History of the Risorgimento: Italy’s Unification

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The Risorgimento was the long, uneven struggle that drew the patchwork of Piedmont, Lombardy, Tuscany, Naples and Sicily toward a single nation. Popular uprisings of the 1820–30s, the Five Days of Milan, the 1848 revolutions and the ideas of Giuseppe Mazzini ignited the quest; Count Cavour’s diplomacy, the daring “Thousand” of Giuseppe Garibaldi and the arms of Victor Emmanuel II turned that energy into military and political reality. French backing against Austria in 1859 secured Lombardy, plebiscites brought central duchies under Turin, and victories in 1860 swept the South into the fold.

Italy’s unification accelerated after Prussia humbled the Habsburgs in 1866, granting Venice, and when French troops withdrew from Rome in 1870, allowing Italian forces to breach the Aurelian Walls and end papal rule. By 1871 the capital had shifted from Florence to the Eternal City, signalling completion of a decades‑long process that reshaped Europe’s map and transformed disparate states into a single kingdom.

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