Alternate capitals for a united Italy

There was also a strong anti-clericalist streak in Italian nationalism, at least by the mid-19th century. Maybe if that was butterflied away religious scruples would prevent the government from invading the Papacy, although I'm not sure how to achieve this. Maybe an alt-Roman Republic gets overthrown by the King of Sardinia, whom the Pope then crowns as King of Italy, leading to the Papacy getting associated with the cause of Italian unification instead of being seen as an obstacle as IOTL.
In this case, Rome would become almost certainly the capital of Italy.
 
One idea I find interesting would be the establishment of a new capital for a new country. I would imagine this might be the road Italy would take if it had more of a federal structure than it did in OTL. I don't know enough about Italy in this time period to say how realistic such an idea is though, so I could just be imagining a load of rubbish.
Not very realistic.
As noted upthread, the Italian state had no financial resources for such an undertaking IOTL. Also, Italy has such a plenty of historical cities that a new one would look like overkill. Nationalistic ideologies in Europe at the time of unification (unlike some New World nationalisms) tended to look at imagined pasts and connect to them at least as much as they looked to imagined futures. And the past is very visible in Italy. You'd need a sort of "Futurism" being the hegemonic ideology in the Italian unification movement, a situation that I doubt would appear simply because there is not the social base for a widespread ideology of this type in the Risorgimento period.

EDIT: also, no modern European, North African or Middle Eastern country (except Israel, of course, and Russia with St. Petersburg) ever really went into the "new artificial capital" business (Libya tried and gave up; Egypt says she is doing it now, we'll see).
 
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There was also a strong anti-clericalist streak in Italian nationalism, at least by the mid-19th century. Maybe if that was butterflied away religious scruples would prevent the government from invading the Papacy, although I'm not sure how to achieve this. Maybe an alt-Roman Republic gets overthrown by the King of Sardinia, whom the Pope then crowns as King of Italy, leading to the Papacy getting associated with the cause of Italian unification instead of being seen as an obstacle as IOTL.

I'm guessing you're talking about the 1848 one? In that case, I doubt it. Nationalism was fundamentally viewed as a liberal force - even Bismarck had to institute universal male suffrage in the NGC to win German nationalists over. The Papacy, on the other hand, was quite reactionary.
 

Sulemain

Banned
Ravenna: it's a not a major city, so it means that it undercuts accusations of favouritism, and it was the capital of the WRE at one point.
 
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Ravenna: it's a not a major city, so it means that it undercuts accusations of favouritism, and it was the capital of the HRE at one point.
Nope. It was the capital of the WRE for a while, in a less than glorious period from the Italian nationalist perspective. But in the Risorgimento period, it is a backwater. You'd need big changes to get that.
 

Sulemain

Banned
Nope. It was the capital of the WRE for a while, in a less than glorious period from the Italian nationalist perspective. But in the Risorgimento period, it is a backwater. You'd need big changes to get that.

I meant WRE but yeah. I was thinking of non-Risorgimento unifications.
 
I meant WRE but yeah. I was thinking of non-Risorgimento unifications.

Like what? An 1848 unification would probably have the capital in Rome, Revolutionary France deciding to establish a single Italian sister state (this idea was brought up by an Italian Jacobin) would have its capital in Rome if that was possible, and there aren't many other times for a 19th century unified Italy.
 
Prussia, Russia and Britain are the obvious candidates (though all three in the same team is obviously very unlikely).
Italy alone, of course, does not stand a chance against France and Austria combined, and indeed would probably lose a war against either of the two (though, with France, the defensive terrain favors Italy greatly; but the power disparity weighs heavily on France's side). Italy however offers a second front, which is always useful. A vengeful Prussia might see the value of that (as they did historically in 1866). So would a anti-Austrian Russia who is not in good terms with France. Italy is very dependent on Britain (particularly for coal) so it would not join any anti-British alliance unless her rulers are in a suicidal mood (which is possible; happened IOTL in 1940 after all). For all her problems, Italy was not an insignificant player in the Great Powers equilibrium, though it is true that it was the lesser among them (or the strongest among second-tier powers if you prefer).
No other power, of course, would go to war to give Rome to Italy. But most would welcome Italian willingness to do so in case of war with a mutual enemy.

I agree with the Prussian alliance, but I'd have to argue the other two. In Russia's case, not due to any animosity between the two or a lack of converging goals on Austria, but simply due to the timeframe: Russia and Britian are major rivals in The Great Game during the mid to late 19th century, meaning an Italy leaning on Russia for a mutually beneficial assault on Austria is naturally going to draw Britain into backing Vienna; especially since that disrupts the balance of power in the Balkans, which increases the risk Britain is actually going to have to invest blood and treasure to support the Ottomans if they want any hedge on Russian power at all. Say what you want about the Franco-British rivalry, but Russia at this point is considered a material threat to the Empire's crown jewel in India. Economically, Italy can't afford to make an enemy out of both France and Britain.

Now, if Britain backs Italy instead, that puts Britain on a collision course with vital (close to home and a huge matter of prestige, not just some colonial venture) French interests during a period where she's already feeling dangeriously overstreched in relation to Russia. Unless the conflict breaks out between GB and France first (in which case, Italy would be courted the same as she was in The Great War IRL), Britain isen't going to want to appear to be making any strong commitment to back Italy if she shots first, lest that rationally cause France and Russia to take up common cause: the closest thing to a worst-case scenario London could face at the time. There's no way Britain would take that risk for the sake of an alliance with Italy, who aren't even providing cover/protection to any areas of British interest like, say, Japan or the Ottomans (Other powers in a similar teir) are. The mid-1800's is just bad timing.
 
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