Giuseppe Mazzini
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 5/20/20
-- The Illuminati Leadership Changes, by David Allen Rivera
-- The Life of Mazzini, by Bolton King, M.A.
-- Byron and Goethe, by Giuseppe Mazzini
-- Blavatsky, Garibaldi, and Mazzini, by Jaigurudeva
-- H.P. Blavatsky involvement in Italian Politics with Garibaldi and Mazzini, and the Carbonari’s Role in the Republican Revolutions, by The American Minvervan
-- Theosophy in Italy, by Theosopedia
-- The Extraordinary Life and Influence of Helena Blavatsky: Founder of the Modern Theosophical Movement [EXCERPT], by Sylvia Cranston
-- Hypatia interview (Greek Theosophical Journal), by Erica Georgiades
-- Margaret Fuller, by Wikipedia
Giuseppe Mazzini, Triumvir of the Roman Republic
In office: 5 February 1849 – 3 July 1849
Serving with:Aurelio Saffi, Carlo Armellini
Preceded by: Aurelio Saliceti
Succeeded by: Aurelio Saliceti
Personal details
Born: 22 June 1805, Genoa, Gênes, French Empire
Died: 10 March 1872 (aged 66), Pisa, Italy
Political party: Young Italy (1831–48); Action Party (1848–67)
Alma mater: University of Genoa
Profession: Lawyer Journalist Writer Philosophy career
Era: 19th-century
School: Romanticism; Providentialism
Main interests: History, theology, politics
Notable ideas: Pan-Europeanism, irridentism, popular democracy, class collaboration
Influences: Plato Ugo Foscolo[1] Marquis de Condorcet[1] Jean de Sismondi[1] Lord Byron[1] François-René de Chateaubriand Joseph de Maistre Saint-Simon[1] De Lamennais Jean-Jacques Rousseau Carlo Cattaneo
Influenced: Italian republicans Giuseppe Garibaldi Giovanni Gentile Frederic Harrison[2] George Holyoake[3] Benito Mussolini Pietro Nenni Carlo Rosselli Woodrow Wilson Sun Yat-sen
Giuseppe Mazzini (UK: /mætˈsiːni/,[4] US: /mɑːtˈ-, mɑːdˈziːni/,[5][6] Italian: [dʒuˈzɛppe matˈtsiːni]; 22 June 1805 – 10 March 1872) was an Italian politician, journalist, activist for the unification of Italy, and spearhead of the Italian revolutionary movement. His efforts helped bring about the independent and unified Italy[7] in place of the several separate states, many dominated by foreign powers, that existed until the 19th century. He also helped define the modern European movement for popular democracy in a republican state.[8]
Mazzini's thoughts had a very considerable influence on the Italian and European republican movements, in the Constitution of Italy, about Europeanism, and, more nuanced, on many politicians of a later period: among them, men like U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, but also post-colonial leaders such as Gandhi, Savarkar, Golda Meir, David Ben-Gurion, Kwame Nkrumah, Jawaharlal Nehru and Sun Yat-sen.[9]
Biography
Mazzini's house in Genoa, now seat of the Museum of Risorgimento and of the Mazzinian Institute.
Early years
Mazzini was born in Genoa, then part of the Ligurian Republic, under the rule of the French Empire. His father, Giacomo Mazzini, originally from Chiavari, was a university professor who had adhered to Jacobin ideology;...
A Jacobin was a member of the Jacobin Club, a revolutionary political movement that was the most famous political club during the French Revolution (1789–99). The club was so called because of the Dominican convent in Paris in the Rue Saint-Jacques (Latin: Jacobus) where they originally met.The Society of the Friends of the Constitution (French: Société des amis de la Constitution), after 1792 renamed Society of the Jacobins, Friends of Freedom and Equality commonly known as the Jacobin Club (Club des Jacobins) or simply the Jacobins became the most influential political club during the French Revolution of 1789. The period of their political ascendancy includes the Reign of Terror, during which time well over ten thousand people were put on trial and executed in France, many for political crimes.
Initially founded in 1789 by anti-royalist deputies from Brittany, the club grew into a nationwide republican movement, with a membership estimated at a half million or more.The Jacobin Club was heterogeneous and included both prominent parliamentary factions of the early 1790s, the Mountain and the Girondins.The Mountain was a political group during the French Revolution. Its members, called the Montagnards, sat on the highest benches in the National Assembly.
They were the most radical group and opposed the Girondins. The term, first used during a session of the Legislative Assembly, came into general use in 1793. By the summer of 1793, that pair of opposed minority groups divided the National Convention. That year, led by Maximilien Robespierre, the Montagnards unleashed the Reign of Terror.
The Mountain was composed mainly of members of the middle class, but represented the constituencies of Paris. As such, the Mountain was sensitive to the motivations of the city and responded strongly to demands from the working class sans-culottes. The Montagnards had little understanding of the daily life and needs of the people in the cities and towns beyond Paris. Although they attempted some rural land reform, most of it was never enacted and they generally focused on the needs of the urban poor over that of rural France. The Mountain operated on the belief that what was best for Paris would be best for all of France.
The Girondins were a moderate political faction created during the Legislative Assembly period. They were the political opponents of the more radical representatives within the Mountain. The Girondins had wanted to avoid the execution of Louis XVI and supported a constitution which would have allowed a popular vote to overturn legislation. The Mountain accused the Girondins of plotting against Paris because this caveat within the proposed constitution would have allowed rural areas of France to vote against legislation that benefits Paris, the main constituency of the Mountain. However, the real discord in the Convention occurred not between the Mountain and the Gironde, but between the aggressive antics of the minority of the Mountain and the rest of the Convention.
The Mountain was not unified as a party and relied on leaders like Maximilien Robespierre, Georges Danton and Jacques Hébert, who themselves came to represent different factions. Hébert, a journalist, gained a following as a radical patriot Montagnard (members who identified with him became known as the Hébertists) while Danton led a more moderate faction of the Mountain (followers came to be known as Dantonists). Regardless of the divisions, the nightly sessions of the Jacobin club, which met in the rue Saint-Honoré, can be considered to be a type of caucus for the Mountain. In June 1793, the Mountain successfully ousted most of the moderate Gironde members of the Convention with the assistance of radical sans-culottes.
[[[[The sans-culottes [literally "without breeches") were the common people of the lower classes in late 18th century France, a great many of whom became radical and militant partisans of the French Revolution in response to their poor quality of life under the Ancien Régime. The word sans-culotte, which is opposed to that of the aristocrat, seems to have been used for the first time on 28 February 1791 by officer Gauthier in a derogatory sense, speaking about a "sans-culottes army". The word came in vogue during the demonstration of 20 June 1792.
The name sans-culottes refers to their clothing, and through that to their lower-class status: culottes were the fashionable silk knee-breeches of the 18th-century nobility and bourgeoisie, and the working class sans-culottes wore pantaloons, or trousers, instead. The sans-culottes, most of them urban labourers, served as the driving popular force behind the revolution. They were judged by the other revolutionaries as "radicals" because they advocated a direct democracy, that is to say, without intermediaries such as members of parliament. Though ill-clad people and ill-equipped, with little or no support from the upper class, they made up the bulk of the Revolutionary army and were responsible for many executions during the early years of the French Revolutionary Wars.
-- Sans-culottes, by Wikipedia]]]]
Following their coup, the Mountain, led by Hérault de Séchelles, quickly began construction on a new constitution which was completed eight days later. The Committee of Public Safety reported the constitution to the Convention on 10 June and a final draft was adopted on 24 June. The process occurred quickly because as Robespierre, a prominent member of the Mountain, announced on 10 June the "good citizens demanded a constitution" and the "Constitution will be the reply of patriotic deputies, for it is the work of the Mountain". However, this constitution was never actually enacted. The Constitution of 1793 was abandoned when Robespierre later granted himself and the Committee of Public Safety dictatorial powers in order to "defend the Revolution".
-- The Mountain, by WikipediaThe Girondins, or Girondists, were members of a loosely knit political faction during the French Revolution.
From 1791 to 1793, the Girondins were active in the Legislative Assembly and the National Convention. Together with the Montagnards, they initially were part of the Jacobin movement. They campaigned for the end of the monarchy, but then resisted the spiraling momentum of the Revolution, which caused a conflict with the more radical Montagnards. They dominated the movement until their fall in the insurrection of 31 May – 2 June 1793, which resulted in the domination of the Montagnards and the purge and mass execution of the Girondins. This event is considered to mark the beginning of the Reign of Terror.
The Girondins were a group of loosely affiliated individuals rather than an organized political party and the name was at first informally applied because the most prominent exponents of their point of view were deputies to the Legislative Assembly from the département of Gironde in southwest France. Girondin leader Jacques Pierre Brissot proposed an ambitious military plan to spread the Revolution internationally, therefore the Girondins were the war party in 1792–1793. Other prominent Girondins included Jean Marie Roland and his wife Madame Roland. They also had an ally in the English-born American activist Thomas Paine.
Brissot and Madame Roland were executed and Jean Roland (who had gone into hiding) committed suicide when he learned about the execution. Paine was imprisoned, but he narrowly escaped execution. The famous painting The Death of Marat depicts the killing of the fiery radical journalist and denouncer of the Girondins Jean-Paul Marat by the Girondin sympathizer Charlotte Corday, who was executed. Although the Revolution abolished the three estates voting (the Aristocracy, the Church, and the Commons), factions made impossible any republican countrywide representation.
-- Girondins, by Wikipedia
In 1792–1793 the Girondins were more prominent in leading France, the period when France declared war on Austria and on Prussia, overthrew the monarchy and set up the Republic. In May 1793 the leaders of the Mountain faction led by Maximilien Robespierre succeeded in sidelining the Girondin faction and controlled the government until July 1794. Their time in government featured high levels of political violence, and for this reason the period of the Jacobin/Mountain government is identified as the Reign of Terror. In October 1793, 21 prominent Girondins were guillotined. The Mountain-dominated government executed 17,000 opponents nationwide, purportedly to suppress the Vendée insurrection and the Federalist revolts and to prevent any other insurrections. In July 1794 the National Convention pushed the administration of Robespierre and his allies out of power and had Robespierre and 21 associates executed. In November 1794 the Jacobin Club closed.
Today, the terms "Jacobin" and "Jacobinism" are used in a variety of senses. In Britain, where the term "Jacobin" has been linked primarily to the Mountain, it is sometimes used as a pejorative for radical left-wing revolutionary politics, especially when it exhibits dogmatism and violent repression. In France, "Jacobin" now generally indicates a supporter of a centralized republican state and of strong central government powers and/or supporters of extensive government intervention to transform society. It is also used in other related senses, indicating proponents of a state education system which strongly promotes and inculcates civic values and proponents of a strong nation-state capable of resisting any undesirable foreign interference.
-- Jacobin, by Wikipedia
Today, the terms Jacobin and Jacobinism are used in a variety of senses. In France, Jacobin now generally indicates a supporter of a centralized republican state and strong central government powers and/or supporters of extensive government intervention to transform society. Jacobin is sometimes used in Britain as a pejorative for radical, left-wing revolutionary politics.
-- Jacobin (politics), by Wikipedia
his mother, Maria Drago, was renowned for her beauty and religious (Jansenist) fervour.
Jansenism was a theological movement, primarily in France, that emphasized original sin, human depravity, the necessity of divine grace and predestination. The movement originated from the posthumously published work of the Dutch theologian Cornelius Jansen, who died in 1638. It was first popularized by Jansen's friend Abbot Jean du Vergier de Hauranne, of Saint-Cyran-en-Brenne Abbey, and, after du Vergier's death in 1643, was led by Antoine Arnauld. Through the 17th and into the 18th centuries, Jansenism was a distinct movement away from the Catholic Church. The theological centre of the movement was the convent of Port-Royal-des-Champs Abbey, which was a haven for writers including du Vergier, Arnauld, Pierre Nicole, Blaise Pascal and Jean Racine.
Jansenism was opposed by many in the Catholic hierarchy, especially the Jesuits. Although the Jansenists identified themselves only as rigorous followers of Augustine of Hippo's teachings, Jesuits coined the term Jansenism to identify them as having Calvinist affinities. The apostolic constitution, Cum occasione promulgated by Pope Innocent X in 1653, condemned five cardinal doctrines of Jansenism as heresy—especially the relationship between human free will and efficacious grace, wherein the teachings of Augustine, as presented by the Jansenists, contradicted the teachings of the Jesuit School. Jansenist leaders endeavored to accommodate the pope's pronouncements while retaining their uniqueness, and enjoyed a measure of peace in the late 17th century under Pope Clement IX. However, further controversy led to the apostolic constitution Unigenitus Dei Filius, promulgated by Pope Clement XI in 1713.
-- Jansenism, by Wikipedia
From a very early age, Mazzini showed good learning qualities (as well as a precocious interest in politics and literature). He was admitted to university at 14, graduating in law in 1826, and initially practiced as a "poor man's lawyer". Mazzini also hoped to become a historical novelist or a dramatist, and in the same year wrote his first essay, Dell'amor patrio di Dante ("On Dante's Patriotic Love"), published in 1827.
Whoever contemplates the good of the state contemplates the end of Right....If, therefore, the Romans had in view the good of the state, the assertion is true that they had in view the end of Right.
That in subduing the world the Roman people had in view the aforesaid good, their deeds declare. We behold them as a nation holy, pious, and full of glory, putting aside all avarice, which is ever adverse to the general welfare, cherishing universal peace and liberty, and disregarding private profit to guard the public weal of humanity. Rightly was it written, then, that "The Roman Empire takes its rise in the fountain of pity."
Concerning corporate assemblies, in which individuals seem in a measure bound to the state, the solitary authority of Cicero in the second book of Moral Duties is sufficient. "So long," he says, "as the dominion of the Republic was upheld by benefits, not by injuries, war was waged in behalf either of allies or dominion, for a conclusion either beneficent or necessary, the Senate was a harbor of refuge for kings, peoples, and nations. Our magistrates and generals strove for praise in defending with equity and fidelity the provinces and the allies; so this government might rather have been called a defense than a dominion of the whole world."
Of individual persons I shall speak briefly. Can we say they were not intent on the common weal who in sweat, in poverty, in exile, in deprivation of children, in loss of limbs, and even in the sacrifice of their lives, strove to augment the public good?
Did not the renowned Cincinnatus leave to us a sacred example, when he freely chose the time to lay aside that dignity which, as Livy says, took him from the plough to make him dictator? After his victory, after his triumph, he gave back to the consuls the imperial sceptre, and voluntarily returned to toil at the plough handle behind his oxen. Cicero, disputing with Epicurus in his volume of the Chief Good, remembered and lauded this excellent action, saying, "And thus our ancestors took great Cincinnatus from the plough that he might become dictator."
And did not Brutus first teach that the love of sons and of all others should be subordinated to the love of national liberty? When he was consul, Livy says, he delivered up to death his own sons for conspiring with the enemy. In the sixth book our Poet revives the glory of this hero: "In behalf of beauteous liberty shall the father doom to death his own sons instigating new wars."
That people, then, which was victorious over all the contestants for Empire gained its victory by the decree of God. For as it is of deeper concern to God to adjust a universal contention than a particular one, and as even in particular contentions the decree of God is sought by the contestants, according to the familiar proverb, "To him whom God grants aught, let Peter give his blessing," therefore undoubtedly among the contestants for the Empire of the world, victory ensued from a decree of God. That among the rivals for world-Empire the Roman people came off victor will be clear if we consider the contestants and the prize or goal toward which they strove. This prize or goal was sovereign power over all mortals, or what we mean by Empire. This was attained by none save by the Roman people, not only the first but the sole contestant to reach the goal contended for.
The kingdom is apportioned by the sword, and the fortune of the mighty nation that is master over sea, over land, and over all the globe, suffers not two in command. Wars engaged in for the crown of Empire should be waged without bitterness.
If to contradict the truth thus manifested, the usual objection be raised concerning the inequality of men's strength, it may be refuted by the instance of David's victory over Goliath. And if the Gentiles seek another instance, they may refute it by the victory of Hercules over Antaeus.
Now let presumptuous jurists behold how far they stand beneath that watch-tower of reason whence the human mind looks out upon these principles, and let them be silent, content to give counsel and judgment according to the import of the law.
Thus far the argument has progressed through reason based chiefly on rational principles, but from now on it shall be re-demonstrated through the principles of Christian faith.
Now Christ willed to be born of a Virgin Mother under an edict of Roman authority, according to the testimony of Luke, his scribe, in order that the Son of Man, made man, might be numbered as a man in that unique census. This fulfilled the edict. It were perhaps more reverent to believe that the Divine Will caused the edict to go forth through Caesar, in order that God might number Himself among the society of mortals who had so many ages awaited His coming. So Christ in His action established as just the edict of Augustus, exerciser of Roman authority. Since to decree justly presupposes jurisdictional power, whoever confirms the justice of an edict confirms also the jurisdictional power whence it issued.
By the sin of Adam we are all sinners, according to the Apostle: "As by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.'" If satisfaction had not been given for this sin through the death of Christ, we, owing to our depraved nature, should still be children of wrath.
For greater clearness, let it be understood that punishment is not simply penalty visited upon the doer of wrong, but penalty visited upon the doer of wrong by one having penal jurisdiction. Wherefore unless punishment is inflicted by a lawful judge, it is no punishment; rather must it be called a wrong. If therefore Christ did not suffer under a lawful judge, his penalty was not punishment. Lawful judge meant in that case one having jurisdiction over the entire human race, since all humanity was punished in the flesh of Christ, who, as the Prophet says, "hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows." And Tiberius Caesar, whose vicar was Pilate, would not have possessed jurisdiction over the entire human race had not the Roman Empire existed by Right. Wherefore let those who pretend they are sons of the Church cease to defame the Roman Empire, to which Christ the Bridegroom gave His sanction both at the beginning and at the close of His warfare.
It must be understood that man alone of all beings holds the middle place between corruptibility and incorruptibility, and is therefore rightly compared by philosophers to the horizon which lies between the two hemispheres. Man may be considered with regard to either of his essential parts, body or soul. If considered in regard to the body alone, he is perishable; if in regard to the soul alone, he is imperishable.
If man holds a middle place between the perishable and imperishable, then, inasmuch as every mean shares the nature of the extremes, man must share both natures. And inasmuch as every nature is ordained for a certain ultimate end, it follows that there exists for man a twofold end, in order that as he alone of all beings partakes of the perishable and the imperishable, so he alone of all beings should be ordained for two ultimate ends.
Ineffable Providence has thus designed two ends to be contemplated of man: first, the happiness of this life, which consists in the activity of his natural powers, and is prefigured by the terrestrial Paradise; and then the blessedness of life everlasting, which consists in the enjoyment of the countenance of God, to which man's natural powers may not attain unless aided by divine light, and which may be symbolized by the celestial Paradise.
To these states of blessedness, just as to diverse conclusions, man must come by diverse means. To the former we come by the teachings of philosophy, obeying them by acting in conformity with the moral and intellectual virtues; to the latter through spiritual teachings which transcend human reason, and which we obey by acting in conformity with the theological virtues, Faith, Hope, and Charity. Now the former end and means are made known to us by human reason, which the philosophers have wholly explained to us; and the latter by the Holy Spirit, which has revealed to us supernatural but essential truth through the Prophets and Sacred Writers, through Jesus Christ, the coeternal Son of God, and through His disciples. Nevertheless, human passion would cast all these behind, were not men, like horses astray in their brutishness, held to the road by bit and rein.
Wherefore a twofold directive agent was necessary to man, in accordance with the twofold end; the Supreme Pontiff to lead the human race to life eternal by means of revelation, and the Emperor to guide it to temporal felicity by means of philosophic instruction. And since none or few -- and these with exceeding difficulty -- could attain this port, were not the waves of seductive desire calmed, and mankind made free to rest in the tranquillity of peace, therefore this is the goal which he whom we call the guardian of the earth and Roman Prince should most urgently seek; then would it be possible for life on this mortal threshing-floor to pass in freedom and peace.
-- De Monarchia of Dante Alighieri
In 1828–29 he collaborated with a Genoese newspaper, L'Indicatore Genovese, which was however soon closed by the Piedmontese authorities. He then became one of the leading authors of L'Indicatore Livornese, published at Livorno by F. D. Guerrazzi, until this paper was closed down by the authorities, too.
In 1827 Mazzini travelled to Tuscany, where he became a member of the Carbonari, a secret association with political purposes.
The Carbonari (Italian for "charcoal makers") was an informal network of secret revolutionary societies active in Italy from about 1800 to 1831. The Italian Carbonari may have further influenced other revolutionary groups in France, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Brazil and Uruguay. Although their goals often had a patriotic and liberal basis, they lacked a clear immediate political agenda. They were a focus for those unhappy with the repressive political situation in Italy following 1815, especially in the south of the Italian Peninsula. Members of the Carbonari, and those influenced by them, took part in important events in the process of Italian unification (called the Risorgimento), especially the failed Revolution of 1820, and in the further development of Italian nationalism. The chief purpose was to defeat tyranny and to establish constitutional government. In the north of Italy other groups, such as the Adelfia and the Filadelfia, were associate organizations.
The Carbonari were a secret society divided into small covert cells scattered across Italy. Although agendas varied, evidence suggests that despite regional variations, most of them agreed upon the creation of a liberal, unified Italy. The Carbonari were anti-clerical in both their philosophy and programme. The Papal constitution Ecclesiam a Jesu Christo and the encyclical Qui pluribus were directed against them. The controversial document Alta Vendita, which called for a liberal or modernist takeover of the Catholic Church, was attributed to the Sicilian Carbonari....VII. Felice's letter, written by Ancona on 11 June 1829 after the publication of the Encyclical of Pius VIII on 24 May 1829. The High Sale in reading it was believed to be betrayed.
We are not used to hearing the Pope express himself with this resolution. This language is not in the style of the apostolic palaces: if it was used in this solemn circumstance, it must be said that Pius VIII obtained some proof of our conspiracy. It is up to those in Rome to watch over everyone's safety more than ever; but in the presence of such an explicit declaration of war, I would like it to be deemed appropriate to lay down arms for a moment.
The multitude has always had a great propensity for counter truths. Ingannatela; she loves to be deceived; but, mind you, no precipitation, and above all no recourse to arms. Our friend of Osimo who has tested the ground says that we must go bravely to make our Easter and thus to sleep the vigilance of the authority.
"Assuming that the Court of Rome has not entered into any suspicion of our trade, do you believe that the attitude of these frenzied carbonari cannot, at any moment, put it on our trail? We are playing with fire and we must not end up burning ourselves. If, by dint of assassinations and liberal strikes, the Carbonari throw a new enterprise on the arms of Italy, do we not fear being compromised? To give our project the full extent it must have, we have to work slowly, quietly, gradually gain ground and never lose a hand. The lightning flashed from the top of the Vatican Loggia may presage a hurricane. Are we in case we can avoid it? And will this storm not delay the harvest of our harvest? The carbonari are stirred with a thousand sterile vows; every day they are prophesying a universal turmoil. This will be our undoing; for then the parties will be more severely separated, and it will be necessary to opt for one or the other. From this choice a crisis will inevitably arise, and from this crisis an update or an unexpected disaster".
***
X. Letter from Nubius to Beppo, dated April 7, 1836.
Mazzini is a demigod for the foolish, before whom he tries to be proclaimed the pontiff of the fraternity, of which he will be the Italian god. In the sphere in which he acts, this poor Joseph is ridiculous; for him to be a complete ferocious beast, he will always miss his claws.
"He is the bourgeois gentleman of the secret societies that my dear Molière did not have the ability to glimpse. Let him take him to the taverns of Lake Geneva, or hide his importance and his real emptiness in the brothels of London. Let him perish or write, at ease with the old insurrection leftovers, or with his general Ramorino of the young Italy, the young Allemagne, the young Francie, the young Polonia, the young Swiss, etc. If this can serve as food for his insatiable pride, we do not object; but make him understand, even if using the terms that will seem more convenient to you, that the association of which he speaks no longer exists, even that it never existed; that you do not know it, and that although you must declare to it that if it existed, it would certainly have taken the least appropriate way to enter it. Granted the case of its existence, this Sale is evidently above all the others; it is the S. Giovanni in Laterano, caput et mater omnium ecclesiarum [Google translate: St. John Lateran, the head and the mother of all churches]. The elect are called to him, who alone are recognized as worthy of being introduced to him. Up to this day, Mazzini would have been excluded: does he not think that by putting himself in the middle, by force or by cunning, in a secret that does not belong to him, does he perhaps expose himself to dangers that he has already incurred more than once?
"Accostinate this last thought in your way; but send it to the high priest of the dagger, and I, who know his consummate prudence, make a pledge that this thought will produce its effect on the infringing".
***
XI. Letter of Vindice, written by Castellamare, to Nubius, on August 9, 1838. He carries out the theory of high sale.
What does it matter to the world about an unknown corpse, lying on the public road, by the revenge of the secret societies? What does it matter to the people that the blood of a worker, an artist, a gentleman, or even a prince was shed by virtue of a sentence from Mazzini, or any of his assassins who is seriously enjoying Sainte-Vehme? The world does not even have time to look after the victim's last moans: he passes and forgets. We, dear Nubio, we alone are the ones who can suspend his march. Catholicism, even less than the Monarchy, does not fear the tip of a style; but these two bases of social order can fall under the weight of corruption. So let us never tire of corrupting. Tertullian rightly said that the blood of martyrs was the seed of Christians. Now it is decided in our councils that we no longer want Christians: therefore we do not make martyrs; but we popularize vice in multitudes. Let them breathe it with the five senses, drink it, saturate it; and this land, where Aretino sowed, is always willing to receive obscene and lecherous teachings. Make vicious hearts, and you will no longer have Catholics. Remove the priest from work, from the altar, and from virtue: rightly try to occupy his thoughts and his time elsewhere. Make him idle, gluttonous, and patriotic, he will become ambitious, intriguing and perverse. In this way, you will have fulfilled your task much better than if you had broken the point of your dagger in the bones of some poor poor man. I do not want, as for me, and I believe that you too, O Nubio, do not want to become a vulgar conspirator, and thus spend your life in the old way of conspiracies.
"We have undertaken corruption on a large scale, the corruption of the people by means of the clergy, and of the clergy by our means, the corruption that must lead us to the burial of the Church. One of our friends, days ago, was laughing philosophically at our plans and saying: "To break down Catholicism, we must first suppress the woman." This phrase is true in one sense, but since we cannot suppress the woman, let's bribe her together with the Church. Corruptio optimi pessima [Google translate: The corruption of the best is the worst]. The purpose is very nice to tempt men like us; let's depart to run after some miserable satisfaction of personal revenge. The best dagger to assassinate the Church and hit her in the heart, is corruption. So work to the end!"
***
XII. Idea sottomessa all'Alta Vendita da tre suoi membri il 23 febbraio 1839.
To renounce our plans against the Roman See, since the slightest indiscretion can reveal everything. An assassination that will not go unnoticed like many others will put our meetings on track. It is therefore necessary to take effective measures, and to promptly stop certain acts that compromise us.
"What the Christian Society allows itself for its defense, and what Carbonarism, through some of its leaders, regards as lawful and political, must not frighten us more than Society and Carbonarism. The death penalty is applied by the courts. The Sainte-Vehme of young Switzerland and young Italy the same right arrogates; why wouldn't we do the same? Its four or five members who recruit their dagger mercenaries and point them to the victim to be hit in the shadows, are supposed to be superior to all laws. They challenge them now in Switzerland, now in England, now in America. The hospitality accorded by these states is a guarantee of impunity for international killers. They can thus, and with all their comfort, agitate Europe, threaten princes and individuals, and make us lose the fruit of our long vigils. Justice that really has an eye patch sees nothing, guesses nothing, and above all it could do nothing, because between the dagger and the victim's this is his business. Ours will be much less complicated, since we must hope that we will not have vain scruples.
"Now, therefore, certain dissidents who today are not very dangerous, but who may become later, even for their proud incapacity and for their disordered infatuation, put the High Sale in danger at any moment. They begin their experiments with the assassination of princes, or dark individuals. Soon, by the force of things, they will reach us; and, after compromising us with a thousand useless crimes, they will mysteriously make us disappear as obstacles. It is simply a matter of preventing them, and turning the dagger against them that they point against us.
"Would it be very difficult for High Sale to put into practice a project that one of its members presented to the Prince of Metternich [1st State Chancellor of the Austrian Empire]? Here is the plan in all its simplicity: "You cannot" -- he said confidentially to the Chancellor -- "hit the heads of secret societies, who, in neutral or protective territory, challenge your justice and despise your laws. The decrees of your criminal courts are powerless before the coast of England; they spring up on the hospitable rocks of Switzerland, then, month after month, you find yourself weaker and weaker, more and more disarmed in the face of daring provocations. The justice of your courts is condemned to sterility. You could not find yourself in the arsenal of your state needs, in the Salus populi suprema lexa [The health of the populace is the supreme law] remedy for the evils that all honest hearts deplore? Occult associations judge and enforce their decrees with the right that they arrogate themselves. Constituted governments, having a double interest in defending themselves, since in defending themselves they safeguard the whole Company, would they not have the same right that Sales usurp? Would it therefore be impossible to combine any means which, bringing disorder within the social enemy, reassured the good, and promptly ended up frightening the wicked? These means are also indicated by the latter. They strike second or third hand; hit like them. Have discreet agents, or better yet, erratic carbonari who want to redeem their old sins by attacking the secret police, that they are tacitly helped to take precautions to escape the first investigations who ignore the plot of which the instruments [they] will be. That the government does not rage either to starboard or left, that it does not miss a beat; but that you aim right, and after making two or three men disappear, you will restore order in society. Those who do the job of killing will be surprised at first, then they will be afraid to find terrible executioners no less than they. Ignoring whence the blow starts, they will inevitably attribute it to their rivals. They will be afraid of their accomplices, and will soon put the sword back in their sheath, since fear is soon communicated in the darkness. Death occurs. Who ignore the plot of which the instruments will be? Close your eyes, and since the righteousness of men cannot affect our modern Old Men of the Mountain in their caves, let the justice of God penetrate you in the form of a friend, a servant, or an accomplice who will have a perfect passport in Rule".
"This plan which the incurable carelessness of the Court and State Chancellor rejected for reasons which the Empires may repent of later, procured for our brother and friend the full confidence of the government; but the means of health that the heads crowned disdain for themselves will therefore be forbidden to use them for our preservation? If in one way or another the High Sale was discovered, it would not be possible to make us responsible for attacks by other salespeople? We do not go forward with the insurrection or with the assassination: but since we could not divulge our anti-Catholic projects, it would follow that the High Sale would be accused of all these ignominious pitfalls. The expedient that remains for us to escape such a disgraceful fact, one has to discreetly arm some good will brave enough to punish, but limited enough not to understand too much.
"The dissidents voluntarily put themselves out of the law of nations, they put themselves out of the law of secret societies; why wouldn't we apply the code they invented to them? The governments, brutalized in their lethargy, back away from the axiom: Patere legem quam fecisti [Google translate: That you obey the law]; wouldn't it be appropriate to take it? We have a combination that is as simple as it is infallible to get rid of the fake brothers and sisters who allow themselves to harm us by decreeing the murder. This combination, well used, inevitably brings upset and distrust in insubordinate sales. By judging in turn and chastening those who judge and punish others so summarily, we separate the good wheat from the tares, and restore the social balance with a method of which some wretched provide us with the recipe. The combination is applicable; we can strike without arousing suspicion, thus paralyze and dissolve the opposite Sales where the murder is taught: and we will be authorized, if necessary.
***
XIII. Letter from Gaetano to Nubius dated January 23, 1844.
After contributing, as far as he was concerned, to the perversion of the people, the reflections came, and he gives advice which is an early renunciation, or an end to opposition.
There are insatiable passions that I did not imagine, unknown appetites, wild hatreds that ferment around and below us. Passions, appetites and hatreds, all this can one day devour us, and if there were time to remedy this gangrene, it would be a real benefit for us. It was very easy to pervert, will it be equally easy to always turn the mouths of perverts? Here is the serious question for me. Often I have tried to deal with you; you have avoided the explanation. Nowadays it is no longer possible to update it, since time is pressing, and in Switzerland, as in Austria, in Prussia, as in Italy, our sectarians who will tomorrow be our masters (and what masters, or Nubius!) waiting for a signal to break the old model. Switzerland intends to give this signal; but those Swiss radicals full of the ideas of their Mazzini, their Communists, their alliance of saints and the Proletariat-Thief are not capable of leading the secret societies to the assault of Europe. France must stamp its footprint on this universal orgy: be convinced that Paris will not fail in its mission. Given and received the impulse, where will this poor Europe go? I am worried, since I get old, I have lost my illusions, and I would not, poor and naked of everything, assist like a theater figure to the triumph of a principle that I would have hatched and that would repudiate me, confiscating my possessions or taking my head.
To update this moment? Do you believe that your measurements were taken well enough to dominate the motion that we have impressed? In Vienna, when the bell of the revolutionary flock rings, we will be swallowed up by the crowd, and the precarious leader who will come out is perhaps at this hour in the bathroom, or in some place of bad business. In our Italy, where a double game is played, you must be troubled by the same fears. Have we not stirred the same mud? This slime mounts to the surface, and I fear I will die suffocated by it.
"Whatever the future reserved for the ideas that the secret societies propagated, we will be defeated and find masters. This was not our dream of 1825, nor our hopes of 1831! Our strength is ephemeral, and passes on to others. God knows where this progress towards the brutalization will stop. I would not retreat from my works if we could always direct them, explain them, or apply them. But don't you feel the fear that I feel in Vienna yourself? You don't confess like me that if there is still time to stop in the temple before making it above the ruins? This stop is still possible, and you alone, or Nubio, can decide it. And while doing this with skill, you could not play the part of Penelope and break the plot that would occur in the warp night?]
"The world has launched itself on the slope of Democracy; and, for my own part, for some time, democracy has always meant demagoguery. Our twenty years of conspiracies run the risk of being wiped out in front of some braggart who will flatter the people and pull to the legs of the nobility after strafing the clergy. I am a gentleman, and I sincerely confess that it would cost me to walk with the plebs, and wait for his daily bread, and the light that shines from his approval. With a revolution like what is being prepared for us we can lose everything, and I want to keep it. You too, dear friend, must be of my opinion, because you own and will no longer love me to hear the word of confiscation and proscription of the Egloghe repeat in your ears,the fatal cry of the stripper:
Haec mea sunt; veteres, migrated settlers [Google translate: This is mine; The ancient migrated settlers.]
"I own, I want to possess, and the Revolution can strip us of everything fraternally. Other ideas still worry me, and I am sure that they worry many of our friends at the same time. I still do not feel remorse; but I am agitated by fears, and in your place, in the situation in which I see the spirits in Europe, I would not want to assume on my head a responsibility that can lead Giuseppe Mazzini to the Capitol. Mazzini to the Capitol! Nubius to the Tarpea cliff or to oblivion! Here is the dream that pursues me if if your vows were fulfilled. Does this dream smile to you, O Nubio?"The Tarpeian Rock (/tɑːrˈpiːən/; Latin: Rupes Tarpeia or Saxum Tarpeium; Italian: Rupe Tarpea) is a steep cliff of the southern summit of the Capitoline Hill, overlooking the Roman Forum in Ancient Rome. It was used during the Roman Republic as an execution site. Murderers, traitors, perjurors, and larcenous slaves, if convicted by the quaestores parricidii, were flung from the cliff to their deaths. The cliff was about 25 meters (80 ft) high.
-- Tarpeian Rock, by Wikipedia
-- Documents Regarding Alta Vendita [The Permanent Instruction of the Alta Vendita], from L'Eglise romaine et la Révolution, by Crétineau-Joly
Although a plethora of theories have been advanced as to the origins of the Carbonari, the organization most likely emerged as an offshoot of Freemasonry, as part of the spread of liberal ideas from the French Revolution. They first became influential in the Kingdom of Naples (under the control of Joachim Murat) and in the Papal States, the most resistant opposition to the Risorgimento.
-- Carbonari, by Wikipedia
On 31 October of that year he was arrested at Genoa and interned at Savona. In early 1831, he was released from prison, but confined to a small hamlet. He chose exile instead, moving to Geneva in Switzerland.
Failed insurrections
Giuseppe Mazzini.
In 1831 Mazzini went to Marseille, where he became a popular figure among the Italian exiles. He was a frequent visitor to the apartment of Giuditta Bellerio Sidoli, a beautiful Modenese widow who became his lover.[10]
Giuditta Bellerio Sidoli (1804 - 28 March 1871) was an Italian patriot and revolutionary protagonist in multiple efforts for Italian unification. She was also the lover of Giuseppe Mazzini for a period and operated a salon in Turin for Italian expatriates.
Giuditta Bellerio was born in 1804 in Milan, the daughter of a magistrate of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy. She married Giovanni Sidoli, a member of the Carbonari, at the age of sixteen. Following a revolution in 1820-1821, Giovanni Sidoli was forced to flee to Switzerland, and was later joined by Giuditta after she gave birth to a daughter. Giovanni died in 1828 of a lung ailment. Afterwards, she left for Giovanni's hometown Reggio Emilia to live with her in-laws and four children. During another wave of revolutionary activity in 1830-1831 she joined Ciro Menotti in revolutionary plots against the Duchy of Modena. She fled to Switzerland again as the Austrians put down the revolution.
In 1832, Giuditta settled with her brother in Marseille, running her apartment as a haven for Italian revolutionary exiles. There she met Giuseppe Mazzini and became his lover. Mazzini once told her "Smile at me always! It is the only smile that comes to me from life." Giuditta Sidoli would run the finances for Mazzini's new Young Italy society. Giuditta gave birth to a son named Joseph Aristide while in Marseilles, almost certainly fathered by Mazzini. Sidoli would continue to follow Mazzini and nurse him in his bad health as he moved to Geneva.
Sidoli attempted to return to Italy under an assumed name in 1833 in order to see her children, whom she had left behind when she left for Marseilles, but was prevented from entering. She did little else until 1852 when she operated a salon for Italian revolutionaries. By this time her love affair with Mazzini was effectively over, and they rarely saw each other again.
Giuditta Sidoli died of pneumonia on 28 March 1871. She refused last rites saying, she did, "not believe in the God of the Catholic Church—only in the God of exiles and the downtrodden."
-- Giuditta Bellerio Sidoli, by Wikipedia
In August 1832 Giuditta Sidoli gave birth to a boy, almost certainly Mazzini's son, whom she named Joseph Démosthène Adolpe Aristide after members of the family of Démosthène Ollivier, with whom Mazzini was staying. The Olliviers took care of the child in June 1833 when Giuditta and Mazzini left for Switzerland. The child died in February 1835.
Mazzini organized a new political society called Young Italy. Young Italy was a secret society formed to promote Italian unification: "One, free, independent, republican nation."[12]
Young Italy (Italian: La Giovine Italia) was a political movement for Italian youth (under age 40) founded in 1831 by Giuseppe Mazzini. After a few months of leaving Italy, in June 1831, Mazzini wrote a letter to King Charles Albert of Sardinia, in which he asked him to unite Italy and lead the nation. A month later, convinced that his demands did not reach the king, he founded the movement in Marseille. It would then spread out to other nations across Europe. The movement's goal was to create a united Italian republic through promoting a general insurrection in the Italian reactionary states and in the lands occupied by the Austrian Empire. Mazzini's belief was that a popular uprising would create a unified Italy. The slogan that defined the movement's aim was "Union, Strength, and Liberty". The phrase could be found in the tricolor Italian flag, which represented the country's unity.
-- Young Italy (historical), by Wikipedia
Mazzini believed that a popular uprising would create a unified Italy, and would touch off a European-wide revolutionary movement.[10] The group's motto was God and the People,[13] and its basic principle was the unification of the several states and kingdoms of the peninsula into a single republic as the only true foundation of Italian liberty. The new nation had to be: "One, Independent, Free Republic".
Mazzini's political activism met some success in Tuscany, Abruzzi, Sicily, Piedmont, and his native Liguria, especially among several military officers. Young Italy counted about 60,000 adherents in 1833, with branches in Genoa and other cities. In that year Mazzini first attempted insurrection, which would spread from Chambéry (then part of the Kingdom of Sardinia), Alessandria, Turin, and Genoa. However, the Savoy government discovered the plot before it could begin and many revolutionaries (including Vincenzo Gioberti) were arrested. The repression was ruthless: 12 participants were executed, while Mazzini's best friend and director of the Genoese section of the Giovine Italia, Jacopo Ruffini, killed himself. Mazzini was tried in absentia and sentenced to death.
Despite this setback (whose victims later created numerous doubts and psychological strife in Mazzini), he organized another uprising for the following year. A group of Italian exiles were to enter Piedmont from Switzerland and spread the revolution there, while Giuseppe Garibaldi, who had recently joined Young Italy, was to do the same from Genoa.
Giuseppe Maria Garibaldi (4 July 1807 – 2 June 1882) was an Italian general, patriot, and republican. He contributed to the Italian unification and the creation of the Kingdom of Italy. He is considered to be one of Italy's "fathers of the fatherland", along with Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, Victor Emmanuel II of Italy and Giuseppe Mazzini. Garibaldi is also known as the "Hero of the Two Worlds" because of his military enterprises in South America and Europe.
Garibaldi was a follower of the Italian nationalist Mazzini, and embraced the republican nationalism of the Young Italy movement. He became a supporter of Italian unification under a democratic Republican government. After participating in an uprising in Piedmont, he was sentenced to death, but escaped by sailing to South America; he spent 14 years in exile, taking part in several wars and learning the art of guerrilla warfare. In 1835, in Brazil, he took up the cause of the Riograndense Republic in its attempt to proclaim another republic within Santa Catarina, joining the rebels known as the Farrapos. Garibaldi also became involved in the Uruguayan Civil War, raising an Italian force known as Redshirts, and is still celebrated as an important contributor to Uruguayan independence.
In 1848, Garibaldi returned to Italy and commanded and fought in military campaigns that eventually led to Italian unification. The provisional government of Milan made him a general, and in 1849, the Minister of War promoted him to General of the Roman Republic. When the war of independence broke out in April 1859, he led his Hunters of the Alps in the capture of Varese and Como and reached the frontier of South Tyrol; the war ended with the acquisition of Lombardy. The following year, he led the Expedition of the Thousand on behalf of and with the consent of Victor Emmanuel II. The expedition was a success and concluded with the annexation of Sicily, Southern Italy, Marche and Umbria to the Kingdom of Sardinia, before the creation of a unified Kingdom of Italy on 17 March 1861. His last military campaign took place during the Franco-Prussian War, as commander of the Army of the Vosges.
Garibaldi became an international figurehead for national independence and republican ideals. He was showered with admiration and praises by many intellectuals and political figures, such as Abraham Lincoln, William Brown, Francesco de Sanctis, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, George Sand, Charles Dickens, Friedrich Engels, and Che Guevara. Historian A. J. P. Taylor called him "the only wholly admirable figure in modern history". In the popular telling of his story, he is associated with the red shirts that his volunteers, the Garibaldini, wore in lieu of a uniform.
-- Giuseppe Garibaldi, by Wikipedia
However, the Piedmontese troops easily crushed the new attempt.
In the spring of 1834, while at Bern, Mazzini and a dozen refugees from Italy, Poland, and Germany founded a new association with the grandiose name of Young Europe. Its basic, and equally grandiose idea, was that, as the French Revolution of 1789 had enlarged the concept of individual liberty, another revolution would now be needed for national liberty; and his vision went further because he hoped that in the no doubt distant future free nations might combine to form a loosely federal Europe with some kind of federal assembly to regulate their common interests. [...] His intention was nothing less than to overturn the European settlement agreed in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna, which had reestablished an oppressive hegemony of a few great powers and blocked the emergence of smaller nations. [...] Mazzini hoped, but without much confidence, that his vision of a league or society of independent nations would be realized in his own lifetime. In practice Young Europe lacked the money and popular support for more than a short-term existence. Nevertheless he always remained faithful to the ideal of a united continent for which the creation of individual nations would be an indispensable preliminary.[14]
On 28 May 1834 Mazzini was arrested at Solothurn, and exiled from Switzerland. He moved to Paris, where he was again imprisoned on 5 July. He was released only after promising he would move to England. Mazzini, together with a few Italian friends, moved in January 1837 to live in London in very poor economic conditions.