Today is my country’s birthday. My controversial but lovely Italy is 150 years old. Pretty young for a country, isn’t it? As a matter of fact, modern Italy is one of the youngest nations in the world, having become unified in 1861 and a republic only after 1946, after World War II.
I hope you won’t mind a brief history lesson.
The process of the unification of Italy is known as the Italian Risorgimento. Back in 19th century there were 4 states in Italy, namely the Austrians’ rule in Venice, the Papal States, the new expanded Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (Naples and Sicily). After Napoleon lost his Empire and his Italian kingdom, Europe was entirely reshaped by the Vienna Congress and Italy started to gain a sense of unity and began to feel the need to become a unified nation. The driving force for this was the economical and philosophical needs of politicians, but slowly even the masses began to see the peninsula as one under the rule of the Savoias.
In April 1860, separate insurrections began in Messina and Palermo in Sicily, both of which had been opposing the Spanish rule. On 6th May 1860, Giuseppe Garibaldi - an Italian patriot and soldier - and his ‘army’ of about a thousand Italian “red shirts” volunteers (called I Mille), left from Quarto near Genoa and landed near Marsala, Sicily, with the aim of “freeing” southern Italy and Sicily from the centuries old rule of the Bourbon Kings from Spain. Garibaldi’s Mille attracted scattered bands of rebels, and the combined forces defeated the enemy at Calatafimi on 13th May. Within three days, the invading force had swelled to 4,000 men. The next day, Garibaldi proclaimed himself governor of Sicily in the name of Vittorio Emanuele II of Italy (previously King of Savoy).
In less than a month, and against all odds, they had seized Palermo. The defeat of the 20,000-strong Bourbon army in Palermo sent a shiver up the spine of Italy and through the Bourbon monarchy in Naples, setting the stage for the unification of Italy and ultimately leading to the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy (17th March 1861) in Turin (Piedmont) which became the first capital of Italy.
The 150 year celebrations started last year in May and will conclude this year. Many events are on the calendar in Italy to mark this momentous occasion. There will also be celebrations around the world, as there are about 60 million Italians, or descendants of Italians, living outside of Italy.
My green-white-and red flag is out in the wind and rain to my neighbours’ great “joy”.
Buon Compleanno, Italia!
