Liberalism and Empires in the Mediterranean: The View-Point of the Risorgimento

Abstract

Since the Fascist period, Italian historiography has given credence to the existence of a proto-imperialist tradition well before the creation of the Italian state in 1861. Historians such as Ettore Passamonti, Carlo Curcio and Gioacchino Volpe found in the writings of Balbo, Gioberti and even Cavour an intellectual justification for Italy’s hegemonic role in the Mediterranean, and even for its imperial expansion in the region. Although the interest in this ‘tradition’ was originally prompted by a desire to legitimate fascist imperial ambitions, such interpretations have survived into the post-war period. Scholars like Federico Chabod and (more recently) Emilio Gentile have continued to find in the Risorgimento the roots of later Italian imperialist ideology.1 These alleged imperial themes of Italian political thought have, however, not been properly contextualised within the European ideological currents of the period. Rather than considering them in light of later developments, this chapter intends to address Risorgimento debates on empire in their own right. Since ideas can be best interpreted by taking into consideration the arguments in which they were employed, to understand Italian views on imperial rule it is essential to retrieve their meaning in the contemporary intellectual context within which they were produced.2 Given the fact that Italian patriots also advanced anti-imperial arguments, as I intend to demonstrate, such claims about a proto-imperial tradition need to be partially revised.