Of all the individuals involved in the unification of Italy, none played a more important role than Giuseppe Mazzini - Justify this comment and vanquish its detractors.

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Robinson Wollersheim                                                            16/03/03

AS-History Essay

Word Count: 1107

Of all the individuals involved in the unification of Italy, none played a more important role than Giuseppe Mazzini.

Justify this comment and vanquish its detractors.

The obstacle to the unification of Italy lay in the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Italy was restored to the Ancient Régime and was divided into five duchies and Kingdoms. Two wealthy parts, Lombardy and Venetia, were placed under Austrian rule and thus imposed a threat towards unification.

The entire process of Italian unification was a tragic-comic military blundering, political instability and repression, and at times Civil War. It was stamped by inconveniences. However, it was finally united with the annexation of Venetia. Geographically, Piedmont played a major role in the unification. The movement which Italians call the Risorgimento, which means resurgence or rebirth, lead to the formation of a united Italy. Giuseppe Mazzini was the most prominent figure of this cultural, political as artistic movement. They also believed that the unification did not come about by an accidental or sudden war of diplomacy but via the gradual evolution of the Italian nation. An  obstacle towards unification was certainly the lack of patriotism among the population which comes down to a lack of a central government and of a unified legal system.

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The theme of patriotism and national unity were picked up by Giuseppe Mazzini, who was a archetypal romantic national, in the 1830’s. It seems a reasonable attempt because he directly affects the masses which are important in order to oppose the government and establish a new democratic constitution.

Giuseppe Mazzini was born in Genoa in 1805 and grew up in an academic and intellectual atmosphere. He was immensely intelligent but nevertheless suffered from great depression. He turned his thoughts to politics and becoming a revolutionary nationalist when he was sixteen during the aftermath of the 1821 revolution in Piedmont. He ...

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