From Révolution to Unity: some reflections upon the relationships between Italy and France during the Risorgimento

Abstract

The relations between France and Italy have played a fundamental role in determining a conceptual and chronological definition of Risorgimento and in illustrating the related historiographical debate. This essay will focus on the debate about the relevance of the Triennio repubblicano (1796-1799) in starting up the Italian unification and on the opinions of the French observers about the birth of the Italian national State. The purpose of the essay is to read the Italian Nation-building process in the context of the formation and growth of the European idea of Nation as it emerged from the revolutionary period, exploring dissonances and assonances to the ideal of French Revolution. France’s expansion and the spreading of revolutionary ideals have been the pivot of all interpretations of the Risorgimento on behalf of Italian intellectuals. The resulting debate, inaugurated by Vincenzo Cuoco’s Saggio sulla rivoluzione napoletana (1801), has survived through all historiographical readings (first of all Benedetto Croce’s and Antonio Gramsci’s) up to the most recent interpretations.  Conversely, the interest of the French public opinion towards Risorgimento developed in the 19^th century (with Simonde de Sismondi’s Histoire des républiques italiennes, Edgar Quinet’s Le Révolutions d'Italie, and with other works), up to the attention awakened by the recent celebrations for the 150^th anniversary of the Italian unification. One of the less explored questions in the relations between Italy and France concerns the circulation of political know-how and of administrative practices between the two countries. Beside political-ideological, cultural, and "romantic" elements, Risorgimento constituted also a process of institutional integration, inaugurated by the Revolution and the Napoleonic period, followed by the monarchies during the Restoration. Joseph-Marie de Gérando’s political career and intellectual biography will serve the purpose to illustrate this last aspect.