1876. Its rule
was associated in the popular mind with severe administration;
hostility to the democratic elements represented by Garibaldi,
Crispi, Depretis and Bertani; ruthless
imposition and collection of taxes in order
to meet the financial engagements forced upon Italy by the
vicissitudes of her Risorgimento; strong predilection for
Piedmontese, Lombards and Tuscans, and a steady determination, not
always scrupulous in its choice of means, to retain executive power
and the most important administrative offices of the state for the
consorteria, or close corporation, of its own adherents. For years
the men of the Left had worked to inoculate the electorate with
suspicion of Conservative methods and with hatred of the imposts
which they nevertheless knew to be indispensable to sound finance.
In regard to the grist tax especially, the agitators of the Left
had placed their party in a radically false position. Moreover, the
redemption of the railways by the statecontracts for which had been
signed by Sella in 1875 on behalf of the Minghetti cabinet with
Rothschild at
Basel and with the Austrian
government at Viennahad been fiercely opposed by the Left, although
its members were for the most part convinced of the utility of the
operation. When, at the beginning of March 1876, these contracts
were submitted to parliament, a group of Tuscan deputies, under
Cesare
Correnti, joined the opposition, and on the 18th of March took
advantage of a chance motion concerning the date of discussion of
an
interpellation on the grist tax to place
the Minghetti cabinet in a minority. Depretis, ex-prodictator of
Sicily, and successor of Rattazzi in the leadership of the Left,
was entrusted by the king with the formation of a Liberal ministry.
Besides the premiership, Depretis assumed the portfolio of finance;
Nicot~a, an ex-Garibaldian of somewhat tarnished reputation, but a
man of energetic ~~t~ and conservative temperament, was placed at
the ministry of the interior; public works were entrusted to
Zanardelli, a Radical doctrinaire of considerable juridical
attainments; General Mezzacapo and Signor Brin replaced General
Ricotti Magnani and Admiral Saint-B on at the war office and
ministry of marine; while to Mancini and Coppino, prominent members
of the Left, were allotted the portfolios of justice and public
instruction. Great difficulty was experienced in finding a foreign
minister willing to challenge comparison with Visconti-Venosta.
Several diplomatists in active service were approached, but, partly
on account of their refusal, and partly from the desire of the Left
to avoid giving so important a post to a diplomatist bound by ties
of friendship or of interest to the Right, the choice fell upon
Melegari, Italian minister at
Bern.
The new ministers had long since made monarchical professions of
faith, but, up to the moment of taking office, were nevertheless
considered to be tinged with an almost revolutionary
hue. The king alone appeared to feel no misgiving.
His shrewd sense of political expediency and his loyalty to
constitutional principles saved .him from the error of obstructing
the advent and
driving into
an aati-dynastic attitude politicians who had succeeded in winning
popular favor. Indeed, the patriotism and loyalty of the new
ministers were above suspicion. Danger lay rather in entrusting men
schooled in political conspiracy and in unscrupulous parliamentary
opposition with the government of a young state still beset by
enemies at home and abroad. As an opposition party the Left had
lived upon the, facile credit of political promises, but had no
well-considered programme nor other discipline nor unity of purpose
than that born of the common eagerness of its leaders for office
and their common hostility to the Right. Neither Depretis,
Nicotera, Crispi, Cairoli nor Zanardelli was disposed permanently
to recognize the superiority of any one chief. The dissensions
which broke out among them within a few months of the accession of
their party to power never afterwards disappeared, except at rare
moments when it became necessary to unite in preventing the return
of the Conservatives. Considerations such as these could not be
expected to appeal to the nation at large, which hailed the advent
of the Left as the dawn of an era of unlimited popular sovereignty,
diminished administrative pressure, reduction of taxation and
general prosperity. The programme of Depretis corresponded only in
part to these expectations. Its chief points were extension of the
franchise, incompatibility of a parliamentary
mandate with an official position, strict
,,.~
enforcement of the rights of the State in regard to the gramme
Church, protection of freedom of
conscience, mainten- of the ance of the
military and naval policy inaugurated by the LefL
Conservatives, acceptance of the railway redemption contracts,
consolidation of the financial equilibrium, abolition 01
the !QrCe~
currency, and, eventually, fiscal reform. The long-promised
abolition of the grist tax was not explicitly mentioned, opposition
to the railway redemption contracts was transformed into approval,
and the vaunted reduction of taxation replaced by
lip-service to the Conservative deity of financial
equilibrium. The railway redemption contracts were in fact
immediately voted by parliament, with a clause pledging the
government to legislate in favor of farming out the railways to
private companies.
Nicotera, minister of the interior, began his administration of
home affairs by a sweeping change in the personnel of the prefects,
sub-prefects and public prosecutors, but found himself obliged to
incur the wrath of his supporters by prohibiting Radical meetings
likely to endanger public order, and by enunciating administrative
principles which would have befitted an inveterate Conservative. In
regard to the Church, he instructed the prefects strictly to
prevent infraction of the law against religious orders. At the same
time the cabinet, as a whole, brought in a Clerical Abuses Bill,
threatening with severe punishment priests guilty of disturbing the
peace of families, of opposing the laws of the state, or of
fomenting disorder. Depretis, for his part, was compelled to
declare impracticable the immediate abolition of the grist tax, and
to frame a bill for the increase of revenue, acts which caused the
secession of some sixty Radicals and Republicans from the
ministerial majority, and gave the signal for an agitation against
the premier similar to that which he himself had formerly
undertaken against the Right. The first general election under the
Left (November 1876) had yielded the cabinet the overwhelming
majority of 421 Ministerialists against 87 Conservatives, but the
very size of the majority rendered it unmanageable. The Clerical
Abuses Bill provoked further dissensions: Nicotera was severely
affected by revelations concerning his political past; Zanardelli
refused to sanction the construction of a railway in Calabria in
which Nicotera was interested; and Depretis saw fit to compensate
the supporters of his bill for the increase of revenue by
decorating at one stroke sixty ministerial deputies with the Order
of the Crown of Italy. A further derogation from the ideal of
democratic austerity was committed by adding 80,000 per annum to
the kings civil list (14th May 1877) and by burdening the state
exchequer with
royal household pensions amounting to
20,000 a year. The civil list, which the law of the 10th of August
1862 had fixed at 650,000 a year, but which had been voluntarily
reduced by the king to 530,000 in 1864, and to 490,000 in 1867, was
thus raised to 570,000 a year. Almost the only respect in which the
Left could boast a decided improvement over the administration of
the Right was the energy displayed by Nicotera in combating
brigandage and the mafia in Calabria and Sicily. Successes achieved
in those provinces failed, however, to save Nicotera from the wrath
of the Chamber, and on the 14th of December 1877 a cabinet crisis
arose over a question concerning the secrecy of telegraphic
correspondence. Depretis thereupon reconstructed his
administration, excluding Nicotera, Melegari and Zanardelli,
placing Crispi at the
home office, entrusting Magliani with
finance, and himself assuming the direction of foreign affairs.
In regard to foreign affairs, the debut of the Left as a
governing party was scarcely more satisfactory than its home
policy.
Since the war of i866 the Left had advocated an ItaloPrussian
alliance in opposition to the Francophil the Left, tendencies of
the Right. On more than one occasion Bismarck had maintained direct
relations with the chiefs of the Left, and had in I87o worked to
prevent a FrancoItalian alliance by encouraging the party of action
to press for the occupation of Rome. Besides, the Left stood for
anticlericalism and for the retention by the State of means of
coercing the Church, in opposition to the men of the Right, who,
with the exception of Sella, favored Cavours ideal of a free Church
in a free State, and the consequent abandonment of state control
over ecclesiastical government. Upon the outbreak of the Prussian
Kulturkampf the Left had pressed the Right to introduce an Italian
counterpart to the Prussian May laws, especially as the attitude of
Thiers and the hostility of the French Clericals obviated the need
for sparing French susceptibilities. Visconti-Ven.osta and
Minghetti, partly from aversion to a Jacobin policy, and partly
from a conviction that Bismarck sooner or later would undertake his
Gang nach Canossa, regardless of any tacit engagement he might have
assumed towards Italy, had wisely declined to be drawn into any
infraction of the Law of Guarantees. It was, however, expected that
the chiefs of the Left, upon attaining office, would turn
resolutely towards Prussia in search of a guarantee against the
Clerical menace embodied in the rgime of Marshal Macmahon. On the
contrary, Depretis and Melegari, both of whom were imbued with
French Liberal doctrines, adopted towards the Republic an attitude
so deferential as to arouse suspicion in Vienna and Berlin.
Depretis recalled Nigra from Paris and replaced him by General
Cialdini, whose ardent plea for Italian intervention in favor of
France in 1870, and whose comradeship with Marshal Macmahon in
1859, would, it was supposed, render him persona gratissima to the
French government. This calculation was falsified by events.
Incensed by the elevation to the rank of embassies of the Italian
legation in Paris and the French legation to the Quirinal, and by
the introduction of the Italian bill against clerical abuses, the
French Clerical party not only attacked Italy and her
representative, General Cialdini, in the Chamber of Deputies, but
promoted a monster petition against the Italian bill. Even the coup
detat of the 16th of May 1877 (when Macmahon dismissed the Jules
Simon cabinet for opposing the Clerical petition) hardly availed to
change the attitude of Depretis. As a precaution against an
eventual French attempt to restore the temporal power, orders were
hurriedly given to complete the defences of Rome, but in other
respects the Italian government maintained its subservient
attitude. Yet at that moment the adoption of a clear line of
policy, in
accord with the
central powers, might have saved Italy from the loss of prestige
entailed by her bearing in regard to the
Russo-Turkish War and the Austrian
acquisition of Bosnia, and might have prevented the disappointment
subsequently occasioned by the outcome of the
Congress of Berlin. In
the hope of inducing the European powers to compensate Italy for
the increase of Austrian influence on the Adriatic, Crispi
undertook in the autumn of 1877, with the approval of the king, and
in spite of the half-disguised opposition of Depretis, a
semi-official mission to Paris, Berlin, London and Vienna. The
mission appears not to have been an unqualified success, though
Crispi afterwards affirmed in the Chamber (4th March 1886) that
Depretis might in 1877 have harnessed fortune to the Italian
chariot. Depretis, anxious only
to avoid a policy of adventure, let slip whatever opportunity may
have presented itself, and neglected even to deal energetically
with the impotent but mischievous Italian agitation for a
rectification of the Italo-Austrian frontier. He greeted the treaty
of San Stefano (3rd March 1878) with undisguised relief, and by the
mouth of the king, congratulated Italy (7th March 1878) on having
maintained with the powers friendly and cordial relations free from
suspicious precautions, and upon having secured for herself that
most precious of alliances, the alliance of the future a phrase of
which the empty rhetoric was to be bitterly demonstrated by the
Berlin Congress and the French occupation of Tunisia.
The entry of Crispi into the Depretis cabinet (December 1877)
placed at the ministry of the interior a strong hand and sure eye
at a moment when they were about to become im- CHspi. peratively
necessary. Crispi was the only man of truly statesmanlike calibre
in the ranks of the Left. Formerly a friend and
disciple of Mazzini, with whom he had broken
on the question of the monarchical form of government which Crispi
believed indispensable to the unification of Italy, he had
afterwards been one of Garibaldis most efficient coadjutors and an
active member of the party of action. Passionate, not always
scrupulous in his choice and use of political weapons, intensely
patriotic, loyal with a loyalty based rather or reason than
sentiment, quickwitted, prompt in action, determined and
pertinacious, he possessed in eminent degree many qualities lacking
in other Liberal chieftains. Hardly had he assumed office when the
unexpected death of Victor Emmanuel II. (9th January Deaths t~
1878) stirred national feeling to an unprecedented Victor depth,
and placed the continuity of monarchical in&nmaauel stitutions
in Italy upon trial before Europe. For thirty II. and years Victor
Emmanuel had been the centre point Pius IX. of national hopes, the
token and embodiment of the struggle for national redemption. He
had led the country out of the despondency which followed the
defeat of Novara and the abdication of Charles Albert, through all
the vicissitudes of national unification to the final triumph at
Rome. His disappearance snapped the chief link with the heroic
period, and removed from the helm of state a ruler of large heart,
great experience and civil courage, at a moment when elements of
continuity were needed and vital problems of internal
reorganization had still to be faced. Crispi adopted the measures
necessary to ensure the tranquil accession of King Humbert with a
quick energy which precluded any Radical or Republican
demonstrations. His influence decided the choice of the Roman
Pantheon as the late monarchs
burial-place, in spite of
formidable pressure from the Piedmontese, who wished Victor
Emmanuel II. to rest with the Sardinian kings at Superga. He also
persuaded the new ruler to inaugurate, as King Humbert I., the new
dynastical epoch of the kings of Italy, instead of continuing as
Humbert IV. the succession of the kings of Sardinia. Before the
commotion caused by the death of Victor Emmanuel had passed away,
the decease of Pius IX (7th February 1878) placed further demands
upon Crispis sagacity and promptitude. Like Victor Emmanuel, Pius
IX. had been bound up with the history of the Risorgimento, but,
unlike him, had represented and embodied the anti-national,
reactionary spirit. Ecclesiastically, he had become the instrument
of the triumph of Jesuit influence, and had in turn set hi~
seal upon the
dogma of
the Immaculate Conception,
the
Syllabus and Papal
Infallibility. Yet, in spite of all, his jovial disposition and
good-humoured cynicism saved him from unpopularity, and rendered
his death an occasion of
mourning. Notwithstanding the pontiffs
bestowal of the apostolic
benediction in articulo mortis upon Victor
Emmanuel, the attitude of the Vatican had remained so inimical as
to make it doubtful whether the conclave would be held in Rome.
Crispi, whose strong anti-clerical convictions did not prevent him
from regarding the papacy as preeminently an Italian institution,
was determined both to prove to the Catholic world the practical
independence of the government of the Church and to retain for Rome
so potent a centre of universal attraction as the presence of the
future pope. The Sacred College having decided to hold the conclave
abroad, Crispi assured them of absolute freedom if they remained in
Rome, or of protection to the frontier should they migrate, but
warned them that, once evacuated, the Vatican would be occupied in
the name of the Italian government and be lost to the Church as
headquarters of the papacy. The cardinals thereupon overruled their
former decision, and the conclave was held in Rome, the new pope,
Cardinal Pecci, being elected on the 20th of February 1878 without
let or hindrance. The Italian government not only Leo xui.
prorogued the Chamber during the conclave to prevent unseemly
inquiries or demonstrations on the part of deputies, but by means
of Mancini, minister of justice, and Cardinal di Pietro, assured
the new pope protection during the settlement of his outstanding
personal affairs, an assurance of which
Leo XIII. on the evening after his election,
took full advantage. At the same time the duke of Aosta, commander
of the Rome army corps, ordered the troops to render royal honors
to the pontiff should he officially appear in the capital. King
Humbert addressed to the pope a letter of congratulation upon his
election, and received a courteous reply. The improvement thus
signalized in the relations between Quirinal and Vatican was
further exemplified on the 18th of October 1878, when the Italian
government accepted a papal formula with regard to the granting of
the royal exequatur for bishops, whereby they, upon nomination by
the Holy See, recognized state control over, and made application
for, the payment of their temporalities.
The Depretis-Crispi cabinet did not long survive the opening of
the new reign. Crispis position was shaken by a morally plausible
but juridically untenable charge of
bigamy, ~ li while on the 8th of March the
election of Cairoli, an a t~o opponent of the ministry and head of
the extremer section of the Left, to the presidency of the Chamber,
induced Depretis to tender his resignation to the new king. Cairoli
succeeded in forming an administration, in which his friend Count
Corti, Italian ambassador at Constantinople, accepted the portfolio
of foreign affairs, Zanardelli the ministry of the interior, and
Seismit Doda the ministry of finance. Though the cabinet had no
stable majority, it induced the Chamber to sanction a commercial
treaty which had been negotiated with France and a general
autonomous customs tariff. The commercial treaty was, however,
rejected by the French Chamber in June 1878, a circumstance
necessitating the application of the Italian general tariff, which
implied a 10 to 20% increase in the duties on the principal French
exports. A highly imaginative flufancial exposition by Seismit
Doda, who announced a surplus of 2,400,000, paved the way fora
Grist Tax Reduction Bil],which Cairoli had taken over from the
Depretis programme. The Chamber, though convinced of the danger of
this reform, the perils of which were incisively demonstrated by
Sella, voted by an overwhelming majority for an immediate reduction
of the impost by onefourth, and its complete abolition within four
years. Cairolis premiership was, however, destined to be cut short
by an atte~npt made upon the kings life in November 1878, during a
royal visit to Naples, by a miscreant named Passanante. In spite of
the courage and presence of mind of Cairoli, who received the
dagger thrust intended for the
king, public and parliamentary indignation found expression in a
vote which compelled the ministry to resign.
Though brief, Cairolis term of office was momentous in regard to
foreign affairs. The treaty of San Stefano had led to the
convocation of the
Berlin Congress, and though Count Corti was by no means ignorant of
the rumours concerning secret agreements between Germany, Austria
Con~ss. and Russia, and Germany, Austria and Great Britain, he
scarcely seemed alive to the possible effect of such agreements
upon Italy. Replying on the 9th of April 1878 to interpellations by
Visconti-Venosta and other deputies on the impending Congress of
Berlin, he appeared free from
apprehension lest I Italy, isolated, might
find herself face to face with a change of the balance of power in
the Mediterranean, and declared that in the event of serious
complications Italy would be too much sought after rather than too
niuch forgotten. The policy of Italy in the congress, he added,
would be to support the interests of the young Balkan nations.
Wrapped in this optimism, Count Corti proceeded, as first Italian
delegate, to Berlin, where he found himself obliged, on the 28th of
May, to join reluctantly in sanctioning the Austrian occupation of
Bosnia and Herzegovina. On the
8th of July the revelation of the Anglo-
Ottoman treaty for the British occupatiofi of
Cyprus took the congress by surprise. Italy, who had made the
integrity of the Ottoman empire a cardinal point of her Eastern
policy, felt this change of the Mediterranean status quo the more
severely inasmuch as, in order not to strain her relations with
France, she had turned a deaf ear to Austrian, Russian and German
advice to prepare to occupy Tunisia in agreement with Great
Britain. Count Corti had no suspicion that France had adopted a
less disinterested attitude towards similar suggestions from
Bismarck and Lord
Salisbury. He therefore returned from the
German capital with clean but empty hands, a plight which found
marked disfavour in Italian eyes, and stimulated anti-Austrian
Irredentism. Ever since Venetia had been ceded by ~ Austria to the
emperor Napoleon, and by him to Italy, ~ after the war of 1866,
secret revolutionary committees had been formed in the northern
Italian provinces to prepare for the redemption of Trent and
Trieste. For twelve years these committees had remained
comparatively inactive, but in 1878 the presence of the
ex-Garibaldian Cairoli at the head of the government, and popular
dissatisfaction at the spread of Austrian sway on the Adriatic,
encouraged them to begin a series of noisy demonstrations. On the
evening of the signature at Berlin of the clause sanctioning the
Austrian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, an Irredentist
riot took place before the Austrian
consulate at Venice. The Italian government attached little
importance to the occurrence, and believed that a diplomatic
expression of regret would suffice to allay Austrian irritation.
Austria, indeed, might easily have been persuaded to ignore the
Irredentist agitation, had not the equivocal attitude of Cairoli
and Zanardelli cast doubt upon the sincerity of their regret. The
former at Pavia (15th October I 2878), and the latter at Arco (3rd
November), declared publicly that Irredentist manifestations could
not be prevented under existing laws, but gave no hint of
introducing any law to sanction their prevention. Repression, not
prevention became the official formula, the enunciation of which by
Cairoli at Pavia caused Count Corti and two other ministers to
resign.
The fall of Cairoli, and the formation of a second Depretis
cabinet in 1878, brought no substantial change in the attitude of
the government towards Irredentism, nor was the position improved
by the return of Cairoli to power in the following July. Though
aware of Bismarcks hostility towards Italy, of the conclusion of
the Austro-German alliance of 1879, and of the undisguised ill-will
of France, Italy not only made no attempt to crush an agitation as
mischievous as it was futile, but granted a state funeral to
General Avezzana, president of the Irredentist League. In Bonghis
mordant phrase, the foreign policy of Italy during this period may
be said to have been characterized by enormous intellectual
impotence counterbalanced
by equal moral feebleness. Home affairs were scarcely better
managed. Parliament had degenerated into a congeries of personal
groups, whose members were eager only to overturn cabinets in order
to secure power for the leaders and official favors for themselves.
Depretis, who had succeeded Cairoli in December 1878, fell in July
1879, after a vote in which Cairoli and Nicotera joined the
Conservative opposition. On 12th July Cairoli formed a new
administration, only to resign on 24th November, and to reconstruct
his cabinet with the help of Depretis. The administration of
finance was as chaotic as the condition of parliament. The
2,400,000 surplus announced by Seismit Doda proved to be a myth.
Nevertheless Magliani, who succeeded Seismit Doda, had neither the
perspicacity nor the courage to resist the abolition of the grist
tax. The first vote of the Chamber for the immediate diminution of
the tax, and for its total abolition on 1st January F! 1883, had
been opposed by the Senate. A second bill nance. was passed by the
Chamber on 18th July 1879, providing for the immediate repeal of
the grist tax on minor cereals, and for its total abolition on 1st
January 1884. While approving the repeal in regard to minor
cereals, the Senate (24th January 1880) again rejected the repeal
of the tax on grinding wheat as prejudicial to national finance.
After the general election of 1880, however, the Ministerialists,
aided by a number of factious Conservatives, passed a third bill
repealing the grist tax on wheat (10th July 1880), the repeal to
take effect from the 1st of January 1884 onwards. The Senate, in
which the partisans of the ministry had been increased by numerous
appointments ad hoc, finally set the seal of its approval upon the
measure. Notwithstanding this prospective loss of revenue,
parliament showed great reluctance to vote any new impost, although
hardly a year previously it had sanctioned (3oth June 1879)
Depretiss scheme for spending during the next eighteen years
43,200,000 in building 5000 kilometres of railway, an expenditure
not wholly justified by the importance of the lines, and useful
principally as a source of electoral sops for the constituents of
ministerial deputies. The unsatisfactory financial condition of the
Florence, Rome and Naples municipalities necessitated state help,
but the Chamber nevertheless proceeded with a light heart (23rd
February 1881) to sanction the issue of a foreign loan for
26,000,000, with a view to the abolition of the forced currency,
thus adding to the burdens of the exchequer a load which three
years later again dragged Italy into the gulf of chronic
deficit.
In no modern country is error or incompetence on the part of
administrators more swiftly followed by retribution. than in Italy;
both at home and abroad she is hemmed in ~ / by political and
economic conditions which leave un/s a. little margin for folly,
and still less for mental and moral insufficiency, such as had been
displayed by the Left.
Nemesis came in the spring of 1881, in the form
of the French invasion of Tunisia. Guiccioli, the biographer of
Sella, observes that Italian politicians find it especially hard to
resist the temptation of appearing crafty. The men of the Left
believed themselves subtle enough to retain the confidence and
esteem of all foreign powers while coquetting at home with elements
which some of these powers had reason to regard with suspicion.
Italy, in constant danger from France, needed good relations with
Austria and Germany, but could only attain the goodwill of the
former by firm treatment of the revolutionary Irredentist
agitation, and of the latter by clear demonstration of Italian will
and ability to cope with all anti-monarchical forces. Depretis and
Cairoli did neither the one nor the other. Hence, when opportunity
offered firmly to establish Italian predominance in the central
Mediterranean by an occupation of Tunisia, they found themselves
deprived of those confidential relations with the central powers,
and even with Great Britain, which might have enabled them to use
the opportunity to full advantage. The conduct of Italy in
declining the suggestions received from Count Andrssy and General
Ignatiev on the
eve of the
RussoTurkish Warthat Italy should seek compensation in Tunisia for
the extension of Austrian sway in the Balkansand in subsequently
rejecting the German suggestion to come to an arrangement with
Great Britain for the occupation of Tunisia as compensation for the
British occupation of Cyprus, was certainly due to fear lest an
attempt on Tunisia should lead to a war with France, for which
Italy knew herself to be totally unprepared. This very
unpreparedness, however, rendered still less excusable her
treatment of the Irredentist agitation, which brought her within a
hairs-breadth of a conflict with Austria. Although Cairoli, upon
learning of the Anglo-Ottoman convention in regard to Cyprus, had
advised Count Corti of the possibility that Great Britain might
seek to placate France by conniving at a French occupation of
Tunisia, neither he nor Count Corti had any inkling of the verbal
arrangement made between. Lord Salisbury and Waddington at the
instance of Bismarck, that, when convenient, France should occupy
Tunisia, an agreement afterwn.rds confirmed (with a reserve as to
the eventual attitude of Italy) in despatches exchanged in July and
August 1878 between the Quai dOrsay and Downing Street. Almost up
to the moment of the French occupation of Tunisia the Italian
government believed that Great Britain, if only out of gratitude
for the bearing of Italy in connection with the
Dulcigno demonstration. in the autumn of 1880,
would prevent French acquisition of the Regency. Ignorant of the
assurance conveyed to France by Lord
Granville that the
Gladstone cabinet would respect the
engagements of the Beaconsfield-Salisbury administration, Cairoli,
in deference to Italian public opinion, endeavoured to neutralize
the activity of the French consul Roustan by the appointment of an
equally energetic Italian consul, Macci. The rivalry between these
two officials in Tunisia contributed not a little to strain
FrancoItalian relations, but it is doubtful whether France would
have precipitated her action had not General Menabrea, Italian
ambassador in London, urged his government to purchase the
Tunis-
Goletta railway from the English company by
which it had been constructed. A French attempt to purchase the
line was upset in the English courts, and the railway was finally
secured by Italy at a price more than eight times its real value.
This pertinacity engendered a belief in France that Italy was about
to undertake in Tunisia a more aggressive policy than necessary for
the protection of her commercial interests. Roustan therefore
hastened to extort from the
bey
concessions calculated to neutralize the advantages which Italy had
hoped to secure by the possession of the Tunis- Goletta line, and
at the same time the French government prepared at
Toulon an expeditionary corps for
the occupation of the Regency. In the spring of 1881
the Kroumir tribe was reported to have attacked a French force
on the Algerian border, and on the 9th of April Roustan informed
the bey of Tunis that France would chastise the assailants. The hey
issued futile protests to the powers. On the 26th of April the
island of Tabarca was occupied by the French,
Bizerta was seized on the 2nd of May, and on
the 12th of May the hey signed the treaty of Bardo accepting the
French protectorate. France undertook ,the maintenance of order in
the Regency, and assumed the representation of Tunisia in all
dealings with other countries.
Italian indignation at the French coup de main was the deeper on
account of the apparent duplicity of the go~iernment of the
Republic. On the 11th of May the French foreign minister, Barthlmy
Saint Hilaire, had officially assured the Italian ambassador in
Paris that France had no thought of occupying Tunisia or any part
of Tunisian territory, beyond some points of the Kroumir country.
This assurance, dictated by
Jules Ferry to Barthlmy
Saint Hilaire in the presence of the Italian ambassador, and by him
telegraphed en ci air to Rome, was considered a binding pledge that
France would not materially alter the status quo in Tunisia.
Documents subsequently published have somewhat attenuated the
responsibility of
Ferry and
Saint Hilaire for this breach of faith, and have shown that the
French forces in Tunisia acted upon secret instructions from
General Farre, minister of war in the Ferry cabinet, who pursued a
policy diametrically opposed to the official declarations made by
the premier and the foreign minister. Even had this circumstance
been known at the time, it could scarcely have mitigated the
intense resentment of the whole Italian nation at an event which
was considered tantamount not only to the destruction of Italian
aspirations to Tunisia, but to the ruin of the interests of the
numerous Italian
colony and to
a constant menace against the security of the Sicilian and south
Italian coasts.
Had the blow thus struck at Italian influence in the
Mediterranean induced politicians to sink for a while their
personal differences and to unite in presenting a firm front to
foreign nations, the crisis in regard to Tunisia might not have
been wholly unproductive of good. Unfortunately, on this, as on
other critical occasions, deputies proved themselves incapable of
common effort to promote general welfare. While excitement over
Tunisia was at its height, but before the situation was
irretrievably compromised to the disadvantage of Italy, Cairoli had
been compelled to resign by a vote of want of confidence in the
Chamber. The only politician capable of dealing adequately with the
situation was Sella, leader of the Right, and to him the crown
appealed. The faction leaders of the Left, though divided by
personal jealousies and mutually incompatible ambitions, agreed
that the worst evil which could befall Italy would be the return of
the Right to power, and conspired to preclude the possibility of a
Sella cabinet. An attempt by Depretis to recompose the Cairoli
ministry proved fruitless, and after eleven precious days had been
lost, King Humbert was obliged, on the i9th of April 1881, to
refuse Cairolis resignation. The conclusion of the treaty of Bardo
on the 12th of May, however, compelled Cairoli to sacrifice himself
to popular indignation. Again Sella was called upon, but again the
dog-in-the-manger policy of
Depretis, Cairoli, Nicotera and Baccarini, in conjunction with the
intolerant attitude of some extreme Conservatives, proved fatal to
his endeavours. Depretis then succeeded in recomposing the Cairoli
cabinet without Cairoli, Mancini being placed at the foreign
office. Except in regard to an increase of the army estimates,
urgently demanded by public opinion, the new ministry had
practically no programme. Public opinion was further irritated
against France by the massacre of some Italian workmen at
Marseilles on the occasion of the return of the French expedition
from Tunisia, and Depretis, in response to public feeling, found
himself obliged to mobilize a part of the militia for military
exercises. In this condition of home and foreign affairs occurred
disorders at i~ome in connection with the transfer of the remains
of Pius IX. from St Peters to the
basilica of San Lorenzo. Most of the
responsibility lay with the Vatican, which had arranged the
procession in the way
best calculated to irritate Italian feeling, but little excuse can
be offered for the failure of the Italian authorities to maintain
public order. In conjunction with the occupation of Tunisia, the
effect of these disorders was to exhibit Italy as a country
powerless to defend its interests abroad or to keep peace at home.
The scandal and the pressure of foreign Catholic opinion compelled
Depretis to pursue a more energetic policy, and to publish a formal
declaration of the intangibility of the Law of Guarantees.
Meanwhile a conviction was spreading that the only way of escape
from the dangerous isolation of Italy lay in closer agreement with
Austria and Germany. Depretis tardily recognized the need for such
agreement, if only to remove the coldness and invincible diffidence
which, Afflan. e by subsequent
confession of Mancini,then characterized the
attitude of the central powers; but he was opposed to any formal
alliance, lest it might arouse French resentment, while the new
Franco-Italian treaty was still unconcluded, and the foreign loan
for the abolition of the forced currency had still to be floated.
He, indeed, was not disposed to concede to public opinion anything
beyond an increase of the army, a measure insistently demanded by
Garibaldi and the Left. The Right likewise desired to strengthen.
both army and navy, but advocated cordial relations with Berlin and
Vienna as a guarantee against French domineering, and as a pledge
that Italy would be vouchsafed time to effect her armaments without
disturbing financial equilibrium. The Right also hoped that closer
accord with Germany and Austria would compel Italy to conform her
home policy more nearly to the principles of order prevailing in
those empires. More resolute than. Right or Left was the Centre, a
small group led by
Sidney Sonnino, a young
politician of unusual fibre, which sought in the press and in
parliament to spread a conviction that the only sound basis for
Italian policy would be close alliance with the central powers and
a friendly understanding with Great Britain in regard to
Mediterranean affairs. The principal Italian public men. were
divided in opinion on the subject of an alliance. Peruzzi, Lanza
and Bonghi pleaded for equal friendship with all powers, and
especially with France; Crispi, Minghetti, Cadorna and others,
including Blanc, secretary-general to the foreign office, openly
favored a pro-Austrian policy. Austria and Germany, however,
scarcely reciprocated these dispositions. The Irredentist agitation
had left profound traces at Berlin as well as at Vienna, and had
given rise to a distrust of Depretis which nothing had yet occurred
to allay. Nor, in view of the comparative weakness of Italian
armaments, could eagerness to find an ally be deemed conclusive
proof of the value of Italian friendship. Count di Robilant,
Italian ambassador at Vienna, warned his government not to yield
too readily to pro-Austrian pressure, lest the dignity of Italy be
compromised, or her desire for an alliance be granted on onerous
terms. Mancini, foreign minister, who was as anxious as Depretis
for the conclusion of the Franco-Italian commercial treaty, gladly
followed this advice, and limited his efforts to the maintenance of
correct diplomatic relations with the central powers. Except in
regard to the Roman question, the advantages and disadvantages of
an. Italian alliance with Austria and Germany counterbalanced each
other. A rapprochement with France and a continuance of the
Irredentist movement could not fail to arouse Austro-German
hostility; but, on the other hand, to draw near to the central
powers would inevitably accentuate the diffidence of France. In the
one
hypothesis, as in
the other, Italy could count upon the moral support of Great
Britain, but could not make of British friendship the
keystone of a Continental
policy. Apart from resentment against France on account of Tunisia
there remained the question of the temporal power of the pope to
turn the scale in favor of Austria and Germany. Danger of foreign
interference in the relations between Italy and the papacy had
never been so great since the Italian occupation of Rome, as when,
in the summer of 1881,the disorders during the transfer of the
remains of Pius IX. had lent an unwonted ring of plausibility to
the papal complaint concerning the miserable position of the Holy
See. Bismarck at that moment had entered upon his pilgrimage to
Canossa. and was anxious to obtaip from the Vatican the support of
German
Catholics. What resistance could Italy have offered had the
German chancellor, seconded by Austria, and assuredly supported by
France, called upon Italy to revise the Law of Guarantees in
conformity with Catholic exigencies, or had he taken the initiative
of making papal independence the subject of an international
conference? Friendship and alliance with Catholic Austria and
powerful Germany could alone lay this spectre. This was the only
immediate advantage Italy could hope to obtain by drawing nearer
the central Powers.
The political conditions of Europe favored the realization of
Italian desires. Growing rivalry between Austria and Russia in the
Balkans rendered the continuance of the League of the Three
Emperors a practical impossibility. The AustroGerman alliance of
1879 formally guaranteed the territory of the contracting parties,
but Austria could not count upon effectual help from Germany in
case of war, since Russian attack upon Austria would certainly have
been followed by French attack upon Germany. As in 1869-1870, it
therefore became a matter of the highest importance for Austria to
retain full disposal of all her troops by assuring herself against
Italian aggression. The
tsar,
Alexander III., under the impression of the assassination of his
father, desired, however, the renewal of the Dreikaiserbund, both
as a guarantee of European peace and as a conservative league
against revolutionary parties. The German emperor shared this
desire, but Bismarck and the Austrian emperor wished to substitute
for the imperial league some more advantageous combination. Hence a
tacit understanding between Bismarck and Austria that the latter
should profit by Italian resentment against France to draw Italy
into the
orbit of the
Austro-German alliance. For the moment Germany was to hold aloof
lest any active initiative on her part should displease the
Vatican, of whose help Bismarck stood in need.
At the beginning of August 1881 the Austrian press mooted the
idea of a visit from King Humbert to the emperor Francis Joseph.
Count di Robilant, anxious that Italy should not seem to beg a
smile from the central Powers, advised Mancini to receive with
caution the suggestions of the Austrian press. Depretis took
occasion to deny, in a form scarcely courteous, the probability of
the visit. Robilants opposition to a precipitate acceptance of the
Austrian hint was founded upon fear lest King Humbert at Vienna
might be pressed to disavow Irredentist aspirations, and upon a
desire to arrange for a visit of the emperor Francis Joseph to Rome
in return for King Humberts visit to Vienna. Seeing the hesitation
of the Italian government, the Austrian and German semi-official
press redoubled their efforts to bring about the visit. By the end
of September the idea had gained such ground in Italy that the
visit was practically settled, and on the 7th of October Mancini
informed Robilant (who was then in Italy) of the fact. Though he
considered such precipitation impolitic, Robilant, finding that
confidential information of Italian intentions had already been
conveyed to the Austrian government, sought an interview with King
Humbert, and on the 17th of October started for Vienna to settle
the conditions of the visit. Depretis, fearing to jeopardize the
impending conclusion of the Franco-Italian commercial treaty, would
have preferred the visit to take the form of an act of personal
courtesy between sovereigns.
The Austrian government, for its part, desired that the king should
be accompanied by Depretis, though not by Mancini, lest the
presence of the Italian foreign minister should lend to the
occasion too marked a political character. Mancini, unable to brook
exclusion, insisted, however, upon accompanying the king. King
Humbert with Queen Margherita reached Vienna on the morning of the
27th of October, and stayed at the Hofburg until the 31st of
October. The visit was marked by the greatest cordiality, Count
Robilants fears of inopportune pressure with regard to Irredentism
proving groundless. Both in Germany and Austria the visit was
construed as a preliminary to the
adhesion of Italy to the Austro-German
alliance. Count Hatzfeldt, on behalf of the German Foreign Office,
informed the Italian ambassador in Berlin that whatever was done at
Vienna would be regarded as having been done in the German capital.
Nor did nascent irritation in France prevent the conclusion of the
Franco-Italian commercial treaty, which was signed at Paris on the
3rd of November.
In Italy public opinion as a whole was favorable to the visit,
especially as it was not considered an obstacle to the projected
increase of the army and navy. Doubts, however, soon sprang up as
to its effect upon the minds of Austrian statesmen, since on the
8th of November the language employed by Kllay and Count Andrssy to
the Hungarian delegations on the subject of Irredentism was
scarcely calculated to soothe Italian susceptibilities. But on 9th
November the European situation was suddenly modified by the
formation of the Gambetta cabinet, and, in view of the policy of
revenge with which Gambetta was supposed to be identified, it
became imperative for Bismarck to assure himself that Italy would
not be enticed into a Francophil attitude by any concession
Gambetta might offer. As usual when dealing with weaker nations,
the German chancellor resorted to intimidation. He not only
re-established the Prussian legation to the Vatican, suppressed
since 1874, and omitted from the imperial message to the Reichstag
(17th November 1881) all reference to King Humberts visit to
Vienna, but took occasion on the n9th of November to refer to Italy
as a country tottering on the verge of revolution, and opened in
the German semi-official press ~ campaign in favor of an
international guarantee for the independence of the papacy. These
mancnuvres produced their effect upon Italian public opinion. In
the long and important debate upon foreign policy in the Italian
Chamber of Deputies (6th to 9th December) the fear was repeatedly
expressed lest Bismarck should seek to purchase the support of
German Catholics by raising the Roman question. Mancini, still
unwilling frankly to adhere to the Austro-German alliance, found
his policy of friendship all round impeded by Gambettas
uncompromising attitude in regard to Tunisia. Bismarck nevertheless
continued his press campaign in favor of the temporal power until,
reassured by Gambettas decision to send Roustan back to Tunis to
complete as minister the anti-Italian programme begun as consul, he
finally instructed his organs to emphasize the common interests of
Germany and Italy on the occasion of the opening of the St Gothard
tunnel. But the effect of the German press campaign could not be
effaced in a day. At the new years reception of deputies King
Humbert aroused enthusiasm by a significant remark that Italy
intended to remain mistress in her own house; while Mancirfi
addressed to Count de Launay, Italian ambassador in Berlin, a
haughty despatch, repudiating the supposition that the pope might
(as Bismarckian emissaries had suggested to the Vatican) obtain
abroad greater spiritual liberty than in Rome, or that closer
relations between Italy and Germany, such as were required by the
interests and aspirations of the two countries, could be made in
any way contingent upon a modification of Italian freedom of action
in regard to home affairs.
The sudden fall of Gambetta (26th January 1882) having removed
the fear of immediate European complications, the cabinets of
Berlin and Vienna again displayed diffidence towards Italy. So
great was Bismarcks distrust of Italian parliamentary instability,
his doubts of Italian capacity for offensive warfare and his fear
of the Francophil tendencies of Depretis, that fof many weeks the
Italian ambassador at Berlin was unable te obtain audience of the
chancellor. But for the Tunisian question Italy might again have
been drawn into the
wake of
France, Mancini tried to impede the organization of French rule in
thi Regency by refusing to recognize the treaty of Bardo, yet sc
careless was Bismarck of Italian susceptibilities that he in.
structed the German consul at Tunis to recognize French decrees
Partly under the influence of these circumstances, and partl3 in
response to persuasion by Baron Blanc, secretary-genera for foreign
affairs, Mancini instructed Count di Robilant to oper negotiations
for an Italo-Austrian allianceinstructions whirl Robilant neglected
until questioned by Count Kalnky on the sub ject. The first
exchange of ideas between the tw0 ~overnment~
proved fruitless, since Kalnky, somewhat Clerical-minded, was
averse from guaranteeing the integrity of all Italian territory,
and Mancini was equally unwilling to guarantee to Austria permanent
possession of Trent and Trieste. Mancini, moreover, wished the
treaty of alliance to provide for reciprocal protection of the
chief interests of the contracting Powers, Italy undertaking to
second
Austria-Hungary in the Balkans, and
Austria and Germany pledging themselves to support Italy in
Mediterranean questions. Without some such proviso Italy would, in
Mancinis opinion, be exposed single-handed to French resentment. At
the request of Kalnky, Mancini defined his proposal in a
memorandum, but the illness of himself and Depretis, combined with
an untoward discussion in the Italian press on the failure of the
Austrian emperor to return in Rome King Humberts visit to Vienna,
caused negotiations to
drag. The
pope, it transpired, had refused to receive the emperor if he came
to Rome on a visit to the Quirinal, and Francis Joseph, though
anxious to return King Humberts visit, was unable to offend the
feelings of his Catholic subjects. Meanwhile (11th May 1882) the
Italian parliament adopted the new Army Bill, involving a special
credit of 5,100,000 for the creation of two new army corps, by
which the war footing of the regular army was raised to nearly
850,000 men and the ordinary military estimates to 8,000,000 per
annum. Garibaldi, who, since the French occupation of Tunis, had
ardently worked for the increase of the army, had thus the
satisfaction of
seeing his desire realized before his death at Caprera, on the 2nd
of June 1882. In spirit a child, in character a man of classic
mould, Garibaldi had remained the
nations idol, an almost legendary hero whose place none could
aspire to fill. Gratitude for his achievements and sorrow for his
death found expression in universal mourning wherein king and
peasant equally joined. Before his death, and almost
contemporaneously with the passing of the Army Bill, negotiations
for the alliance were renewed. Encouraged from Berlin, Kalnky
agreed to the reciprocal territorial guarantee, but declined
reciprocity in support
of special interests. Mancini had therefore to be content with a
declaration that the allies would act in mutually friendly
intelligence. Depretis made some opposition, hut finally
acquiesced, and the treaty of triple alliance was signed on the
20th of May 1882, five days after the promulgation of the
Franco-Italian commercial treaty in Paris. Though partial Signature
revelations have been made, the exact
tenor of the of the treaty of triple alliance has
never been divulged.
Treaty, It is known to have been concluded for a period of 1882.
five years, to -have pledged the contracting parties to join in
resisting attack upon the territory of any one of them, and to have
specified the military disposition to be adopted by each in case
attack should come either from France, or from Russia, or from both
simultaneously. The Italian General Staff is said to have
undertaken, in the event of war against France, to operate with two
armies on the north-western frontier against the French arme des
Alpes, of which the war strength is about 250,000 men. A third
Italian army would, if expedient, pass into Germany, to operate
against either France or Russia. Austria undertook to guard the
Adriatic on land and sea, and to help Germany by checkmating Russia
on land. Germany would be sufficiently employed in carrying on war
against two fronts. Kalnky desired that both the terms of the
treaty and the fact of its conclusion should remain secret, but
Bismarck and Mancini hastened to hint at its existence, the former
in the Reichstag on the 12th of June 1882, and the latter in the
Italian semi-official press. A revival of Irredentism in connection
with the execution of an Austrian deserter named Oberdank, who
after escaping into Italy endeavoured to return to Austria with
explosive bombs in his possession, and the cordial references to
France made by Depretis at Stradella (8th October 1882), prevented
the French government from suspecting the existence of the
alliance, or from ceasing to strive after a Franco-Italian
understanding. Suspicion was not aroused until March 1883, when
Mancini, in defending himself against strictures upon his refusal
to co-operate with Great Britain in Egypt, practically revealed the
existence of the treaty, thereby irritating France and destroying
Depretiss secret hope of finding in the triple alliance the
advantage of an Austro-German guarantee without the disadvantage of
French en.mity. In Italy the revelation of the treaty was hailed
with satisfaction. except by the Clericals, who were enraged at the
blow thus struck at ,the restoration of the popes temporal power,
and by the Radicals, who feared both the inevitable breach with
republican France and the reinforcement of Italian. constitutional
parties by intimacy with strong monarchical states such as Germany
and Austria. These very considerations naturally combined to
recommend the fact to constitutionalists, who saw in it, besides
the territorial guarantee, the elimination of the danger of foreign
interference in the relations between Italy and the Vatican, such
as Bismarck had recently threatened and such as France was believed
ready to propose.
Nevertheless, during its first period (1882-1887) the triple
alliance failed to ensure cordiality between the contracting
Powers. Mancini exerted himself in a hundred ways to soothe French
resentment. He not only refused to join Great Britain in the
Egyptian. expedition, but agreed to suspend Italian consular
jurisdiction in Tunis, and deprecated suspicion of French designs
upon
Morocco. His efforts
were worse than futile. France remained cold, while Bismarck and
Kalnky, distrustful of the Radicalism of Depretis and Mancini,
assumed towards their ally an. attitude almost hostile. Possibly
Germany and Austria may have been influenced by the secret treaty
signed between Austria, Germany and Russia on. the 21st of March
1884, and ratified during the meeting of the three emperors at
Skierniewice in
September of that year, by which Bismarck, in return for honest
brokerage in the Balkans, is understood to have obtained from
Austria and Russia a promise of benevolent neutrality in case
Germany should be forced to make war upon a fourth powerFrance.
Guaranteed thus against Russian attack, Italy became in the eyes of
the central powers a negligible quantity, and was treated
accordingly. Though kept in the dark as to the Skierniewice
arrangement, the Italian government soon discovered from the course
of events that the triple alliance had practically lost its object,
European peace having been assured without Italian co-operation.
Meanwhile France provided Italy with fresh cause for uneasiness by
abating her hostility to Germany. Italy in consequence drew nearer
to Great Britain, and at the London conference on the Egyptian
financial question sided with Great Britain against Austria and
Germany. At the same time negotiations took place with Great
Britain for an Italian occupation of
Massawa, and Mancini, dreaming of a vast
Anglo-Italian enterprise against the
Mahdi, expatiated in. the spring of 1885 upon.
the glories of an AngloItalian alliance, an indiscretion which drew
upon him a scarcelyveiled dmenti from London. Again speaking in the
Chamber, Mancini claimed for Italy the principal merit in the
conclusion of the triple alliance, but declared that the alliance
left Italy full liberty of action. in regard to interests outside
its scope, especially as there was no possibility of obtaining
protection for such interests from those who by the alliance had
not undertaken to protect them. These words, which revealed the
absence of any stipulation in regard to the protection of Italian
interests in the Mediterranean, created lively dissatisfaction in
Italy and corresponding satisfaction in France. They hastened
Mancinis downfall (17th June 1885), and prepared the advent of
count di Robilant, who three months later succeeded Mancini at the
Italian Foreign Office. Robilant, for whom the Skiernie~vice pact
was no secret, followed a firmly independent policy throughout the
Bulgarian crisis of 1885-1886, declining to be drawn into any
action beyond that required by the treaty of Berlin and the
protection. of Italian interests in the Balkans. Italy, indeed,
came out of the Eastern crisis with enhanced prestige and with her
relations to Austria greatly improved. Towards Prince Bjsmarck
Robilant maintained an attitude of dignified independence, and as,
in the spring of 1886, the moment for the renewal of the triple
alliance drew near, he profited by the development of the Bulgarian
crisis and the threatened Franco-Russian understanding to secure
from the central powers something more than the bare territorial
guarantee of the original treaty. This something more consisted, at
least in part, of the arrangement, with the help of Austria and
Germany, of an Anglo-Italian naval understanding having special
reference to
the Eastern question, but
providing for common action by the British and Italian fleets in
the Mediterranean in case of war. A vote of the Italian Chamber on
the 4th of February 1887, in connection with the disaster to
Italian troops at Dogali, in
Abyssinia, brought about the resignation of
the Depretis-Robilant cabinet. The crisis dragged for three months,
and before its definitive solution by the formation of a
Depretis-Crispi ministry, Robilant succeeded (I 7th March 1887) in
renewing the triple alliance on terms more favorable to First re-
Italy than those obtained in 1882. Not only did he newalef secure
concessions from Austria and Germany correthe Triple sponding in
some degree to the improved state of the Alliance. Italian army and
navy, but, in virtue of the AngloItalian understanding, assured the
practical adhesion of Great Britain to the European policy of the
central powers, a triumph probably greater than any registered by
Italian diplomacy since the completion. of national unity.
The period between May 1881 and July 1887 occupied, in the
region of foreign affairs, by the negotiation, conclusion and
renewal of the triple alliance, by the Bulgarian crisis and by the
dawn of an Italian colonial policy, was marked at home by urgent
political and economic problems, and by the parliamentary phenomena
known as trasformismo. On the 2gth of June 1881 the Chamber adopted
a Franchise Reform Bill, which increased the electorate from oo,ooo
to 2,000,000 by lowering the fiscal qualification from 40 to 19.80
lire in direct taxation, and by extending the suffrage to all
persons who had passed through the two lower standards of the
elementary schools, and practically to all persons able to read and
write. The immediate result of the reform was to increase the
political influence of large cities where the proportion of
illiterate workmen was lower than. in. the country districts, and
to exclude from the franchise numbers of peasants and small
proprietors who, though of more conservative temperament and of
better economic position than the artizan population of the large
towns, were often unable to fulfil the scholarship qualification.
On the 12th of April 1883 the forced currency was formally
abolished by the resumption of treasury paynients in gold with
funds obtained through a loan of 14,500,000 issued in London on the
5th of May 1882. Owing to the hostility of the French market, the
loan was covered with difficulty, and, though the gold premium fell
and commercial exchanges were temporarily facilitated by the
resumption of
cash payments, it is
doubtful whether these advantages made up for the
burden of 640,000 additional annual interest
thrown upon the exchequer. On the 6th of March 1885 parliament
finally sanctioned the conventions by which state railways were
farmed out to three private companiesthe Mediterranean, Adriatic
and Sicilian. The railways redeemed in 1875-1876 had been worked in
the interval by the government at a heavy loss. A commission of
inquiry reported in favor of private management. The conventions,
concluded for a period of sixty years, but terminable by either
party after twenty or forty years, retained for the state the
possession of the lines (except the southern railway, viz. the line
from Bologna to Brindisi belonging to the Societ Meridionale to
whom the Adriatic lines were now farmed), but sold rolling stock to
the companies, arranged various schedules of state subsidy for
lines projected or in. course of construction, guaranteed interest
on the bonds of the companies and arranged for the division of
revenue between the companies, the reserve fund and the state.
National control of the railways was secured by a proviso that the
directors must be of Italian nationality. Depretis and his
colleague Genala, minister of public works, experienced great
difficulty in securing parliamentary sanction for the conventions,
not so much on account of their defective character, as from the
opposition of local interests anxious tc extort new lines from the
government. In fact, the conventionf were only voted by a majority
of twenty-three votes after the government had undertaken to
increase the length of new statebuilt lines from 1500 to 2500
kilometres. Unfortunately, the calculation of probable railway
revenue on The railwhich the conventions had been based proved to
be way C0fl enormously exaggerated. For many years the 371%
vent,ons. of the gross revenue (less the cost of maintaining the
rolling stock, incumbent on the state) scarcely sufficed to pay the
interest on debts incurred for railway construction and on the
guaranteed bonds. Gradually the increase of traffic consequent upon
the industrial development of Italy decreased the annual losses of
the state, but the position of the government in regard to the
railways still remained so unsatisfactory as to render the
resumption of the whole system by the state on the expiration of
the first period of twenty years in 1905 inevitable.
Intimately bound up with the forced currency, the railway
conventions and public works was the financial question in general.
From 1876, when equilibrium between expenditure and revenue had
first been attained, taxation yielded steady annual surpluses,
which in 1881 reached the satisfactory level of 2,120,000. The
gradual abolition of the grist tax on minor cereals diminished the
surplus in 1882 to 236,000, and in 1883 to r1o,ooo, while the total
repeal of the grist tax on wheat, which took effect on the 1st of
January 1884, coincided with the opening of a new and disastrous
period of deficit. True, the repeal of the grist tax was not the
only, nor possibly even the principal, cause of the deficit. The
policy of fiscal transformation inaugurated by the Left increased
revenue from indirect taxation from 17,000,000 in 1876 to more than
24,000,000 in 1887, by substituting heavy corn duties for the grist
tax, and by raising the sugar and petroleum duties to unprecedented
levels. But partly from lack of firm financial administration,
partly through the increase of military and naval expenditure
(which in 1887 amounted to 9,000,000 for the army, while special
efforts were made to strengthen the navy), and principally through
the constant drain of railway construction and public works, the
demands upon the exchequer grew largely to exceed the normal
increase of revenue, and necessitated the contraction of new debts.
In their anxiety to remain in office Depretis and the finance
minister, Magliani, never hesitated to mortgage the financial
future of their country. No concession could be denied to deputies,
or groups of deputiec, whose support was indispensable to the life
of the cabinet, nor, under such conditions, was it possible to
place any effective check upon administrative abuses in which
politicians or their electors were interested. Railways, roads and
harbours which contractors had undertaken to construct for
reasonable amounts were frequently made to cost thrice the original
estimates. Minghetti, in a trenchant exposure of the parliamentary
condition of Italy during this period, cites a case in which a
credit for certain public works was, during a debate in the
Chamber, increased by the government from 6,600,000 to 9,000,000 in
order to conciliate local political interests. In the spring of
1887 Genala, minister of public works, was taken to task for having
sanctioned expenditure of 80,000,000 on railway construction while
only 40,000,000 had been included in the estimates. As most of
these credits were spread over a series of years, succeeding
administrations found their financial liberty of action destroyed,
and were obliged to cover deficit by constant issues of
consolidated stock. Thus the deficit of 940,000 for the financial
year 1885-1886 rose to nearly 2,920,000 in~ 1887-1888, and in
1888-1889 attained the terrible level of 9,400,000.
Nevertheless, in spite of many and serious shortcomings, the
long series of Depretis administrations was marked by the adoption
of some useful measures. Besides the realization of the formal
programme of the Left, consisting of the repeal of the grist tax,
the abolition of the forced currency, the extension of the suffrage
and the development of the railway system Depretis laid the
foundation for land tax re-assessment by introducing a new
cadastral survey. Unfortunately, the new survey was made largely
optional, so that provinces which had reasor to hope for a
diminution of land tax under a revised assessment hastened to
complete their survey, while others, in which the average of the
land tax was below a normal assessment, neglected to comply with
the provisions of the scheme. An important undertaking, known as
the Agricultural Inquiry, brought to light vast quantities of
information valuable for future agrarian legislation. The year 1885
saw the introduction and adoption of a measure embodying the
principle of employers liability for accidents to workmen, a
principle subsequently extended and more equitably defined in the
spring of 1899. An effort to encourage the development of the
mercantile marine was made in the same year, and a convention was
concluded with the chief lines of passenger steamers to retain
their fastest vessels as auxiliaries to the fleet in case of war.
Sanitation and public
hygiene received a potent impulse from the
cholera epidemic of 1884, many
of the unhealthiest quarters in Naples and other cities being
demolished and rebuilt, with funds chiefly furnished by the state.
The movement was strongly supported by King Humbert, whose
intrepidity in visiting the most dangerous spots at Busca and
Naples while the epidemic was at its height, reassuring the
panic-stricken inhabitants by his presence, excited the enthusiasm
of his people and the admiration of Europe.
During the accomplishment of these and other reforms the
condition of parliament underwent profound change. By degrees the
administrations of the Left had ceased to rely ~:~~ solely upon the
Liberal sections of the Chamber, and had carried their most
important bills with the help of the Right. This process of
transformation was not exclusively the work of Depretis, but had
been initiated as early as 1873, when a portion of the Right under
Minghetti had, by joining the Left, overturned the Lanza-Sella
cabinet. In 1876 Minghetti himself had fallen a victim to a similar
defection of Conservative deputies. The practical annihilation of
the old Right in the elections of 1876 opened a new parliamentary
era. Reduced in number to less than one hundred, and radically
changed in spirit and composition, the Right gave way, if not to
despair, at least to a despondency unsuited to an opposition party.
Though on more than one occasion personal rancour against the men
of the Moderate Left prevented the Right from following Sellas
advice and regaining, by timely coalition with cognate
parliamentary elements, a portion of its former influence, the bulk
of the party, with singular inconsistency, drew nearer and nearer
to the Liberal cabinets. The process was accelerated by Sellas
illness and death (14th March 1884), an event which cast profound
discouragement over the more thoughtful of the Conservatives Ind
Moderate Liberals, by whom Sella had been regarded as a supreme
political reserve, as a statesman whose experienced vigour and
patriotic sagacity might have been trusted to lift Italy from any
depth of folry or misfortune. By a strange
anomaly the Radical measures brought forward by
the Left diminished instead of increasing the distance between it
and the Conservatives. Numerically insufficient to reject such
measures, and lacking the fibre and the cohesion necessary for the
pursuance of a far-sighted policy, the Right thought prudent not to
employ its strength in uncompromising opposition, but rather, by
supporting the government, to endeavour to modify Radical
legislation in a Conservative sense. In every case the calculation
proved fallacious. Radical measures were passed unmodified, and the
Right was compelled sadly to accept the accomplished fact. Thus it
was with the abolition of the grist tax, the reform of the
suffrage, the railway conventions and many other bills. When, in
course of time, the extended suffrage increased the Republican and
Extreme Radical elements in the Chamber, and the Liberal Pentarchy
(composed of Crispi, Cairoli, Nicotera, Zanardelli and Baccarini)
assumed an attitude of bitter hostility to Depretis, the Right,
obeying the impulse of Minghetti, rallied openly to Depretis,
lending him aid without which his prolonged term of office would
have been impossible. The result was parlia mentary chaos, baptized
Irasformismo. In May 1883 this procesl received official
recognition by the elimination of the Radical~ Zanardelli and
Baccarini from the Depretis cabinet, while ir the course of 1884 a
Conservative, Signor Biancheri, was elected to the presidency of
the Chamber, and another Conservative, General Ricotti, appointed
to the War Office. Though Depretis, at the end of his life in 1887,
showed signs of repenting of the confusion thus created, he had
established a parliamentary system destined largely to sterilize
and vitiate the political life of Italy.
Contemporaneously with the vicissitudes of home and foreign
policy under the Left there grew up in Italy a marked tendency
towards colonial enterprise. The tendency itself dated Colonial
from 1869, when a congress of the Italian chambers of policy.
commerce at Genoa had urged the Lanza cabinet to establish a
commercial
depot on the
Red Sea. On. the 11th of March
1870 an Italian shipper, Signor Rubattino, had bought the bay of
Assab, with the neighboring island
of Darmakieh, from Beheran,
sultan of Raheita, for 1880, the funds being
furnished by the government. The Egyptian government being
unwilling to recognize the sovereignty of Beheran over Assab or his
right to sell territory to a foreign power, sTisconti-Venosta
thought it opportune not then to occupy Assab. No further step was
taken until, at the end of 1879, Rubattino prepared to establish a
commercial station. at Assab. The British government made inquiry
as to his intentions, and on. the 19th of April 188o received a
formal undertaking from Cairoli that Assab would never be fortified
nor be made a military establishment. Meanwhile (January 1880)
stores and materials were landed, and Assab was permanently
occupied. Eighteen months later a party of Italian sailors and
explorers under Lieutenant Biglieri and Signor Giulietti were
massacred in Egyptian. territory. Egypt, however, refused to make
thorough inquiry into the massacre, and was only prevented from
occupying Raheita and coming into conflict with Italy by the good
offices of Lord Granville, who dissuaded the Egyptian government
from enforcing its sovereignty. On the 20th of September 1881
Beheran formally accepted Italian protection, and in the following
February an Anglo-Italian convention established the Italian title
to Assab on condition that Italy should formally recognise the
suzerainty of the Porte and of the
khedive over the Red Sea coast, and should
prevent the transport of arms and munitions of war through the
territory of Assab. This convention was never recognized by the
Porte nor by the Egyptian government. A month later (10th March I
882) Rubattino made over his establishment to the Italian
government, and on the 12th of June the Chamber adopted a bill
constituting Assab an Italian crown colony.
Within four weeks of the adoption of this bill the bombardment
of
Alexandria by the British fleet (11th
July 1882) opened an era destined profoundly to affect the colonial
position of Italy. The revolt of
Arabi Pasha (September 1881) ~~ptIan had
led to the meeting of an ambassadorial conference Quesnon. at
Constantinople, promoted by Mancini, Italian minister for foreign
affairs, in the hope of preventing European intervention. in Egypt
and the permanent establishment of an Anglo-French condominium to
the detriment of Italian influence. At the opening of the
conference (23rd June 1882) Italy secured the signature of a
self-denying protocol whereby all the great powers undertook to
avoid isolated action; but the rapid development of the crisis in
Egypt, and the refusal of France to cooperate with Great Britain in
the restoration of order, necessitated vigorous action by the
latter alone. In view of the French refusal, Lord Granville on the
27th of July invited Italy to join in restoring order in Egypt; but
Mancini and Depretis, in spite of the efforts of Crispi, then in
London, declined the offer. Financial considerations, lack of
proper transports for an expeditionary corps, fear of displeasing
France, dislike of a policy of adventure, misplaced deference
towards the ambassadorial conference in Constantinople, and
unwillingness to thwart the current of Italian sentiment in favor
of the Egyptian nationalists, were the chief motives of the Italian
refusal which had the effect of somewhat estranging Great Britain
anc Italy. Anglo-Italian relations, however, regained their norma I
cordiality two years later, and found expression in the support
lent by Italy to the British proposal at the London conference on
the Egyptian question (July 1884). About the same time Mancini was
informed by the Italian agent in
Cairo that Great Britain would be well disposed
towards an extension of Italian influence on the Red Sea coast.
Having sounded Lord Granville, Mancini received encouragement to
seize Beilul and Massawa, in view of the projected restriction of
the Egyptian zone of military occupation consequent on the Mahdist
rising in the
Sudan. Lord
Granville further inquired whether Italy would co-operate in
pacifying the Sudan, and received an affirmative reply. Italian
action was hastened by news that, in December 1884, an exploring
party under Signor Bianchi, royal commissioner for Assab, had been
massacred in the Aussa (Danakil) country, an event which aroused in
Italy a desire to punish the assassins and to obtain satisfaction
for the still unpunished massacre of Signor Giulietti and his
companions. Partly to satisfy public opinion, partly in order to
profit by the favorable disposition of the British government, and
partly in the hope of remedying the error committed in 1882 by
refusal to co-operate with Great Britain in Egypt, the Italian
government in January 1885 despatched an expedition under Admiral
Caimi and Colonel Saletta to occupy Massawa and Beilul. The
occupation, effected on the 5th of February, was accelerated by
fear lest Italy might be forestalled by France or Russia, both of
which powers were suspected of desiring to establish themselves
firmly on the Red Sea and to exercise a protectorate over
Abyssinia. News of the occupation reached Europe simultaneously
with the tidings of the fall of
Khartum, an event which disappointed Italian
hopes of military co-operation with Great Britain in the Sudan. The
resignation of the Gladstone-Granville cabinet further precluded
the projected Italian occupation of
Suakin, and the Italians, wisely refraining from
an independent attempt to succour
Kassala, then besieged by the Mahdists, bent
their efforts to the increase of their zone of occupation around
Massawa. The extension of the Italian zone excited the suspicions
of John,
negus of Abyssinia,
whose apprehensions were assiduously fomented by Alula,
ras of Tigr, and by French and Greek
adventurers. Measures, apparently successful, were taken to
reassure the negus, but shortly afterwards protection inopportunely
accorded by Italy to enemies of Ras Alula, induced the Abyssinians
to enter upon hostilities. In January 1886 Ras Alula raided the
village of Wa, to the west of
Zula, but towards the end of the year (23rd
November) \Va was occupied by the irregular troops of General Gene,
who had superseded Colonel Saiettaat Massawa. Angered by this step,
Ras Alula took prisoners the members of an Italian exploring party
commanded by Count Salimbeni, and held them as hostages for the
evacuation of Wa. General Gene nevertheless reinforced Via and
pushed forward a detachment to Saati. On the 25th of January 1887
Ras Alula attacked Saati, but was repulsed with loss. On the
following day, however, the Abyssinians succeeded in surprising,
near the village of Dogali, an Italian force of 524 officers and
men under Colonel De Cristoforis, who were convoying provisions to
the garrison of Saati.
The Abyssinians, 20,000 strong, speedily overwhelmed the small
Italian force, which, after exhausting its
ammunition, was destroyed where it stood.
One man only escaped. Four hundred and
seven men and twenty-three
officers were killed outright, and one officer and eighty-one men
wounded. Dead and wounded alike were horribly mutilated by order of
Alula. Fearing a new attack, General Gene withdrew his forces from
Saati, Wa and Arafali; but the losses of the Abyssinians at Saati
and Dogali had been so heavy as to dissuade Alula from further
hostilities.
In Italy the disaster of Dogali produced consternation, and
caused the fall of the Depretis-Robilant cabinet. The Chamber,
Abyssinia. eager for revenge, voted a credit of 200,000, and
sanctioned the despatch of reinforcements. Meanwhile Signor Crispi,
who, though averse from colonial adventure, desired to vindicate
Italian honor, entered the Depretis cabinet as minister of the
interior, and obtained from parliament a new credit of 800,000. In
November 1887 a strong expedition under General di San Marzano
raised the strength of the Massawa garrison to nearly 20,000 men.
The British government, desirous of preventing an Italo-Abyssinian
conflict, which could but strengthen the position of the Mahdists,
despatched Mr (afterwards Sir) Gerald Portal from Massawa on the
29th of October to mediate with the negus. The mission proved
fruitless. Portal returned to Massawa on the 25th of December 1887,
and warned the Italians that John was preparing to attack them in
the following spring with an army of 100,000 men. On the 28th of
March 1888 the negus indeed descended from the Abyssinian high
plateau in the direction of Saati, but finding the Italian position
too strong to be carried by assault, temporized and opened
negotiations for peace. His tactics failed to entice the Italians
from their position, and on the 3rd of April sickness among his men
compelled John to withdraw the Abyssinian army. The negus next
marched against Menelek, king of
Shoa, whose neutrality Italy had purchased with
5000 Remington. rifles and a supply of ammunition, but found him
with 80,000 men too strongly entrenched to be successfully
attacked. Tidings of a new Mahdist incursion into Abyssinian
territory reaching the negus induced him to postpone the settlement
of his quarrel with Menelek until the dervishes had been chastised.
Marching towards the Blue
Nile, he
joined battle with the Mahdists, but on the 10th of March 1889 was
killed, in. the hour of victory, near
Gallabat. His death gave rise to an Abyssinian
war of succession between Mangash, natural son of John, and
Menelek, grandson of the Negus Sella-Sellassi. Menelek, by means of
Count Antonelli, resident in the Shoa country, requested Italy to
execute a di version in his favor by occupying Asmar and other
points on the high plateau. Antoneili profited by the situation to
obtain Mneleks signature to a treaty fixing the frontiers of the
Italian colony and defining Italo-Abyssinian relations. The treaty,
signed at Tjccialli on the 2nd of May 1899, arranged for regular
intercourse between Italy and Abyssinia and conceded to Italy a
portion. of the high plateau, with the positions of Halai,
Saganeiti and Asmar. The main point of the treaty, however, lay in
clause 17: His
Majesty the
king of kings of
Ethiopia
consents to make use of the government of His Majesty the king of
Italy for the treatment of all questions concerning other powers
and governments.
Upon this clause Italy founded her claim to a protectorate over
Abyssinia. In September 1889 the treaty of Uccialli was ratified in
Italy by Meneleks lieutenant, the Ras Makonnen. Makonnen further
concluded with the Italian premier, Crispi, a convention whereby
Italy recognized Menelek as emperor of Ethiopia, Menelek recognized
the Italian colony, and arranged for a special Italo-Abyssinian
currency and for a loan. On the 11th of October Italy communicated
article 7 of the treaty of Uccialli to the European powers,
interpreting it as a valid title to an Italian protectorate over
Abyssinia. Russia alone neglected to take note of the
communication, and persisted in the hostile attitude she had
assumed at the moment of the occupation of Massawa. Meanwhile the
Italian
mint coined thalers
bearing the portrait of King Humbert, with an inscription referring
to the Italian protectorate, and on the 1st of January 1890 a royal
decree conferred upon the colony the name of Eritrea.
In the colony itself General Baldissera, who had replaced
General Saletta, delayed the movement against Mangash desired by
Menelek. The Italian general would have preferred to wait until his
intervention was requested Opcra dons in by both pretenders to the
Abyssinian throne. Pressed Abyssinia. by the home government, he,
however, instructed a native ally to occupy the important positions
of Keren and Asmar, and prepared himself to take the offensive
against Mangash~ and Ras Alula. Thq latter retreated south of the
river Mareb, leaving the whole of the cis-Mareb territory,
including the provinces of Hamasen, Agameh, Sera and Okul-Kusai, in
Italian hands. General Orero, successor of Baldissera, pushed
offensive action more vigorously, and on the 26th of January 1890
entered
Adowa, a city
considerably to the south of the Marchan imprudent step which
aroused Meneleks suspicions, and had hurriedly to be retraced.
Mangash, seeing further resistance to be useless, submitted to
Menelek, who at the end of February ratified at Makall the
additional convention to the treaty of Uccialli, but refused to
recognize the Italian occupation of the Mareb. The negus, however,
conformed to article 17 of the treaty of IJccialli by requesting
Italy to represent Ahyssinia at the
Brussels anti-slavery conference, an act which
strengthened Italian illusions as to Meneleks readiness to submit
to their protectorate. Menelek had previously notified the chief
European powers of his coronation at Entotto (i4th December 1889),
but Germany and Great Britain replied that such notification should
have been made through the Italian. government. Germany, moreover,
wounded Meneleks pride by employing merely the title of
highness. The negus took
advantage of the incident to protest against the Italian text of
article 17, and to contend that the Amharic text contained no
equivalent for the word consent, but merely stipulated that
Abyssinia ~night make use of Italy in her relations with foreign
powers. On the 28th of October 1890 Count Antonelli, negotiator of
the treaty, was despatched to settle the controversy, but on
arriving at
Adis
Ababa, the new residence of the negus, found agreement
impossible either with regard to the frontier or the protectorate.
On the 10th of April 1891, Menelek communicated to the powers his
views with regard to the Italian frontier, and announced his
intention of re-establishing the ancient boundaries of Ethiopia as
far as Khartum to the north-west and
Victoria Nyanza to the south. Meanwhile
the marquis de Rudini, who had succeeded Crispi as Italian premier,
had authorized the abandonment of article 17 even before he had
heard of the failure of Antonellis negotiations. Rudini was glad to
leave the whole dispute in
abeyance and to make with the local ras, or
chieftains, of the high plateau an arrangement securing for Italy
the cis-Mareb provinces of Sera and Okul-Kusai under the rule of an
allied native chief named
Bath-Agos. Rudini, however, was able to conclude
two protocols with Great Britain (March and April 1891) whereby the
British government definitely recognized Abyssinia as within the
Italian sphere of influence in return for an Italian recognition of
British rights in the Upper Nile.
The period1887-1890was marked in Italy by great political
activity. The entry of Crispi into the Depretis cabinet as minister
of the interior (4th April 1887) introduced into the government an
element of vigour which had Cabinet, long been lacking. Though
sixty-eight years of age, Crispi possessed an activity, a rapidity
of decision and an energy in execution with which none of his
contemporaries could vie. Within four months the death of Depretis
(29th July 1887) opened for Crispi the way to the premiership.
Besides assuming the presidency of the council of ministers and
retaining the ministry of the interior, Crispi took over the
portfolio of foreign affairs which Depretis had held since the
resignation of Count di Robilant. One of the first questions with
which he had to deal was that of conciliation between Italy and the
Vatican. At the end of May the pope, in an
allocution to the cardinals, had spoken of
Italy in terms of unusual cordiality, and had expressed a wish for
peace. A few days later Signor Bonghi, one of the framers of the
Law of Guarantees, published in the Nuova Antologia a plea for
reconciliation on the basis of an
amendment to the Law of Guarantees and
recognition by the pope of the Italian title to Rome. The chief
incident cf the movement towards conciliation consisted, however,
in the publication of a pamphlet entitled La Conciliazione by
Father Tosti, a close friend and confidant of the pope, extolling
the advantages of peace between Vatican and Quirinal. Tostis
pamphlet was known to represent papal ideas, and Tosti himself was
persona grata to the Italian government. ReconTostind ciliation
seemed wit,hin sight when suddenly Tostis tion. pamphlet was placed
on the Index, ostensibly on account of a phrase, The whole of Italy
entered Rome by the breach of Porta Pia; the king cannot restore
Rome to the pope, since Rome belongs to the Italian people. On the
4th of June 1887 the official Vatican organ, the Osservatore
Romano, published a letter written by Tosti to the pope
conditionally retracting the views expressed in the pamphlet. The
letter had been written at the popes request, on the understanding
that it should not be published. On the 15th of June the pope
addressed to Cardinal Rampolla del Tindaro, secretary of state, a
letter reiterating in uncompromising terms the papal claim to the
temporal power, and at the end of July Cardinal Rampolla
reformulated the same claim in a circular to the papal nuncios
abroad. The dream of conciliation was at an end, but the Tosti
incident had served once more to illustrate the true position of
the Vatican in regard to Italy. It became clear that neither the
influence of the regular clergy, of which the Society of
Jesus is the most
powerful embodiment, nor that of foreign clerical parties, which
largely control the Peters Pence fund, would ever permit
renunciation of the papal claim to temporal power. France, and the
French Catholics especially, feared lest conciliation should
diminish the reliance of the Vatican upon Terms France, and
consequently French hold over the of the Vatican. The Vatican, for
its part, felt its claim to Rom~i~
temporal power to be too valuable a pecuniary asset Question.
and too efficacious an instrument of church discipline lightly to
be thrown away. The legend of an imprisoned pope, subject to every
whim of his gaolers, had nevet- failed to arouse the pity and
loosen the purse-strings of the faithful; dangerous innovators and
would-be reformers within the church could be compelled to bow
before the symbol of the temporal power, and their spirit of
submission tested by their readiness to forgo the realization of
their aims until the head of the church should be restored to his
rightful domain. More important than all was the interest of the
Roman curia, composed almost exclusively of Italians, to retain in
its own hands the choice of the pontiff and to maintain the
predominance 01 the Italian element and the Italian spirit in the
ecclesiastical hierarchy. Conciliation with Italy would expose the
pope and his Italian entourage to suspicion of being unduly subject
to Italian political influence of being, in a word, more Italian
than Catholic. Such a suspicion would inevitably lead to a movement
in favor of the internationalization of the curia and of the
papacy. In order to avoid this danger it was therefore necessary to
refuse all compromise, and, by perpetual reiteration of a claim
incompatible with Italian territorial unity, to prove to the church
at large that the pope and the curia were more Catholic than
Italian. Such rigidity of principle need not be extended to the
affairs of everyday contact between the Vatican and the Italian
authorities, with regard to which, indeed, a tacit modus vivendi
was easily attainable. Italy, for her part, could not go back upon
the achievements of the Risorgimento by restoring Rome or any
portion of Italian territory to the pope. She had hoped by
conciliation to arrive at an understanding which should have ranged
the church among the conservative and not among the disruptive
forces of the country, but she was keenly desirous to retain the
papacy as a preponderatingly Italian institution, and was ready to
make whatever formal concessions might have appeared necessary to
reassure foreign Catholics concerning the reality of the popes
spiritual independence. The failure of the conciliation movement
left profound irritation between Vatican and Quirinal, an
irritation which, on the Vatican side, found expression in
vivacious protests and in threats of leaving Rome; and, on the
Italian side, in the deposition of the syndic of Rome for having
visited the cardinal-vicar, in the anti-clerical provisions of the
new penal code, and in the inauguration (9th June 1889) of a
monument to
Giordano Bruno on the very site of his
martyrdom.
The internal situation inherited by Crispi from Depretis was
very unsatisfactory. Extravagant expenditure on railways and public
works, loose administration of finance, the cost of colonial
enterprise, the growing demands for the army and navy, the
impending tariff war with France, and the overspeculation in
building and in industrial ventures, which had absorbed all the
floating capital of the country, had combined to produce a state of
affairs calling for firm and radical treatment. Crispi, burdened by
the premiership and by the two most important portfolios in the
cabinet, was, however, unable to exercise efficient control over
all departments of state. Nevertheless his administration was by no
means unfruitful. Zanardelli, minister of justice, secured in June
1888 the adoption of a new penal code; state surveillance was
extended to the opere pie, or charitable institutions; municipal
franchise was reformed by granting what was practically manhood
suffrage with residential qualification, provision being made for
minority representation; and the central state administration was
reformed by a bill fixing the number and functions of the various
ministries. The management of finance was scarcely satisfactory,
for though Giolitti, who had succeeded Magliani and Perazzi at the
treasury, suppressed the formers illusory
pension fund, he lacked the fibre necessary to
deal with the enormous deficit of nearly 10,000,000 in 1888-1889,
the existence of which both i Perazzi and he had recognized. The
most successful feature of Crispis term of office was his strict
maintenance of Order and the suppression of Radical and Irredentist
agitation. So vigorous was his treatment of Irredentism that he
dismissed without warning his colleague Seismit Doda, minister of
finance, for having failed to protest against Irredentist speeches
delivered in his presence at Udine. Firmness such as this secured
for him the support of all constitutional elements, and after three
years premiership his position was infinitely stronger than at the
outset. The general election of 1890 gave the cabinet an almost
unwieldy majority, comprising four-fifths of the Chamber. A lengthy
term of office seemed to be opening out before him when, on the
31st of January 1891, Crispi, speaking in a debate upon an
unimportant bill, angrily rebuked the Right for its noisy
interruptions. The rebuke infuriated the Conservative deputies,
who, protesting against Crispis words in the name of the sacred
memories of their party, precipitated a division and placed the
cabinet in a minority. The incident, whether due to chance or
guile, brought about the resignation of Crispi. A few days later he
was succeeded in the premiership by the marquis di Rudini, leader
of the Right, who formed a coalition cabinet with Nicotera and a
part of the Left.
The sudden fall of Crispi wrought a great change in the
character of Italian relations with foreign powers. His policy
Rudini had been characterized by extreme cordiality towards Austria
and Germany, by a close understanding with Great Britain in regard
to Mediterranean questions, and by an apparent animosity towards
France, which at one moment seemed likely to lead to war. Shortly
before the fall of the Depretis-Robilant cabinet Count Robilant had
announced the intention of Italy to denounce the
commercial
treaties with France and Austria, which would lapse en the 31st
of December 1887, and had intimated his readiness to negotiate new
treaties. On the 24th of June 1887, in view of a possible rupttire
of commercial relations with France, the Depretis-Crispi cabinet
introduced a new general tariff. The probability of the conclusion
of a new Franco-Italian treaty was small, both on account of the
protectionist spirit of France and of French resentment at the
renewal of the triple alliance, but even such slight probability
vanished after a visit paid to Bismarck by Crispi (October 1887)
within three months of his appointment to the premiership. Crispi
entertained no
a priori
animosity towards France, but was strongly convinced that Italy
must emancipate herself from the position of political dependence
on her powerful neighbor which had vitiated the foreign policy of
the Left. So far was he from desiring a rupture with France, that
he had subordinated acceptance of the portfolio of the interior in
the Depretis cabinet to an assurance that the triple alliance
contained no provision for offensive warfare. But his ostentatious
visit to Friedrichsruh, and a subsequent speech at Turin, in which,
while professing sentiments of friendship and esteem for France, he
eulogized the personality of Bismarck, aroused against him a
hostility on the part of the French which he was never afterwards
able to allay. France was equally careless of Italian
susceptibilities, and in April 1888
Goblet made a futile but irritating attempt to
enforce at Massawa the Ottoman rgime of the
capitulations in
regard to non-Italian residents. - In such circumstances the
negotiations for the new commercial treaty could but fail, and
though the old treaty was prolonged by special arrangement for two
months, differential tariffs were put in force on both side~
of the frontier on the 29th of February 1888. The value of
French exports into Italy decreased immediately by one-half, while
Italian exports to France decreased by nearly two-thirds. At the
end of 1889 Crispi abolished the differential duties against French
imports and returned to the general Italian tariff, but France
declined to follow his lead and maintained her prohibitive dues.
Meanwhile the enthusiastic reception accorded to the young German
emperor on the occasion of his visit to Rome in October 1888, and
the cordiality shown towards King Humbert and Crispi at Berlin in
May 1889, increased the tension of FrancoItalian relations; nor was
it until after the fall of Prince Bismarck in March 1890 that
Crispi adopted towards the Republic a more friendly attitude by
sending an Italian squadron to salute President Carnot at Toulon.
The chief advantage derived by Italy from Crispis foreign policy
was the increase of confidence in her government on the part of her
allies and of Great Britain. On the occasion of the incident raised
by Goblet with regard to Massawa, Bismarck made it clear to France
that, in case of complications, Italy would not stand alone; and
when in February I 888 a strong French fleet appeared to menace the
Italian coast, the British Mediterranean squadron demonstrated its
readiness to support Italian naval dispositions. Moreover, under
Crispis hand Italy awoke from the apathy of former years and gained
consciousness of her place in the world. The conflict with France,
the operations in Eritrea, the vigorous interpretation of the
triple alliance, the questions of Morocco and
Bulgaria, were all used by him as means to
stimulate national sentiment. With the
instinct of a true statesman, he felt the
pulse of the people, divined their need for prestige, and their
preference for a government heavy-handed rather than lax. How great
had been Crispis power was seen by contrast with the policy of the
Rudini cabinet which succeeded him in February 1891. Crispis
so-called megalomania gave place to
retrenchment in home affairs and to a
deferential attitude towards all foreign powers. The premiership
&cond of Rudini was hailed by the Radical leader, Cavallotti,
renewal of as a pledge of the non-renewal of the triple alliance,
thif71T,~tp1~ against which the Radicals began a vociferous
campaign. A ance.
Their tactics, however, produced a contrary effect, for Rudini,
accepting proposals from Berlin, renewed the alliance in June 1891
for a period of twelve years. None of Rudinis public utterances
justify the supposition that he assumed office with the intention
of allowing the alliance to lapse on its expiry in May 1892;
indeed, he frankly declared it to form the basis of his foreign
policy. The attitude of several of his colleagues was more
equivocal, but though they coquetted with French financiers in the
hope of obtaining the support of the Paris Bourse for Italian
securities, the precipitate renewal of the alliance destroyed all
probability of a close understanding with France. The desire of
Rudini to live on the best possible terms with all powers was
further evinced in the course of a visit paid to
Monza by M. de Giers in October 1891, when the
Russian statesman was apprised of the entirely defensive nature of
Italian engagements under the triple alliance. At the same time he
carried to a successful conclusion negotiations begun by Crispi for
the renewal of commercial treaties with Austria and Germany upon
terms which to some extent compensated Italy for the reduction of
her commerce with France, and concluded with Great Britain
conventions for the delimitation of British and Italian
spheres
of influence in north-east Africa. i~In home affairs his
administration was weak and vacillating, nor did the economies
effected in naval and military expenditure and in other departments
suffice to strengthen the position of a cabinet which had
disappointed the hopes of its supporters. On the I4th of April 1892
dissensions between ministers concerning the financial programme
led to a cabinet crisis, and though Rudini succeeded in
reconstructing his administration, he was defeated in the Chamber
on the 5th of May and obliged to resign. King Humbert, who, from
lack of confidence in Rudini, had declined VIM
lull! to allow him to
dissolve parliament, entrusted Signor Giolitti, a Piedmontese
deputy, sometime treasury minister in the Crispi cabinet, with the
formation of a ministry of the Left, which contrived to obtain six
months supply on account, and dissolved the Chamber, The ensuing
general election (November 1892), marked by unprecedented violence
and abuse of official pressure upon B k the electorate, fitly
ushered in what proved to be scandals, the most unfortunate period
of Italian history since the completion of national unity. The
influence of Giolitti was based largely upon the favor of a court
clique, and especially of Rattazzi, minister of the royal
household. Early in 1893 a scandal arose in connection with the
management of state banks, and particularly of the Banca Romana,
whose managing director, Tanlongo, had issued 2,500,000 of
duplicate bank-notes. Giolitti scarcely improved matters by
creating Tanlongo a member of the senate, and by denying in
parliament the existence of any mismanagement. The senate, however~
manifested the utmost hostility to Tanlongo, whom Giolitti, in
consequence of an interpellation in the Chamber, was compelled to
arrest. Arrests of other prominent persons followed, and on the 3rd
of February the Chamber authorized the
prosecution of De Zerbi, a Neapolitan
deputy accused of corruption. On the 20th of February De Zerbi
suddenly expired. For a time Giolitti successfully opposed inquiry
into the conditions of the state banks, but on the 21st of March
was compelled to sanction an official investigation by a
parliamentary commission composed of seven members. On the 23rd of
November the report of the commission was read to the Chamber amid
intense excitement. It established that all Italian cabinets since
1880 had grossly neglected the state banks; that the two preceding
cabinets had been aware of the irregularities committed by
Tanlongo; that Tanlongo had heavily subsidized the press, paying as
much as 20,000 for that purpose in 1888 alone; that a number of
deputies, including several ex-ministers, had received from him
loans of a considerable amount, which they had apparently made no
effort to refund; that Giolitti had deceived the Chamber with
regard to the state banks, and was open tosuspicion of having,after
the arrest of Tanlongo, abstracted a number of documents from the
latters papers before placing the remainder in the hands of the
judicial authorities. In spite of the gravity of the charges
formulated against many prominent men, the report merely deplored
and disapproved of their conduct, without proposing penal
proceedings. Fear of extending still farther a scandal which had
already attained huge dimensions, and the desire to avoid any
further shock to national credit, convinced the commissioners of
the expediency of avoiding a long series of prosecutions. The
report, however, sealed the fate of the Giolitti cabinet, and on
the 24th of November it resigned amid general execration.
Apart from the lack of
scruple manifested by Giolitti in the bank
scandals, he exhibited incompetence in the conduct of foreign and
home affairs. On the 16th and 18th of Algues. August 1893 a number
of Italian workmen were ~ massacred at
Aigues-Mortes. The French authorities,
under whose eyes the massacre was perpetrated, did nothing to
prevent or repress it, and the mayor of Marseilles even refused to
admit the wounded Italian workmen to the municipal
hospital. These occurrences
provoked anti-French demonstrations in many parts of Italy, and
revived the chronic Italian rancour against France. The Italian
foreign minister, Brin, began by demanding the punishment of the
persons guilty of the massacre, but has~ned to accept as
satisfactory the
anodyne
measures adopted by the French government. Giolitti removed the
prefect of Rome for not having prevented an expression of popular
anger, and presented formal excuses to the French consul at Messina
for a demonstration against that consulate. In the following
December the French tribunal at Angoulme acquitted all the authors
of ~he massacre. At home Giolitti displayed the same weakiess.
Riots at Naples in August 1893 and symptoms of unrest in Sicily
found him, as usual, unprepared and vacillatin~. The closing of the
French market to Sicilian produce, the devastation wrought by the
phylloxera and the decrease of the sulphur trade had combined to
produce in Sicily a discontent of which Socialist agitators took
advantage to organize the workmen of the towns and the peasants of
the country into groups known as fasci. The movement had no
well-defined object. Here and there it was based upon a
bastard Socialism, ~ in other places it was made a
means of municipal ~ party warfare under the guidance of the local
mafia, and in some districts it was simply popular effervescence
against the local octrois on. bread and flour. As early as January
1893 a conflict had occurred between the police and the populace,
in which several men, women and children were killed, an occurrence
used by the agitators further to inflame the populace. Instead of
maintaining a firm policy, Giolitti allowed the movement to spread
until, towards the autumn of 1893, he became alarmed and drafted
troops into the island, though in numbers insufficient to restore
order. At the moment of his fall the movement assumed the aspect of
an insurrection, and during the interval between his resignation
(24th November) and the formation of a new Crispi cabinet (ioth
December) conflicts between the public forces and the rioters were
frequent. The return of Crispi to powera return imposed by public
opinion as that of the only man capable of dealing with the
desperate situationmarked the turning-point of the crisis.
Intimately acquainted with the conditions of his native island,
Crispi adopted efficacious remedies. The fasci were suppressed,
Sicily was filled with troops, the reserves were called out, a
state of siege proclaimed, military courts instituted and the whole
movement crushed in a few weeks. The chief agitators were either
sentenced to heavy terms of imprisonment or were compelled to flee
the country. A simultaneous insurrection at Massa - Carrara was
crushed with similar vigour. Crispis methods aroused great outcry
in the Radical press, but the severe sentences of the military
courts were in time tempered by the Royal
prerogative of amnesty.
But it was not alone in regard to public order that heroic
measures were necessary. The financial situation inspired serious
misgivings. While engagements contracted by Depretis in regard to
public works had more than ~n1anciaj neutralized the normal
increase of revenue from taxation, the whole credit of the state
had been affected by the severe economic and financial crises of
the years 1889-1893. The state banks, already hampered by
maladministration, were encumbered by huge quantities of real
estate which had been taken over as compensation for unredeemed
mortgages. Baron Sidney Sonnino, minister of finance in the Crispi
cabinet, found a prospective deficit of 7,080,000, and in spite of
economies was obliged to face an actual deficit of more than
6,ooo,000. Drastic measures were necessary to limit expenditure and
to provide new sources of revenue. Sonnino applied, and
subsequently amended, the Bank Reform Bill passed by the previous
Administration (August 10, 1893) for the creation of a supreme
state bank, the Bank of Italy, which was entrusted with the
liquidation. of the insolvent Banca Romana. The new law forbade the
state banks to lend money on real estate, limited their powers of
discounting bills and securities, and reduced the maximum of their
paper currency. In order to diminish the gold premium, which under
Giolitti had risen to 16%, forced currency was given to the
existing notes of the banks of Italy, Naples and Sicily, while
special state notes were issued to meet immediate currency needs.
Measures were enforced to prevent Italian holders of consols from
sending their coupons abroad to be paid in gold, with the result
that, whereas in 1893 3,24o,ooo had been paid abroad in gold for
the service of the January coupons and only 680,000 in paper in
Italy, the same coupon was paid a year later with only 1,360,000
abroad and 2,540,000 at home. Economies for more than 1,000,000,
were immediately effected, taxes, calculated to produce 2,440,000,
were proposed to be placed upon land, incomes, salt and corn, whi]e
the existing income-tax upon consols (fixed at 8% by Cambray-Digny
in 1868, and raised to 13.20% by Sella in 1870) was increased to
20% irrespectively of the stockholders nationality. These proposals
met with opposition so fierce as to cause a cabinet crisis, but
Sonnino who resigned office as minister of finance~
returned to power as minister of the treasury, promulgated some
of his proposals by royal decree, and in spite of vehement
opposition secured their ratification by the Chamber. The tax upon
consols, which, in conjunction with the other severe fiscal
measures, was regarded abroad as a pledge that Italy intended at
all costs to avoid bankruptcy, caused a rise in. Italian stocks.
When the Crispi cabinet fell in March 1896 Sonnino had the
satisfaction of seeing revenue increased by ~3 ,400,000,
expenditure diminished by 2,800,000, the gold premium reduced from
16 to 5%, consolidated stock at 95 instead of 72, and,
notwithstanding the expenditure necessitated by the Abyssinian War,
financial equilibrium practically restored.
While engaged in restoring order and in supporting Sonninos
courageous struggle against bankruptcy, Crispi became the ~ object
of fierce attacks from the Radicals, Socialists on~rispi. and
anarchists. On the 16th of June an attempt by an anarchist named
Lega was made on Crispis life; on the 24th of June President Carnot
was assassinated by the anarchist Caserio; and on the 3oth of June
an Italian journalist was murdered at Leghorn for a newspaper
attack upon
anarchism a
series of outrages which led the government to frame and parliament
to adopt (11th July) a Public Safety Bill for the prevention of
anarchist propaganda and crime. At the end of July the trial of the
persons implicated in the Banca Romana scandal revealed the fact
that among the documents abstracted by Giolitti from the papers of
the bank manager, Tanlongo, were several bearing upon Crispis
political and private life. On the 11th of December Giolitti laid
these and other papers before the Chamber, in the hope of ruining
Crispi, but upon examination most of thm were found to be
worthless, and the rest of so private a nature as to be unfit for
publication. The effect of the incident was rather to increase
detestation of Giolitti than to damage Crispi. The latter, indeed,
prosecuted the former for
libel
and for abuse of his position when premier, but after many
vicissitudes, including the flight of Giolitti to Berlin in. order
to avoid arrest, the Chamber refused authorizatioTi for the
prosecution, and the matter dropped. A fresh at ~mpt of the same
kind was then made against Crispi by tF Radical leader Cavallotti,
who advanced unproven charges of corruption and
embezzlement. These
attacks were, however, unavailing to shake Crispis position, and in
the general election of May 1895 his government obtained a majority
of nearly 200 votes. Nevertheless public confidence in the efficacy
of the parliamentary system and in the honesty of politicians was
seriously diminished by these unsavoury occurrences, which, in
combination with the acquittal of all the defendants in the Banca
Romana trial, and the abandonment of the proceedings against
Giolitti, reinforced to an alarming degree the propaganda of the
revolutionary parties.
The foreign policy of the second Crispi Administration, in which
the portfolio of foreign affairs was held by Baron Blanc, was, as
before, marked by a cordial interpretation of CompI!ca- the triple
alliance, and by close accord with Great ~ Britain. In the Armenian
question Italy seconded with energy the diplomacy of Austria and
Germany, while the Italian fleet joined the British Mediterranean
squadron in a demonstration off the Syrian. coast. Graver than. any
foreign question were the complications in Eritrea. Under the
arrangement concluded in 1891 by Rudini with native chiefs in
regard to the Italo-Abyssinian frontier districts, relations with
Abyssinia had remained comparatively satisfactory. Towards the
Sudan, however, the Mahdists, who had recovered from a defeat
inflicted by an Italian force at
Agordat in 1890, resumed operations in December
1893. Colonel Arimondi, commander of the colonial forces in the
absence of the military governor, General Baratieri, attacked and
routed a
dervish force
10,000 strong on the 21st of December. The Italian troops, mostly
native levies, numbered only 2200 men. The dervish loss was more
than 100o killed, while the total Italian casualties amounted to
less than 250. General Baratieri, upon returning to the colony,
decided to execute a coup de main against the dervish base at
Kassala, both in order to relieve pressure from that quarter and to
preclude a combined Abyssiefian and clcrvish attack upon the colony
at the end of 1894. The protocol concluded with Great Britain on
the 15th of April 1891, already referred to, contained a clause to
the effect that, were Kassala occupied by the Italians, the place
should be transferred to the Egyptian government as soon as the
latter should be In a position. to restore order in the Sudan.
Concentrating a little army of 2600 men, Baratieri surprised and
captured Kassala on. the 17th of July 1894, and garrisoned the
place with native levies under Italian officers. Meanwhile Menelek,
jealous of the extension. cif Italian influence to a part of
northern
Somaliland
and to the Benadir coast, had, with the support of France and
Russia, completed his preparations for asserting his authority as
independent ruler of Ethiopia. On the 11th of May 1893 he denounced
the treaty of Uccialli, but the Giolitti cabillet, absorbed by the
bank scandals, paid no heed to his action. Possibly an adroit
repetition in favor of Mangashh and against Menelek of the policy
formerly followed in favor of Menelek against the negus John might
have consolidated Italian influence in Abyssinia by preventing the
ascendancy of any single chieftain. The Italian government,
however, neglected this opening, and Mangash came to terms with
Menelek. Consequently the efforts of Crispi and his envoy, Colonel
Piano, to conclude a new treaty with Menelek in June 1894 not only
proved unsuccessful, but formed a prelude to troubles on the
Italo-Abyssinian frontier. Bath-Agos, the native chieftain who
ruled the Okul-Kusai and the cis-Mareb provinces on behalf of
Italy, intrigued with Mangash, ras of the trans-Mareb province of
Tigr, and with Menelek, to raise a revolt against Italian rule on
the high plateau. In December 1894 the revolt broke out, but Major
Toselli with a small force marched rapidly against Bath Agos, whom
he routed and killed at Halai. General Baratieri~ having reason to
suspect the complicity of Mangash in the revolt, called upon him to
furnish troops for a projected Italo-Abyssinian campaign against
the Mahdists. Mangashh made no reply, and Baratieri crossing the
Mareb advanced to Adowa, but four days later was obliged to return
northwards. Mangash thereupon took the offensive and attempted to
occupy the village of Coatit in Okul-Kusai, but was forestalled and
defeated by Baratieri on the 13th of January 1895. Hurriedly
retreating to Senaf, hard pressed by the Italians, who shelled
Senaf on the evening of the 15th of January, Mangashh was obliged
to abandon his camp and provisions to Baratieri, who also secured a
quantity of correspondence establishing the complicity of Menelek
and Mangash in the revolt of Bath-Agos.
The comparatively facile success achieved by Baratieri against
Mangash seems to have led him to undervalue his enemy, and to
forget that Menelek, negus and king conques~
of Shoa, had an. interest in allowing Mangasha to be of
Tigre. crushed, in order that the
imperial authority and the superiority of Shoan over Tigrin arms
might be the more strikingly asserted. After obtaining the
establishment of an apostolic prefecture in Eritrea under the
charge of Italian
Franciscans, Baratieri expelled from the
colony the French Lazarist missionaries for their alleged
complicity in the Bath-Agos insurrection; and in March 1895
undertook the conquest of Tigr. Occupyinf Adigrat and Makall, he
reached Adowa on the 1st of April, an~ thence pushed forward to
Axum, the holy city of Abyssinia.
Thes places were garrisoned, and during the rainy season Baratier
returned to Italy, where he was received with unboundec enthusiasm.
Whether he or the Crispi cabinet had any inklinf of the enterprise
to which they were committed by the occupa tion of Tigr is more
than. doubtful. Certainly Baratieri
madi no adequate preparations to repel an
Abyssinian attempt t~ reconquer the province. Early in September
both Mangasb~ and Menelek showed signs of activity, and on the 20th
of Sq tember Makonnen, ras of
Harrar, who up till then had beei regarded as a
friend and quasi-ally by Italy, expelled all Italian from his
territory and marched with 30,000 men to join tb negus. On
returning to Eritrea, Baratieri mobilized his nativ reserves and
pushed forward columns under Major Toselli am General Arimondi as
far south as Amba Alagi. Mangash Ic] back before the Italians, who
obtained several minor successes but on the 6th of December
Tosellis column, 2000 strong, whic]
through a misunderstanding continued to hold Amba Alagi, was
almost annihilated by the Abyssinian vanguard of 40,000 men.
Toselli and all but three officers and 300 men fell at their posts
after a desperate resistance. Arimondi, collecting the survivors of
the Toselli column, retreated to Makall and Adigrat. At Makall,
however, he left a small garrison in the fort, which on the 7th of
January 1896 was invested by the Abyssinian army. Repeated attempts
to capture the fort having failed, Menelek and Makonnen opened
negotiations with Baratieri for its capitulation, and on the 21st
of January the garrison, under Major Galliano, who had heroically
defended the position, were permitted to march out with the honors
of war. Meanwhile Baratieri received reinforcements from Italy, but
remained undecided as to the best plan of campaign. Thus a month
was lost, during which the Abyssinian army advanced to Hausen, a
position slightly south of Adowa. The Italian commander attempted
to treat with Menelek, but his negotiations merely enabled the
Italian envoy, Major Salsa, to ascertain that the Abyssinians were
nearly Ioo,ooo strong mostly armed with rides and well supplied
with artillery. The Italians, including camp-followers, numbered
less than 25,000 men, a force too small for effective action, but
too large to be easily provisioned at 200 m. from its base, in a
roadless, mountainous country, almost devoid of water. For a moment
Baratieri thought of retreat, especially as the hope of creating a
diversion from
Zaila towards
Harrar had failed in consequence of the British refusal to permit
the landing of an Italian force without the consent of France. The
defection of a number of native allies (who, however, were attacked
and defeated by Colonel Stevani on the I 8th of February) rendered
the Italian position still more precarious; but Baratieri, unable
to make up his mind, continued to mancruvre in the hope of drawing
an Abyssinian attack. These futile tactics exasperated the home
government, which on the 22nd of February despatched General
Baldissera, with strong reinforcements, to supersede Baratieri. On
the 25th of February Crispi telegraphed to Baratieri, denouncing
his operations as military
phthisis, and urging him to decide upon some
strategic plan. Baratieri, anxious probably to obtain some success
before the arrival of Baldissera, and alarmed by the rapid
diminution of his stores, which precluded further immobility,
called a council of war (29th of February) and obtained the
approval of the divisional commanders for a plan of attack. During
the night the army advanced towards Adowa in three divisions, under
Generals Dabormida, Arimondi and Albertone, each division being
between 4000 and 5000
strong, and a
brigade
5300 strong under General Battle of Ellena remaining in reserve.
All the divisions, .4dowa. save that of Aibertone, consisted
chiefly of Italian troops. During the march Albertones native
division mistook the road, and found itself obliged to delay in the
Arimondi column by retracing its steps. Marching rapidly, however,
Albertone outdistanced the other columns, but, in consequence of
allowing his men an hours rest, arrived upon the scene of action
when the Abyssinians, whom it had been hoped to surprise at dawn,
were ready to receive the attack. Pressed by overwhelming forces,
the Italians, after a violent combat, began to give way. The
Dabormida division, unsupported by Albertone, found itself likewise
engaged in a separate combat against superior numbers. Similarly
the Arimondi brigade was attacked by 30,000 Shoans, and encumbered
by the debris of Albertones troops. Baratieri vainly attempted to
push forward the reserve, but the Italians were already
overwhelmed, and the battleor rather, series of distinct
engagementsended in a general rout. The Italian loss is estimated
to have been more than 6000, of whom 3125 were whites. Between 3000
and 4000 prisoners were taken by the Abyssinians, including General
Albertone, while Generals Arimondi and Dabormida were killed and
General Ellena wounded. The Abyssinians lost more than. 5000 killed
and Sooo wounded. Baratieri, after a futile attempt to direct the
retreat, fled in haste and reached Adi-Caj before the debris of his
army. Thence he despatched telegrams to Italy throwing blame for
the defeat upon his troops, a proceeding which sub- sequent
evidence proved to be as unjustifiable as it was unsoldierlike.
Placed under
court-martial for his conduct, Baratieri
was acquitted of the charge for having been led to give battle by
other than. military considerations, but the sentence deplored that
in such difficult circumstances the command should have been given
to a general so inferior to the exigencies of the situation.
In Italy the news of the defeat of Adowa caused deep
discouragement and dismay. On the 5th of March the Crispi cabinet
resigned before an outburst of indignation which the Opposition had
assiduously fomented, and five days later a new cabinet was formed
by General Ricotti-Magnani, who, however, made over the premiership
to the marquis di Rudini. The latter, though leader of the Right,
had long been intriguing with Cavallotti, leader of the Extreme
Left, to overthrow Crispi, but without the disaster of Adowa his
plan would scarcely have succeeded. The first act of the new
cabinet was to confirm instructions given by its predecessor to
General Baldissera (who had succeeded General Baratieri on the 2nd
of March) to treat for peace with Menelek if he thought desirable.
Baldissera opened negotiations with the negus through Major Salsa,
and simultaneously reorganized the Italian army. The negotiations
having failed, he marched to relieve the beleaguered garrison of
Adigrat; but Menelek, discouraged by the heavy losses at Adowa,
broke up his camp and returned southwards Abyssinto Shoa. At the
same tfme Baldissera detached i ii sew -
Colonel Stevani with four native battalions to relieve ,cnt, C
Kassala, then hard pressed by the Mahdists. Kassala was relieved on
the 1st of April, and Stevani a few days later severely defeated
the dervishes at
Jebel Mokram
and Tucruff. Returning from Kassala Colon.el Stevani rejoined
Baldissera, who on the 4th of May relieved Adigrat after a
well-executed march. By adroit negotiations with Mangash the
Italian general obtained the release of the Italian prisoners in
Tigr, and towards the end of May withdrew his whole force north of
the Mareb. Major Nerazzini was then despatched as special envoy to
the negus to arrange terms of peace. On the 26th of October
Nerazzini succeeded in. concluding, at Adis Ababa, a provisional
treaty annulling the treaty of Uccialli; recognizing the absolute
independence of Ethiopia; postponing for one year the definitive
delimitation of the Italo-Abyssinian boundary, but allowing the
Italians meanwhile to hold the strong MarebBelesa-Muna line; and
arranging for the release of the Italian prisoners after
ratification of the treaty in exchange for an indemnity of which
the amount was to be fixed by the Italian government. The treaty
having been duly ratified, and an indemnity of 400,000 paid to
Menelek, the Shoan prisoners were released, and Major Nerazzini
once more returned to Abyssinia with instructions to secure, if
possible, Meneleks assent to the definitive retention of the
Mareb-Belesa-Muna line by Italy. Before Nerazzini could reach Adis
Ababa, Rudini, in order partially to satisfy the demands of his
Radical supporters for the abandonment of the colony, announced in
the Chamber the intention of Italy to limit her occupation to the
triangular zone between the points Asmar, Keren and Massawa, and,
possibly, to withdraw to Massawa alone. This declaration, of which
Menelek was swiftly apprised by French agents, ,rendered it
impossible to Nerazzini to obtain more than a boundary leaving to
Italy but a small portion. of the high plateau and ceding to
Abyssinia the fertile provinces of Sera and Okul-Kusai. The fall of
the Rudini cabinet in June 1898, however, enabled Signor Ferdinando
Martini and Captain Cicco di Cola, who had been appointed
respectively civil governor of Eritrea and minister resident at
Adis Ababa, to prevent the cession of Sera and OkulKusai, and to
secure the assent of Menelek to Italian retention of the
Mareb-Belesa-Muna frontier. Eritrea has now approximately the same
extent as before the revolt of Bath-Agos, except in regard (I) to
Kassala, which was transferred to the Anglo-Egyptian authorities on
the 25th of December 1897, lfl pursuance of the above-mentioned
Anglo-Italian convention; and (2) to slight rectifications of its
northern and eastern boundaries by conventions concluded between
the Eritrean and the Anglo-Egyptian authorities. Under Signor
Ferdinando Martinis able administration (1898-1906) the cost of the
colony to ltaly was reduced and its trade and agriculture have
vastly improved. While marked in regard to Eritrea by vacillation
and undignified readiness to yield to Radical clamour, the policy
of the marquis di Rudini was in other respects chiefly
characterized I by a desire to demolish Crispi and his supporters.
Actuated by rancour against Crispi, he, on the 29th of April 1896,
authorized I the publication of a Green Book on Abyssinian affairs,
in which, without the consent of Great Britain, the confidential
AngloItalian negotiations in regard to the Abyssinian war were
disclosed. This publication, which amounted to a gross breach I of
diplomatic confidence, might have endangered the cordiality of
Anglo-Italian relations, had not the esteem of the British
government for General Ferrero, Italian ambassador in London,
induced it to overleok the incident. Fortunately for Italy, the
marquis Visconti Venosta shortly afterwards consented to assume the
portfolio of foreign affairs, which had been resigned by Duke
Caetani di Sermoneta, and again to place, after an interval of
twenty years, his unrivalled experience at the service of his
country. In September 1896 he succeeded in. concluding with France
a treaty with regard to Tunisia in place of the old Italo-Tunisian
treaty, denounced by the French Government a year previously.
During the
Greco-Turkish War of 1897 Visconti
Venosta labored to maintain the Europe-an concert, joined Great
Britain in preserving Greece from the worst consequences of her
folly, and lent moral and material aid in establishing an
autonomous government in Crete. At the same time he mitigated the
Francophil tendencies of some of his colleagues, accompanied King
Humbert and Queen Margherita on their visit to Homburg in September
1897, and, by loyal observance of the spirit of the triple
alliance, retained for Italy the confidence of her allies without
forfeiting the goodwill of France.
The home administration of the Rudini cabinet compared
unfavourably with that of foreign affairs. Bound by a secret
understanding with the Radical leader Cavallotti, an able but
unscrupulous
demagogue,
Rudini was compelled to bow to Radical exigencies. He threw all the
influence of the government against Crispi, who was charged with
complicity in embezzlements perpetrated by Favilla, managing
director of the Bologna branch of the Bank of Naples. After being
subjected to persecution for nearly two years, Crispis character
was substantially vindicated by the report of a parliamentary
commission appointed to inquire into his relations with Favilla.
True, the commission proposed and the Chamber adopted a vote of
censure upon Crispis conduct in 1894, when, as premier and minister
of the interior, he had borrowed ~1 2,000 from Favilla to replenish
the secret service fund, and had subsequently repaid the money as
instalments for secret service were in due course furnished by the
treasury. Though irregular, his action was to some extent justified
by the depletion of the secret service fund under Giolitti and by
the abnormal circumstances prevailing in 1893-1894, when he had
been obliged to quell the insurrections in Sicily and
Massa-Carrara. But the Rudini-Cavallotti alliance was destined to
produce other results than those of the campaign against Crispi.
Pressed by Cavallotti, Rudini in March 1897 dissolved the Chamber
and conducted the general election in such a way as to crush by
government pressure the partisans of Crispi, and greatly to
strengthen the (Socialist, Republican and Radical) revolutionary
parties. More than ever at the mercy of the Radicals and of their
revolutionary allies, Rudini continued so to administer public
affairs that subversive propaganda and associations obtained
unprecedented extension. The effect was seen in May 1898, when, in
consequence of a rise in the price of bread, disturbances occurred
in southern Italy. The corn duty was reduced to meet the emergency,
but the disturbed area extended to Naples, Foggia, Ban,
MinervinoRiots of Murge,
Molfetta and thence along the line of railway
1898. which skirts the Adriatic coast. At Faenza, Piacenza,
Cremona, Pavia and Milan, where subversive associa tions were
stronger, it assumed the complexion of a political revolt. From the
7th to the 9th of May Milan remained practically in Lhe hands of
the mob. A palace was sacked, barricades were ~rected and for
forty-eight hours the troops under General Bava-Beccaris,
notwithstanding the employment of artillery, were unable to restore
order. In. view of these occurrences, Rudini authorized the
proclamation of a state of siege at Milan, Florence, Leghorn and
Naples, delegating the suppression of disorder to special military
commissioners. By these means order was restored, though not
without considerable loss of life at Milan. and elsewhere. At Milan
alone the official returns confessed to eighty killed and several
hundred wounded, a total generally considered below the real
figures. As in 1894, excessively severe sentences were passed by
the military tribunals upon revolutionary leaders and other persons
considered to have been implicated in the outbreak, but successive
royal amnesties obliterated these condemnations within three
years.
No Italian administration since the death of Depretis underwent
so many metamorphoses as that of the marquis di Rudini. Modified a
first time within five months of its formation (July 1896) in.
connection. with General Ricottis Army Reform Bill, and again in
December 1897, strueuon. when Zanardelli entered the cabinet, it
was reconstructed for a third time at the end of May 1898 upon the
question. of a Public Safety Bill, but fell for the fourth and last
time on the 18th of June 1898, on account of public indignation at
the results of Rudinis home policy as exemplified in the May riots.
On the 29th of June Rudini was succeeded in the premiership by
General
Luigi
Pelloux, a Savoyard, whose only title to office was the
confidence of the king. The Pelloux cabinet possessed no clear
programme except in regard to the Public Safety Bill, which it had
taken over from its predecessor. Presented to parliament in
November 1898, the bill was read a second time in the following
spring, but its third
reading was violently obstructed by the
Socialists, Radicals and Republicans of the Extreme Left. After a
series of scenes and scuffles the bill was promulgated by royal
decree, the decree being postdated to allow time for the third
reading. Again obstruction precluded debate, and on the 22nd of
July 1899 the decree automatically acquired force of law, pending
the adoption of a bill of indemnity by the Chamber. In February
1900 it was, however, quashed by the
supreme court on a point of
procedure, and the Public Safety Bill as a whole had again to be
presented to the Chamber. In view of the violence of Extremist
obstruction, an effort was made to reform the standing orders of
the Lower House, but parliamentary feeling ran so high that General
Pelloux thought it expedient to appeal to the country. The general
election of June 1900 not only failed to reinforce the cabinet, but
largely increased the strength of the extreme parties (Radicals,
Republicans and Socialists), who in the new Chamber numbered nearly
100 out of a total of 508. General Pelloux therefore resigned, and
on the 24th of June a moderate Liberal cabinet was formed by the
aged Signor Saracco, president of the senate. Within five weeks of
its formation King Humbert was shot by an anarchist
assassin named Bresci while
leaving an athletic festival at Monza, where his Majesty had
distributed the prizes (2Qth July 1900). The death of the
unfortunate monarch, against whom an attempt had previously been
made by the anarchist Accianito (2 2nd April Death 1897), caused an
outburst of profound sorrow and indignation. Though not a great
monarch, King Humbert had, by his unfailing generosity and personal
courage, won the esteem and
affection of his people. During the cholera
epidemic at Naples and Busca in 1884, and the Ischia earthquake of
1885, he, regardless of danger, brought relief and encouragement to
sufferers, and rescued many lives. More than ~f 00,000 of his civil
list was annually devoted to charitable purposes. Humbert was
succeeded by his only son, Victor Emmanuel III. (b. November II,
1869), a liberal- of King minded and well-educated prince, who at
the time of Victor his fathers assassination was returning from a
cruise Ewmaatsei in the eastern Mediterranean. The remains of King
~ Humbert were laid to rest in the Pantheon at Rome beside those of
his father, Victor Emmanuel II. (9th August). Two days later Victor
Emmanuel III. swore fidelity to the constitution before the
assembled Houses of Parliament and in the presence of his consort,
Elena of
Montenegro,
whom he had married in October 1896.
The later course of Italian foreign policy was marked by many
vicissitudes. Admiral Canevaro, who had gained distinction as
commander of the international forces in Foreign affairs. Crete
(1896-1898), assumed the direction of foreign affairs in the first
period of the Pelloux administration.
His diplomacy, though energetic, lacked steadiness. Soon after
taking office he completed the negotiations begun by the Rudini
administration for a new commercial treaty with France (October
1898), whereby Franco-Italian commercial relations were placed upon
a normal footing after a breach which had lasted for more than ten
years. By the despatch of a squadron to South America he obtained
satisfaction for injuries inflicted thirteen years previously upon
an Italian subject by the United States of
Colombia. In December 1898 he convoked a
diplomatic conference in Rome to discuss secret means for the
repression of anarchist propaganda and crime in view of the
assassination of the empress of Austria by an Italian anarchist
(Luccheni), but it is doubtful whether results of practical value
were achieved. The action of the tsar of Russia in convening the
Peace Conference at
The
Hague in May 1900 gave rise to a question as to the right of
the Vatican to be officially represented, and Admiral Canevaro,
supported by Great Britain and Germany, succeeded in prevent~ ing
the invitation of a papal delegate. Shortly afterwards his term of
office was brought to a close by the failure of an attempt to
secure for Italy a coaling station at Sanmen and a sphere of
influence in
China; but his
policy of active participation in Chinese affairs was continued in
a modified form by his successor, the Marquis Visconti Venosta,
who, entering the reconstructed Pelloux cabinet in May 1899,
retained the portfolio of foreign affairs in the ensuing Saracco
administration, and secured the despatch of an Italian expedition,
2000 strong, to aid in repressing the Chinese outbreak and in
protecting Italian interests in the Far East (July 1900). With
characteristic foresight, Visconti Venosta promoted an exchange of
views between Italy and France in regard to the Tripolitan
hinterland, which the Anglo-French convention of 1899 had placed
within the French sphere of influencea modification of the status
quo ante considered highly detrimental to Italian aspirations in
Tripoli. For this reason the
Anglo-French convention had caused profound irritation in Italy,
and had tended somewhat to diminish the cordiality of Anglo-Italian
relations. Visconti Venosta is believed, however, to have obtained
from France a formal declaration that France would not transgress
the limits assigned to her influence by the convention. Similarly,
in regard to
Albania, Visconti Venosta exchanged
notes with Austria with a view to the prevention of any
misunderstanding through the conflict between Italian and Austrian
interests in that part of the Adriatic coast. Upon the fall of the
Saracco cabinet (9th February 1901) Visconti Venosta was succeeded
at the foreign office by Signor Prinetti, a Lombard manufacturer of
strong temperament, but without previous diplomatic experience. The
new minister continued in most respects the policy of his
predecessor. The outset of his administration was marked by
Franco-Italian fetes at Toulon (10th to I4th April 1901), when the
Italian fleet returned a visit paid by the French Mediterranean
squadron to Cagliari in April 1899; and by the despatch of three
Italian warships to Prevesa to obtain satisfaction for damage done
to Italian subjects by Turkish officials.
The Saracco administration, formed after the obstructionist
crisis of 1899190o as a cabinet of transition and pacification, was
ganar- overthrown in February 1901 in consequence of its dciii-.
vacillating conduct towards a dock strike at Genoa.
thoiitti It was succeeded by a Zanardelli cabinet, in which the
cabinet, portfolio of the interior was allotted to Giolitti. Com
posed mainly of elements drawn from the Left, and dependent for a
majority upon the support of the subversive groups of the Extreme
Left, the formation of this cabinet gave the signal for a vast
working-class movement, during which the Socialist party sought to
extend its political influence by means of strikes and the
organization of labor leagues among agricultural laborers and
artisans. The movement was confined chiefly to the northern and
central provinces. During the first six months of 1901 the strikes
numbered 600, and involved more than 1,000,000
workmen. (H. W. S.)
G. 1902-1909
In 1901-1902 the social economic condition of Italy was a matter
of grave concern. The strikes and other economic agitations at this
time may be divided roughly into three groups: strikes in
industrial centres for higher wages, shorter hours and better labor
conditions generally; strikes of agricultural laborers in northern
Italy for better contracts with the landlords; disturbances among
the south Italian peasantry due to low wages, unemployment
(particularly in Apulia), and the claims of the laborers to public
land occupied illegally by the landlords, combined with local feuds
and the struggle for power of the various influential families. The
prime cause in most cases was the unsatisfactory economic condition
of the working classes, which they realized all the more vividly
for the very improvements that had been made in it, while education
and better communications enabled them to organize themselves.
Unfortunately these genuine grievai~ces were taken advantage of by
the Socialists for their own purposes, and strikes and disorders
were sometimes promoted without cause and conciliation impeded by
outsiders who acted from motives of personal ambition or profit.
Moreover, while many strikes were quite orderly, the turbulent
character of a part of the Italian people and their hatred of
authority often converted peaceful demands for better conditions
into dangerous riots, in which the dregs of the urban population
(known as teppisti or the mala vita) joined.
Whereas in the past the strikes had been purely local and due to
local conditions, they now appeared of more general and political
character, and the sympathy strike came to be a frequent and
undesirable addition to the ordinary economic agitation. The most
serious movement at this time was that of the railway servants. The
agitation had begun some fifteen years before, and the men had at
various times demanded better pay and shorter hours, often with
success. The next demand was for greater fixity of tenure and more
regular promotion, as well as for the recognition by the companies
of the railwaymens union. On the 4th of January 1902, the employees
of the Mediterranean railway advanced these demands at a meeting at
Turin, and threatened to strike if they were not satisfied. By the
beginning of February the agitation had spread all over Italy, and
the government was faced by the possibility of a strike which would
paralyse the whole economic life of the country. Then the Turin
gas men struck, and a general sympathy
strike broke out in that city in consequence, which resulted in
scenes of violence, lasting two days. The government called out all
the railwaymen who were army reservists, but continued to keep them
at their railway work, exercising military discipline over them and
thus ensuring the continuance of the service. At the same time it
mediated between the companies and the employees, and in June a
settlement was formally concluded between the ministers of public
works and of the treasury and the directors of the companies
concerning the grievances of the employees.
One consequence of the agrarian agitations was the increased use
of machinery and the reduction in the number of hands employed,
which if it proved advantageous to the landlord and to the few
laborers retained, who received higher wages, resulted in an
increase of unemployment. The Socialist party, which had grown
powerful under a series of weak-kneed administrations, now began to
show signs of division; on the one hand there was the revolutionary
wing, led by Signor Enrico
Fern,
the Mantuan deputy, which advocated a policy of uncompromising
class warfare, and on the other the riformisti, or moderate
Socialists, led by Signor Filippo Turati, deputy for Milan, who
adopted a more conciliatory attitude and were ready to ally
themselves with other parliamentary parties. Later the division
took another aspect, the extreme wing being constituted by the
sindacalisti, who were opposed to all legislative parliamentary
action and favored only direct revolutionary propaganda by means of
the sindacati or unions which organized strikes and demonstrations.
In March 1902 agrarian strikes organized by the leg/fe broke out in
the district of Copparo and Polesine (lower valley of the Po),
owing to a dispute about the labor contracts, and in Apulia on
account of unemployment. In August there were strikes among the
dock laborers of Genoa and the iron workers of Florence; the latter
agitation developed into a general strike in that city, which
aroused widespread indignation among the orderly part of the
population and ended without any definite result. At Como 15,000
textile workers remained on strike for nearly a month, but there
were no disorders.
The year 1903, although not free from strikes and minor
disturbances, was quieter, but in September 1904 a very serious
situation was brought about by a general economic ~ and political
agitation. The troubles began with the 1904. disturbances at
Buggeru in Sardinia and Castelluzzo in Sicily, in both of which
places the troops were compelled to use their arms and several
persons were killed and wounded; at a demonstration at
Sestri Ponente in
Liguria to protest against what was called the Buggeru massacre,
four carabineers and eleven rioters were injured. The Monza labor
exchange then took the initiative of proclaiming a general strike
throughout Italy (September 15th) as a protest against the
government for daring to maintain order. The strike spread to
nearly all the industrial centres, although in many places it was
limited to a few trades. At Milan it was more serious and lasted
longer than elsewhere, as the movement was controlled by the
anarchists under Arturo Labriola; the hooligans committed many acts
of savage violence, especially against those workmen who refused to
strike, and much property was wilfully destroyed. At Genoa, which
was in the hands of the teppisti for a couple of days, three
persons were killed and 50 wounded, including 14 policemen, and
railway communications were interrupted for a short time. Venice
was cut off from the mainland for two days and all the public
services were suspended. Riots broke out also in Naples, Florence,
Rome and Bologna. The deputies of the Extreme Left, instead of
using their influence in favor of pacification, could think of
nothing better than to demand an immediate convocation of
parliament in order that they might present a bill forbidding the
troops and police to use their arms in all conflicts between
capital and labor, whatever the provocation might be. This
preposterous proposal was of course not even discussed, and the
movement caused a strong feeling of reaction against Socialism and
of hostility to the government for its weakness; for, however much
sympathy there might be with the genuine grievances of the working
classes, the September strikes were of a frankly revolutionary
character and had been fomented by professional agitators and kept
going by the dregs of the people. The mayor of Venice sent a firm
and dignified protest to the government for its inaction, and the
people of Liguria raised a large subscription in favor of the
troops, in recognition of their gallantry and admirable discipline
during the troubles.
Early in 1905 there was a fresh agitation among the railway
servants, who were dissatisfied with the clauses concerning the
personnel in the bill for the purchase of the lines Unrest of. ..
-
1905 by the state. They initiated a system of obstruction which
hampered and delayed the traffic without alto gether suspending it.
On the 17th of April a general railway strike was ordered by the
union, but owing to the action of the authorities, who for once
showed energy, the traffic was carried on, Other disturbances of a
serious character occurred among the steelworkers of Terni, at
Grammichele in Sicily
and at Alessandria. The extreme parties now began to direct
especial attention to propaganda in the army, with a view to
destroying its cohesion and thus paralysing the action of the
government. The campaign was conducted on the lines of the
anti-militarist movement in France identified with the name of
Herv. Fortifnately, however, this policy was not successful, as
military service is less unpopular in Italy than in many other
countries; aggressive militarism is quite unknown, and without it
anti-militarism can gain no foothold. No serious mutinies have ever
occurred in the Italian army, and the only results of the
propaganda were occasional meetings of hoohgans, where Hervist
sentiments were expressed and applauded, and a few minor
disturbances among reservists unexpectedly called back to the
colors. In the army itself the esprit de corps and the sense of
duty and discipline nullified the work of the propagandists.
In June and July 1907 there were again disturbances among the
agricultural laborers of Ferrala and Rovigo, and a widespread
strike organized by the leg/fe throughout those provinces caused
very serious losses to all concerned. ~ Iii The leg/zisti,
moreover, were guilty of much criminal violence; they committed one
murder and established a veritable reign of terror, boycotting,
beating and wounding numbers of peaceful laborers who would not
join the unions, and brutally maltreating solitary policemen and
soldiers. The authorities, however, by arresting a number of the
more prominent leaders succeeded in restoring order. Almost
immediately afterwards an agitation of a still less defensible
character broke out in various towns under the guise of
anti-clericalism. Certain scandals had come to light in a small
convent school at Greco near
Milan. This was seized upon as a pretext for violent anti-clerical
demonstrations all over Italy and for brutal and unprovoked attacks
on unoffending priests; at Spezia a church was set on fire and
another dismantled, at Marino Cardinal Merry del Val was attacked
by a gang of hooligans, and at Rome the violence of the teppisti
reached such a
pitch as to
provoke reaction on the part of all respectable people, and some of
the aggressors were very roughly handled. The Socialists and the
Freemasons were largely responsible for the agitation, and they
filled the country with stories of other priestly and coriventual
immoralities, nearly all of which, except the original case at
Greco, proved to be without foundation. In September 1907 disorders
in Apulia over the repartition of communal lands broke out anew~
and were particularly serious at Ruvo, Ban, Cerignola and Satriano
del Colle. In some cases there was foundation for the laborers
claims, but unfortunately the movement got into the hands of
professional agitators and common swindlers, and the leader, a
certain Giampetruzzi, who at one time seemed to be a worthy
colleague of Marcelin Albert, was afterwards tried and condemned
for having cheated his own followers.
In October 1907 there was again a general strike at Milan, which
was rendered more serious on account of the action of the railway
servants, and extended to other cities; traffic was disorganized
over a large part of northern Italy, until the government, being
now owner of the railways, dismissed the ringleaders from the
service. This had the desired effect, and although the Sindacato
dci ferrovieri (railway servants union) threatened a general
railway strike if the dismissed men were not reinstated, there was
no further trouble. In the spring of 1908 there were agrarian
strikes at Parma; the labor contracts had pressed hardly on the
peasantry, who had cause for complaint; but while some improvement
had been effected in the new contracts, certain unscrupulous
demagogues, of whom Alceste De Ambris, representing the syndacalist
wing of the Socialist party, was the chief, organized a widespread
agitation. The landlords on their part organized an agrarian union
to defend their interests and enrolled numbers of non-union
laborers to carry on the necessary work and save the crops.
Conflicts occurred between the strikers and the independent
laborers and the police; the trouble spread to the city of Parma,
where violent scenes occurred when the labor exchange was occupied
by the troops, and many soldiers and policemen, whose behaviour as
usual was exemplary throughout, were seriously wounded. The
agitation ceased in June with the defeat of the strikers, but not
until a vast amount of damage had been done to the crops and all
had suffered heavy losses, including the government, whose expenses
for the maintenance of public order ran into tens of millions of
lire. The failure of the strike caused the Socialists to quarrel
among themselves and to accuse each other of dishonesty in the
management of party funds; it appeared in fact that the large sums
collected throughout Italy on behalf of the strikers had been
squandered or appropriated by the syndacalist leaders. The spirit
of indiscipline had begun to reach the lower classes of state
employees, especially the school teachers and the postal and
telegraph clerks, and at one time it seemed as though the country
were about to face a situation similar to that which arose in
France in the spring of 1909. Fortunately, however, the government,
by dismissing the ringleader, Dr Campanozzi, in time nipped the
agitation in the bud, and it did attempt to redress some of the
genuine grievances. Public opinion upheld the government in its
attitude, for all persons of common sense realized that the
suspension of the public services could not be permitted for a
moment in a civilized country.
In parliamentary politics the most notable event in 1902 was the
presentation of a divorce bill by Signor Zanardellis government;
this was done not because there was any real demand for it, but to
please the doctrinaire 1902. anti-clericals and freemasons, divorce
being regarded not as a social institution but as a
weapon against Catholicism. But
while the majority of the deputies, were nominally in favor of the
bill, the parliamentary committee reported against it, and public
opinion was so hostile that an anti-divorce petition received
3,500,000 signatures, including not only those of professing
Catholics, but of free-thinkers and Jews, who regarded divorce as
unsuitable to Italian conditions. The opposition outside parliament
was in fact so overwhelming that the ministry decided to drop the
bill. The financial situation continued satisfactory; a new loan at
3~% was voted by the Chamber in April 1902, and by June the whole
of it had been placed in Italy. In October the rate of exchange was
at par, the premium on gold had disappeared, and by the end of the
year the budget showed a surplus of sixteen millions.
In January 1903 Sign.or Prinetti, the minister for foreign
affairs, resigned on account of ill-health, and was succeeded by
1903 Admiral Mon., while Admiral Bettolo took the latters 1905.
place as minister of marine. The unpopularity of the ministry
forced Signor Giolitti, the minister of the interior, to resign
(June 1903), and he was followed by Admiral Bettolo, whose
administration had been violently attacked by the Socialists; in
October Signor Zanardelli, the premier, resigned on account of his
health, and the king entrusted the formation of the cabinet to
Signor Giolitti. The latter accepted the task, and the new
administration included Signor Tittoni, late prefect of Naples, as
foreign minister, Signor
Luigi Luzzatti, the eminent financier,
at the treasury, General Pedotti at the war office, and Admiral
Mirabello as minister of marine. Almost immediately after his
appointment Signor Tittoni accompanied the king and queen of Italy
on a state visit to France and then to England, where various
international questions were discussed, and the cordial reception
which the royal pair met with in London and at
Windsor served to dispel the small
cloud which had arisen in the
relations of the two countries on account of the Tripoli agreements
and the language question in
Malta. The premiers programme was not well
received by the Chamber, although the treasury ministers financial
statement was again satisfactory. The weakness of the government in
dealing with the strike riots caused a feeling of profound
dissatisfaction, and the so-called experiment of liberty, conducted
with the object of conciliating the extreme parties, proved a
dismal failure. In October 1904,
after the September strikes, the Chamber was dissolved, and at the
general elections in November a ministerial majority was returned,
while the deputies of the Extreme Left (Socialists, Republicans and
Radicals) were reduced from 107 to 94, and a few mild clericals
elected. The municipal elections in several of the larger cities,
which had hitherto been regarded as strongholds of socialism,
marked an overwhelming triumph for tJic constitutional parties,
notably in Milan, Turin and Genoa, for the strikes had wrought as
much harm to the working classe1 as to the bourgeoisie. In spite of
its majority the Giolitt cabinet, realizing that it had lost its
hold over the country resigned in March 1905.
Signor Fortis then became premier and minister of the interior,
Signor Maiorano finance minister and Signor Carcano treasury
minister, while Signor Tittoni, Admiral Mirabello 1905 and General
Pedotti retained the portfolios they had held in the previous
administration. The new government was colorless in the extreme,
and the premiers programme aroused no enthusiasm in the House, the
most important bill presented being that for the purchase of the
railways, which was voted in June 1905. But the ministry never had
any real hold over the country or parliament, and the
dissatisfaction caused by the modus vivendi with Spain, which would
have wrought much injury to the Italian wine-growers, led to
demonstrations and riots, and a hostile vote in the Chamber
produced a cabinet crisis (December 17, 1905); Signor Fortis,
however, reconstructed the ministry, inducing the marquis di
San
Giuliano to accept the portfolio of foreign affairs. This last
fact was significant, as the new foreign secretary, a Sicilian
deputy and a specialist on international politics, had hitherto
been one of Signor Sonninos staunchest adherents; his defection,
which was but one of many, showed that the more prominent members
of the Sonnino party were tired of waiting in vain for their chiefs
access to power. Even this cabinet was still-born, and a hostile
vote in the Chamber on the 3oth of January 1906 brought about its
fall.
Now at last, after waiting so long, Signor Sonninos hour had
struck, and he became premier for the first time. This result was
most satisfactory to all the best elements in the country, and
great hopes were entertained that the 1909. advent of a rigid and
honest statesman would
usher in
a new era of Italian parliamentary life. Unfortunately at the very
outset of its career the composition of the new cabinet proved
disappointing; for while such men as Count Guicciardini, the
minister for foreign affairs, and Signor Luzzatti at the treasury
commanded general approval, the choice of Signor Sacchi as minister
of justice and of Signor Pantano as minister of agriculture and
trade, both of them advanced and militant Radicals, savoured of an
unholy compact between the premier and his erstwhile bitter
enemies, which boded ill for tht~ success of the administration.
For this unfortunate combination Signor Sonnino himself was not
altogether to blame; having lost many of his most faithful
followers, who, weary of waiting for office, had gone over to the
enemy, he had been forced to seek support among men who had
professed hostility to the existing order of things and thus to
secure at least the neutrality of the Extreme Left and make the
public realize that the reddest of Socialists, Radicals and
Republicans may be tamed and rendered harmless by the offer of
cabinet appointments. A similar experiment had been tried in France
not without success. Unfortunately in the case of Signor Sonnino
public opinion expected too much and did not take to the idea of
such a compromise. The new premiers first act was one which cannot
be sufficiently praised: he suppressed all subsidies to
journalists, and although this resulted in bitter attacks against
him in the columns of the reptile press it commanded the approval
of all right-thinking men.. Signor Sonnino realized, however, that
his majority was not to be counted on: The country Is with me, he
said to a friend, but the Chamber is against me. In April 1906 an
eruption of
Mount Etna
caused the destruction of several villages and much loss of life
and damage to property; in appointinga committee to distribute the
relief funds the premier refused to include any of the deputies of
the devastated districts among its members, and when asked by them
for the reason of this omission, he replied, with a frankness more
characteristic of the man than politic, that he knew they would
prove more solicitous in the distribution of relief for their own
electors than for the real sufferers. A motion presented by the
Socialists in the Chamber for the immediate discussion of a bill to
prevent the massacres of the proletariate having been rejected by
an enormous majority, the 28 Socialist deputies resigned their
seats; on presenting themselves for re-election their number was
reduced to 25. A few days later the ministry, having received an
adverse vote on. a question of procedure, sent in its resignation
(May 17).
The fall of Signor Sonnino, the disappointment caused by the
non-fulfilment of the expectations to which his advent to power had
given rise throughout Italy and the dearth of influential
statesmen, made the return to power of Signor Giolitti inevitable.
An appeal to the country might have brought about a different
result, but it is said that opposition from the highest quarters
rendered this course practically impossible. The change of
government brought Signor Tittoni back to the foreign office;
Signor I~Iaiorano became treasury minister, General Viganfl
minister of war, Signor Cocco Ortu, whose chief claim to
consideration was the fact of his being a Sardinian (the island had
rarely been represented in the cabinet) minister of agriculture,
Signor Gianturco of justice, Signor Massimini of finance, Signor
Schanzer of posts and telegraphs and Signor Fusinato of education.
The new ministry began auspiciously with the conversion of the
public debt from 4% to 33/4%, to be eventually reduced to 31/2%.
This operation had been prepared by Signor Luzzatti under Signor
Sonninos leadership, and although carried out by Signor Maiorano it
was Luzzatti who deservedly reaped the honor and glory; the bill
was presented, discussed and voted by both Houses on the 29th of
June, and by tIle 7th of July the conversion was completed most
successfully, showing on how sound a basis Italian finance was now
placed. The surplus for the year amounted to 65,000,000 lire. In
November Signor Gianturco died, and Signor Pietro Bertolini took
his place as minister of public works; the latter proved perhaps
the ablest member of the cabinet, but the acceptance of office
under Giolitti of a man who had been one of the most trusted and
valuable lieutenants of Signor Sonnino marked a further step in the
dgringolade of that statesmans party, and was attributed to the
fact that Signor Bertolini resented not having had a place in the
late Sonnino ministry. General
Vigan was succeeded in December by Senator
Casana, the first civilian to become minister of war in Italy. He
made various reforms which were badly wanted in army
administration, but on the whole the experiment of a civilian War
Lord was not a complete success, and in April 1909 Senator Casana
retired and was succeeded by General Spingardi, an appointment
which received general approval.
The elections of March 1909 returned a chamber very slightly
different from its predecessor. The ministerial majority was over
three hundred, and although the Extreme Left was somewhat increased
in numbers it was weakened in tone, and many of the newly elected
reds were hardly more than pale
pink.
Meanwhile, the relations between Church and State began to show
signs of change. The chief supporters of the claims of the Ch h
papacy to temporal power were the clericals of France and State.
and Austria, but in the former country they had lost all influence,
and the situation between the Church and the government was
becoming every day more strained. With the rebellion of her Eldest
Daughter, the Roman Church could not continue in her old attitude
of uncompromising hostility towards United Italy, and the Vatican
began to realize the folly of placing every Italian in the
dilemma of being either a good
Italian or a good Catholic, when the majority wished to be both.
Outside of Rome relations between the clergy and the authorities
were as a rule quite cordial, and in May 1903 Cardinal Sarto, the
patriarch of Venice, asked for and obtained an audience with the
king when he visited that city, and the meeting which followed was
of a very friendly character. In July following Leo XIII. died, and
that same Cardinal Sarto became pope under the style of
Pius X. The new pontiff, although
nominally upholding the claims of the temporal power, in practice
attached but little importance to it. At the elections for the
local bodies the Catholics had already been permitted to vote, and,
availing themselves of the privilege, they gained seats in many
municipal councils and obtained the majority in some. At the
general parliamentary elections of 1904 a few Catholics had been
elected as such, and the encyclical of the 11th of June 1905 On the
political organization of the Catholics, practically abolished the
non erpedit. In September of that year a number of religious
institulions in the Near East, formerly under the protectorate of
th~
French government, in view of the rupture between Church and
State in France, formally asked to be placed under Italian
protection, which was granted in January 1907. The situation thus
became the very reverse of what it had been in Crispis time, when
the French government, even when anti-clerical, protected the
Catholic Church abroad for political purposes, whereas the conflict
between Church and State in Italy extended to foreign countries, to
the detriment of Italian political interests. A more difficult
question was that of religious education in the public elementary
schools. Signor Giolitti wished to conciliate the Vatican by
facilitating religious education, which was desired by the majority
of the parents, but he did not wish to offend the Freemasons and
other anti-clericals too much, as they could always give trouble at
awkward moments. Consequently the minister of education, Signor
Rava, concocted a body of rules which, it was hoped, would satisfy
every one: religious instruction was to be maintained as a
necessary part of the curriculum, but in communes where the
majority of the municipal councillors were opposed to it it might
be suppressed; the council in that case must, however, facilitate
the teaching of religion to those children whose parents desire it.
In practice, however, when the council has suppressed religious
instruction no such facilities are given. At the general elections
of March I9o9, over a score of Clerical deputies were returned,
Clericals of a very mild tone who had no thought of the temporal
power and were supporters of the monarchy and anti-socialists;
where no Clerical candidate was in the field the Catholic voters
plumped for the constitutional candidate against all
representatives of the Extreme Left. On the other hand, the
attitude of the Vatican towards Liberalism within the Church was
one of uncompromising reaction, and under the new pope the
doctrines of Christian Democracy and Modernism were condemned in no
uncertain tone. Don Romolo Murri, the Christian Democratic leader,
who exercised much influence over the younger and more progressive
clergy, having been severely censured by the Vatican, made formal
submission, and declared his intention of retiring from the
struggle. But he appeared again on the scene in the general
elections of 1909, as a Christian Democratic candidate; he was
elected, and alone of the Catholic deputies took his seat in the
Chamber on the Extreme Left, where all his neighbors were violent
anti-clericals.
At 5 AM. on the 28th of December 1908, an earthquake of
appalling severity shook the whole of southern Calabria and the
eastern part of Sicily, completely destroying the cities ~
of Reggio and Messina, the smaller towns of Canitello, quake of
Scilla, Villa San Giovanni, Bagnara, Palmi, Melito, December Porto
Salvo and Santa Eufemia, as well as a large number of villages. In
the case of Messina the horror of the situation was heightened by a
tidal wave. The catastrophe was the greatest of its kind that has
ever occurred in any country; the number of persons killed was
approximately 150,000, while the injured were beyond
calculation.
The characteristic feature of Italys foreign relations during
this period was the weakening of the bonds of the Triple Alliance
and the improved relations with France, while the ~
traditional friendship with England remained unimpaired.
Franco-Italian friendship was officially cemented by the visit of
King Victor Emmanuel and Queen Elena in October 1903 to Paris where
they received a very cordial welcome. The visit was returned in
April 1904 when M.
Loubet, the
French president, came to Rome; this action was strongly resented
by the pope, who, like his predecessor since 1870, objected to the
presence of foreign Catholic rulers in Rome, and led to the final
rupture between France and the Vatican. The Franco-Italian
understanding had the effect of raising Italys credit, and the
Italian rente, which had been shut out of the French bourses,
resumed its place there once more, a fact which contributed to
increase its price and to reduce the unfavourable rate of exchange.
That agreement also served to clear up the situation in Tripoli;
while Italian aspirations towards Tunisia had been ended by the
French occupation of that territory, Tripoli and
Bengazi were now recognized as coming within
the Italian sphere of influence. The Tripoli hinterland, however,
was in danger of being absorbed by other powers having large
African interests; the Anglo-French declaration of the 21st of
March 1899 in particular seemed likely to interfere with Italian
activity.
The Triple Alliance was maintained and renewed as far as paper
documents were concerned (in June 1902 it was reconfirmed for 12
years), but public opinion was no longer so favorably disposed
towards it. Austrias petty persecutions of her Italian subjects in
the irredente provinces, her active propaganda incompatible with
Italian interests in the Balkans, and the antiItalian war talk of
Austrian military circles, imperilled the relations of the two
allies; it was remarked, indeed, that the object of the alliance
between Austria and Italy was to prevent war between them. Austria
had persistently adopted a policy of
pin-pricks and aggravating police provocation
towards the Italians of the Adriatic Littoral and of the Trentino,
while encouraging the Slavonic element in the former and the
Germans in the latter. One of the causes of ill-feeling was the
university question; the Austrian government had persistently
refused to create an Italian university for its Italian subjects,
fearing lest it should become a hotbed of irredentism, the
Italianspeaking students being thus obliged to attend the
GermanAustrian universities. An attempt at compromise resulted in
the institution of an Italian law faculty at
Innsbruck, but this aroused the violent
hostility of the German students and populace, who gave proof of
their superior civilization by an unprovoked attack on the Italians
in October 1902. Further acts of violence were committed by the
Germans in 1903, which led to antiAustrian demonstrations in Italy.
The worst tumults occurred in November 1904, when Italian students
and professors were attacked at Innsbruck without provocation;
being outnumbered by a hundred to one the Italians were forced to
use their revolvers in self-defence, and several persons were
wounded on both sides. Anti-Italian demonstrations occurred
periodically also at Vienna, while in Dalmatia and Croatia Italian
fishermen and workmen (Italian citizens, not natives) were subject
to attacks by gangs of half-savage Croats, which led to frequent
diplomatic incidents. A further cause of resentment was Austrias
attitude towards the Vatican, inspired by the strong clerical
tendencies of the imperial family, and indeed of a large section of
the Austrian people. But the most serious point at issue was the
Balkan question. Italian public opinion could not view without
serious misgivings the active political propaganda which Austria
was conducting in Albania. The two governments frequently discussed
the situation, but although they had agreed to a selfdenying
ordinance whereby each bound itself not to occupy any part of
Albanian territory, Austrias declarations and promises were hardly
borne out by the activity of her agents in the Balkans. Italy,
therefore, instituted a counter-propaganda by means of schools and
commercial agencies. The Macedonian troubles of 1903 again brought
Austria and Italy into conflict. The acceptance by the powers of
the Murzsteg programme and the appointment of Austrian and Russian
financial agents in
Macedonia was an advantage for Austria and a
set-back for Italy; hut the latter scored a success in the
appointment of General de Giorgis as commander of the international
Macedonian gendarmerie; she also obtained, with the support of
Great Britain, France and Russia, the
assignment of the partly Albanian district
of
Monastir to the Italian
officers of that corps.
In October 1908 came the bombshell of the Austrian annexation of
Bosnia, announced to King Victor Emmanuel and to other rulers by
autograph letters from the emperor-king. The news caused the most
widespread sensation, and public opinion in Italy was greatly
agitated at what it regarded as an act of brigandage on the part of
Austria, when Signor Tittoni in a speech at Carate
Brianza (October 6th) declared
that Italy might await events with serenity, and that these could
find her neither unprepared nor isolated. These words were taken to
mean that Italy would receive compensation to restore the balance
of power upset in Austrias favor. When it was found that there was
to be no direct compensation for Italy a storm of indignation was
aroused against Austria, and also against Signor Tittoni.
On the 29th of October, however, Austria abandoned her military
posts in the sandjak of
Novibazar, and the frontier between Austria
and
Turkey, formerly an
uncertain one, which left Austria a half-open back
door to the Aegean, was now a distinct line of
demarcation. Thus the danger of a pacific penetration of Macedonia
by Austria became more remote. Austria also gave way on another
point, renouncing her right to police the Montenegrin coast and to
prevent Montenegro from having warships of its own (paragraphs 5, 6
and II of art. 29 of the Berlin Treaty) in a note presented to the
Italian foreign office on the 12th of April 1909. Italy had
developed some important commercial interests in Montenegro, and
anything which strengthened the position of that principality was a
guarantee against further Austrian encroachments. The harbour works
in the Montenegrin port of
Antivari, commenced in March 1905 and
completed early in 1909, were an Italian concern, and Italy became
a party to the agreement for the
Danube-Adriatic Railway (June 2, 1908) together
with Russia, France and
Servia; Italy was to contribute 35,000,000 lire
out of a total capital of 100,000,000, and to be represented by
four directors out of twelve. But the whole episode was a warning
to Italy, and the result was a national movement for security.
Credits for the army and navy were voted almost without a
dissentient voice; new battleships were laid down, the strength of
the army was increased, and the defences of the exposed eastern
border were strengthened. It was clear that so long as Austria,
bribed by Germany, could act in a way so opposed to Italian
interests in the Balkans, the Triple Alliance was a mockery, and
Italy could only meet the situation by being prepared for all
contingencies.
Bibliography.
It is difficult to indicate in a short space the most important
sources of general Italian history. Muratoris great collection, the
Rerum Italicarum 5cr iptores in combination with his
Dissertationes, the chronicles and other historical material
published by the Archjvjo Storjco Italiano, and the woiks of
detached annalists of whom the \Tjllanj are the most notable, take
first rank. Next we may mention Muratoris Annati d italic, together
with Guicciardinis Storia d Italia and its modern continuation by
Carlo Botta. Among the
inure recent contributions S. de Sismondis Ripubligues ilaliennes
(Brussels, I838) and Carlo Trovas Stone d Italia net medio evo are
among the most valuable general works, while the large Storia
Politica d Italia by various authors, ptiblished at Milan, is also
importantF. Bertolini, I Barbari; F. Lanzani, Stone dei comuni
italiani dale onigini fino at 1313 (1882); C. Cipolla, Storia delle
Signorie Italiane dat 1313 at 1530 (188 f); A. Cosci, L Italia
durante le preponderanze straniere, 1530-1789 (1875): A.
Franchetti, Storia d Jtalia dat 1789 al 799; G. de Castro, Stonia d
haifa dat 1789 at 1814 (1881).
For the beginnings of Italian history the chief works are T.
l-Iodgkins Italy and her Invaders (Oxford, 1892-1899) and P
Villaris Le Invasioni barbariche (Milan, 1900), both based on
original research and sound scholarship. The period from 1494 to
modern times is dealt with in various volumes of the Cambridge
Modern History, especially in vol. i., Fhe Renaissance, which
contains valuable bibliographies. Giuseppe Ferraris Rivoluzioni d
haIfa (1858) deserves notice as a work of singular vigour, though
no great scientific importance, and Cesare Balbos Sommario
(Florence, 1856) presents the main outlines of the subject with
brevity and clearness. For the period of the French revolution and
the Napoleonic wars see F. Lenimis Le Origini del risorgimento
italiano (Milan, 1906); E. Bonnal de
Ganges, La
Chute dune rpublique tVenise] (Paris, 1885); D.
Carutti, Storia delta
corte di
Savoic durante la rivoluzione e 1 impero francese (2 vols., Turin,
1892); G. de Castro, Stonia d Italic dal 1797 at 1814 (Milan,
1881); A. Dufourcq, Le Rgime ,jacobin en Jtatie,1796-1799(Paris,
1900); A. Franchetti, Stone d Italia dat 1789 at 1799 (Milan,
1878); P. Gaffarel, Bonaparte ci les rpubliques italiennes
(1796-1799) (Paris, 1895); R. M. Johnston, The Napoleonic Empire in
Southern Italy (2 vols., with full bibliography, London, i904); E.
Ramondini, L Italia durante la dominazione francese (Naples, 1882);
E. Ruth, Geschichte des italienischen Volkes z0iter der
napoleonzschen Herrschaft (Leipzig, 1859). For modern times, see
Bolton Kings History of Italian Unity (1899) antI Bolton King and
Thomas Okeys Italy To-day (1901). With regard to the history of
separate provinces it may suffice to notice N. Machiavellis Stonia
florentine, B. Corios Stonia di Milano, G. Capponis Stone della
repubblica di Firenze (Florence, 1875), P. Villaris I pnimi due
secoli della stonia di Firenze (Florence, 1905), F. Paganos Istonia
del regno di Napoli (PalermoNaples, 1832, &c.), P. Romanins
Storia documentata di Venezia (Venice, 1853), M. Amaris Musulmani
di Sicilia (f8541875), F. Gregoroviuss Geschichte der Stadt Rom
(Stuttgart, 1881), A. von Reumonts Geschichte der Stadt Rom
(Berlin, 1867), L. Cibranios Stone della monarchic pieniontese
(Turin, I84o), and P. Caruttis .Sloria della diplomazia delta corte
di Savoia (Rome, 1875). The Archivii storici and Deputazloni di
storia patria of the various Italian towns and provinces contain a
great deal of valuable material for local history. From the point
of view of papal history, L. von Rankes History of the Popes
(English edition, London, 1870), M. Creightons History of the
Papacy (London, 1897) and L. Pastors Geschichte der Pdpste
(Freiburg i. B., 1886i896), should be mentioned. From the point of
view of general culture, Jacob Burckhardts Cultur der Renaissance
in Italien (Basel, i86o), E. Guinets Ri.volulions dIlalie (Paris,
1857), and J. A Symondss Renaissance in Italy (5 vols., London,
1875, &c.) should be consulted. (L. V.5)
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/ˈɪtəli/ (help·info) (Italian: Italia, [iˈta:lja]), officially the Italian Republic (Italian: Repubblica Italiana), is a country located partly on the European Continent and partly on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia.^ 
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