Alternate history Idea- The United Provinces of Italy

What if Italy instead of becoming a unified country, instead became a Federal Monarchy, similar to the USA under the Articles of Confederation or the German Empire years later, or just a confederation. Kingdoms, City-States and Republics can make foreign trades and have autonomy, but all pay lip-service to either the Piedmontese King (or the Italian Emperor, like how the German Empire did it) or/and the Pope?

Some of these states or provinces that could be part of this new confederation:
  • Kingdom of Sardinia(possibly head or Italian Emperor)
  • The Papal States (Possibly head/co-head)
  • Kingdom of the Two Sicilies
  • Either a restored Republic of Venice or Republic of San Marco
  • Grand Duchy of Tuscany
  • Duchy of Modena and Reggio
  • Republic of San Marino(Unlikely to join, but who knows)
  • Trieste (later on after WWI)
  • County of Tyrol (later on after WWI)
 
Yeah, 1848 is the perfect time - but you need a worse still performance for the Austrian Empire, so that Lombardy at least can go free and the Pope does not have to pursue war against the largest Catholic nation.

If you do that, it will be seen as a success of pan-Italianism, encouraging the various nations to go through the proposed customs union, and with a bit of luck, that would lead towards a Pope-led Italian confederation (or, as you've said, a co-regency so that the Pope can avoid giving overt preference to the Confederation).
 
Yeah, 1848 is the perfect time - but you need a worse still performance for the Austrian Empire, so that Lombardy at least can go free and the Pope does not have to pursue war against the largest Catholic nation.

If you do that, it will be seen as a success of pan-Italianism, encouraging the various nations to go through the proposed customs union, and with a bit of luck, that would lead towards a Pope-led Italian confederation (or, as you've said, a co-regency so that the Pope can avoid giving overt preference to the Confederation).

Well, things were pretty touch and go for awhile, and if things go worse in Bohemia or Hungary it's quite possible Redezski gets overwhelmed of tied down else where long enough for the Milanese and San Marcans to solidify their positions and for the various Italian states to get deep enough into the affair to not date pulling out. This only boosts the odds of the conservative monarchies (Charles Albert's own included) to join together since they'd be facing the issue of a Republican opposition that was never in dire enough straits to have to submit to the Savoyards in exchange for military releif... meaning they need to try to politically outflank the liberals by seizing the cause of nationalism out from under them.

Given the popular perception that the Pope was "For Italy", I could easily see such a Confederation forming with him as the Head of State: perhaps with the position of secular leader decided by a "College of Princes" made up of the executives of the member states who elect one of their own (formally just recommending him to the Pope, but in a vein similar to that of the PM of the UK in that sense).
 
Perhaps a collegiate Head of State? That is, it's a council made up of the individual Heads of State with the Pope as honorary chairman?
 
Perhaps a collegiate Head of State? That is, it's a council made up of the individual Heads of State with the Pope as honorary chairman?

I’m seeing more a duel head of state. I believe that the Pierdmontese Monarchy could be co-head of the Confederation, along with the Pope, as another Co-head, but most likely, the Pierdmontese Monarchy would have more power.
 
I’m seeing more a duel head of state. I believe that the Pierdmontese Monarchy could be co-head of the Confederation, along with the Pope, as another Co-head, but most likely, the Pierdmontese Monarchy would have more power.

Take away the rich Lombard regions as a separate Milanese polity and Turin hardly has a preponderance of power to excersise a monopoly on executive power like Prussia would be able to pull in Germany. The other member states are either going to insist on a weak executive, or that the office not be inheirted
 
Take away the rich Lombard regions as a separate Milanese polity and Turin hardly has a preponderance of power to excersise a monopoly on executive power like Prussia would be able to pull in Germany. The other member states are either going to insist on a weak executive, or that the office not be inheirted

Actually, I still do believe that’s The Kingdom of Sardinia would most likely still get Lombard, with Milan. The only difference in this ATL is that places like the Grand duchy of Tuscany, and the Kingdom of Two Sicily, and possibly an independent Venice, joins into a Federal Monarchy led by the Pierdmontese King (or Italian Emperor) and the Pope.

I may have to make a map of this.
 
Actually, I still do believe that’s The Kingdom of Sardinia would most likely still get Lombard, with Milan. The only difference in this ATL is that places like the Grand duchy of Tuscany, and the Kingdom of Two Sicily, and possibly an independent Venice, joins into a Federal Monarchy led by the Pierdmontese King (or Italian Emperor) and the Pope.

I may have to make a map of this.

If it's 1848....

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_San_Marco
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Days_of_Milan

Further, if S-P is overwhelming in power you have a catch-22; why compromise with the unpopular Monarchies imposed by the Habsburgs when you can just make Italy into a unitary state as IOTL?
 
Deviantart to the rescue!

I think there's a multitude of PoD's that could be used for the 1848 revolutions to succeed, such as the French Second Republic's ruling government successfully voting to declare war on Austria (i hear that the Constable of Paris' "no" vote was decisive in regards to OTL events). In my opinion, Austria was pretty lucky to get out of that situation intact.
 
Deviantart to the rescue!

I think there's a multitude of PoD's that could be used for the 1848 revolutions to succeed, such as the French Second Republic's ruling government successfully voting to declare war on Austria (i hear that the Constable of Paris' "no" vote was decisive in regards to OTL events). In my opinion, Austria was pretty lucky to get out of that situation intact.

Yeah, this seems the perfect POD - timed so that the Pope can push ahead with the proposed union, and may even pretend to intercede for the Emperor in Wien, encouraging a bloodless cession (perhaps with nominal suzerainty? Though I don't think it'd fly). Any other POD ends with forceful unification or no unification at all.
 
This was actually Cavour's plan all along: he allied with the French and gave them Nice and Savoy in exchange of making so that Piedmont could conquer Northen Italy (including Istria, Dalmatia and Trent) and then unite Central Italy under a Napoleonid, before getting the resulting three Italian kingdoms a confederation.

This didn't happen because Garibaldi's redshirts had conquered the Two Sicilies explicitly "in the name of Victor Emmanuel II King of Italy", which went very much against the plan and could only end with a fracture in the indipendence movement if opposed. Add to the fact that a great deal of Tuscany and Umbria actually opted to enter the Northen Italian kingdom instead of staying in the Central Italian one, and Cavour's whole idea could obly be discarded.

If Garibaldi fails or manages to be reasoned with enough to get him to conquer Veneto and Istria, the scenario you proposed could actually happen basically on schedule as OTL.
 
Aside for the obvious needed Austrian military catastrophe, it would be necessary IMO a different outcome of the French Presidential elections... Louis Napoleon winning them won't be good news for Italy. He intervened against OTL, he could intervene against specially if an united Italy could be a bad thing for France (in terms of influence and domination towards the peninsula of course).

I guess Lamartine or Cavaignac could stay neutral - more the former than the latter. A Socialist presidential victory could be the best choice for the Italian cause even if there may be a possible dilemma (support a republic or a monarchy?)
 
May I say that the title made me think about a potential union in the Early Modern era? Say an evolution of the post Pace di Lodi balance of power into something more stable, leading to...gasp!
A common Italian front during the Italian wars. The timing would also be a slightly loser parallel to the Netherlands... I am talking about a sort of permanent Florentine-Milanese-Venetian alliance as the core, which sounds crazy, but maaaybe...

The idea of an Italian Confederation under nominal Papal sovereignty was much loved by moderate Italian liberals, especially after Pius IX's ascension to the Pontificate and the spread of the collective illusion that he would be a liberal champion of the Italian nation. This neoguelfismo was best exemplified by Vincenzo Gioberti in his "Del primato morale e civile degli italiani" (1843) (About the moral and civic [ie political] primacy of Italians).

Interestingly, after the sharp criticisms received both by the Mazzinian left and the reactionary, Jesuit, right and after the Unification came to be by different means, Gioberti wrote a revises intriduction to his book in 1865, in which he stated that the core of his idea had always been the Federal idea, regardless of who would be the actual monarch. His second main line of thought was about the importance of the middle classes, the bourgeoisie as driving motor for the national awakening.

The Austrian military catastrophe might well happen in Hungary, say the April laws are not passed and the revolution radicalizes earlier. Even just a tumely recall of the Magyar units from the Italian theater (say to protect from a more aggressive Jelacic) could be enough to put Radetzky in an untenable position.
 
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