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Introductory Note
Introductory Note
[See Giuseppe Mazzini, 1847: Portrait of Giuseppe Mazzini, by Madame Venturi,
about 1847.]
Giuseppe Mazzini, the great political idealist of the Italian struggle
for independence, was born at Genoa, June 22, 1805. His faith in democracy and
his enthusiasm for a free Italy he inherited from his parents; and while still
a student in the University of Genoa he gathered round him a circle of youths
who shared his dreams. At the age of twenty-two he joined the secret society
of the Carbonari, and was sent on a mission to Tuscany, where he was entrapped
and arrested. On his release, he set about the formation, among the Italian
exiles in Marseilles, of the Society of Young Italy, which had for its aim the
establishment of a free and united Italian republic. His activities led to a
decree for his banishment from France, but he succeeded in outwitting the
spies of the Government and going on with his work. The conspiracy for a
national rising planned by Young Italy was discovered, many of the leaders
were executed, and Mazzini himself condemned to death.
Almost at once, however, he resumed operations, working this time from
Geneva; but another abortive expedition led to his expulsion from Switzerland.
He found refuge, but at first hardly a livelihood, in London, where he
continued his propaganda by means of his pen. He went back to Italy when the
revolution of 1848 broky out, and fought fiercely but in vain against the
French, when they besieged Rome and ended the Roman Republic in 1849.
Defeated and broken, he returned to England, where he remained till
called to Italy by the insurrection of 1857. He worked with Garibaldi for some
time; but the kingdom established under Victor Emmanuel by Cavour and
Garibaldi was far from the ideal Italy for which Mazzini had striven. The last
years of his life were spent mainly in London, but at the end he returned to
Italy, where he died on March 10, 1872. Hardly has any age seen a political
martyr of a purer or nobler type.
[See Mazzini 1870: Portrait of Giuseppe Mazzini, about 1870.]
Mazzini`s essay on Byron and Goethe is more than literary criticism, for
it exhibits that philosophical quality which gives so remarkable a unity to
the writings of Mazzini, whether literary, social, or political.
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