Long live VERDI
In the XNUMXth century, the Prince of Metternich considered Italy a mere geographical notion with no political significance. He was wrong. The Italian peninsula was inhabited by a people united for centuries by a culture, a language, a religion. A people who lived around the vestiges of the Roman Empire and which had given birth to Dante Alighieri and the Renaissance, Macchiavelli and Vico, the Baroque and the Medici. A people waiting for the moment to find the right forces and men to unite under a single flag.
The Italian patriots replied to the prince of Metternich by praising the Swan of Busseto. Melomaniacs? No, they summed up their political program in an acronym: Vittorio Emanuele King of Italy. A slogan that they could write on the walls or chant in the square without incurring the ire of the local sovereigns, jealous of their power.
We must, therefore, also the best known Italian opera composer if on March 17 of each year we celebrate the Unification of Italy, the 157th anniversary of which occurs.
Political unity hindered for centuries by the Empire, the Papacy, the Municipalities and the Lords who, pursuing their own interests, did not understand the aspirations of a nation such as poets such as Alighieri and Petrarch or politicians such as Frederick II and Cesare Borgia imagined them.
In the XNUMXth century, the drive for unity grew. 'The Moral and Civil Primacy of the Italians' of the Catholic Vincenzo Gioberti longed for a federation of Italian states headed by the Pope. The layman Carlo Cattaneo looked to the Swiss Confederation as the ideal model for the future structure of the peninsula. Giuseppe Mazzini with a rigor and austerity of a Protestant type wanted Italy One, Free, Independent and Republican.
Towards the Unification of Italy
Finally, after centuries of waiting, the right man arrived at the right time. It was Camillo Benso count of Cavour who made his sovereign, Vittorio Emanuele, the King of Italy that the patriots hoped for, starting from the small Kingdom of Sardinia. The alliance with France was his political masterpiece, the 'gossip' of history tell that the agreement was facilitated by the Countess of Castiglione, but this is another chapter ... In 1859 the Second War of Independence was his military masterpiece . In San Martino and Pastrengo the Bersaglieri and the Carabinieri began the glorious history of what would become the Italian Army.
The Prince of Metternich did not have time to see his vision of Italy broken: he died on 11 June 1859, on 12 July Austria would have ceded Milan and Lombardy following the treaty of Villafranca.
There followed the splendid and tumultuous months that saw the Italian patriots rise and wave the tricolor flag in the center and south of Italy. That tricolor flag which since 1797 represented the self-determination of peoples. Parma, Modena, Florence, Ancona plebiscitantly chose a Kingdom not only of Sardinia but of Italy. Giuseppe Garibaldi with the enterprise of 1000 he conferred the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, taken from the Bourbons to Vittorio Emanuele, recognizing him as the political leader of Italy.
On 17 March 1861 the 'viva VERDI' of the patriots became a reality: the Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed internally and recognized abroad. The Count of Cavour's work would still be long and tiring: Venice, Trento, Trieste and, above all, Rome were still missing. Unfortunately he did not survive his masterpiece long: he died on 6 June 1861.
The patriots' dream had come true but the path towards achieving the Unification of Italy was long. As often happens, the transition from dream to reality was a harbinger of difficulties and problems. The Roman question was resolved only in 1929, we are still addressing the southern question ...
