Italian nationalism

Italian nationalism promoted the political unity and independence of Italian-speaking peoples and territories, especially during the nineteenth-century movement known as the Risorgimento.

Risorgimento: The nineteenth-century movement that united much of the Italian peninsula into the Kingdom of Italy. Italian nationalism found its central political expression in the campaign for unification.
Giuseppe Mazzini: An Italian revolutionary who advocated a unified, independent republic and founded Young Italy in 1831. His republican vision turned national unity into a popular political mission.
Revolutions of 1848 in the Italian states: A series of uprisings and wars in 1848–1849 that challenged rulers and Austrian power across the Italian peninsula. Their defeat exposed the limits of spontaneous revolt and reshaped nationalist strategy.
Italian irredentism: A movement seeking to incorporate territories outside Italy that nationalists considered Italian, especially after unification. It extended nationalist claims beyond the borders achieved by the Risorgimento.
Capture of Rome: The 1870 military occupation of Rome by Italian forces, which ended papal rule over the city. It made Rome the capital of a territorially unified Italy and intensified conflict with the papacy.
Congress of Vienna: The 1814–1815 settlement that redrew Europe after Napoleon’s defeat. Its restoration of fragmented Italian states helped fuel demands for national independence.
Count of Cavour: The statesman who led Piedmont-Sardinia’s diplomacy and government during the decisive years of Italian unification. He pursued unity through monarchy, state-building, and alliances rather than Mazzini’s republican revolution.
Second Italian War of Independence: The 1859 war in which France and Piedmont-Sardinia fought Austria, bringing Lombardy into the unification process. Cavour’s alliance with France weakened Austrian control in northern Italy.
Federalism: A system that divides authority between a central government and constituent political units. Federal proposals offered an alternative to the centralized kingdom built by unification.
Roman Question: The dispute between the Italian state and the papacy over Rome’s status after its annexation in 1870. The conflict showed that national unification did not settle the relationship between church and state.

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