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“The Most Dangerous Man in Europe” 
How Giuseppe Mazzini’s Nationalism Shaped the Italian Unification 
Period 
 
 
Rachel Anderson 
Eastern Connecticut State University 
 
 
Abstract  
The Italian unification period of the nineteenth century finally saw the fragmented states of 
Italy become one nation as it stands today. This article explores how Italian nationalist 
Giuseppe Mazzini influenced Italy's unification. By using a combination of Mazzini's essays 
and autobiographical notes along with secondary sources on Mazzini and nineteenth 
century Italy, this article demonstrates that his writings allowed for the dissemination of 
nationalist thought throughout Italy and Europe more broadly. Mazzini was often 
discredited by his contemporaries and early historians as a failure due to his unsuccessful 
military revolutions, but only looking at his revolutionary actions fails to take into account 
the fact that Mazzini's life's work was educating the Italian people on the importance of 
national unity. 
 
 
Article 
Prior to the mid-nineteenth century, the modern state of Italy did not exist. Instead, the 
Italian Peninsula contained a series of duchies, kingdoms, and republics all governed by 
separate rulers, which were subject to all manner of foreign influence. France and Austria 
were the most involved in the governing of Italy, and after several hundred years, the 
inhabitants of Italy began to desire freedom from these foreign nations. In the early 
nineteenth century, France briefly occupied Italy, giving them a glimpse of the benefits of a 
nation. This occupation planted the seeds of nationalist thought in the hearts and minds of 
a number of Italians, who began to work diligently towards the goal of a politically unified 
Italy. 
 
One of these inhabitants was Giuseppe Mazzini. Born in the Republic of Genoa in 1805, 
Mazzini delved into the world of politics quite early in life. He became involved in the 
secret societies, preaching political change until he was arrested and exiled for his activities 
and told not to return to Italy under threat of execution. Despite his geographical distance 
from the Italian Peninsula, his love for his perceived home and his desire to see it unified 
did not wane. Mazzini was a prolific writer and thinker, and while in France he founded his 
own secret society, Young Italy (Giovine Italia). This society became the vehicle for Mazzini 
to express his ideas about the eventual unification of Italy. His thoughts were quite specific 
and often did not align with other Italian nationalists of his time. While early Italian 
nationalists envisioned the future of Italy as a series of federal states, Mazzini envisioned 
the territory of the Italian Peninsula as one, unified Italian republic. While sometimes 



133 
 

criticized for his ideas, it did not deter Mazzini, and he worked tirelessly his whole life to 
pursue the cause of Italian unification. As this article explores, he sought to foster 
nationalism not only through the creation of Young Italy but also through establishing 
schools and newspapers, which helped create a sense of community and national identity. 
Educating Italians about their shared culture and history helped to strengthen his 
argument and garner support for the political unification of Italy. Unification did eventually 
happen, although not under the circumstances he wanted. Mazzini envisioned an Italy 
governed by a democratic republic, but Italy became a monarchy instead. Nevertheless, 
while Mazzini’s personal attempts at a revolution never succeeded, it is through his 
writings on politics and nationalism, his educational initiatives, and his creation of Young 
Italy that he was able to influence others and help unify Italy. 
 
Unifying Italy was an arduous task, thanks to the many republics, duchies, and kingdoms 
that occupied the Italian Peninsula. These states had been regarded as the “playground” of 
foreign powers, primarily France and Austria, for at least three hundred years. Making Italy 
whole entailed not only combining many separate states into one but also expelling the 
foreign powers that ruled them.1 As Mazzini grew older, he began to understand the impact 
that France and Austria had on Italy. France especially tried to encourage agricultural 
development and create a middle class of landowners in Italy, but it only succeeded in 
causing economic turmoil.2 Mazzini observed firsthand how French policies were 
ineffective and burdensome to the Italian people, reinforcing his belief that a nation must 
be governed by its own people. 
 
While Mazzini envisioned an Italy that was wholly unified under one government, others 
thought of the future of Italy as a series of states or of an Italian kingdom featuring the 
same borders of Napoleon’s Kingdom of Italy.3 Other nationalists, such as the secret 
political society the Carbonari, did not conceive of the Italian Peninsula as being one nation 
as he did. Mazzini’s belief that Italy should unify without foreign aid was also revolutionary. 
The common belief was that Italy would never be free from foreign influence without help 
from France. Mazzini, however, was “hostile to the idea of French supremacy in Europe.”4 
 
After France, Austria was the foreign nation most involved in meddling with Italian affairs. 
In 1831, Mazzini wrote a letter to King Charles Albert of Piedmont-Sardinia urging him to 
break ties with Austria. The letter was sent to the king and was also published in 
Marseilles, France, where Mazzini was in exile, and distributed around Italy. In this letter, 
he wrote that the people “seek the recognition of those rights of humanity which have been 
withheld from them for ages. They demand laws and liberty, independence and union.”5 He 

 
1 John Gooch, The Unification of Italy (London: Routledge, 1986), 1. 
2 Alexander Grab, “From the French Revolution to Napoleon,” in Italy in the Nineteenth Century, ed. John A. 
Davis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 26-37; Gooch, The Unification of Italy, 40-42. 
3 Maurizio Isabella, “Mazzini’s Internationalism in Context: From the Cosmopolitan Patriotism of the Italian 
Carbonari to Mazzini’s Europe of the Nations,” in Giuseppe Mazzini and the Globalization of Democratic 
Nationalism, 1830-1920, eds. C. A. Bayly and Eugenio F. Biagini (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 46. 
4 Isabella, “Mazzini’s Internationalism in Context,” 55. 
5 Giuseppe Mazzini, The Life and Writings of Joseph Mazzini, vol. I (London: Smith, Elder, & Company, 1864), 
59. 



134 
 

then pointed out that “the universal dissatisfaction, and the hatred of Austria existing in all 
the states of Italy” were detrimental to the cause of Italian independence.6 In Mazzini’s 
autobiography, he noted that King Charles did receive the letter and that he must have read 
it, because shortly afterward he was informed that if he ever returned to Italy, he would be 
imprisoned. This was Mazzini’s first piece of political writing, according to him, and it 
certainly made an impression.7 
 
Many of Mazzini’s writings centered on the idea of nationalism and his vision for the future 
of the Italian nation. He once wrote that “the nation is the sum total of all Italians, bound by 
a fraternal compact and living under a common law.”8 The difficulty lies in defining who 
constitutes “all Italians” and coming to a consensus on this common law. In his 1832 essay 
“On the Superiority of Representative Government,” Mazzini wrote more on his definition 
of what makes a nation, stating “By nation we mean the entirety of citizens who speak the 
same language and are associated, under equal enjoyment of civil and political rights, for 
the common purpose of developing and progressively perfecting all social forces and their 
activity.”9 Whether or not the people of the Italian Peninsula had a sense of “Italian-ness” 
based on their shared language, they were certainly lacking a common association of 
political rights. Without this most basic foundation of a nation-state, the Italian people 
could never develop these “social forces” that Mazzini desired.  
 
It is important to note that Mazzini’s definition of nationalism is rooted in the Romantic 
ideas popular in Europe during the nineteenth century. The Romantic movement in 
relation to nationalism typically involved a sense of a “powerful mystique of the nation,” a 
desire for a shared history, the “revival of ancient languages; an emphasis on the need for 
blood sacrifice; a cult of the hero” along with “the personification of the nation.”10 Many of 
these elements were present in Mazzini’s ideas, especially the need to educate Italians on 
their shared history and language and the desire to create martyrs that could be turned 
into national heroes. Mazzinian rhetoric was designed to appeal to “history, genealogy, 
blood, land, and the nation’s honor.”11 Mazzini hoped to appeal to Italians’ Romantic 
sensibilities by relating it to his nationalist desires. The popularity of Romantic art and 
literature in Europe gave Mazzini the ability to harness those same themes and apply them 
to political and nationalist thought in order to reach a broader audience who would be 
receptive to his ideas. 
 

 
6 Mazzini, Life and Writings, I.59. 
7 Mazzini, Life and Writings, I.57-63. 
8 Quoted in Alberto Mario Banti “Sacrality and the Aesthetics of Politics: Mazzini’s Concept of the Nation,” in 
Giuseppe Mazzini and the Globalization of Democratic Nationalism, eds. C. A. Bayly and Eugenio F. Biagini 
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 59. 
9 Giuseppe Mazzini, “Democracy and the Nation,” in A Cosmopolitanism of Nations: Giuseppe Mazzini’s Writings 
on Democracy, Nation Building, and International Relations, eds. Stefano Recchia and Nadia Urbinati 
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), 50. 
10 Michael Huggins, “The Nation and Giuseppe Mazzini, 1842-48,” New Hibernia Review 17, no. 3 (Autumn 
2013): 15. 
11 Banti, “Sacrality and the Aesthetics of Politics,” 68. 



135 
 

There was also a strong element of religiosity in Mazzini’s definition of nationalism. He felt 
that the nation was “God’s creation” and that God had a hand in shaping the nation and also 
giving it a specific mission. He once wrote that “[n]ationality is the role assigned by God to a 
people within the humanitarian travail. It is a people’s mission, their task to accomplish on 
earth so that God’s thought may be realized in the world. Nationality is the work that gives 
people its right of citizenship within humanity.”12 Mazzini believed God as well as the 
people had a significant role in shaping the nation and gave the nation its strength, 
although he did not conform to a particular religion. He believed that Christianity was too 
focused on the personal salvation, while he valued the idea of progress for humanity 
instead.13 Essentially, the scope of Christianity was too narrow for Mazzini’s purposes. 
While he certainly valued the role of the individual when crafting the nation, he was more 
interested in how individuals could work together, which played a role in Young Italy. 
 
Recent scholars have called Young Italy a “new political religion.” Historian Emilio Gentile 
defines the political religion as “a system of myths, symbols, and rituals that subordinate 
the significance and aim of individual and collective existence to a supreme entity.”14 In 
Mazzini’s case, the supreme entity was the Italian nation. In crafting a national community, 
Mazzini helped to create these myths, symbols, and rituals to persuade people to put their 
faith in the nation. His vision of the struggle for the Italian nation also took on a religious 
tone. The nation could only be forged through the sacrifice of its heroes and martyrs before 
being resurrected.15 Italy needed to unite so that it could become a true nation and fulfill its 
mission from God. As every nation had its own mission, it was important for Italy to 
achieve this so that it could take its place among the other nations of Europe. While Mazzini 
did feel that building a national community of Italians was important, it was more critical to 
him to unite under one political ideal above all. 
 
The political ideal that Mazzini felt the most drawn to was that of the republic. Only a 
republic could properly represent all the inhabitants of a nation, because “for 
representation to be truly national, every citizen needs to participate in the election of his 
deputies through his vote.”16 He felt that everyone should have a voice in electing 
representatives for their nation, and the idea of a monarchy was anathema to the nation. In 
fact, “the nation is the only sovereign … the nation alone has the inviolable right to choose 
its own institutions, to correct them and change them, when they no longer correspond to 
its needs and no longer contribute to social and intellectual progress.”17 Within a 
monarchy, the monarch is sovereign and is therefore the one in charge of making decisions. 

 
12 Quoted in Simon Levis Sullam, “The Moses of Italian Unity: Mazzini and Nationalism as Political Religion,” in 
Giuseppe Mazzini and the Globalization of Democratic Nationalism, eds. C.A. Bayly and Eugenio F. Biagini 
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 112-113. 
13 Roland Sarti, “Giuseppe Mazzini and His Opponents,” in Italy in the Nineteenth Century, ed. John A. Davis 
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 76. 
14 Quoted in Sullam, “The Moses of Italian Unity,” 109. 
15 Banti, “Sacrality and the Aesthetics of Politics,” 63-65. 
16 Giuseppe Mazzini, “On the Superiority of Representative Governments,” in A Cosmopolitanism of Nations: 
Giuseppe Mazzini’s Writings on Democracy, Nation Building, and International Relations, eds. Stefano Recchia 
and Nadia Urbinati (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), 51. 
17 Mazzini, “On the Superiority of Representative Governments,” 50. Emphasis in the original. 



136 
 

According to Mazzini’s school of thought, it is impossible for one single person to 
understand and accommodate the needs of an entire nation. Only a body of representatives 
elected through the democratic process could possibly hope to satisfy the needs of the 
Italian nation. Moreover, Mazzini argued in his “General Instructions for the Members of 
Young Italy” that “our Italian tradition is essentially republican; our great memories are 
republican; the whole history of our national progress is republican; whereas the 
introduction of monarchy amongst us was coeval with our decay, and consummated our 
ruin by its constant servility to the foreigner, and antagonism to the people, as well as to 
the unity of the nation.”18 His ultimate desire was to see Italy united under a republic, as 
that is what he felt was most natural to it. This feeling is most likely connected to the fact 
that Mazzini was born into an Italy that was ruled by foreign influence, specifically France. 
The consequences of living under foreign rule were severe, he feared, and he wrote in his 
autobiography that it had turned Italians into “forgetful slaves, deriving all things from the 
foreigner.”19 Mazzini believed that Italians had forgotten how to be Italian and believed his 
purpose was to remind them. He hoped that by educating them on their shared history, 
culture, and language, the people of the Italian states would realize that they were in fact 
one people in need of unity. 
 
To aid him in educating his fellow Italians on his beliefs, Mazzini founded Young Italy. 
Originally aimed at recruiting only “young” Italians who had not been influenced by 
existing politics, including previous failed insurrections, Mazzini envisioned Young Italy as 
more of an educational society than a political society. He also felt that the Italian youth 
were “the bearers of new, romantic spirit and culture” and that only they were capable of 
the kind of national “resurrection” that Mazzini was seeking.20 His goal was to teach its 
members about his vision for a unified, republican Italy and to have them subsequently go 
out and teach others, “appealing to the true instincts and tendencies of the Italian heart, 
mute at that time, but revealed to us both by history and our own previsions of the 
future.”21 Young Italy was certainly not the only organization with revolutionary goals. In 
fact, Mazzini was inspired with the idea for Young Italy while he was imprisoned in France 
after being exiled from Italy in 1831 for activities associated with another political society, 
the Carbonari. One of the reasons he wanted to found his own society was because he 
fundamentally disagreed with many of the Carbonari principles.22 
 
While he may have disagreed with their principles, Mazzini’s involvement in the Carbonari 
launched him into the world of Italian politics and helped him establish his own career. The 
goal of the Carbonari was to “conspire and agitate for government reform,” with most 
members advocating for political representation and fair constitutions. Other more radical 
members argued for things like “anticlericalism, republicanism, and redistribution of 
property.”23 Although many of Mazzini’s later ideas aligned with the more radical of the 
Carbonari, it is difficult to say what he believed during his time as a member because he 

 
18 Mazzini, Life and Writings, I.100-101. 
19 Mazzini, Life and Writings, I.7. 
20 Lucy Riall, Garibaldi: Invention of a Hero (Great Britain: TJ International, Padstow, Cornwall, 2007), eBook. 
21 Mazzini, Life and Writings, I.65, 34-35. 
22 Mazzini, Life and Writings, I.69; Sarti, “Giuseppe Mazzini and His Opponents,” 82. 
23 Sarti, “Giuseppe Mazzini and His Opponents,” 80. 



137 
 

was so young, and his opinions may not have fully developed yet.24 Later in his life, Mazzini 
had quite a lot to say about the goals and principles of the Carbonari and how that 
influenced his own society. Overall, Mazzini felt that the Carbonari were becoming obsolete 
due to their outdated political beliefs and their failure to “appreciate the importance of the 
nation as the foundation of a new political order.”25 Upon joining the Carbonari in 1827, 
Mazzini wrote: “I reflected with surprise and suspicion that the oath [of allegiance to the 
society] contained nothing but a formula of obedience and not a word of the purpose … not 
a syllable which gave a hint as to federalism or unity, as to republic or monarchy. Just war 
against the government, no more.”26 This lack of a clear goal was disturbing to Mazzini, and 
he felt that while the Carbonari had many members, they did not know what to do with 
them.27 His experience with the disorganization of the Carbonari inspired him to found 
Young Italy, after he was exiled to France for recruiting new members to the Carbonari. His 
time in an Italian prison before he was exiled gave him the time to reflect on how he would 
run his own organization, culminating in the creation of Young Italy.28 
 
Mazzini put members of Young Italy to work with the goal of educating the Italian 
population about the benefits of republicanism and the existence of their national identity. 
In the “General Instructions for the Members of Young Italy,” which has been reproduced in 
Mazzini’s autobiography, he outlines the goals and expectations for members. He defined 
Young Italy as “a brotherhood of Italians who believe in a law of Progress and Duty, and are 
convinced that Italy is destined to become one nation … By the Nation we understand the 
universality of Italians bound together by a common pact and governed by the same 
laws.”29 Since his main criticism of the Carbonari was their lack of direction, Mazzini made 
sure to clearly define his goals and principles, leaving no room for doubt as to his ultimate 
goals. The goal of Young Italy was to cause a revolution, although “its labours will be 
essentially educational,” and this education would continue even after a successful 
revolution. This sort of “national education” was very important to Mazzini, as he felt that a 
nation could not rise in ignorance.30  
 
Mazzini considered the members of Young Italy “men of progress” who focused on the 
future independence of Italy and were therefore superior to the men of “Old Italy.” Other 
men live in ignorance, believing that change can occur without having to accept the 
consequences or make sacrifices, while Young Italians had clear goals and principles of 
liberty and equality.31 It was important to spread the message that “all true sovereignty 
resides essentially in the nation, the sole progressive and continuous interpreter of the 
supreme moral law.”32 Since Young Italy was primarily an educational society, Mazzini also 

 
24 Sarti, “Giuseppe Mazzini and his Opponents,” 80. 
25 Isabella, “Mazzini’s Internationalism in Context,” 37. 
26 Quoted in E.E.Y. Hayes, Mazzini and the Secret Societies: The Making of a Myth (London: Eyre & 
Spottiswoode, 1956), 41. 
27 Mazzini, Life and Writings, I.70-71. 
28 Sarti, “Giuseppe Mazzini and His Opponents,” 80. 
29 Mazzini, Life and Writings, I.96-97. Emphasis in the original. 
30 Mazzini, Life and Writings, I.99. 
31 Mazzini, “On the Superiority of Representative Government,” 44-46. 
32 Mazzini, Life and Writings, I.100. 



138 
 

published a newspaper, Giovine Italia, or Young Italy, and members of the society were 
expected to publish articles on the principles of republicanism and unity. This newspaper 
was smuggled from France into Italy through Genoa and distributed in secret. To avoid 
detection from the Italian government, they would ship ten to twelve barrels at a time 
packed with newspapers which were then sent to individual towns. According to Mazzini, 
the demand for the newspaper began to exceed their supply, and several secret presses 
were established within Italy to produce more copies of Giovine Italia.33 
 
Young Italy’s primary goals, according to Mazzini, were education and insurrection. 
Education was expected to take place secretly within Italy, as Mazzini was still a wanted 
man, and publicly out of Italy, where Mazzini and other Italian exiles were afforded more 
freedom for nationalist activities. Mazzini himself was much more a man of thought than a 
man of action, but he still believed that a military insurrection would be necessary for the 
unification of Italy. He wrote in the “Manifesto of Young Italy” that “there is no true war 
without the masses. The secret of raising the masses lies in the hands of those who show 
themselves ready to fight and promise to lead the people to victory.”34 Moreover, Mazzini 
understood that an insurrection alone would not be enough to create the nation he desired. 
This insurrection must be accompanied by education, because “bayonets are truly powerful 
only when they assert or maintain a right.”35 An insurrection would also prove that Italy 
was capable of unifying without foreign help, an important national principle. The goal of 
Young Italy was to ensure that the impending revolution of Italy would last in the eyes of 
foreign powers and Italians alike. 
 
As Mazzini had been exiled from Italy, the base of operations for Young Italy was located 
first in France and later in London. Historians estimate that by 1833, membership of Young 
Italy was likely around fifty to sixty thousand people.36 Moreover, its largely urban 
membership meant that its network was “close to the seats of power.” The governments of 
Italy and Austria feared its power, and conservative Austrian diplomat Klemens von 
Metternich reportedly referred to Mazzini as “the most dangerous man in Europe.” France 
was pressured to expel Mazzini, causing him to flee to Switzerland briefly before settling in 
London.37 Relocating to England proved fruitful for Mazzini, as he was able to make many 
contacts with influential writers as well as other Italian exiles willing to help him in his goal 
of creating a national, unified Italy. 
 
It was during Mazzini’s time in England that he was able to translate his desire to educate 
the people into reality. In the 1840s, he founded a free school for Italian immigrants in 
London, where he hoped that education would help to blur class lines. Mazzini felt it was 
the duty of the educated to teach the undereducated, and he was hopeful that this school 
would create a bond between the working-class students and the middle-class teachers.38 

 
33 Mazzini, Life and Writings, I.105, 187-190; Sarti, “Giuseppe Mazzini and His Opponents,” 83. 
34 Giuseppe Mazzini, “The Manifesto of Young Italy,” in A Cosmopolitanism of Nations, eds. Stefano Recchia and 
Nadia Urbinati (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), 36. 
35 Mazzini, “The Manifesto of Young Italy,” 33. 
36 Sarti, “Giuseppe Mazzini and His Opponents,” 83-84. 
37 Sarti, “Giuseppe Mazzini and His Opponents,” 83-84. 
38 Sarti, “Giuseppe Mazzini and His Opponents,” 89. 



139 
 

The school was for both adults and children, and the curriculum consisted of “classes in 
Italian language, Italian geography and arithmetic” and lectures on “morality or patriotic 
history.”39 The focus on Italian language was especially important because in Italy, the 
majority of people spoke only regional dialects. These dialects were quite different from 
each other, making it nearly impossible to communicate with people from other Italian 
states. The national language of Italian was spoken only rarely.40 All of the lessons taught in 
Mazzini’s school were designed to help create and support what he hoped would become 
the Italian national community. 
 
In Mazzini’s mind, education was the most important tool a nationalist could have. He 
wrote in his 1860 book The Duties of Man that education “is the great word that 
encapsulates all our doctrine. The vital question which agitates our century is the question 
of Education … We must find an educational principle … that will guide men toward the 
best, that will teach them constance in sacrifice.”41 He continued to build on this more in his 
autobiography, saying that “national education” was vital and that it served to bind people 
to their “fellow-countrymen,” creating a “social duty by the inculcation and transmission of 
the national programme.”42 Mazzini hoped that by educating Italians, they would learn to 
think of themselves as a people with a shared history and, more importantly, a shared 
future. 
 
The working class was another demographic that Mazzini sought to include in his efforts. In 
addition to Giovine Italia, he also produced another newspaper titled Apostolato Popolare 
(Apostleship of the People), which was directed “to Italians and especially to Italian 
workers.”43 This newspaper was a part of Mazzini’s attempt to create a national community 
by reaching “as broad an audience as possible.” He published a variety of topics, such as 
“current affairs reporting, nationalist editorials … biographies of famous Italians … and 
reviews of novels and histories.”44 It was an attempt to create a national culture by making 
Italian workers realize that they had something in common with the famous Italians, 
including novelists and historians. Mazzini also used this newspaper to encourage workers 
to organize and also that they should work together with the upper classes to create a 
unified society. Moreover, he advocated that a national language should be established, 
because it would help them see themselves as Italians rather than as “Genoese, 
Piedmontese, or Neapolitans” due to their regional dialects.45 He understood that the press 
was a powerful nationalist tool, and that it could help create an “imagined community,” a 
term Benedict Anderson used to describe the formation of a nation and the way that people 

 
39 Denis Mack Smith, Mazzini (King’s Lynn: Biddles Ltd., Guildford and Kings Lynn, 1994), eBook. 
40 Derek Beales and Eugenio F. Biagini, The Risgorgimento and the Unification of Italy (New York: Routledge, 
2013), 75. 
41 Quoted in Sullam, in “The Moses of Italian Unity,” 122. 
42 Mazzini, Life and Writings, I.298-299. 
43 Quoted in Lucy Riall, “The Politics of Italian Romanticism: Mazzini and the Making of a Nationalist Culture,” 
in Giuseppe Mazzini and the Globalization of Democratic Nationalism, 1830-1920, eds. C.A. Bayly and Eugenio 
F. Biagini (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 172. 
44 Riall, “The Politics of Italian Romanticism,” 172. 
45 Smith, Mazzini, eBook. 



140 
 

begin to perceive themselves as part of a larger group.46 More importantly, Mazzini used 
Apostolato popolare to speak directly to Italian workers, telling them “if the revolution is to 
succeed, it must be carried out for you and with you, while all the previous revolutions have 
been attempted not for you and without you.”47 This kind of message helped push Mazzini’s 
republican ideas because it encouraged workers to want representation through a 
democratic republic. Thus, Mazzini was attempting to awaken Italian workers to the kind of 
political rights they could have, if they were willing to participate firsthand in the 
revolution he envisioned. For this reason, nationalism was a means to an end for Mazzini. 
He believed if he could cultivate an Italian national identity, the people would see the need 
for a political revolution that would then achieve national unity. 
 
Another necessary step for the political revolution was an insurrection. Mazzini believed 
that a national education combined with an insurrection was the perfect formula to achieve 
Italian unification. In many of his essays, Mazzini focused on the unity of “thought and 
action,” meaning that it was impossible to have revolutionary thought without 
revolutionary action. A true revolution needed to be educational, cultural, and political in 
order to succeed.48 He attempted several military insurrections, but they almost never 
succeeded, and if they did, they never lasted long. In 1831, Mazzini left France to help a 
group of Italian exiles plan a revolution on the island of Corsica, off the coast of Italy. He 
and his companions planned to assist provisional governments in Parma, Modena, and the 
Papal States with the goal of “bringing the various states of Italy closer together.”49 Many 
Corsicans were already armed and ready to cross to the mainland, but conflicts among the 
revolutionary groups caused delays, allowing Austria to step in and stop the uprising in its 
tracks.50 
 
Later in 1834, Mazzini was involved in an invasion of Savoy, which ended almost before it 
even began. Mazzini expected a peasant revolt that never came, and many of his forces 
defected. He took this loss very hard and reportedly “suffered a mental breakdown and had 
to be carried off the field unconscious.”51 The failed attempts at a military revolution speak 
to Mazzini’s idealist viewpoint of what the Italian unification process would look like. While 
he was an excellent writer, he did not have the skills to successfully complete an 
insurrection in the way that he wanted. His ideas did not always translate well into reality, 
which left him open to criticism from others. For example, a former member of Young Italy 
formed a new society called the Sons of Young Italy, because he felt that Mazzini did not 
pay attention “to the material needs of the people.”52 Mazzini felt he was called to a 
particular purpose, but that purpose did not always align with what he could realistically 
achieve. Mazzini had hoped that a small group of revolutionaries would have the power to 

 
46 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: 
Verso, 2016), 6. 
47 Riall, “The Politics of Italian Romanticism,” 172; Quoted in Sarti, “Giuseppe Mazzini and His Opponents," 89. 
Emphasis in the original. 
48 Riall, Garibaldi, 29. 
49 Smith, Mazzini, eBook. 
50 Smith, Mazzini, eBook. 
51 Sarti, “Giuseppe Mazzini and His Opponents,” 85. 
52 Sarti, “Giuseppe Mazzini and His Opponents,” 88. 



141 
 

overthrow the foreign influence of Austria as well as the governments of all of the Italian 
states. This was an incredibly idealistic view, and it was proving to be impossible. 
 
One particularly painful failure for Mazzini occurred in 1844, when he promised his help to 
the Bandiera brothers, who were from Venice, which was a part of Austria at this time. The 
Bandiera brothers were serving in the Austrian navy, had a secret society of their own, and 
wanted to raid southern Italy. After some consideration, however, Mazzini tried to dissuade 
the Bandiera brothers from their plan. He was not able to stop them, and the brothers were 
captured and executed.53 Privately, Mazzini was devastated by their failure, but in public, 
he thanked them for their brave sacrifice and treated them like martyrs. In a eulogy he 
wrote for the brothers, he stated, “It matters little that they have not succeeded. The Angel of 
Martyrdom is brother to the Angel of Victory.”54 With this seemingly harsh statement, 
Mazzini’s motives were made clear. The failed insurrections led to condemnations by many 
of his supporters, but it allowed him to craft martyred national heroes from the ashes of 
their failure. As Mazzini once wrote, “Italy will live when Italians shall have learned to die … 
And for that there is no teaching but by example.”55 These revolutionary attempts were 
only a small piece of the puzzle in Mazzini’s larger nationalist agenda. He was much more 
successful in pushing his agenda through his writings than through his actions, and his 
military failures left him vulnerable to criticism from his contemporaries and historians 
alike. However, one English writer did admit that while the insurrections did fail in their 
immediate goal, they “produced a hundred proselytes for every martyr who died.”56 
 
Despite his failures, Mazzini continued to hope for an Italian revolution, and in early 1849, 
he saw his chance. The Revolutions of 1848 had swept through Europe thanks to a 
combination of political discontent and nationalism. More specifically, Europeans were 
beginning to desire republicanism and democracy over constitutional monarchies.57 In the 
aftermath of these revolutions, Rome was declared a republic and a constituent assembly 
was elected, which included Mazzini. He described his arrival in Rome as an epiphany, 
stating: “Rome was the dream of my youth, the mother of all my ideas, the religion of my 
soul.”58 Thus, the Roman Republic was established with Giuseppe Mazzini, Carlo Armellini, 
and Aurelia Saffi elected as a triumvirate to lead it.59 For Mazzini, this should have been the 
foundation of his Republic of Italy. He hoped to use Rome as a base to establish a power 
structure strong enough to free the rest of Italy from foreign influence. It was not to be, 
however.  
 
The Roman Republic lasted less than five months before it collapsed when it was invaded 
by French troops in order to restore Rome to the pope, who had fled before the republic 
was declared due to a sharp decline in his popularity. The Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia 

 
53 Sarti, “Giuseppe Mazzini and His Opponents,” 91; Smith, Mazzini, eBook. 
54 Quoted in Riall, “The Politics of Italian Romanticism,” 174. Emphasis in the original. 
55 Quoted in Riall, “The Politics of Italian Romanticism,” 175. 
56 Quoted in Smith, Mazzini, eBook. 
57 Johnathan Sperber, The European Revolutions, 1848-1851 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 
56. 
58 Quoted in Sarti, “Giuseppe Mazzini and His Opponents,” 94. 
59 Sarti, “Giuseppe Mazzini and His Opponents,” 95. 



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never acknowledged the legitimacy of the Roman Republic, and neither did any other 
European nation. Only the United States of America offered them diplomatic recognition.60 
Historian Eugenio Biagini called the republic “a great liberal-democratic experiment,” and 
there is really no better description.61 The lack of recognition from the rest of the world 
indicated that no one but Mazzini and his followers thought the Roman Republic had a 
fighting chance at success. With the history of foreign meddling in Italy, it was only a matter 
of time before either France or Austria stepped in to put a stop to the republic. Mazzini 
wanted to fight until the end, saying that “the struggle cannot end until [we] are either 
victorious or utterly overthrown.” He was overruled, however, and the Assembly voted to 
cease the defense of Rome.62  
 
Mazzini had maintained high hopes for the Roman Republic, telling the Assembly shortly 
after his arrival that, “after the Rome of the Emperors, after the Rome of the Popes, comes 
the Rome of the Peoples.”63 He had anticipated that Rome would be able to help Tuscany 
shake the foreign influence of Austria, and that other Italian states would also fall under 
Roman protection, in order to render “possible a magnificent National movement.”64 
Mazzini envisioned the Roman Republic as the first step towards a finally unified Italy, with 
himself as its leader. On the fall of Rome, Mazzini had much to say about how once again 
foreign influence had a negative effect on Italy. In his 1849 essay “Concerning the Fall of the 
Roman Republic,” Mazzini addressed his concerns to a British audience, condemning them 
for not coming to the defense of Rome when the French invaded. He felt very strongly that 
the balance of power was destroyed and that foreign interference ruined Italy’s chance to 
be unified. It was unfair, he said, that the men of Rome chose their own government only to 
surrender it to the French, who they were trying to distance themselves from.65 It is also 
possible that Mazzini expected more aid from England, as by this time he had lived in 
England for over a decade, had cultivated many English followers, and had established a 
community of Italian exiles in England. Mazzini also wrote directly to the ministers of 
France, shaming them for destroying “the national revolution” of Italy, yet also warning 
them that they had only delayed Italy’s national mission.66 Although Mazzini was not 
directly involved in the writing of the Roman constitution, it was still the best example of 
his republican ideal.67 Someday, he hoped to see it implemented in a unified Italy. 
 
After the fall of the Roman Republic, Mazzini’s influence began to decline. In the short term, 
his time in Rome “heightened his stature as a democratic leader,” but in the long term, his 

 
60 Sarti, “Giuseppe Mazzini and His Opponents,” 95. 
61 Eugenio F. Biagini, “Mazzini and Anticlericalism: The English Exile,” in Giuseppe Mazzini and the 
Globalization of Democratic Nationalism, 1830-1920, eds. C.A. Bayly and Eugenio F. Biagini (Oxford: Oxford 
University Press, 2008), 151. 
62 Sarti, “Giuseppe Mazzini and His Opponents,” 94-96; Giuseppe Mazzini, The Life and Writings of Joseph 
Mazzini, vol. V (London: Smith, Elder, & Company, 1869), 195-210. 
63 Quoted in Sarti, “Giuseppe Mazzini and His Opponents,” 94. 
64 Mazzini, Life and Writings, V.192-193. 
65 Giuseppe Mazzini, “Concerning the Fall of Rome,” in A Cosmopolitanism of Nations: Giuseppe Mazzini’s 
Writings on Democracy, Nation Building, and International Relations, eds. Stefano Recchia and Nadia Urbinati 
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), 208-210. 
66 Letter to Messrs. de Toqueville and de Falloux in Mazzini, Life and Writings, V.249, 254. 
67 Sullam, “The Moses of Italian Unity,” 119. 



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movement was dying. This was due in part to Count Camillo Benso di Cavour, who was 
Mazzini’s rival in every way. As historian Roland Sarti observed, “Cavour detested 
republicanism, popular initiatives, and all political agitation that he could not control.”68 
His belief in “Piedmont’s Italian mission” along with other policies drew more moderate 
nationalists to him and made the movement appear more “respectable,” pulling support 
away from Mazzini. In November 1852, Cavour was declared the Prime Minister of Italy, 
giving him an even larger platform to push his own agenda, which opposed Mazzini’s.69 The 
rise of Cavour left Mazzini with a shrinking number of followers on the sidelines of the 
Italian nationalist movement.  
 
Although Mazzini was no longer as popular as he once was, he still made efforts towards 
creating a national, unified Italy. He formed the Party of Action from London in 1853, which 
was “democratic in principle and autocratic in practice.” He also was involved in several 
small insurrections, even though they had no hope of succeeding, purely out of his 
commitment to the nationalist cause.70 Mazzini was a true nationalist, who held fast to his 
beliefs not only in times where he felt he might succeed, but in times where he seemed 
doomed to fail. He never surrendered his dreams of seeing a unified Italy with a thriving 
national community.  
 
In 1859, the chance for a unified Italy finally seemed possible, albeit not the way Mazzini 
wanted it. Cavour and Napoleon III were goading Austria into a war with Italy, with the 
goal of removing Austria from Lombardy-Venetia followed by the creation of four new 
Italian states. Giuseppe Garibaldi, a famed military general and former follower of 
Mazzini’s, believed that Austria could only be overthrown with the aid of the French. 
Mazzini wholeheartedly disagreed but had to acknowledge that Garibaldi’s opinion was 
becoming more popular among the Italian people.71 He was afraid that an alliance with 
France would “surrender the nation to the discretion of the foreigner” and that any chance 
of a republican revolution would be gone.72 However, when Austria declared war in April 
1859, Mazzini quickly changed stances and lent his support by telling his followers to 
prepare for insurrections within Italy. He secretly hoped that the war would awaken a 
desire for a popular revolution among his fellow Italians.73 Mazzini became even more 
hopeful for a revolution when Napoleon III signed an armistice with Austria in July 1859 
without consulting Cavour. Under this armistice, Italy would be a “loose confederation” that 
included Austria by way of Venice with most of Lombardy given to France.74 Mazzini took 
this armistice as evidence that foreign powers were not interested in helping to liberate 
Italy. Even when Napoleon had promised to work with Cavour for the benefit of Italy, he 
still betrayed Italy for his own gain. After the disaster that was the war of 1859, Mazzini 
wrote to King Victor Emmanuel II, Charles Albert’s successor, and urged him to reject the 

 
68 Sarti, “Giuseppe Mazzini and His Opponents,” 97. 
69 Gooch, The Unification of Italy, 23. 
70 Sarti, “Giuseppe Mazzini and His Opponents,” 99. 
71 Riall, Garibaldi, eBook; Smith, Mazzini, eBook. 
72 Sarti, “Giuseppe Mazzini and His Opponents,” 102. 
73 Smith, Mazzini, eBook. 
74 Smith, Mazzini, eBook. 



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armistice and claim the crown of a united Italy.75 In this instance, the cause of national 
unification was greater than the republican cause. Mazzini was willing to throw away his 
dream of a republican Italy, because in that instance, he chose to support unity in any form. 
 
Mazzini then hatched a plan, which required the help of Garibaldi. Garibaldi and his 
followers, known as “The Thousand,” sailed to Sicily where he led a revolution in the name 
of King Victor Emmanuel II. Mazzini was still not pleased about unification under a 
monarch, but he was aware by this time that it was the only way Italy would unify at all. He 
helped Garibaldi from the sidelines by sending emissaries to Sicily to help prepare for the 
coming insurrection.76 Over the next several months, approximately 20,000 men came to 
join Garibaldi in Sicily. In August 1860, Garibaldi and his men had successfully captured 
Sicily and turned their eyes to Naples on the mainland. Upon arrival in Naples, one account 
stated, “the whole of the southern part of the kingdom … has been conquered by Garibaldi 
single-handed and without an army at all … the people rising and the troops falling back or 
capitulating as he advanced.”77 After the easy victory in Naples, Garibaldi looked to Rome 
as his next target. Cavour, however, had invaded Rome first in order to upset Garibaldi’s 
plan and also sought to take over the government in Naples. Demoralized without the 
promise of help from Piedmont, Garibaldi did nothing and chose to wait until the following 
summer to continue the campaign.78 In October, Garibaldi held a public vote where Italians 
overwhelmingly voted to have Naples and Sicily join “a new and united Italy.” Garibaldi 
then surrendered control of both states to King Victor Emmanuel, who would be “king by 
will of the people.”79 
 
Italy was officially united, apart from Venice and Rome, albeit under a monarchy rather 
than a republic, and “few [were] more disappointed than Mazzini and Garibaldi, the two 
men who had looked forward to this moment most keenly and who had sacrificed most for 
its attainment.”80 Mazzini’s disappointment is understandable, as Italy was not the republic 
he had dreamed of. Yet there is still something to be said for the fact that Garibaldi, as a 
former follower, was still acting under Mazzinian influence in the act of unifying Italy. 
While Garibaldi may have become a monarchist, he still believed in the idea of national 
unity that Mazzini had always advocated for. The vote taken in Naples and Sicily showed an 
overwhelming amount of support for a unified Italy, and for that Mazzini had the right to be 
proud, even if the result was not ideal. 
 
During the last decade of his life, Mazzini continued to advocate for a republican Italy. The 
Italian governments continued to see him as a threat, thanks to his attempts to agitate 
workers into another revolution. It was in 1860 that Mazzini wrote his book The Duties of 
Man, which he aimed at Italian workers, who he wanted to view the government as an 
enemy so they would feel compelled to take political action.81 In 1861, he was asked to 

 
75 Smith, Mazzini, eBook. 
76 Sarti, “Giuseppe Mazzini and His Opponents,” 104. 
77 Quoted in Riall, Garibaldi, eBook. 
78 Riall, Garibaldi, eBook. 
79 Riall, Garibaldi, eBook; Smith, Mazzini, eBook. 
80 Sarti, “Giuseppe Mazzini and His Opponents,”104; Denis Mack Smith quoted in Riall, Garibaldi, eBook. 
81 Sarti, “Giuseppe Mazzini and His Opponents,” 106. 



145 
 

compile his political papers into several volumes and to write accompanying 
autobiographical notes. During the process of collecting the papers to be published, Mazzini 
engaged in some self-reflection, writing that “he was in any case a man of heart rather than 
head, someone whose enthusiasm and sympathies mattered more than his intelligence, and 
who was interested much less in political theorizing than in transforming society.”82 He 
continued to advocate for complete unification with Venice and Rome, and in 1866 a war 
broke out that resulted in Austria surrendering Venice. However, Austria presented Venice 
to France, and in Mazzini’s words, Napoleon “tossed [it] to Italy as a penny might be thrown 
to a beggar.”83 Finally in September 1870, Italy captured Rome, completing the unification 
of Italy at long last. Mazzini could not celebrate however, as he was in prison after one final 
insurrection attempt. He had denounced the monarchy several years prior, and after his 
release from prison he lived the last years of his life in secrecy. 84 He continued to be 
unhappy with the Italian monarchy and had difficulty reconciling the national unity he had 
always wanted under the monarchist symbol that he hated. In an article published in 1871, 
Mazzini wrote that he regretted that national unification was achieved by “a narrow and 
privileged elite governing in their own sectional interest” rather than a truly spontaneous 
act of the Italian people. In the last years of his life, Mazzini was “only the shadow of his 
former self,” due not only to illness but also to his grave disappointment in the outcome of 
his life’s work.85 
 
Ultimately, Giuseppe Mazzini had a very long and tumultuous political career with varying 
degrees of success. He died on March 10, 1872, in Italy under an assumed name, thinking of 
himself as “the monarchy’s outlaw.”86 While Italy was not the republic he desired in his 
heart, he could rest knowing he had done his part to bring unity to the Italian Peninsula 
that he loved so much. Historians agree that it is difficult to quantify the exact influence 
that Mazzini had on Italian unification, but it is undeniable that he played a large role. 
Throughout his life, he advocated for the creation of a national community within a unified, 
republican Italy. Although he was exiled for many years, his devotion to Italy never 
wavered and only increased over time. 
 
Young Italy was arguably Mazzini’s greatest achievement. He used the society and its 
members as a tool to spread his thoughts and ideas throughout Italy. Through his school 
for Italian immigrants in England and his many publications, he was able to educate his 
followers on what it meant to be Italian and craft a national community with a shared 
language, culture, and history. His efforts to include the working class were essential to the 
popularity of his ideas. It showed his good intentions to include everyone in the Italian 
nation, not only the aristocratic population of Italy. 
 
Mazzini’s ideas on republicanism and unity without foreign influence helped the Italian 
people realize that Italy could, in fact, stand alone as an independent nation. Previous 

 
82 Quoted in Smith, Mazzini, eBook. 
83 Smith, Mazzini, eBook. 
84 Sarti, “Giuseppe Mazzini and His Opponents,” 107. 
85 Smith, Mazzini, eBook. 
86 Sarti, “Giuseppe Mazzini and His Opponents,” 107. 



146 
 

Italian nationalists had only conceived of Italy as a series of federal states, but Mazzini was 
revolutionary in his idea of Italy as one, large territory. While his dream of an Italian 
republic failed, the idea behind it succeeded—that Italy could be whole and its people 
should have a voice. Nevertheless, Mazzini was disappointed in the outcome. The 
disappointment is understandable, but the hindsight of history demonstrates the far reach 
of Mazzini’s ideas throughout Italy. Mazzinian nationalism influenced the actions of notable 
figures like Giuseppe Garibaldi, but it also influenced the average, everyday Italian in small 
ways that is impossible to quantify. Moreover, while his exile from Italy meant he was 
distanced from the material realities of Italy, it was that distance that caused him to rely 
most strongly on his belief in the Italian nation and the Italian people—and it was this 
strength of belief that was so powerful in shaping modern Italy. 


