TheLongForty-Eight

TheLongForty-Eight

Neither the Congress of Vienna nor Napoleon’s ultimate defeat at Waterloo in June 1815 erased the memory of the revolutionary and Napoleonic conquests. The ambiguities and fragility of the new settlement left space for unrest that challenged the territorial, political, and social order of the Restoration and the armies of the Holy Alliance. Words such as freedom, political representation, constitution, and national independence inspired new waves of revolution linking Europe, the Mediterranean, and Latin America.

The most sustained, widespread, and intense revolutionary moment took place in 1848. Like falling dominoes, revolution swept through most of Europe with remarkable simultaneity: it erected barricades, introduced new political languages and practices, and extended its influence across continents. It was fuelled by a diverse and shifting array of political, social, and national aspirations able to stir the consciences and emotions of an ever-wider public.

In 1846, the event that galvanised liberal and patriotic public opinion was the election of Pope Pius IX. The new pontiff introduced a series of measures, including an amnesty for political prisoners, which made him popular. Many hoped to see him at the head of the national movement, and demonstrations were organised in his name in every part of the country. The liberal and patriotic myth of Pius IX fuelled the propaganda, symbolism and material culture of the Italian Revolution of 1848, even though the pope quickly distanced himself from that image.

The first spark of revolution broke out in Palermo. Political, social and patriotic aspirations merged in the 12 January 1848 uprising. King Ferdinand II of Bourbon attempted to contain the revolt by granting a constitution. The other Italian sovereigns were obliged to follow suit. The constitution granted at that time in the Kingdom of Sardinia, known as the Albertine Statute after King Charles Albert of Savoy, became the constitutional charter of the Kingdom of Italy at unification in 1861 and remained in force until 1946. These achievements were celebrated in many squares with growing enthusiasm, joy and the flying of flags.

Meanwhile, from the Kingdom of Sardinia, Carlo Alberto moved his army across the River Ticino. The declaration of war against Austria was issued in explicitly patriotic terms. He was joined by mixed units of soldiers and volunteers from the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, the Papal States and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. The conflict remembered as the First War of Independence began.

When the Austrians abandon Milan, the insurrection has already spread to the provinces of Lombardy–Venetia. Within a few days, only the fortresses of Mantua, Verona, Legnago, and Peschiera—the so-called Quadrilatero—remain under their control, and it is there that the columns of the army fleeing from Milan and other cities converge. Holding the Quadrilateral becomes a priority in the defensive and counteroffensive strategy of the Austrian field marshal Josef Radetzky.

The Mantua Committee was divided, and those who feared violent and uncontrolled disturbances in the square prevailed. On the Austrian side, the governor of the fortress, Gorzkovski, adopted a cautious tactic. While awaiting the concentration of troops within the city, he did not quash the political unrest with brutality. This encouraged the Committee’s wait-and-see attitude. The days passed without the anticipated uprising in Mantua, even when the streets filled with barricades. The opportunity slipped away. On 2 April, the Austrian authorities declared a state of siege.

The patriots who were most exposed in favour of the revolution had already left the city, but arrests continued for weeks, as did searches of private houses, cafés, churches and theatres. The military authorities forced citizens to sign off on state debts and pay extraordinary taxes. Food, livestock and any other goods useful to the war effort were requisitioned. In a city full of soldiers, the military authorities reduced the prices of wine and spirits.

The city was sealed off. Entering and leaving were strictly regulated and often prohibited. At times it was impossible to leave even to bury the dead in the cemetery outside the city. Delivery of newspapers and gazettes was controlled, and mail was intercepted. Even towers and bell towers were closed to prevent civilians from observing and communicating secretly with the outside world. Every word spoken was monitored. The Austrian anthem to Emperor Ferdinand was the only one heard in the streets.

This did not mean that the Austrians lost complete control of those regions. At the end of May, they mainly controlled the countryside around the city, but later extended their control towards the River Po. They returned to concentrate around the fortress before the battle of Custoza at the end of July. In addition, the imperial army often carried out inspections, temporary occupations of villages and requisitions. Close to the city, the rural areas were a contested space between the two enemy armies, and this accelerated their politicisation.

For the Mantuan population, prisoners and wounded soldiers offered a rare connection to events beyond the besieged city, especially the Tuscans captured at Curtatone and Montanara and brought to Mantua. The most well-known among them was Giuseppe Montanelli, a professor from Pisa. People flocked to watch them pass through the streets, and every story or anecdote about their condition became a topic of conversation. Those who were entitled to do so visited and helped them in prisons or hospitals. Women sewed and donated shirts. Providing material support became a way to express patriotic feelings that could not otherwise be openly displayed.

Suspicion extended into the countryside. In 1848, many members of the rural bourgeoisie had supported the revolution. This was a class that prospered between the Napoleonic era and the Restoration. Traders, landowners and agricultural tenants, driven by entrepreneurial spirit, had in a few decades become wealthy, entered local government, established homes and social networks in the city, and sent their children to school. In 1848, their descendants, now students, engineers, lawyers and doctors, organised many anti-Austrian activities, often involving their peasants.

Clashes between Austrian forces and inhabitants of the provincial villages continued for years. Searches often uncovered hidden stocks of weapons, ammunition or propaganda in the homes of tenants and farm workers. Churches were not exempt, as clergy were sometimes implicated in resistance and conspiracy. It was not only the economic crisis, social unrest and banditry, aggravated by extraordinary taxes and punitive financial measures, that stirred the Mantuan countryside; a new and widespread political ferment was developing underground.

Another priest, Giovanni Grioli, was the first member of the group to be executed, shot in the autumn of 1851. Shortly afterwards, a scheme for selling self-financing loan bonds promoted by Mazzini was discovered, leading to a wave of arrests and imprisonments. Many managed to escape, but approximately 200 people were put on trial for high treason. During his interrogation, the 30-year-old republican doctor Carlo Poma explained the conspirators’ aim as follows. "To make us Italians independent from Austria and governed by ourselves."

Poma, together with Tazzoli, was among the first five individuals to be convicted at the Mantua trial and executed by hanging in the Belfiore valley, outside the city, in December 1852. Two months later, an attempt at a Mazzinian uprising in Milan, and an attack by a young Hungarian on Emperor Franz Joseph in Vienna, failed. The political climate rendered the sentences still pending in Mantua, including that of the Brescian patriot Tito Speri, even more exemplary, and they were carried out despite the fact that the emperor was about to issue an amnesty.

Those who were executed are still remembered today as the Martyrs of Belfiore. The expression originates directly from the 19th century. For the men and women of the period, describing political activists as martyrs meant placing them within the highest and most legitimate system of values, that of religion. Explicit references to Catholic faith and sacrifice, modelled on the figures of Christ and the saints, shaped the iconography and cult surrounding the relics of these fallen heroes.