Unification of Italy
▶ Explore on the map
Italian unification, the Risorgimento, turned a peninsula divided into eight states into a single kingdom between 1848 and 1871. The revolutions of 1848 failed, and the cause passed to the kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont under Victor Emmanuel II and his minister Cavour, who worked by diplomacy and limited war. With French help Sardinia defeated Austria in 1859 and gained Lombardy; that summer the northern duchies of Tuscany, Parma and Modena voted to join. Giuseppe Garibaldi's thousand red shirts landed in Sicily in May 1860, conquered the island and the mainland kingdom of the Two Sicilies, then handed it to Victor Emmanuel rather than proclaim a republic. Venice was acquired after the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, and Rome, protected by French troops, was taken in 1870 when the French left for war with Prussia; the capital moved there in 1871. The new state was a narrow Piedmontese elite ruling a country where few spoke Italian, and the so-called Southern Question of poverty, brigandage and illiteracy lasted for generations. The church refused recognition until the Lateran Treaty of 1929. Garibaldi was elected to the new parliament but retired to Caprera, and the army and civil service were taken over by Piedmontese officials from the very beginning.