Italy Unification

Rome is made the capital of the Kingdom of Italy

1871 BCE

Rome is made the capital of the Kingdom of Italy. The parliament approves a law that declares the pope the new nation's spiritual leader. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bh86nZdl9GA

France declares war

1870 BCE

France declares war on Prussia and withdraws its last troops from Rome. Napoleon III is defeated in Sedan, and the Italian government takes advantage of this to send a military expedition to fight the Papal States.

Garibaldi cannot forget about Rome

1867 BCE

Garibaldi cannot forget about Rome and the idea of making it the capital; he attempts to conquer it with an expedition of volunteers. The pope is protected by the French, who stop the expedition in Mentana, at the gates of Rome. Garibaldi returns to Caprera.

The Italian parliament

1863 BCE

The Italian parliament proclaims martial law in the south in order to allow extra force against brigandage. To definitively repress the movement, which has the semblance of a civil war, it will take 10 years, with thousands of arrests and executions.

France and Great Britain

1855 BCE

Allied with France and Great Britain, the Kingdom of Sardinia enters the war against Russia, sending a military expedition to fight in the Crimean War. The goal of the Savoy monarchy is not territorial expansion but to secure diplomatic support from the French and British to help Italy respond to Austrian interests in the peninsula. In the meantime, cholera reaches epidemic levels and thousands of people die.

Sardinia approves The Saccardi laws

1850 BCE

The Kingdom of Sardinia approves the Saccardi laws, damaging ties with the Catholic Church. Pius IX returns to Rome. Garibaldi goes to New York City in exile, while Mazzini flees to London. In the Austrian dominated Lombardy Venetia and in the Kingdom of Sardinia, postal reforms result in the introduction of the postage stamp.

The New Congress of Vienna

1848 BCE

The new European political order of the Congress of Vienna is damaged by a wave of revolutionary sentiment that spreads to the entire continent. The first revolts occur in Paris, where the Second Republic is established. The revolutionary wave reaches the states and duchies in Italy, weakening Austria's reign in the peninsula.

The Bandiera brothers

1844 BCE

The Bandiera brothers organize a revolt to create an ‘independent, united and democratic Italian republic with Rome as its capital.' However, there is insufficient support and their revolutionary activities are violently suppressed.

Revolutionary Sentiment

1831 BCE

A second wave of revolutionary sentiment begins to spread from Modena to Perugia thanks to the support of the liberal aristocracy, the bourgeois classes and considerable popular consensus. Provisional governments are created with the aim of enacting a governmental constitution in the insurgent Italian provinces. Revolts are violently suppressed by the Austrian army, which restores the reign of monarchs in their respective states.

Liberal Unification

1821 BCE

Members of the liberal unification movement around the peninsula begin demanding a constitution, which is granted in the Kingdom of Sardinia and the Kingdom of Two Sicilies. Monarchs of the two kingdoms, however, request the Austrian military's help in repressing nationalistic sentiment and revolts. The revolutionary armies are defeated and the monarchies' powers are fully restored.

Congress of Vienna

1815 BCE

At the Congress of Vienna, the powers that had defeated Napoleon-Austria, Russia, Prussia and Great Britain draw a new geopolitical map of Europe. Their objective is to renegotiate the spheres of influence and balance all powers to ensure a period of peace and to restore monarchical absolutism to protect against future revolutionary revolts.