Giuseppe Mazzini

Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–1872) was an Italian nationalist and republican who promoted a unified republic and founded Young Italy, a movement for national independence.

Young Italy: A political movement founded by Mazzini in 1831 to unite Italy as an independent republic. Mazzini created this organization to recruit young people for Italian independence and republicanism.
Republicanism: A political tradition that opposes hereditary rule and grounds government in public authority. Mazzini sought a united Italian republic rather than a monarchy.
Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour: The statesman who led Piedmont-Sardinia’s diplomacy and helped establish the Kingdom of Italy. Cavour’s monarchical, diplomatic route to unification differed sharply from Mazzini’s republican revolutionary program.
Risorgimento: The nineteenth-century political and cultural movement that led to Italian unification. Mazzini became one of the Risorgimento’s defining republican voices, although unification followed another path.
Carbonari: A secret network of revolutionary societies active in Italy and elsewhere in Europe during the early nineteenth century. Mazzini’s early participation in this movement preceded his creation of Young Italy.
National self-determination: The principle that a people should determine its own political status and government. Mazzini argued that Italians should free themselves from foreign rule and choose their national future.
Victor Emmanuel II: The king of Sardinia-Piedmont who became the first king of a unified Italy in 1861. Unification under his crown fell short of Mazzini’s hope for a democratic Italian republic.
Kingdom of Italy: The state proclaimed in 1861 that united most of the Italian peninsula under the House of Savoy. Its monarchical constitution realized national unity but rejected Mazzini’s republican objective.
Giuseppe Garibaldi: An Italian military and political leader who helped bring about Italian unification. Garibaldi joined Young Italy and later led campaigns that advanced the cause Mazzini had promoted.
Revolution of 1848: A wave of political uprisings across Europe in 1848 demanding national, liberal, or social change. Mazzini’s revolutionary goals gained a brief opening during the uprisings in Italy.

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