Today it is 150 years ago that, after the conquest of large parts of the peninsula, the Kingdom of Sardegna officially changed its name to the ‘Kingdom of Italy’. Technically, thus, Italy celebrates its 150th anniversary today – though nothing really happened on that day, the ‘Kingdom’ was dissolved in 1946 and Italy of course has been a republic since. It is not that you get the impression that there will be a big party though. In 1861, the unification of Italy was far from over – and in many ways, Italy of course struggles with its unity until the present day.
This cartoon – anonymous, made somewhere between 1861 and 1870 – kind of sums up the problems faced in the first years. We see the personification of Italia showing general Enrico Cialdini, who played a prominent role in the young state, his enemies, conveniently resting on the shoulders of their patron, the French emperor Napoleon III. On the left branch, we see Pope Pio IX, who at this point still ruled a big papal state in central Italy, the clergy, and the Bourbon nobility in Naples, who also opposed the unification. On the right branch we see a bunch of brigands, who flourished in the former Kingdom of the two Sicilies in the 1860s and 1870s just like the Mafia is flourishing there now (or: since). Behind the tree, we see Giuseppe ‘Roma o Morte’ Garibaldi ploughing his land at Caprera (which he really did when he was not marching on Rome) – just like Cincinnatus had done before Roman Senators asked him to come to their rescue. In the end, it didn’t work out like that – Garibaldi tried to march on Rome three times, but the Eternal city was finally defeated without him when the French had to withdraw their troops during the Franco-Prussian Blitzkrieg of 1870 (in which Garibaldi, by the way, was leading one of the few French divisions that were not defeated by the Germans). Yet, the cartoon shows, pretty clear, that there was little reason to celebrate unification on March 17, 1861.
Miko Flohr, 17/03/2011