Risorgimento
리소르지멘토
Italian for "resurgence": the 19th-century political and social movement that united the Italian peninsula, divided into separate states after the Congress of Vienna. Through the risings of the 1820s and 1830s and the revolutions of 1848 it led to the annexation of the peninsula's states by the Kingdom of Sardinia and the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861, completed with the capture of Rome in 1870 and its designation as capital in 1871.
In depth
Plans for unity divided between a confederation under the Pope (Gioberti's Neo-Guelphism), one led by Piedmont (Balbo) and the republic of Mazzini and Cattaneo. After the defeat of 1848–1849 the initiative passed to the House of Savoy and Cavour, and unity came through diplomacy, French military aid, Garibaldi's Expedition of the Thousand and annexation to the Kingdom of Sardinia. The new kingdom was the Kingdom of Sardinia renamed, with Piedmont's king, constitution and officials.
Historians are sharply divided. Bianchi and Tivaroni saw a providential meeting of democrats and moderates through the monarchy, Croce and Omodeo the work of a liberal minority, and Volpe celebrated a dynastic war as the forerunner of fascism. Salvemini and Gramsci saw a "failed revolution" that left out the peasant masses, which Gramsci conceptualised as a "passive revolution". After the war Mack Smith, Riall and others re-examined the unification.