The Independence Wars and the Kingdom of Italy

With the return of the Austrians Vicenza had to adapt its life according to a long series of restrictive rules, at local, provincial and regional level, that had a very high cost at military, human and economic level. After 1848 the anti-Austrian conspiracy gradually weakened, many patriots were in exile, the republicans were isolated, Mazzini’s ideals had scarce influence; the clerical-moderate ruling class, the clergy, the bureaucrats, the ecclesiastical hierarchy, the notables were preparing the transformation.

In the last years of Austrian rule the liberal-democratic émigrés that answered to the Central Political Office of Veneto émigrés in Turin, where Vicenza was represented by Sebastiano Tecchio, actively campaigned in favour of unification.

The Armistice of Villafranca of 1859 at the end of the Second Independence War that confirmed the liberation of Lombardy alone, leaving Veneto still under Austrian domination, caused the disappointment of Italian and Veneto patriots, in particular for its unexpected epilogue.

The completion of the national unification process depended in particular on the South, where the largest Italian state was, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, where the repression of liberal and patriotic ideals had become harsher after 1848. This was the situation when the project of Garibaldi’s expedition force for the liberation of the South was developed.

With the victorious expedition led by Garibaldi the revolutionary forces once again had the initiative in the national movement, and with such a success as to be able to compete with the results obtained by the royalist forces.

Furthermore, in Naples, Garibaldi announced that the revolutionary actions would be continued against the Papal States.

This was a great danger because it would have caused the reaction not only of Austria, anxious to take revenge for the defeat of 1859, but also of Napoleon III who, for reasons of internal policy, would not have allowed the end of the temporal power of the Pope.

So the government of Piedmont decided to advance into Central-Southern Italy to block the revolutionary thrust that was aiming at Rome. The Papal army was beaten by the royal troops at Castelfidardo on 10th September 1860 and on the 27th the stronghold of Ancona fell. Garibaldi defeated the Bourbons once and for all in the great battle of Volturno on 1st and 2nd October 1860.

The intervention of the royal army not only halted the revolutionary advance towards Rome, but also stopped the situation in Naples from evolving according to the principles inspired by the advanced political ideas of many of Garibaldi’s followers. The latter, with an act of great generosity, that increased his glory and moral prestige, left the kingdom he had conquered to the king and retired to the island of Caprera.

Dolmann delle Scuole di Garibaldi, appartenuto ad Antonio Radovich