A.Petacco: "Cavour, Garibaldi and Mazzini are acknowledged as being the fathers of the Homeland but, if the truth be told, they hated each other, all of them hated each other with a passion. Cavour played Garibaldi, he exploited him, and Garibaldi defended himself. Mazzini was hated by both of them, however, the history books insist on having them side by side because, when all is said and done, all three of them contributed towards national unity."Blog: "It is believed that the Unity of Italy is the fruit of the ideas of the “Risorgimento”, yet it was actually entirely the result of a plot cooked up in a health spa?"A. Petacco: "There are plots everywhere. In actual fact, no one really wanted the unity of Italy. At the time, they were all federalists at heart, including Cavour. Indeed, Cavour was definitely a federalist and Mazzini was the only one that really wanted national unity, which Cavour labelled as “tomfoolery” because he didn’t believe in it. After all, he thought in French, spoke French and had never travelled further south than Florence. But he dreamt of an Italy consisting of three States, a Northern State (see the Savoias), which he claimed would be the wealthiest in Europe, a Central State, a Franco-Italian combination, and he also wanted to retain the Kingdom of the Bourbons. He did everything possible to save the Kingdom of the Bourbons. Unfortunately, Francesco II, the one they nicknamed “Franceschiello”, who was a great fellow but was only twenty years old, didn’t get the picture, the deal that Cavour had offered him, and refused. He refused, putting the fate of his kingdom on the line.
A series of plotsBlog: "Why was General Garibaldi’s expedition set up at a certain point?A. Petacco: "Well, the expedition was a surprise because no one wanted it. Cavour didn’t want it and even tried to send in the Carabinieri. He wanted to send in the Carabinieri to halt the expedition because he knew that by invading Sicily he would be violating his pact with Napoleon III to create a federal Italy. There was actually a whole series of plots because King Victor Emmanuel II, who wanted to enlarge his kingdom instead, secretly told Garibaldi to go ahead while officially ordering him to stop. Garibaldi disobeyed the king’s orders and invaded Sicily. This was incredible because everyone thought, indeed Cavour thought: “They will meet the same fate as Pisacane”, in other words, they would be pitchforked by the farmers as happened before elsewhere. Instead, by some miracle, these thousand men, of whom only 18 were native Sicilians while the remainder were all northerners from the Bergamo area, were almost all grandfathers of the current members of the Lega and they were the ones that went down and conquered Sicily and the entire Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. So he conquered a kingdom and handed it over to King Victor Emmanuel II, saying: “I give you the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies”. Then he went off to Caprera because he was an honest man, somewhat naïve perhaps, and was convinced that he had created a united Italy, and indeed he had because, without him, Italy would never have been united.Blog: "The people hailed him as a hero and a liberator, but the question I have to ask myself, a reality call if you will: what propaganda machine was set up at the time to spread Garibaldi’s message?A. Petacco: "Well, the propaganda at the time was very refined and extremely subtle, because 90 percent of the population was out of reach and because 90 percent of the population was illiterate, they didn’t really give a damn about national unity, so the population did not participate. There were no labourers or farmers amongst the thousand men than went to Sicily, they were all lawyers, doctors, mainly lawyers and students, let’s say all members of the ruling Middle class."Blog: "Who was it that took up arms " A. Petacco: "Those that took up arms were the middle class, on behalf of their king. The general population did not take and was indeed sympathetic to Bakunin che voleva l’anarchia."Blog, who was preaching anarchy."Blog: "In other words, the Italy that we know today is in fact the result of contrivance rather than a natural process?" A. Petacco: "Absolutely not. I don’t know that it was entirely a natural process but, on the other hand, as Franceschiello was wont to say, they call it Risorgimento (Resurgence), but in order to resurge, you have to have surged in the first place, while Italy has never really existed. Poor Franceschiello used to say that “My kingdom has been here for centuries, but since Roman times there has never been a united Italy”. It was therefore somewhat paradoxical to call it Risorgimento”, but the word had a certain attraction."Blog: "Shall we say that, if he were alive today, Cavour would not claim this united Italy?" A. Petacco: "No, it’s a pity that Cavour died accidentally at age 50, just two months after national unity, it was said at the time that it was his punishment from God. The Kingdom was proclaimed in March 1861 and he died in May, so he didn’t actually get to see the united Italy, but he did have some very different plans than those that were later implemented. At that stage Italy was united and he too had become a unificationist by necessity, however, he wanted to create a number of large autonomous regions with large autonomous localities. Instead, the King and his successors chose to centralise, or rather “piedmontise” the whole of Italy and immediately after the proclamation of the kingdom, all of the Piedmont laws were made fully applicable both in Lombardy and in Sicily, including military service, milling taxes and, above all, things that were not particularly palatable, so much so that in the south, ….."Blog: "Shall we just say that they were not perceived as being particularly good for the purposes of creating order?A. Petacco: "But then there was a rebellion, and what was labelled as banditry was actually the actions of partisans, not bandits. These were partisans that occasionally acted like bandits, as often happens in war, however, they were mainly former Bourbon soldiers that had been abandoned by their former generals who had sought refuge. They had fought, they had fought for five years and for five years they had kept some 120-thousand men of the Piedmontese army busy. So these were not merely common chicken thieves, no, this was something very serious.
The federalist Italy and Cavour’s dreamBlog: "Now let’s move on to modern times. Italian politics witnessed the eruption of a phenomenon that had previously been just that, merely a phenomenon, but that has now become an organised regional political party known as the Lega Nord. Today the newspapers talk about a northern bank, northern industry, northern workers and differentiated taxation. Are these merely a throwback to those earlier ideals?A. Petacco: "No, no, that has nothing to do with it. The truth is that, in essence, these two Italies were never really united and they remain two separate Italies: the Lombardy farmer is different from the Sicilian farmer. They have different mentalities, different traditions, different habits and then there is also a kind of racism – if we can call it that – that we have never quite been able to completely eradicate, also because the south does not always set a good example."Blog: "The plans for a federalist Italy, in your opinion, are these merely a resurgence of Cavour’s ideals?"A. Petacco: "Yes. He tended to see things more in a political light than any other, but in the book, I seem to remember that there was a note regarding what he wanted. Each region, he called them large regional airports, namely three or four regions that he wanted to call the Kingdom centrally controlled by the police and the army, with the rest delegated to local authorities, so our world would have looked very different indeed. The South, instead, was not merely an abandoned country as the history of the Risorgenza would have us believe. Naples had a railway system before Turin did. In Naples, they were building the first large steamships well before Genoa did. The Kingdom of Naples already had steel factories, iron, cast iron and they were already building steel bridges! They already had a significant potential industrial system going. The northerners took everything. A man called Bastogi from Livorno came along and created a railway monopoly and essentially the north prevented the growth of the south and so, that is what happened. In a meeting with the young industrialists of Naples, Tremonti himself stated that: “Well, after all is said and done, we are truly indebted to you and you deserve to be compensated”. Tremonti himself said this so, obviously these things really did happen."Blog: "Certain people might classify this as the Lega Nord ideology, but instead I hear you using very different terms."A. Petacco: "Lega Nord ideology you say?! You’re crazy! I sympathise because at the moment, I have to admit that where they are governing, the politicians are different. I have had the opportunity to meet some of them and I must say, they seem to feel that they are better than everyone else and they tend to look down on you. When you ask them a question and they look down their noses at you, like D’Alema for example, who is essentially thinking: “Let’s hear what bullshit this guy wants to tell me!” You can see it! While these people are just like you, that is what makes them likeable, but unfortunately they too will get worse. I don’t believe in perfection and as soon as they manage get their hands on power, corruption will undoubtedly follow. Corruption follows democracy and wherever there is democracy, there is also corruption because politicians need votes and they are prepared to do anything to get those votes. Instead, in a dictatorship, no votes are needed so there is less corruption because there is less of everything, except for pitchforks, hangings and deaths by firing squad. So perhaps it’s better for us to keep these thieves! I don’t know if I am making myself clear."
Blog: "Is the Kingdom of the North a very real risk or is there merely a possibility that it could materialise?"A. Petacco: "If things continue as they are, it could become a very real possibility."Blog: "Can you picture an Italy that splits up? Is this a possibility in your opinion? We have a very rigid Constitution that contains some very specific restrictions ….. "A. Petacco: "I cannot see this happening, but what I do see is that federalism will undoubtedly increase the existing gap between certain regions and others and between the north and the south."Blog: "History is written by the victors. Do you also have a very noble vision of revisionism? I ask because the things that are written in this book are very different from what we find in the school books."A. Petacco: "The fact is that there is one inescapable rule in life, namely that whenever war breaks out, the first casualty is always the truth, because the truth is bothersome and if you wish to demonise the enemy, you also have to tell some lies about him. Once the war has ended, these lies told by the losers are inevitably revealed for what they are, while those of the victors become history. Furthermore, it is not easy to chip away these untruths that have become history. Even my books attract some interest, however, it will remain extremely difficult to erase certain untruths. Let me give you an example: if you care to remember the first War of Independence (1848), when Piedmont very courageously declared war on Austria, Naples and the Vatican came to its aid and took sides in the early days of the war. Also, a number of Neapolitan and Pontifical military units fought in Lombardy.At Curtatone and Montanara, a historical event occurred that went down in history. The schoolbooks tell us that the university students of Pisa stopped the Austrians that were about to outflank the army of Carlo Alberto. In reality, it was not the university students of Pisa. The students of Pisa were indeed there, but they ran away at the first sign of gunfire and all that remained was a Neapolitan battalion under the command of a Neapolitan colonel, who held fast and managed to repel the Austrians. This is an historical fact and indeed the Austrian Army’s war diaries in Vienna also mention the name and number of the commander in question. When the first War of Independence ended and Naples had meanwhile retreated, the Pope and the Piedmontese historians that were writing about the war faced some embarrassment and thought: “Oh dear, the only true and noble act was performed by a Neapolitan. There’s no way that we can give credit to the Neapolitans, it will be a disgrace for us!” So they invented the story that the Pisa students had not only gloriously stopped the Austrians, but also that their commander was Giuseppe Montanelli. They even managed to arrange that the peak of the university hats be cut in half, something they didn’t deserve.This is the story that I told to my friend Indro Montanelli, a descendant of the aforesaid commander. I told him that: “Look Indro, this is the truth” and he answered: “Oh, I know that, but I can’t exactly get upset with my grandfather!” and then proceeded to confirm the affair of the Pisa students in his history book. Get it? That is the way history works! "
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