On February 26, 1819, Metternich, Consalvi and the representatives of the kings of Sardinia and Sicily (no longer Piedmont-Sardinia and the Two Sicilies) signed the Treaty of Stockholm. Italy was, and would remain, an independent kingdom.
Now it needed a government. In Perugia, over the course of the spring, delegates from all over the country met to agree upon a constitution for the nation. Their task would have been a good deal harder had they not already had a working model — the Spanish constitution, which had been drawn up in Cádiz in 1812 and fully implemented in 1816. This constitution offered universal male suffrage (something France, the United Kingdom or the United States[1] did not yet have) and curtailed the power of the king. (Although the carbonari had fought alongside Gioacchino for the purpose of liberating their country, many of them neither liked nor trusted him.)
This charter worked well, with certain modifications. Italy, unlike Spain, had no vast overseas possessions to vex them with questions of representation, so the distinction between “active” and “passive” citizens, which would prove so troublesome to Spain in future years, simply did not arise. Catholicism became the official religion, but not the only permitted one.
In addition to a government, Italy needed a capital to put it in. Although nearly every city on the peninsula was put forward for consideration, the four most popular choices were Rome, Naples, Milan and Florence. Both for historical reasons, and for its central location, Rome was very much the preferred option.
However, as far as Pope Pius VII and Cardinal Consalvi (the new kingdom’s foreign secretary) were concerned, that city was already taken. “Rome has already found her true destiny,” said Pius. “She has become the capital of a spiritual empire greater than Caesar’s. Italy for the Italians, yes, but Rome belongs to Christ, and to Catholics throughout the world.” The pope was not prepared to yield all his temporal power, still less to risk allowing his office, and the Church itself, to become subordinate to the Italian state. So it was that the city of Rome itself became the Diocese of Rome, a city-state governed by the pope. (There was already precedent for a state within the state, in the form of San Marino.)
Milan was too far north for the southerners, and too vulnerable to attack from Austria. Naples was too far south for the northerners and too vulnerable to attack by sea. (The delegates were not only thinking of Britain here, but of the Barbary pirates, which at this point were still a threat.) The delegates from Florence themselves objected that their city would practically need to be gutted in order to accommodate a royal palace, a parliament and the other institutions of government.
There were those who proposed doing what the Americans had done, and building an entirely new city to serve as the capital. “A new capital for a new era,” was the slogan they used. In the end, the delegates did the next best thing — they raised the small city of Terni from relative obscurity to its present glory, naming it the capital…
Not everyone in Italy was happy with the new settlement. The diehard republicans among the carbonari, or those who had bad memories of Gioachino’s rule in Naples, felt betrayed. Those who found the status quo unbearable, too few to revolt, went to the United States, where they found both freedom to enjoy and tyranny to oppose. As Byron said, “When a man hath no freedom to fight for at home/Let him combat for that of his neighbors.”
Still less happy were the zelanti and sanfedisti, but they lacked the force to effectively resist the state. Many of them went to the Virreinato, where the Infante Carlos was delighted to welcome them. The realm he was establishing would prove to be something beyond their wildest dreams…
Arrigo Gillio, The War of Italian Unification
On June 1, the poets Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats met Byron in the city of Florence. It was there, after some discussion, that three of the foremost poets of the age began one of the greatest collaborative works in the history of English literature — the 12-book epic Italy Reborn. In this poem, the three created a mythologized account of the history of Italy over the past ten years.
Indeed, the history was literally mythologized. Although the Roman gods did not appear as characters in the poem, they were described as speaking and acting through their mortal agents — Jupiter manifesting himself in the love of power, Apollo in the passion for justice, Mars in the wrath and violence of war, and so forth. So it was that Gioacchino’s defeat at Tolentino in Book VI and his subsequent triumph were explained as Jupiter deserting him for the Austrians, and his turning to the justice of Apollo and the wisdom of Minerva. Literary scholars have invested many thousands of pages in trying to determine which passages in the opus were crafted by whom under whose advice and influence; yet it seems clear that it was Shelley and Keats who wanted to include the classical deities in the poem, and Byron who insisted that their presence be spiritual rather than physical…
Over the course of 1820, snippets and brief passages from Italy Reborn (some of which were changed before the final publication of the poem) found their way into the British press, by way of Thomas Moore and other friends of the three poets, who although far away in Florence could not miss the opportunity to influence the momentous events taking place at home by the power of their words.[2]
Arthur Christopher Swinburne, Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know: The Life, Loves and Adventures of Lord Byron
[1] The Dead Roses have implemented universal white male suffrage by now, but as far as free blacks and Cherokees go, the rules vary from state to state.
[2] To save anyone from disappointment — I probably won’t be including any passages from Italy Reborn. I’m not a poet. Seriously, I had to stretch myself to imitate the style of Lord Byron writing a letter.
