Italy in the Making : June, 1846-January, 1848. By G.
F. H.
The Tragedy of Pio Nono
and J. Berkeley. (Cambridge University Press. 21s.)
A FEW years ago Mr. Berkeley, who has devoted a lifetime to the subject, published a learned and illuminating study of Italian history between 1815 and 1846. In this volume he and Mrs. Berkeley describe what is in some respects the most dramatic phase of the Italian revolution. The chief hero of his first volume was Charles Albert, who had, as Mr. Berkeley considered, received less than justice at the hands of most historians. In this volume the hero is, of course, Pio Nono, who occupies a special position as the victim of great events of which he was one of the main authors. He said himself when a very old man that he and Garibaldi were the only people who had made nothing out of the Risorgimento. But so far as the irony of history is concerned it is Mazzini rather than Garibaldi who resembles him, for the man who ruled Rome for a few golden hours lived to see Italy united and himself an exile.
Mr. and Mrs. Berkeley rightly emphasise the importance of I he months they are examining in the edueation of Italy. The defeat of the popular movements in 1831 had been followed in the Papal States by fifteen rules of cruel repression under Gregory the Sixteenth. Then, in 1846, Gregory was succeeded by Mastai Ferretti, who exclaimed when he heard of his election, " My God, they want to make a Napoleon of mc, who am only a poor country parson." The task set to Pio Nono was indeed beyond the power of a Napoleon or anybody else. But Mr. and Mrs. Berkeley show very clearly how important was the service he rendered to the cause of Italian freedom and unity. He began by undoing the evil work of his predecessor, releasing prisoners from secret cells and galleys, giving partial freedom of speech and the Press. His concessions were made the more gracious by his per- sonality, for he had " a wonderfully attractive smile and a gift of inspiring sympathy in those with whom he spoke and a sense of gentle fun." Metternich was alarmed at the outset by these liberal impulses and rightly. For what Pio Nono did in these critical months was to set an example to the other Italian States and to educate Italy in the liberalism which was a necessary prelude to emancipation. The Abbe Gioberti had proposed to unite Italy not by fusion as Mazzini wanted, but by federation. The Pope should be its President and Piedmont its shield and defender. This was an im- possible dream, but Pio Nono, partly by what he did, partly by the uses to which others put his actions, gave a lead to all the other Italian States and started Italy on a new career.
Metternich saw the danger at once. If the Moderates succeeded in winning Liberal assemblies for Piedmont or Tuscany or the Papal States, he would be obliged to grant similar institutions in Lombardo-Venetia and, as he told Cobden, the first concession in an Empire constituted like the Austrian would be the beginning of the end. And Metternich's anxiety was justified, because, as Mr. and Mrs. Berkeley show, the Pope was better able than anybody else to spread these ideas and to make them respectable. His influence in Italy is seen by a simple contrast :
" In June, 1846, the picture is still that of Metternich's Italy. Eight small States each under an absolute ruler ; eight small States all under the sway of Metternich. Below the surface somo Liberalism and some revolution. At the end of this volume, .liumary 1st, 1848, the picture is one of eight States in most of which there is a free Press, a Consultative Assembly, and an armed Civic Guard ; and all of which are on the verge of winning a parliament, and sending men to fight in the common cause against Metternicli."
That change was due more to the Pope than to anybody else. He had his reward in widespread enthusiasm and gratitude. The cult of Pio Nono, Mr. Trevelyan has said, was for some months the religion of Liberals and exiles all over the world. But he discovered, even in his hour of glory, how cruel was his position as a man who wanted to be both a good Pope and a good Italian, and nobody can read these pages without a deep sympathy with his plight. He blessed the new nation in 1848, but " the new power which he was blessing would inevitably be built on the ruins of his own." Mr. and Mrs. Berkeley's book is the fullest and most thorough examination of his policy and his circumstances at this time that has been
published in England, and it is most interesting readily. It contains a careful discussion of the responsibility for the Austrian aggression at Ferrara in the summer of 1847, which may be said to mark the beginning of the war of 1848. The book possesses at this moment a further interest. Ruggiero pointed out in his great work on European Liberalism the essential difference between democracy in England with its traditions of discussion and quiet organisation, and democracy in Italy with its traditions of the excitement of the piazza. Students of the Italian political temperament will find much to interest them in the description in these pages of the methods of agitation employed in Rome in 1846 and 1847.
J. L. HAMMOND.
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