James Baquet Modern countries are constantly splitting and merging, but certain ones convey an image of stability. Italy has always been Italy, right? Well, if you mean the peninsula, yes. But the country qua country is barely a century and a half old. The name has also, at various times, referred to several kingdoms, only one of which comprised most of the modern country. The unification (also called the “risorgimento,” meaning “resurgence”) got underway with the 1815 Congress of Vienna, a meeting at which Austria, Britain, Russia, Prussia and France, along with nearly 20 other countries, met in an effort to stabilize the map of Europe at the end of the Napoleonic Wars. A key concern was to create a balance that would prevent further depredations by more-powerful countries. It didn’t work. Italy came away from the Congress divided into seven parts, some of them under foreign control. But nationalism was on the rise, and the dream of unification was soon being mooted inside and outside of what would become modern Italy. Two of the movement’s leading lights were Giuseppe Mazzini and Giuseppe Garibaldi. Mazzini envisioned a free, independent republic with its capital at Rome. He was called “the most influential revolutionary in Europe” in his day. Garibaldi was a military man, and considered one of the modern age’s greatest generals. These two, along with the Kingdom of Italy’s first prime minister, Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, and Victor Emmanuel II of Italy, the united country’s first king since the sixth century, have been called the “fathers of the fatherland.” The unification was effected through a series of insurrections and revolutions, as well as not just one but three Wars of Independence. Some kings were naturally reluctant to give up their kingdoms! But at last, with the establishment of Rome as the nation’s capital in 1871, Italy was unified (though the process was not truly completed until some holdout areas were annexed at the end of World War I). The Kingdom of Italy became a republic in 1946, just after the end of the Second World War. Vocabulary: Which words above mean: 1. state of being enduring or permanent 2. in progress 3. debated, discussed 4. attacks, ravaging 5. as, in the capacity of 6. communicate 7. viewing one’s nation as a whole entity separate from other nations 8. not enthusiastic (about) 9. act of rising again 10. made to happen | 