The Vienna settlement

The Congress of Vienna (1814–15), held by the victorious allies to restore the prerevolutionary European political status quo, determined that the Bourbons should be returned to Naples. For this reason, taking advantage of Napoleon’s escape from Elba to France on March 1, 1815, and his return to power, Joachim Murat opted to change sides yet one more time and declared war on Austria on March 15, 1815. In the Rimini proclamation of March 30 he incited all Italian nationalists to war, but no general insurrection occurred. Quickly defeated, Murat was forced to abdicate in May. From his exile in Corsica he moved to a base in Calabria to attempt the reconquest of his kingdom. Recaptured by Bourbon troops, he was executed in October 1815.

The Congress of Vienna established the political order in Italy that lasted until unification between 1859 and 1870. According to the Final Act of the congress, Francis I of Austria also became king of Lombardy-Venetia, which was incorporated into the Habsburg state. The former episcopal principality of Trento was formally annexed to Austria. King Victor Emmanuel I of Savoy recovered his territories (Nice, Savoy, and Piedmont) and acquired the Ligurian coast, including Genoa. The duchy of Parma was granted to Marie-Louise of Habsburg, the daughter of Francis I and Napoleon’s second wife. At her death the duchy was to revert to the Bourbon-Parma family, which was also temporarily placed in charge of the duchy of Lucca. The Habsburg-Este family returned to Modena and inherited the duchy of Massa in 1825. Also in Tuscany, the Habsburg-Lorraine family added the State of the Garrisons to its former domains and was given claim to Lucca, which the Bourbon-Parma family was to relinquish in 1847. The pope recovered his temporal domain in central Italy. Ferdinand IV of Naples reassumed control of his former realm under the new title of Ferdinand I, King of the Two Sicilies.

Thus, the Vienna settlement dismantled the three aristocratic republics of Venice, Genoa, and Lucca; it strengthened Piedmont and restored undisputed Austrian hegemony in the peninsula. Austrian troops garrisoned Ferrara, ready to intervene in case of trouble in the Papal States. Austria gained the right to intervene in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, if necessary. Members of the house of Habsburg ruled over Parma, Modena, and Tuscany; and Venetia and Lombardy became, in practice, provinces of the Austrian Empire. Only the Savoy kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont remained outside the Austrian system designed and imposed on Italy by the Austrian foreign minister Klemens, Fürst (prince) von Metternich. Under Russia’s secret protection the Savoy government proved dependably reactionary.

On April 7, 1815, Francis I proclaimed the formation of the kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia. The new state was a fiction, however, because the two regions remained separate, each subject to the central ministries in Vienna. Milan lost its role as a capital, most of the Napoleonic administration was dismantled, and the centralizing authority of Vienna became all-pervasive. Many reforms, especially legal reforms, were abolished. Austria reacted to widespread discontent with increasingly severe police measures and stricter censorship, suppressing, for example, the liberal and Romantic periodical Il conciliatore (“The Conciliator”) after only one year of publication (1818–19).

Returning to Piedmont from his refuge in Sardinia, Victor Emmanuel I of Savoy abolished all laws promulgated by the French and removed from public office all those who had collaborated with them. He invited the Jesuits back into the kingdom and turned many educational institutions over to them and to other religious orders. This extreme reaction provoked liberal opposition among enlightened members of Piedmont’s upper classes.

Francis IV of Modena demonstrated comparable intransigence; but, in Parma, Marie-Louise of Habsburg practiced political moderation and preserved many French reforms. Although Francophiles were expelled from the Tuscan administration and some French reforms were abolished, Tuscany under Ferdinand III of Habsburg-Lorraine and his successor, Leopold II, became known for economic liberalism and lenient censorship. Intellectual life flourished in Tuscany with the arrival from other regions of exiled writers, such as the poets Giacomo Leopardi and Niccolò Tommaseo and the historian Pietro Colletta. These men gathered around the Gabinetto di Lettura (“Literary Club”) of Gian Pietro Vieusseux, founder of an important periodical, L’antologia (1821–33; “The Anthology”).

In the Papal States the restoration, achieved principally by the diplomacy of the cautious secretary of state, Ercole Cardinal Consalvi, brought increasing government centralization. Educated men who had held positions of responsibility under the French and Italian governments resented bitterly the restoration of clerical control over all aspects of public life. Dissatisfaction was especially strong in the Romagna.

In Naples the victorious powers made sure that the Bourbons would not repeat the reprisals of 1799. Thus, the restoration appeared to begin well under the balanced policies of a government led by Luigi de’ Medici, who absorbed part of Murat’s capable bureaucracy. Many judicial and administrative reforms of the French era survived, but concessions made to the church in a concordat concluded in 1818, as well as financial retrenchment, hampered the progress of the bourgeoisie. Especially among the galantuomini, who had profited from French legislation, strong discontent found an outlet in a widespread secret society, I Carbonari (“The Charcoal Burners”). Already in existence under French rule, apparently with a vaguely nationalist program, the society gained strength and formulated more-definite constitutional aims. The southern bourgeoisie was determined to take part in political life and to promote its interests openly. From the south the lodges of the Carbonari quickly spread to the Marche, the Romagna, Piedmont, and Lombardy.

Spain experienced a revolution in 1820, in which the Liberals gained power and reestablished a constitution promulgated in 1812. This event had notable repercussions in Italy. In the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, former members of Murat’s army, affiliated with the Carbonari, marched on Naples (July 2, 1820) to the cry of “Long live liberty and the constitution.” They found support in the army and among the bourgeoisie. King Ferdinand was forced to yield to demands for the introduction of the Spanish constitution, which limited royal powers, decreased centralization, and reduced the influence of the capital. The new regime proved short-lived, however, for it had too many enemies. The king sought to recover his former powers; and Sicilian dissidents attempted to reestablish their island’s separate status, though their movement was brutally suppressed by the Neapolitan constitutional government, assisted by Austria. Invoking the Austrian right to intervene if necessary to maintain the restored Bourbon monarchy, in January 1821 Metternich convened an international congress at Laibach (now Ljubljana, Slovenia) attended by representatives of the European powers and of the Italian states, including King Ferdinand himself. Overcoming weak Anglo-French opposition, Ferdinand obtained approval for military intervention. Accordingly, the Austrian army entered the kingdom and occupied Naples on March 23, 1821, reestablishing the king’s absolute government.

In Piedmont the more liberal and educated wing of the nobility resented Victor Emmanuel I’s reactionary policies and found allies among bourgeois groups that had adopted the constitutional program of the Carbonari. In the wake of the Neapolitan revolution, a conspiracy began with the support of Liberals in Lombardy and, covertly, of the heir apparent to the throne of Sardinia-Piedmont, Charles Albert, principe di Carignano. Between March 9 and 13, 1821, the revolt, organized by military and bourgeois leaders, spread from Alessandria to Turin. Victor Emmanuel I abdicated in favour of his brother, Charles Felix, and, in the latter’s absence from the kingdom, appointed Charles Albert as regent. On March 14, Charles Albert proclaimed the Spanish constitution of 1812, though its implementation was contingent on the new king’s approval. From his refuge in Modena, Charles Felix refused to accept it; with Austrian help and loyal Piedmontese troops, he quickly occupied the kingdom and established his authority. Three conspirators were executed and many more imprisoned or exiled. Charles Albert succeeded in reconciling with Charles Felix, but his vacillating conduct marked him for years to come. The Liberals never forgave him his compromises with Charles Felix, who ruled until 1831.

Although there was no revolution in Lombardy-Venetia, a complex network of opponents of the regime was discovered and suppressed. In October 1820 the Carbonari in Milan were attacked, and some were deported. In March 1821 the police penetrated another secret organization, I Federati (“The Confederates”), led by the Milanese nobleman Federico Confalonieri. The society favoured constitutional government, but its program was more moderate than that of the Carbonari though no less anti-Austrian. From December 1821 to January 1823 members of the conspiracy were unmasked in the army and the upper bureaucracy and received death sentences, all of which were eventually commuted to long prison terms.

Economic slump and revival

A severe economic recession accompanied this period of political reaction, which continued in the Romagna until as late as 1828. After the famine of 1816–17, Russian grain flooded the Italian market and contributed to a crisis of agricultural overproduction. The desperate poverty of the peasantry led to grain riots, brigandage, and the spread of pellagra, a vitamin-deficiency disease endemic among the northern peasantry, whose diet relied heavily on corn (maize). The slump continued until nearly 1830, when successful mulberry cultivation brought renewed rural prosperity and was sufficient, particularly in Piedmont and Lombardy, to reestablish agricultural credit and provide capital for the growth of textile and engineering industries.

Renewed prosperity supported a revival of cultural activities, and many periodicals addressed the country’s economic and social problems. The most notable of these publications was the philosopher Gian Domenico Romagnosi’s Annali universali di statistica (“World Statistical Almanac”), which published the first essays of his most important pupil, Carlo Cattaneo. Until this period Lombard and Tuscan moderates had dominated political and cultural criticism, but they were now joined by expatriates from other regions and by Roman Catholic and democratic thinkers.