Since the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century, the divided Italian states watched as the rest of Europe (and Russia) unified into centralized political entities. The world was becoming populated with nations, and for years Italy acted as the playground for wars and political maneuvers between greater European powers. Enter Giuseppe Mazzini, a political activist referred to as “the beating heart of Italy”. Once exiled from his own homeland, Mazzini fought for his dream of a unified nation of Italy, and beyond that, a unified Europe.

Giuseppe Mazzini Summary

Giuseppe Mazzini was an Italian journalist, political activist, and spiritual founder of the Italian revolutionary movement for independence and unification. Not a battlefield commander by any means, Mazzini was a politically minded revolutionary, responsible for instilling a sense of nationalism and republicanism in his homeland of Italy.

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Fig. 1- Portrait of Giuseppe Mazzini.

Although Giuseppe Mazzini would not live to see his greater political ambitions reach fruition (by the time of his death, Italy had mostly found its independence, but under a monarchy rather than a democratic republic), the activist was successful in promoting his ideas of Italian nationalism into the mainstream. In 1946, three years after the fall of dictator Mussolini, Italy officially became a republic, fulfilling Mazzini’s dream. As one of the first believers in a united Europe, the establishment of the European Union in 1949 met another of Mazzini’s hopes.

Giuseppe Mazzini Life

Giuseppe Mazzini achieved much in his life, inciting national revolutions with his ideas. But what was the life of such a man? How did it inform his political activism?

Giuseppe Mazzini Early Life

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Giuseppe Mazzini was born in June 1805 in Genoa. At the time, the Republic of Genoa was a political entity within the Ligurian Republic, a French republic established by Napoleon Bonaparte in Italy. From a young age, Mazzini revealed himself to be a prolific writer and scholar. He was accepted into the University of Genoa in 1819 and graduated with a law degree seven years later, at the young age of twenty-two.

Fig. 2- Map depicting territorial boundaries during Italian unification.

After graduation, Mazzini worked as a lawyer and honed his craft as a writer, compiling articles, essays, and many letters. Already, many of his writings discussed liberation and unification for Italy. Unsatisfied with the individuality of his pursuits, Giuseppe Mazzini joined the Carbonari association in Tuscany in 1827. The secretive organization vowed to overthrow absolute monarchal rule in Italy. The dangers of belonging to such a society were real; in 1830, Mazzini was betrayed by a fellow Carbonari member to the police as the secret organization was dissolving. Mazzini was jailed for six months.

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