Risorgimento in Exile: Italian Emigrés and the Liberal International in the Post-Napoleonic Era

"Maurizio Isabella is an Italian scholar based in the UK. He teaches at Queen Mary . Just like De Francesco, he claims that there is no such thing as a homogeneous Italian nationalism, but his research has a different focus. In particular, he argues that we should go beyond the identification of the morphological similarities to analyse in depth the variety of political projects that were produced in the first half of the 19th century. The same images and cultural constructs can in fact be used to build very different political projects. Isabella’s book focuses on exiles between 1815 and the 1830s, on the peculiar mindset generated by the condition of exile and how it influences these individuals’ political imagination. He describes his work as being the “collective intellectual biography of a generation of exiles”, before Mazzini. He arrived in London in 1837, inaugurating a new season of political exile. Isabella shows how the political project of the Risorgimento was made—at least in part—abroad, in South America, in Britain, in France. He argues that without looking at transnational connections, at the circulation of people and ideas we get a very limited understanding of the origins and characteristics of Italian nationalism. Nationalism does, in fact, transcend national boundaries. This is why this book has been really influential and has altered the scholarly debate. Isabella claims that the fact that these people were in exile actually changed the way in which they looked at the Italian situation, because the status of being in exile complicates the identity of these people and creates daily contact with foreign ideas, concepts and social situations. Now, it is very difficult to say in a very concrete way how much practical impact these projects born abroad had on the development of events in Italy, but that is not particularly relevant for Isabella’s thesis because he’s looking more at how the idea of the Italian nation was formed and what characteristics it acquired in this constant exchange with foreign inputs. He’s looking at how these exiles managed to influence the perception of Italy and of the Risorgimento abroad. They are not just passive recipients of something that comes to them. They are also reshaping and reframing the Italian question abroad, while actively taking part in the cultural lives and social networks of their places of exile. He has a very interesting chapter on travel literature, where he shows how these exiles react to the accounts of travel to Italy, or the Grand Tour, and to certain stereotypes that are continually represented in this kind of literature regarding Italy, Italians and their ‘backwardness’ and how they tried to change the conversation, to offer a different perspective. He claims that they were, at least in part, successful in doing so. “The political project of the Risorgimento was made—at least in part—abroad, in South America, in Britain, in France” He also argues that these exiles don’t share a common political project. They responded to what was happening in England or in France. They tried to articulate their specific political, social and economic projects for the new Italy, but they didn’t represent a monolithic block at all. But posthumously they are inserted into a long genealogy of heroes and martyrs for the fatherland, where they become part of the national patriotic Pantheon. And that idea is promoted by Mazzini, who represents himself as an exile in London, but is able to build on this previous generation of exiles. He brings them with him into this national patriotic Pantheon. Of course, Mazzini was a very controversial figure, particularly because of his republicanism. Mazzini himself was inserted into the national patriotic Pantheon quite late, at least 20 years after his death, because his republicanism was really very difficult to digest. He died in 1872 in Pisa, in the home of Janet Nathan Rosselli, whose parents he had met in London in the late 1830s. The Nathan Rosselli family—a Jewish family—supported and protected Mazzini and his legacy from the time of his exile and into the new century. It depends a bit on where, what and who we are talking about. These figures are not all the same. They did not share a common destiny and they differed in how successful they were in getting access to important political circles, conversations, salons and networks in their places of exile. But I would say, based on what Isabella tells us in this book, that they were quite successful. For example, in the case of England, they were particularly interested in discussions regarding the participatory nature of the British system and the importance of political parties. The idea of a political party was not very welcome in 19th century Italy, so the exiles were very interested in studying them. They didn’t necessarily aspire to replicate the same system, but they studied the system and reflected on how it might be adapted in the future in Italy. Those who were in exile in England also found very fertile ground for their opposition to the power of the Catholic Church. There was a lot of sympathy for that position. Another issue on which these exiles found common ground with other political actors, both in England and France, was in their—very often uneasy—attempts to come to terms with the legacy of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic era. So, in that sense, they were very much involved in a broader European conversation about the legacy of the French Revolution ."