Politicsandcelebrities

Politicsandcelebrities

The attack was meant to strike at a person Italian patriots considered a traitor and a barrier to unification. In 1849, the French army had crushed the Roman Republic and since then acted as guarantor of the territorial integrity of the Papal States. Felice Orsini, a radical, a subject of the Papal States and an exile of the Roman Republic, was the architect of the attack. For him, killing Napoleon III meant avenging the past and offering a future to the Italian cause. The attack received enormous media coverage. The large number of civilian casualties and the spectacular nature of the act shocked European public opinion, and the trial of the accused was followed closely. Orsini maintained a contrite yet firm and dignified manner in court. His defence counsel, Jules Favre, a leading figure in the French democratic movement, read a letter from Orsini to the emperor, in which the reckless act was recast as a tragic appeal on behalf of the Italian cause.

Orsini’s 1848 was marked by feverish military activity. Serving as an officer in a Bolognese volunteer corps, he took part in the First War of Independence, the defence of Venice, and later fought against the counter-revolutionary bands opposed to the Roman Republic. When Rome was occupied by the French army in July 1849, Orsini, like many of the Republic’s defenders who had rushed to support it from the papal provinces and other pre-unification states, was forced into exile. But he soon resumed his conspiratorial endeavours. After taking part in three failed Mazzinian-inspired uprisings, he pursued patriotism on his own terms. In 1854, he enlisted in the imperial army under a false name with the aim of spreading propaganda, but he was almost immediately discovered and arrested in Hungary. Brought back to Italy, he was imprisoned in the Castle of San Giorgio in Mantua, awaiting trial for high treason.

In May 1856, Orsini reached London. At Mazzini’s urging, he immediately wrote a rushed publication recounting his extraordinary adventure. The romanticised description of his trials and hardships, coupled with his denunciation of Austrian despotism, made a deep impression on British public opinion, and the book was a best seller with 35,000 copies sold in a year, British newspapers reported that it had become a “household book.” On the strength of his memoirs, Orsini became one of the leading spokesmen for the Italian cause to the British public, on a par with Mazzini and Garibaldi. Between September 1856 and July 1857, he delivered hugely popular lectures in many cities across the United Kingdom. Large crowds flocked to hear the Italian patriot and see the intrepid adventurer who escaped from the Austrian dungeons.

It was not only the written word that helped to popularise the new political leaders. The public wanted to know what they looked like. During Risorgimento, hundreds of political portraits were produced almost in real time. These were often inexpensive prints, which were sold individually. These images could be reproduced in new illustrated periodicals.

Easy to reproduce and not yet protected by copyright, cartes-de-visite of prominent figures flooded catalogues, street stalls and the shop windows of photographers, booksellers and printers, who sold them to curious onlookers and devoted admirers. Alongside these commercial circuits, photographic portraits of political leaders, often bearing autographs, circulated through networks organised by the leaders.

To preserve portraits of relatives and public figures, a new object with a long future was introduced: the photo album. These albums were mass-produced binders, ranging in quality depending on the craftsmanship of their covers, with cardboard pages lined with decorative paper and fitted with openings sized for cartes-de-visite. Frequently ordered by the women of the household and displayed in rooms used for hosting and conversation, they showcased family connections, news about current events, and political sympathies.

Busts were among the most popular items in this patriotic merchandise. Alongside those of monarchs and popes, the faces of politicians, intellectuals and military leaders were cast in plaster and placed in alcoves or on furniture. Much of this production came from the artisans of one small Italian province: Lucca.

Every political season produced new objects. During the Restoration, they had to be small and easily concealed to avoid police suspicion of subversive activity. In 1848, wall-hung busts and prints were popular, and wearable accessories. Between 1859 and 1860, artisans experimented freely with patriotic tableware, lamps, tablecloths and carpets decorated with national colours and imagery.

Within Italian conspiratorial circles, some considered producing a plaster statuette portraying Orsini on his way to the scaffold. Created in Austrian-controlled Milan only weeks after the execution, it was intended for clandestine sale to fund the patriotic movement. The police, however, uncovered the plan and destroyed almost all of them. Only one survived, later becoming part of the Risorgimento Museum in Milan.