The national idea in Italian literature

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MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY LECTURES.

No. XXII.

THE NATIONAL IDEA IN
ITALIAN LITERATURE.

Published by the University of Manchester at

THE UNIVERSITY PRESS (H. M. McKechnie, M.A.. Secretary).

12, Lime Grove. Oxford Road, MANCHESTER.

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THE NATIONAL IDEA IN
ITALIAN LITERATURE

BY

EDMUND G. GARDNER, M.A., LittD.,

Professor of Italian Studies in the University of Manchester.

MANCHESTER
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS

LONGMANS. GREEN & CO.

LONDON, NEW YORK, BOMBAY, BTC.

1921.

I')

To

CoMMENDATORE ARTHUR SERENA,
whose munificent gifts have firmly
established Italian Studies in the
Universities of England.

" The National Idea in Italian Literature "
was the title of the inaugural lecture delivered in
the University of Manchester, on November 6th,
1919, at the opening of the newly-founded depart-
ment of ItaUan Studies. In the following pages
the lecture has been somewhat expanded and,
here and there, modified. It remains, however,
substantially the same. I would ask my readers
to take it still as no more than a prolusione, and
to let this explain, if not excuse, the omission of
many names, especially in the nineteenth century,
which could not have been passed over in any
fuller treatment of the subject.

E. G. G.

July 22nd, 1920

THE NATIONAL IDEA IN ITALIAN
LITERATURE.

I.
There is a noble poem by Carducci, Per U
monumento di Dante a Trento (written in 1896),
in which the soul of the Divine Poet soars up after
death to the gate of Purgatory, impelled by
conscience to seek the expiation of his pride before
passing into the bUss of Paradise. A voice from
on high tells him that the spiritual world of his
vision has passed away, but God has consigned
Italy to his charge ; he is to watch over her destiny
as a guardian spirit through the centuries, until
the fulness of the times shall come : —

" Ed or s'e fermo, e par ch'aspetti, a Trento."

The national idea came to Dante as part of
that essential continuity between ancient Rome
and modem Italy which is the key to Italian
civihsation. Virgil himself had defined the
national aspirations of Italians throughout the
centuries, when he placed upon the lips of Aeneas
the pregnant words : Italiatn quaero patriam.
There was never a time, from the day on which
a barbarian conqueror dethroned the last of the
old Roman emperors in the west to that on which
Victor Emanuel assumed the crown of the united
modem kingdom, when Italy — in the notorious

phrase of Mettemich — was " a mere geographical
expression." From the writers of ancient Rome
the ItaUans of the early Middle Ages had
inherited the conception of the Italy of classical
literature, whose glories and beauties, whose
ancient gods and heroes, had been sung by Virgil
and Horace — the Italy which, through the Roman
Empire, had given the Latin civilisation to the
nations whom she united in the Roman Peace.
The continuity of the Latin tradition in Italy,
kept alive by the grammarians and rhetoricians,
by the study of the classics and of Roman law,
preserved this conception of an ideal Italian unity
after the political unity had been torn to pieces as
the result of the Langobard conquest.

We find Italia in this sense in the letters of
Gregory the Great at the very beginning of the
Middle Ages, when the political dissolution of
the peninsula had but just begun. An anonymous
writer of Ravenna, at the end of the seventh
century, speaks of that patria nobilissima quae
dicitur Italia. There was a notably strong sense
of Latin continuity in the eleventh and twelfth
centuries ; the new, vigorous, many-sided life
and activity of the communes was, in part, a
conscious renovation in the Italian cities of the
spirit of ancient Rome. Thus, the anonymous
poet, who celebrates the victory of the Pisans
over the Saracens on the African coast in 1088,
begins by uniting this new glory of Pisa with the
deeds of the Romans of old : —

" Inclytorum Pisanorum scriptunis historiam,
an-tiquorum Romanorum renovo memoriam ;

nam extendit modo Pisa laudem admirabilem,
quam olim recepit Roma vincendo Carthaginem."

And he calls upon not only Pisa, but all Italy, to
weep for the fallen hero, Ugo Visconti. A few
years later (about 1114), the author of the Liber
Maiolichinus — the poem on the conquest of the
Balearic Islands from the Saracens — conceives
of the enterprise as a national one in which the
Commune of Pisa is, as it were, the representative
of the Italian nation. The poem begins with
Pisa, " Pisani populi vires et bellica facta," and
ends with the name of Italy i).

This — somewhat vague — sense of Italian nation-
ality becomes, for a moment, more explicit in the
latter part of the twelfth century, during the heroic
contest carried on by the Lombard League against
the mightiest of mediaeval German Caesars,
Frederick Barbarossa. There is sufficient evidence
that, above and beyond their respective cities
or communes, these Italian burghers recognised
— however dimly — the conception of a common
Italian native land. A contemporary chronicler,
Romoaldus of Salerno, tells us that, when the
representatives of the Lombard communes met
Pope Alexander III at Ferrara in 1177 (the year
after their great victory at Legnano), they claimed
to speak in the name of all Italy, universa Italia,
and to have fought pro honor e et libertate Italiae.
They will receive peace from the Emperor gladly,
but only salvo Italiae honor e : " We freely grant
him what Italy owes him of old, and deny him
not his ancient jurisdiction ; but our liberty,

3

which we have received by hereditary right from
our forebears, we will never abandon, save with
life itself ; for we would rather meet a glorious
death with hberty than preserve a wretched life
in servitude " 2). The fruits of the victory of
Legnano and the peace of Constance were already
being lost in the fratricidal conflicts of the Italian
cities, when a national consciousness appears
vividly in the writings of the grammarian and
rhetorician, Buoncompagno da Signa. Thus, we
find him writing in 1201 : " I do not believe that
Italy can be made tributary to any one, unless
it come to pass from the malice and envy of Italians ;
for it is set down in the laws, that Italy is not a
province, but the mistress of provinces " — domina
provinciarum, the phrase which we meet again
{donna di provincie) in the Purgatorio 3).

But it was Dante who first wedded an ItaUan
national idea to the glorious modem vernacular
which is the immediate continuation and develop-
ment of the language of ancient Rome. It is to
Dante, as Casini acutely observed, that we owe
the discovery, so significant for our own times,
that " language is the character and symbol of
nationality." In the De Vulgari Eloquentia, he
seeks the ideal Italian language, as the character
and symbol of the Italian nation, and declares
that, although their court in the body is scattered,
the Italians " have been united by the gracious
light of reason." A keen sense of Italian citizen
ship is revealed in the first of his pohtical utterances
after his exile : the Latin letter where he addresses
" the kings of Italy all and several, the senators

4

of her holy city, her dukes, marquesses, counts,
and peoples," and subscribes himself " the humble
Italian, Dante Alighieri, the Florentine." The
respective rulers and peoples are admonished as
members of one body ; the writer's Italian nation-
ality comes before his Florentine origin ; the tidings
of joy and hope are announced to Italy as a whole.
In the De Vulgari Eloquentia and in the Divina
Commedia alike, Dante conceives of Italy as a
cultural and geographical unity, from the extreme
barriers of the Alps to furthest Sicily — the Alps
alone being the northern boundary between the
Italian and the German peoples. The cities of
Istria are no less Italian than those of Lombardy
and Tuscany ; the eastern boundaries of Italy are
indicated by the Quarnaro Gulf : —

" che Italia chiude e suoi termini bagna."*

It is true that, in the Divina Commedia, we do
not find any indication of a political unification
of Italy by the fusion of the several states. And
we cannot deny that the good tidings, which Dante
announced in the letter to the princes and peoples,
was the advent of a German prince, Henry of
Luxemburg, to restore the power of the Empire.
But the Emperor, in Dante's theory, has two
closely associated missions to perform : one universal
and international, the other national and Italian.
The Veltro, the symbol of the ideal Emperor in the
first canto of the Inferno, is not only to slay the
lupa of avarice, but to be the salvation of Italy : —

* Niccolo Tommaseo, as an Italian of Dalmatia, wrote to Cesare
Cantu in 1837: "Dante m'esilia me, il disgraziato. Iddio gli
perdoni : e'non sapeva quello che si facesse."

5

" di quell'umile Italia fia salute."
The position of the Emperor with respect to Italy
is clearly stated in the letter to the princes and
peoples : "Awake, then, all ye dwellers in Italy,
and arise before your king, ye who are reserved
not only for his empire, but, as free men, for his
rule." Like the other nations, Italy is included
in the Empire, but she has the special privilege
of having the Emperor himself as her king. There
are no indications that Dante anticipated a fusion
of the different states ; but the reahsation of such
an Italian kingdom would obviously imply a
certain form of political unity and the end of the
temporal power of the Church. In any case, the
Emperor elect must drizzare Italia, he must inforcar
It suoi arcioni, before he can fulfil his imperial
mission of universal peace and liberation.

The nationality of this imperial deliverer from
strife and anarchy was, in scholastic phrase, ac-
cidental ; for Rome alone could confirm and
give its sanctity to the choice of the Electors,
and the tradition that he represented would be
Latin. And, further, when we examine the De
Monarchia, we find that Dante's " imperialism "
is merely the outward form of his conception.
He looks to the goal of civilisation, the function
proper to humanity as a whole ; and he finds it
to be the actualising, the bringing into play, of
all the potentialities of the human mind for
thought and for action. For this to be realised,
the first requisite is universal peace, and the second
is freedom, " the greatest gift bestowed by God
on human nature." In its ultimate analysis,

6

the Empire meant for Dante the unity of civilisa-
tion : a imity of civilisation, originally Italian
because the continuation of that Latin civilisatjon
which Rome and Italy had of old given to the
world, but now diversified in accordance with
the diverse needs of the new nations of Europe.
It meant the realisation of the principles of justice
embodied in Roman law, with full liberty to the
individual nations and states to regulate themselves
by their own particular laws and customs, ac-
cording to the special conditions of each. There
is a striking sentence in the letter to the Florentines,
where Dante rebukes his feUow-citizens because
they are striving " that the civic life of Florence
may be one thing, that of Rome another." In this
Romana civilitas — this civic life in the Empire under
Roman law — he sees all the nations included.
But, among these nations, Italy has high preroga-
tives of her own ; she has been donna di provincie ;
she is still " the garden of the Empire," " the noblest
region of Europe." There is no opposition between
Dante's nationalism and his imperialism, for his
imperialism is itself essentially Italian. Rome
is not only the seat of the Papacy and the capital
of the Empire, but it is an Italian city, the centre
and rallying point of the ItaUan people. In the
letter to the Itahan cardinals, Dante speaks of Rome
as Latiale caput : " The head of Latium must be
reverently loved by all ItaHans, as the common
source of their civic life." The phrase, Latiale
caput, is from Lucan ; but, for Dante, it means
" the capital of Italy." In the Convivio and the
De Monarchia, Dante insists that the Empire

is necessary for the well-being of the world, pri-
marily in order to set a check upon illegitimate
national aspirations and the greed of kingdoms
for increase of territory, and to provide a supreme
court of arbitration. In its essence, the world
regime of his imagination was a Europe in which
the individual characteristics and rights of races,
nations, and states would be preserved and de-
veloped in the freedom and peace required for
the realisation of the goal of civilisation : freedom
and peace secured by an Empire which, translated
into modern language, becomes a supreme inter-
national tribunal of arbitration, armed with
authority to compel the quarrels of princes and
peoples to be submitted to it, and with power
to enforce its impartial decisions for the temporal
welfare of humanity. The traditions of such a
tribunal, in Dante's eyes, would be Italian, its
centre of necessity — by divine predestination, as
he would deem — Rome. Thus it was the leading
part of Italy in a restored European unity of
civilisation in peace and freedom to which Dante's
thoughts were directed, rather than towards her
political unity as a nation ; but he indicated
that unity as part of her heritage in the sacred
name of Rome, and — though perhaps more dimly
— foreshadowed the ideal to which we are now
looking as the League of Nations 4).

II.

We pass into another atmosphere with Petrarca.
It has been said : " The italianitd of Petrarca
is one of his finest and most sahent characteristics ;
that italianitd still somewhat mediaeval, still
somewhat too enamoured of ancient Rome, but
which already presents and foretells modern
Italy " (i). " From my boyhood," he writes,
" I have been inflamed — beyond all my contem-
poraries whom I have known — with a love of the
name of Italy " He exalts her beauty above that
of all other lands, declaring that she lacks nothing
— save only peace. And that peace is constantly
upon his lips.

" I've gridando : Pace, pace, pace " ;

is the close of the great canzone, Italia mia ; in
which, as prelude to this peace, he confidently
asserts that Italian arms can still achieve the
destiny of the nation : —

" Vertu contra furore
prendera I'arme ; e fia'l combatter corto ;
ch^ I'antiquo valore
ne I'italici cor non e ancor morto."

When war breaks out between Venice and Genoa,
he bids the contending states remember that
they are both Italian, exhorting them to shrink
from their fratricidal conflict and turn their arms
against the foreigner. " If there is any reverence
left for the Latin name," he writes to the Doge
of Venice, " remember that those whose ruin
you are preparing are your brothers." In the
most famous of his lyrics, Spirto gentil che quelle

9

membra reggi, the address to the new ruler of Rome
(whether Cola di Rienzo or another), the man of
destiny on the Capitol must restore Rome to her
ancient way as a prelude to the regeneration of
Italy, for Italy herself is not yet aroused : —

" Ma non seiiza destino a le tue braccia,
che scuoter forte e soUevar la ponno,
^ or commesso il nostro capo Roma
Pon man in quella venerabil chioma
securamente e ne le trecce sparte,
si che la neghittosa esca del fango."

But the poet has no settled convictions as to
how this peace of the nation in the fulfilment
of her destinies is to be accomplished. Some-
what alien from the world of reality, Petrarca
dreamed constantly of the restoration of the
sovereignty of the Roman People. He set his
hopes now upon the Angevin monarchy of Robert
of Naples, now upon the new Roman Republic
of Cola di Rienzo, now in the Holy Roman Empire
as represented by Charles of Luxemburg, now
in the " papa angelico " of the religious ideal —
whose features, disgusted as he was with the
corruption of preceding popes and their neglect
of Italy, he seemed for a moment to discern in
Urban V (2).

The second half of the thirteenth century offers
a notable series of political lyrics. Fazio degli
Uberti, an exiled Florentine and great-grandson
of that Farinata whom Dante saw rising in-
domitable from his fiery tomb in the Inferno,
composed — probably in 1368 — a striking canzone

10

{Di quel possi tu her che hevve Crasso), in which
he brings the Italian nation herself upon the scene
to rebuke the degenerate Caesar, Charles of
Luxemburg : —

" Sappi ch'i'son Italia che ti parlo."

Cursing the crowns of Aix, Milan, and Rome, he
declares that Italy will accept no more greedy
adventurers from Germany, but calls upon God
to take from their hands the " sacro segno," the
imperial eagle, which they have dishonoured,
" and give it back, thus defaced, again to my
ItaUans and to the Romans." (3).

A more definite national idea, even an anticipa-
tion of the political unity of Italy, appears in other
poets. It is found most explicitly in the famous
" Canzone di Roma " {Quella virtu che' I terzo cielo in-
fonde), formerly attributed to Fazio, but now recog-
nised to be by Bindo di Clone, a Sienese. The
poet prays Love to give him grace to recite in
defence of Italy what he has heard in vision from
a white-haired lady, who told him that she was
Rome. She has appeared to him, stately in aspect,
but in mourning attire, poor and in need, surrounded
by the ghosts of the heroes of antiquity. To
restore her to her throne, to secure peace and
stamp out tyranny, there is only one way : —

" Se Italia soggiace
a un solo re."

Let Itahans accept one sole king, who shall found
a line of hereditary sovereigns ; thus will Italy,
" questa ch'e donna dell' altre province," ascend
to new greatness : —

II

" Canzon mia, cerca il talian giardino
chiuso da' monti e dal suo proprio mare,
e piu Ik non passare."

In this poem, composed in 1355, the writer
does not seem to have any definite Itahan prince
in his mind, and the conception is still in part
that of mediaeval imperialism, inasmuch as this
national king is to receive investiture from the
Emperor. Towards the end of the century, a
bevy of poets hailed the coming redeemer of Italy
in the first Duke of Milan, Gian Galeazzo Visconti,
A Paduan poet, Francesco di Vannozzo, composed,
in 1388, a cantilena of eight sonnets, in which first
Italy herself and then her cities in turn offer
homage to the Lombard ruler, saluting him as the
national Messiah, the chorus closing with the
voice of Rome. A few years later, Simone Serdini,
a Sienese, addressed the Duke with a canzone,
exhorting him, " per parte d'ogni vero italiano,"
to take the crown of all Italy (4).

But the time was not ripe for the fulfilment of
^ such designs. The need for political unification

was less felt in the following century, the Quat-
trocento, when the balance of power between the
five greater states, through the diplomacy of the
Medici, had almost converted Italy into a
federation, and at least gave the peninsula the
appearance of independence. The classical re-
vival confirmed and strengthened a sense of
spiritual unity based on the sentiment of the
romanitd of Italy. And men prided themselves
on working for Italy. Francesco Barbaro, defend-

12

ing Brescia for the Venetians, speaks constantly
of the hberty of Italy, declaring that he has
striven to fulfil his duty patriae sed potius Italiae.
Pius II exclaims in his Commentaries : "I will
help thee, Italy, to the utmost of my power, that
thou mayst not endure any masters." Giovanni
Pontano, the great Latin poet who was chief minis-
ter of the Aragonese kings of Naples, foretells
that Italy will in future ages be united under one
single government and resume the majesty of
the Empire, and claims everlasting fame after
death, not merely as a poet, but as the statesman
who for years had sought the peace and tranqiuUity
of Italy (5).

More particularly, as the fatal year 1494
approached, when Lodovico Sforza was preparing
to ally with the French against king Ferrante of
Naples, and men saw that disaster could not long
be averted, the name of Italy — with impassioned
intonation — is on the hps of poets and statesmen
alike. Selfish as the foreign policy of the Italian
states usually was, the cynical reply of Lodovico
Sforza to the Florentine ambassador is nevertheless
an eloquent testimony to the reality of this national
feeUng : " But you keep talking to me of this •^
Italy, and I never saw her in the face " {Ma voi
mi parlate pure di questa Italia, et io non la vidi mai
in viso). In the dispatches which Pontano wrote
for the old king Ferrante, in his despairing efforts
to avert the national calamity, such phrases as
la pace italica, lo comune reposo d'ltalia, Italia
unita, faU constantly from his pen. And, when
Ferrante dies, this is Pontano's advice to the new

13

king, Alfonso, if he wishes to save his throne. Let
him say in the hearing of all the nation : "I have
taken up arms not for myself alone, but for the
reputation of Italy, that she may be in the hand
and rule of Italians, not of foreigners." The lyrical
counterpart of Pontano's letters is the virile canzone
/ of another southern poet, his friend and colleague,
Chariteo ; the vanguard of the invaders had already
crossed the Alps, when he exhorted the Italian
states to lay aside private ambitions, and combine
in the face of the common foe : —

" Quale odio, qual furor, qua! ira immane,
quai pianete maligni
han vostre voglie, unite, hor si divise ?
Qual crudelta vi move, O spiriti insigni,
O anime Italiane,
a dare il Latin sangue a genti in vise ? "

It was with the name of Italy, in the last stanza
of the Orlando Innamorato, that Boiardo, sick to
death, drops his pen, too full of apprehension for
his native land to continue his story : —

" Mentre che io canto, o Iddio redentore,
vedo ritaUa tutta a fiamma e a foco,
per questi Galli, che con gran valore
vengon per disertar non so che loco." (6)

14

III.

The independence of the Quattrocento had been
extinguished, and Italy was the battle ground of
the contending armies of her conquerors (though
the contest was still undecided between France
and Spain), when MachiavelU, in 1513, wrote the
Principe. He is, as it were, crystallizing his observa-
tion of the political life of his own time, and his
study of ancient history, into the conception of
such a prince as he deemed called for by the excep-
tional conditions of Italy. It closes with that
chapter of impassioned eloquence in which the
writer appeals to his new prince, backed by a
national army, to come forward as the redeemer
of Italy from the dominion of the foreigner : —

"If it was necessary, in order to behold the
virtue of Moses, that the people of Israel should
be slaves in Egypt, and to recognise the greatness
of the mind of Cyrus that the Persians should be
oppressed by the Medes, and the excellence of
Theseus that the Athenians should be scattered ;
so, at the present time, in order to know the virtue
of an Italian spirit, it was necessary that Italy
should be reduced to that condition in which she
now is, and that she should be more enslaved than
the Hebrews, more down-trodden than the Persians,
more scattered than the Athenians ; without a
head, without order, beaten, despoiled, torn, over-
run, the victim of every kind of ruin Left

without life, she waits to see who it is that shall

heal her wounds We see how she prays

God to send her some one to redeem her from these
barbarian cruelties and insolence. We see her all

15

ready and disposed to follow a banner, if there be

the man to raise it Then let not this occasion

pass, in order that Italy, after so long a time, may
see one who shall be her redeemer. Nor could
I express with what love he would be received in
all those provinces which have suffered from these
foreign inundations ; with what thirst for vengeance,
with what steadfast faith, with what devotion,
with what tesirs. What gates would be barred
against him ? What people would refuse him
obedience ? What envy would oppose him ?
What ItaUan would deny him homage ? This
barbarian domination is repugnant to all."

The figure of the redeemer of Italy again comes
before us, in Machiavelh's later work, the Arte
delta Guerra, — and now the prophecy is more
explicit. MachiaveUi is showing, from the examples
of the past and present, how a national army should
be raised, equipped, and handled in the field. A
prince, of a character totally different from that
of those who held sway in the land before the
disasters ushered in by the French invasion of
1494, is needed for the purpose : —

" I declare to you that, whichever of those who
now hold states in Italy shall first enter upon this
road, he will — before any other — become ruler of
this country ; and it will befall his state as befell
the kingdom of the Macedonians, which, coming
under Philip, who had learned the method of
training armies from Epaminondas the Theban,
became so powerful by this training and discipUne,
that, in a few years, Philip was able to occupy the
whole of Greece." (i)

16

No such clear vision is found in the other pohtical
writers of the Cinquecento. If we turn to the
poets, Ariosto reveals a certain sense of nationality,
in his impassioned denunciation of cdl Italy's
invaders. Frenchman and Spaniard, Swiss and
German alike, and vaguely anticipates a time
when Italians will have the power to repay them
in kind. He gives the answer to Boiardo's dying
cry of dismay, in his pictured pageant of the French
invasions of Italy and their results : —

" Poco guadagno et infinito danno
riporteran d'ltaha ; che non lice
che'l Giglio in quel terreno habbia radice."

But Ariosto's Itahan feehngs are inevitably coloured
by the politics of his sovereign, the Duke of Ferrara,
and he finally acclaims the saviour of society in
the Emperor Charles V. In general the poets of
the Cinquecento, however inconsistent their actual
politics may be, bear eloquent witness to the
patriotic aspirations that all the mighty armies of
Europe could not quench, to the conviction that
Italy, in virtue of the Roman idea and the Latin
tradition, represented something imperishable,
something immeasurably beyond the power of her
conquerors to touch or comprehend. Thus, Fran-
cesco Maria Molza, in his sonnets on the sack of
Rome, taunts the uncouth barbarian with the
mighty life of the Romans in the tongue that scorns
age and time, and warns him that the noble Latin
blood cannot remain long under the vile yoke of
Germany and Spain : —

17

i/

" Vivrk, barbaro stolto, la grandezza
del gran popol di Marte in quella pura
voce, che poco di tua man si cura,
e la vecchiezza e '1 tempo insieme sprezza.'*

" Non potra molto il latin sangue adomo
sotto giogo si vil rimaner preso,
lo qual pill volte alteramente ha scosso."

In a celebrated series of sonnets, Giovanni
Guidiccioni exhorts Italy to be true to her former
self, urging her, by her memories of old, to recover
her lost liberty from those who once adorned her
triumphs, closing with an inspired picture of the
return of peace and freedom to the land (2). Nor
are such ideas confined to the polished lyrics of the
Petrarchists, who may be regarded as merely
following in the steps of Petrarca himself. We
find them expressed, with uncouth vigour, by the
greatest realist among the Italian poets of the
Cinquecento : Teofilo Folengo (Merlino Coccaio).
What his latest editor, Alessandro Luzio, well calls
the " magnanimo orgoglio di italianitk," appears
alike in the hexameters of his maccheronic epic,
Baldus, and the unpolished octaves of his Italian
poem, Orlandino : —

" Italia bella, Italia, fior del mondo,
d patria nostra in monte ed in campagna,
Italia forte arnese che, secondo
si legge, ha spesso visto le calcagna
de I'inimici, quando a tondo a tondo
ebbe talor tedeschi, Franza e Spagna *,
che se non fusser le gran parti in quella,
dominarebbe il mondo, Italia bella."
18

And he can utter his thought with a coarseness of
invective unknown to the Petrarchists, when he
invokes a horrible curse upon every Italian, rich
or poor, who desires the presence of the foreigner
within his land (3).

IV.

Now in the period that followed the Reuciissance
and preceded the French Revolution — the period
in which Italy first lay under the dominion of
Spain, then became again the battlefield of Europe,
and finally in great part a political dependency of
Austria — there were two states that preserved the
ItaHan independence and remained the depositaries of
ItaUan nationahty : the Republic of Venice and
the Duchy of Savoy. Bernardo Tasso wrote of
Venice : —

" Is she not the ornament and splendour of i/
Italian dignity ? Does she not represent an image
of the authority and greatness of the Roman
repubhc ? In this dark and tempestuous age,
what other light or splendour remains to hapless
Italy ? Are we not all servants, all tributaries,
I will not say of barbarian, but of foreign nations ?
of those, I say, whom the noble Italians of old led
captive in their triumphs ? She alone has pre-
served her ancient hberty ; she alone renders
obedience to none save God and her own well-
ordered laws " (i).

The part of Venice, in the shaping of the national
destiny, was to maintain the glory of the Italian
name and preserve the Latin civilisation on the
eastern shore of the Adriatic, bequeathing her

19

rights and tradition to the Italy of to-day ; the
part of Savoy was the ultimate fulfilment of
Machiavelh's prophecy. There is a noble canzone
by Marino, composed in the early years of the
seventeenth century, in which Italy appeals to
Venice, urging an alliance between the Lady of
the Sea and the Unicorn of the Alps, for the de-
liverance of the nation from the power of Spain (2).
Traiano Boccalini, writing in the shelter of "la
serenissima liberta veneziana," prophesies that the
universal monarchy, which Spain is vainly seeking,
will return again " alia nobilissima nazione italiana,"
and styles the Duke of Savoy, Charles Emanuel I.,
" il primo guerriero italiano." This phase of
Italian political thought, looking to the House of
Savoy for deliverance though hardly yet for unifica-
tion, is represented in the famous poem addressed
to Charles Emanuel by Fulvio Testi in 1614 : —

" Carlo, quel generoso invitto core,

da cui spera soccorso Italia oppressa,

a che bada ? a che tarda ? a che piu cessa ?

nostre perdite son le tue dimore.

* • * ♦ *
" Chi fia, se tu non se', che rompa il laccio
onde tant' anni avvinta Esperia giace ?
posta ne la tua spada k la sua pace,
e la sua liberta sta nel tuo braccio." (3)

More than a century later, in 1739 (by which

time the Dukes of Savoy had attained the title of

Kings of Sardinia), we find a southern Italian,

Pietro Giannone, writing that the " antico valor

yd'Italia " is preserved alone in the Italian peoples

20

who form the dommions of the princes of Savoy,
and calling upon the other Italian rulers to follow
their example, and restore in their subjects the
ancient military discipline, whereby " they will see
Italy delivered from servitude and brought back
to her former glory " (4). But not even Giannone
has yet the conception of the unification of the
peninsula and its islands under the sceptre of the
King of Sardinia.

I do not quote the famous sonnets of Vincenza
da Fihcaia on Italy. The typically ItaUan spirit
at any epoch reveals itself, I think, not in melancholy
sentiment concentrated on Italy's " dono infeUce
di bellezza," but in sheer virility of thought and
utterance — that virilitd that Santa Caterina so
prized even in the mystical life. And this
national virilitd is personified in the poet who arose
during the period immediately preceding the French
Revolution, the period of literary and intellectual
renovation which heralded the Risorgimento. This
poet, in whose person Piedmont became identified
with Italy, was Vittorio Alfieri.

At the end of one of his works in prose, Del Principe
e deUe letter e, completed in 1786, Alfieri speculates
upon the form in which the destiny of Italy will be
accomplished. Italy, he thinks, will soon be
reunited under two princes (evidently the kings of
Sardinia and Naples), and these two kingdoms
will afterwards, either by marriage or conquest,
be reduced to one. At this stage in Alfieri's political
creed, king and tjrant were synon5nnous. So he
continues that this one remaining sovereign will
proceed to abuse his excessive power, and will in

21

consequence be abolished by the Italians, " who
by then, being all united and illumined, will have
learned to act together and to consider themselves
one single people." The form of government, then
to be introduced, he declares elsewhere to be a
question which must be solved by the best ItaUans
living at the time of this liberation. But Alfieri's
gift to the nation was not his political reflections,
but his poetry. The passion for Uberty and hatred
of oppression, with the belief in the power of litera-
ture as an instrument for national and social
regeneration, is the animating spirit of his tragedies.
For him the drama, as he says in one of his letters,
should be a school in which " men may learn to be
free, strong, generous, impelled by true virtue,
intolerant of all violence, lovers of their native land,
fully conscious of their own rights, and in all their
passions ardent, upright, magnanimous." The
aim of the poet in his dramas was the creation of
characters of rigid strength and inflexible wills, to
inspire and form men and women of virile temper
for the popolo italiano futuro, " the generous and
free Italians of the future," — to whom he dedicated
his latest tragedy, the Bruto secondo, in 1789, the
year that marks the beginning of the French
Revolution (5).

22

V.

Eight years after Alfieri's dedication, that popolo
italiano futuro saw what was destined to become
the symbol of Italy's national aspirations. In
January, 1797, during the repubhcan movement
that accompanied the invasion of Italy by the
French revolutionary armies, the future banner of
the nation — the tricolour of red, white, and green,
the mystical hues of love and faith and hope —
was raised for the first time at Reggio EmiHa (i).

In spite of the devastations of the French armies
and the prepotency of the conqueror (himself of
Italian name and Italian blood), to whom, in common
with a great part of Europe, Italy was made subject,
the revolutionary and Napoleonic era stimulated
the national consciousness of Italians, turning their
thoughts — though as yet but vaguely — towards
an ultimate renovation and unification. " Potremo
sperare di risorgere fra non molto," the poet Giovanni
Fantoni had written in 1796 (2). In an ode. La
Repubblica Cisalpina (written at the end of 1797),
Giovanni Pindemonte salutes the national banner,
uttering the hope that the new republic may liberate
all the other Italian states, reign " sul bel paese
intero," and change its name from " Cisalpina "
to " ItaJica." He is addressing Milan : —

" Oggi in te la Repubblica nascente

fonda suo centro e di sua possa il nido ;

e finor troppo ignoto Italia sente

uscir da te di hbertade il grido.
" II Mincio istesso nel cui forte aiuto

il Teutone oppressor vivea tranquillo,

23

su le torn ondeggiar vede il temuto
tricolorato libero vessillo." (3)

Vincenzo Monti, in his tragedy Caio Gracco
(finished in exile at Paris in 1800), makes his hero
appeal to the Romans in the name of " I'italiana
liberta," and receive as answer from the assembled
citizens : —

" Itali siam tutti, un popol solo,
una sola famiglia."

" Italiani
tutti, e fratelU."

Ugo Foscolo, in the days of Napoleon's power, had
fearlessly admonished him in the name of Italy.
On the return of the Austrians to Milan, in 1815,
he chose to leave his native land rather than swear
allegiance, " Cosi Ugo Foscolo diede alia nuova
Italia una nuova istituzione, I'esilio " (4). In
that same spring, almost exactly a century before
Italy drew her sword in the great European war,
came the proclemiation of Rimini — Murat's abortive
call to the ItaUans from the Alps to Sicily to assert
their independence. A poet, then thirty years
old, destined in old age to become a citizen of the
Rome of United Italy, Alessandro Manzoni, hailed
the proclamation in a noble canzone, cut short by
the failure of the enterprise : —

" Liberi non sarem se non siamo uni."
It is the first lyric of the Risorgimento (5).

24

VI.

It was in the middle of the epoch of Italy's political
martyrdom that followed the Congress of Vienna —
the epoch at the beginning of which we hear
Leopardi's lyrical cry of despair — that the luminous
vision of the Third Italy formed itself in the mind
of the man who was at once the apostle of the
unity of Italy and the prophet of universal brother-
hood among the nations : Giuseppe Mazzini.

" Da quelli scogli, onde Colombo infante
Nuovi pe'l mar vedea monti spuntare,
Egli vide nel ciel crepuscolare
Co'l cuor di Gracco ed il pensier di Dante

" La terza ItaUa ; e con le luci fise
A lei trasse per mezzo un cimitero,
E un popol morto dietro a lui si mise " (i).

In 183 1, Mazzini opened his Giovine Italia pro-
paganda, declaring that Italy must be founded on
the three inseparable bases of Unity, Liberty, and
Independence, associating the future of Italy with
international social regeneration, giving a mystical
colouring to the national movement as the cause
of God and the People. The note of self-sacrifice,
in the cause of a nation and thence for that of all
humanity, was Mazzini's great gift to the Italian
spirit of the Risorgimento. " Man has no rights
from nature, save this alone : to emancipate
himself from every obstacle that impedes the
free fulfilment of his own duties," Life is a mission.
Virtue is sacrifice. " Where shall we go, O Lord ?
Go to die, ye who have to die ; go to suffer, ye who
have to suffer " (2). In this spirit he sent men

25

forth on forlorn hopes to die for Italy, on the
scaffold as conspirators or in hopeless struggles
against overwhelming numbers ; in this spirit he
prepared the way for the national uprising of
1848, when, as George Meredith writes : " Italy
reddened the sky with the banners of a land re-
vived." It was then that one of his disciples,
the young poet Goffredo Mameli, who fell " tra
un inno e una battaglia " under Garibaldi in the
defence of Rome, wrote the battle-hymn of the
Risorgimento, the hymn that was sung again, in
y the early days of the European war, by the soldiers
of United Italy on their way to the front : —

" FrateUi d'ltalia,
r Italia s'e desta,
dell'elmo di Scipio
%'h cinta la testa ;
dov'6 la Vittoria ?
Le porga la chioma,
ch^ schiava di Roma
Iddio la cre6." (3).

Mazzini wrote of Dante : " L' Italia cerca in lui
il segreto della sua Nazionalita ; I'Europa, il segreto

' deU' Italia e una profezia del pensiero moderno."

And it is in Dante, so to speak, that Mazzini finds
the starting point of his own political creed. He
is with Dante in associating the national aspirations
of Italy with a philosophical theory of the function

^ of nationality in himian civilisation. Like Dante,
he looked for a restored unity of civihsation, and
assigned to Italy a leading part therein. But there
is this difference. Dante started from the con-

26

ception of this greater unity, merely leaving place
for the free development of nationality within it ;
Mazzini held that the unity of civilisation could
only be attained by first solving the question of
nationahties : " Without the recognition of nation-
alities, freely and spontaneously constituted, we
shall never have the United States of Europe,"
On the map of Europe, " you can see the design
of God clearly marked by the courses of the great
rivers, the curves of the great mountains, and other
geographical conditions." These natural natioued
boundaries have been violated by treaties in-
augurated by conquest, by artificial pohtics, by
the will of dynasties. In the name of nationzdity,
these violations must be ended, " in accordance
with the tendencies and the vocations of the peoples,
and with their free consent." The instinct of
nationahty thus satisfied, he looked forward to a
universal federation of unified and republican
nations, " uno spirito d'affratellamento e di pacifica
emulazione sulle vie del progresso." And from
Rome alone can come la parola della uniid moderna.
The destinies of Italy are those of the world. The
Italian people wiQ be the Messiah people to initiate
this new epoch of the human race. Rome is called
upon to spread for a third time among the nations
a gospel of civilisation, a gospel of moral unity :
" From the Rome of the People will issue the unity
of civilisation, accepted by the free consent of the
nations, for Humanity " (4).

We find some of Mazzini's noblest passages on
the national idea of Italy and her international
mission, infused with that political mysticism

27

which at times resembles the national Messianism
of the poets of Poland, in the little book. At giovani
d'ltalia, published in i860. It is there that he
declares that Nationality is the sign placed by
God on the brow of every people ; it is the sign of
its special mission, which must be developed in
harmony with the special missions of the other
peoples, and the union of all these missions, when
fulfilled, will one day represent la patria di tutti,
la patria delle patrie, I'Umanitd ; " and only then
will the word foreigner pass from the speech of
men." But the individual can do nothing to
actualise this conception, save in union with those
who share his nationality.

" When God created Italy, He smiled upon her,
and gave her as boundaries the two most sublime
things that He placed in Europe, symbols of Eternal
Power and of Eternal Motion, the Alps and the
Sea. From the immense circle of the Alps descends
a wonderful chain of continuous ranges that reaches
to where the sea bathes her, and even beyond into
severed Sicily. And, where the mountains do not
gird her, the sea girds her as with a loving embrace ;
that sea which our forefathers called mare nostra.
Scattered around her in that sea, like gems fallen
from her diadem, are Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, and
other lesser islands, where the nature of the soil
and the structure of the mountains and the language
and the hearts of men, all speak of Italy. Within
those boundaries all the nations passed, one after
the other, as conquerors and savage persecutors ;
but they have not been able to extinguish the holy
name of Italy, nor the innermost energy of the

28

race that first peopled her ; the Italic element,
more powerful than all, has worn out the religions,
the speech, the tendencies of the conquerors, and
superimposed upon them the imprint of ItaUan
Life."

A little further on is the picture of Rome : Rome
of the Caesars, Rome of the Popes, Rome of the
People to take the place of both, to unite all ^ the
world in the faith of Thought and of Action : E la
trinitd delta sioria, il cut verbo e in Roma. The
pact of the new Faith will shine one day upon the
nations from the Pantheon of Humanity.

" In the meantime Rome is your metropolis.
You cannot have a native land save in her and with
her. Without Rome, there is no Italy possible.
There is the sanctuary of the nation. Even as the
Crusaders moved to the cry of Gerusalemme, you
must advance to the cry of Roma, nor have peace
or truce, until the banner of Italy floats in the
pride of victory from each of the seven hills."

" I tell you that, as when the pagan gods died
and Christ was born, so Europe to-day is athirst
for a new life and a new heaven and a new earth ;
and she will follow, as on a holy crusade, the steps
of the first people from whom, supported by strong
deeds, a voice will come forth to proclaim adoration
of the Eternal Truth and Eternal Justice, and to
anathematise the power that oppresses and the
lie that debases life. Be yours that voice and that
living example. You can do it. And Europe wiU
crown your native land with a crown of love, upon
which God will write : Woe to him who touches
it " (5).

29

The opening and closing sentences of his Politica
internazionale (published in 1871) may be regarded,
as it were, as Mazzini's political testament. " The
moral law is the criterion by which must be judged
the worth of the social and political acts that
constitute the life of nations." " Great ideas make
great peoples. And ideas are not great for peoples
save inasmuch as they pass beyond their own
boundaries. A people is only great on the condition
of fulfilling a great and holy mission in the world,
even as the importance and worth of an individual
are measured by what he accomplishes on behalf
of the society in which he lives. Internal organisa-
tion represents the sum of the means and forces
gathered for the fulfilment of the appointed external
work. As circulation and exchange give value
to production and reinvigorate it, international Ufe
gives worth and motion to the internal life of a
people. National life is the means ; international
life is the end. The first is the work of man ; the
second is prescribed and pointed out by God. The
prosperity, the glory, the future of a nation are in
proportion to its approach to the end thus
assigned " (6).

As a political idealist, a man whose lips too were
touched with the prophetic fire, we associate with
the name of Mazzini that of his rival, Vincenzo
Gioberti. In 1843, Gioberti published his famous
book, // primato morale e civile degli Italiani. The
conception, from which the work takes its title, is
similar to that of Mazzini's third Rome : Italy, by
her history and by her nature, is the nazione madre
del genet e umano, destined by Providence to exercise

30

a primato morale e civile, to guide the other nations
on the road of civilisation, to initiate a new epoch
for the peoples. But — apart from the fact that
(at that stage in his thought) the one looked to an
ItaUan confederation, the other to a revolutionary
unification — Mazzini and Gioberti differed in the
form of their vision. Mazzini saw Italy the initiator
of a republican Europe, the leader and inspiration
of all nationalities struggling for hberty and self-
determination ; Gioberti saw the future Italy as
a great democratic power in our modem sense of
the word, with the part pertaining to her in the
counsels of Europe, with a national army, a common
navy to defend her ports and guard the Hberty of
her seas, and the acquisition of colonies in various
parts of the globe. I may add that, while Mazzini
would carry the boundaries of Italy up to the
Alps and eastwards as far as to include Fiume,
Gioberti went farther, and declared that the whole
eastern coast of the Adriatic with its islands, where
not Greek, should be Italian.

Unlike Mazzini, Gioberti did not live to see the
imification of Italy. But, in 185 1, in the days that
followed the disaster of Novara, he left to the
nation with his last breath a greater book than his
previous Primato : the Rinnovamento civile d' Italia.
It was the completion and rectification of the
Primato. Let Italians no longer look to a con-
federation or to revolutionary conspiracies, but to
the hegemony of Piedmont, rallying round the
young king, Victor Emanuel. Let conservatives
and democrats, monarchists and repubhcans, unite
in the national idea, and each party, laying aside

31

the character of faction and of sect, identify itself
with the nation. Gioberti already indicated, in
Cavour, the statesman who would collaborate with
the king in the work of Italian renovation. And,
looking to the future of Europe, he declared : " The
adequate constitution of our nationality will only
be effectuated by one of those universal and un-
conquerable commotions which free the peoples
from the tutelage of their rulers, and make them
the arbiters of their own destinies " (7).

Mazzini and Gioberti are the prophets of the
Risorgimento. In poetry, the republican idecdism
is represented by Mameli ; the monarchical faith
by Giovanni Prati. Niccolo Tommaseo speaks for
the Italians of Dalmatia, his " seconda Italia."
In 1856, Daniele Manin — the heroic defender of
Venice in 1849 — followed Gioberti : " lo, repub-
blicano, pianto per primo il vessillo unificatore :
Italia col Re Sat do," The meeting of Garibaldi and
Victor Emanuel in the liberated South on October
26th, i860, symbolises the union of the revolutionary
and monarchical forces that had deUvered and
were making Italy : " Saluto il primo Re
dltalia" (8).

32

VII.

In more recent times, particularly since 1870, the
national poet of Italy has been Giosue Carducci : '^
perhaps the greatest European poet in the latter
half of the nineteenth century. Benedetto Croce
writes of him : " The poetry of Carducci, sprung
to birth at the close of the old Italian hfe and the
beginning of the new, can be called a true epos of
the history of Italy in the history of the world."
Much of Carducci' s verse, especially in the Odi
barbare, represents in the highest artistic form that
continuity of the Latin spirit which is the note of
Italian civiMsation throughout the centuries. The
worship of Italy is with him a passion. His lyrical
exaltation of agriculture and rural Hfe, his love of
the fields, the harvests, the " sante visioni della
natura," becomes one with his patriotic fervour ;
for the land that he depicts is Italy, the Italy of
immemorial Latin tradition, Italy with her
reminiscences of a mighty past, Italy which the
glorious achievements of the Risorgimento has
prepared for an even nobler future. At the end
of one of his masterpieces, the ode A lie fonti del
Clitumno, comes a characteristic and significant note
— we see the smoke and hear the whistle of the
railway engine, symbol of economic progress,
bringing new industries through the Umbrian
plain : —

" Plaudono i monti al carme e i boschi e I'acque
de rUmbria verde : in faccia a noi fumando
ed anelando nuove Industrie in corsa
fischia il vapore."

33

It has been well said of Carducci : " Egli senti
il presente con animo antico." His hero was
Garibaldi, he for whom the sword was the instru-
ment of justice and the symbol of peace. In his
odes the embarking of Garibaldi and his thousand
volunteers at Scoglio di Quarto is linked with the
coming of Aeneas to Italy, and the new Rome
invokes the deliverer as novello Romolo. Carducci
has Mazzini's vision of the third Rome, the Rome
of the People, spreading for a third time among
the nations a gospel of civilisation. Italy, whom
Rome made one, returns to her mother whom
she has freed, and who shows her the monuments,
the columns and arches of old : —

" Gli archi che nuovi trionfi aspettano
non piu di regi, non piu di cesari,
e non di catene attorcenti
braccia umane su gli eburnei carri ;

" ma il tuo trionfo, popol d' Italia,
su I'et^ nera, su I'eta barbara,
su i mostri onde tu con serena
giustizia farai franche le genti.

" O Italia, o Roma ! quel giomo, placido
tonerk il cielo su'l F6ro, e cantici
di gloria, di gloria, di gloria
correran per I'infinito azzurro."

But the poet abandons Mazzini's republicanism
for the constitutional monarchy of the House of
Savoy. In one of his latest odes, Piemonte, he
hymns the part played by Piedmont and the
" italo Amleto," Charles Albert, in the redemption
of Italy ; in another, Bicocca di San Giacomo, he

34

looks in the name of the Italian people to
King Humbert for the fulfilment of the national
destiny : —

" Noi non vogUamo, o Re, predar le belle
rive straniere e spingere vagante
I'aquila nostra a gli ampi voli avvezza :

ma, se la guerra
I'Alpe minacci e su' due man tuoni,
alto, o fratelli, i cuori ! alto le insegne
e le memorie ! avanti, avanti, o Italia
nuova ed antica " (i).

Gabriele d'Annunzio, in his funeral oration on
the death of Carducci in 1907, uttered the pregnant
words : " Giosue Carducci — il quale credeva e
afiermava essere la civilta italica elemento neces-
sario, come fu gia primo, alia vita della civiltk
mondiale — lega agli Italiani d'oggi I'orgoglio di
stirpe e la volonta di operare " (" Giosue Carducci —
who beUeved and declared that the ItaUan civilisa-
tion is a necessary element, even as it was of
old, in the life of the civilisation of the world —
bequeathes to the Itahans of to-day the pride of
race and the will to act "). And Gabriele
d'Annunzio himself, in his splendid Canzoni della
gesta d'oltremare and his more recent orations
Per la piu grande Italia, came forward as the apostle
of the Greater Italy of the future, creating a kind
of new national romanticism, a conception of
Italy's destiny as a nation, blended from the
classical glories of Rome, the mighty history of
the Italian maritime republics of the Middle Ages,
the heroic Garibaldean epic : —

35

" Cosi, divina Italia, sotto il giusto

tuo sole o nelle tenebre, munita

e cauta, col palladio su I'affusto,
" andar ti veggo verso la tua vita

nuova, e del tuo silenzio far vigore,

e far grandezza d'ogni tua ferita " (2).

In Antonio Fogazzaro's great romance, Daniele
Cortis, a feature of the protagonist's political faith
is that the monarchy is capable of completing
" the lesson of Italian geography that King Victor
Emanuel gave Europe." The note of irredentistno
was no new thing in Italian literature. In the early
days of the unification, we find Giovanni Prati
lamenting that his native region, the Trentino,
" il mio verde Tirolo," should still be held back
from the maternal embraces of Italy : —

" No, non son pago. Chiedo e richiedo
da mane a vespro la patria mia " (3).

Carducci, in his Saluto italico, bids his " antichi
versi italici " fly with the new year " al bel mar di
Trieste " and her sister cities, gathering up the
sighs and expectations, bearing the sacred name
of Italy to the cities and regions of " Italia irre-
denta " : —

" In faccia a lo stranier, che armato accampasi
su'l nostro suol, cantate : Italia, Italia, Italia !"

It was a saying of Garibaldi that a great part of
modern Italy is due to her poets : " Gik buona
parte di quest' Italia la si deve ai poeti." A few
years ago a smaU volume was published at Florence,
Poeti italiani d'oltre i confini, a selection from the
poets of " Italia irredenta." Natives of the Tren-

36

tino, of Trieste, of Istria, of Dalmatia, these poets
spoke and speak with the voice of Italy, participating
in her intellectucil life, sharing her aspirations and
ideals. Thus from the foot of the Alps and from
the shores of the Adriatic — regions where, as a
poet of Trieste has said, every stone and every
cave reflects the Ught of Rome or echoes the roar
of the winged lion of Venice (4) — the Virgihan cry,
Italiam quaero patriam, arose, and we know what
Italy's answer has been.

VIII.
" Troppo ubbidisti e troppo sofferisti,
giovane Italia, plena d'umilta !
Con I'insidia a ogni passo
tu crescesti nel mondo,
e ogni mano alle spalle
ti scagliava il suo sasso :
sola tra i tuoi nemici,
sola crescevi tu.
La grande ora h. squillata :
mostra la tua virtii ! "

I read these Unes, dated September, 1914, in a
recently pubUshed volume by Luigi Siciliani (i).
Let me quote from two poems written at the Italian
front in the early days of Italy's entry into the
war. In the one, by my friend Antonio Cippico,
the two Crosses — the White Cross of Savoy and
the Red Cross of healing — bear the message of a
new Risorgimento to the Italian cities still held
in Austrian bondage : —

37

" Segno candido o cruento
del novel Risorgimento,
di a Trieste, a Zara, a Trento :
* La gran Madre Italia 6 qui ' " (2).

The other is L'Altare, of Sem Benelli, written in the
trenches shortly before the first taking of Gorizia :
the altar being the Carso, that desolate upland
wilderness of rocks and stones over which, later,
after the disaster that proved one of the greatest
moral victories in history, the third army (as one
of the British correspondents reported) " came
back with the discipline and stern regularity of a
parade manoeuvre." Upon that altar, Benelli
wrote. Victory had ascended to place the ring of
Italy upon the finger of Trieste : —

" Su quest' Altare 6 salita
ormai la vittoria
per porre I'anello dTtalia
in dito a Trieste."

But the poet even then pictured an image of Victory,
mangled with wounds and with a countenance of
sorrow, as the Italian soldier — " il mite soldato
dTtalia " — surmounted the crags and rocks that
barred him from his goal. And he apostrophised
Italy with her cities : —

" O Patria multanime, sposata
ogni giorno dal sole ....

tu devi ora patire

il patimento che ti far^ sacra " ;

for that desolate plateau of the Carso, drenched
with Italian blood, becomes in the poet's imagina-

38

tion the altar upon which the festival of Greater
Italy win, in days to come, be celebrated (3).

The victory of Vittorio Veneto crowned and

completed the work of the Risorgimento. We

may remember how Swinburne, looking back upon

the past gifts of Italy to the world and looking

forward to the fulfilment of Mazzini's prophecy of

the third Rome, wrote in the Song of the Standard : —

"Out of thine hands hast thou fed us with pasture

of colour and song ;

Glory and beauty by birthright to thee as thy

garments belong ;
Out of thine hands thou shalt give us as surely
deUverance from wrong.

"Out of thine eyes thou hast shed on us love as a
lamp in our night.
Wisdom a lodestar to ships, and remembrance a

flame-coloured light ;
Out of thine eyes thou shalt show us as surely
the sun-dawn of right.
"Turn to us, speak to us, Italy, mother, but once
and a word.
None shall not follow thee, none shall not serve

thee, not one that has heard ;
Twice hast thou spoken a message, and time is
athirst for the third."
With what sublime heroism, with what immense
sacrifices (too often so inadequately recognised by
her aUies and associates), Italy has contributed —
in measure out of all proportion to her resources —
in saving the civilisation of Europe and giving us
deliverance from wrong, the events of these terrible

39

years have abundantly shown. We look with
confidence to Italy's future ; we know that she
will speak again to the world. In Dante's " Roman
Empire " and in Mazzini's " United States of
Europe," there is an anticipation of what we are
now calUng the " League of Nations." And, in
any such restored unity of civilisation, we may well
believe that Italy — with her history and her tradi-
tions, her glorious past and her heroic present,
her admirable advance in every sphere of intellectual
and economic activity, and that genius in virtue
of which the primato morale e civile has been justly
claimed for her — is destined to give light and
guidance to our steps along the road of peace and
progress.

40

NOTES.

I.

1. Gregorii I. Papae Registrum epistolarum, ed.
Ewald and Hartmann, V. 36 (letter of 595 to the Emperor
Maurice) ; Carmen in victoria Pisanorum, in E. du
M^ril, Poesies populaires laiines du tnoyen age {Paris,
1847), pp. 239-251 ; Liber Maiolichinus de gesiis
Pisanorum illustribus. ed. C. Calisse (Rome, 1904).
Upon the Carmen in victoria Pisanorum, Gabriele
d'Annunzio has based his Canzone del Sacramento, in
Le canzoni della gesta d'oltremare.

Cf. F. Novati, L'influsso del pensiero latino sopra
la civiltd italiana del medio evo (2nd ed., Milan, 1899) ;
U. Ronca, Cultura medioevale e poesia latina d'ltalia
nei secoli xi e xii (Rome, 1892) ; M. Scipa, Le 'Italic '
del medio evo, in Archivio storico per le provincie
napoletane, XX. (Naples, 1895).

2. Romoaldi archiepiscopi salernitani Annales, in
M.G.H. S., XIX., p. 445 (also Muratori, R.I.S., VII.,
col. 220). Romoaldus was present as ambassador of
King William of Sicily. Cf. Novati, op. cit. ; C. Cipolla,
in Nuovo Archivio Veneto, X., pp. 405 et seq. (Venice,
1895).

3. This passage occurs in Buoncompagno's Historia
obsidionis civitatis anchonitanae (A. Gaudenzi, Un
secondo testo dell' 'Assedio d'Ancona,' in Bulletiino
dell'Istituto Storico Italiana, No. 15, Rome, 1895,
p. 168). See also Gaudenzi, Sidla cronologia delle
opere dei dettatori bolognesi, loc. cit.. No. 14 (Rome,
1895). In the Palma, a rhetorical treatise composed
in 1 198 (ed. Sutter, Freiburg, 1894, p. 123), Buon-
compagno says of the Lombards : " Those who have
so often fought for the preservation of liberty, are
deservedly senators of Italy." A few years later, at

41

the end of his Amiciiia (ed. Sarina Nathan, Rome,
1909, p. 87), we find him writing : " The Italian people
neither can nor ought to live under tribute, for liberty
chose her chief seat in Italy. But, although it is Italy
from the strait of Messina and Brindisi unto Aquileia
and Susa, there are nevertheless boundaries which
liberty in modern times hath not been wont to cross :
Rome, Perugia, Faenza, and Treviso for the laws of
liberty extend to the bed of the swift-flowing Taglia-
mento. Assuredly the admirable realm of Venice,
which is one of the chiefest members of Italy, preserves
the Italian liberty in the highest degree." This testi-
mony of a Tuscan — writing about 1205 — to the
italianiid of Venice is noteworthy, and the whole tone
of the passage shows that when Italians, in the age of
the Communes, spoke of Italia, they did not mean the
restricted regnum iialicum of the Langobards and
Franks.

4. V.E. I. 10, II, 15, 16, 18; Episi. V. 2, 5, 6;
Epist. VI. 2 ; Epist. VIII. 10, 11 ; Inf. I. 106-111,
IX. 112-114. XX. 61-69; Purg. VI. 88-105, VII.
94-96; Par. VIII. 61-72, XXX. 133-138; Mon. I.
2, 3, 4, 10, II, 12, 14 ; Conv. IV. 4. Cf. T. Casini,
Dante e la pairia italiana, in his Scritii danteschi (Citti
di Castello, 1913) ; P. Villari, Dante e I' Italia (Florence,
J914) ; E. G. Parodi, in Bullettino delta Societd Dantesca
Italiana, N.S. XXIII. (Florence, 1916), pp. 107-108 ;
and, especially, F. Ercole, L'unitd politica delta nazione
italiana e I'lmpero net pensiero di Dante, in Archivio
Storico Italiano, LXXV. (Florence, 1917).

The letter to the Princes and Peoples clearly implies
a kingdom of Italy with the Emperor as national king.
Ercole well emphasises the significance of the words
" non solum sibi ad imperium, sed, ut liberi, ad regimen
reservati " {Epist. V. 6). One of the two MSS. gives
for regimen an alternative reading regnum. There is
the same distinction in Inf. I. 127, where Virgil speaks
of God as the Emperor who reigns on high : "In tutte
parti impera e quivi regge." Dante did not conceive
of this kingdom of Italy as the comparatively limited

42

regnutn italicum of the earlier Middle Ages, but the
complete undivided Italy which he represents in the
De Vulgar i Eloquentia and the Divina Commedia,
including Venice and the entire South with Sicily, and
the " Italia irredenta " of our own day. The effectua-
tion of this kingdom would obviously imply a certain
political unity of Italy. Although Dante does not
indicate the position of the individual states, we may
surmise that those which he regarded as legitimate
would retain their complete autonomy. Venice had
never acknowledged any allegiance to the w'estern
Emperor, but Dante would presumably have regarded
the republic as a legitimately constituted government
within the Empire. As for the South, Apulia had
been claimed for the regnum italicum by Otto the Great.
Liutprand makes this claim in Otto's name on his
legation to Nicephorus Phocas : " Terram quam
imperii tui esse narras, gens incola et lingua Italici
regni esse declarat " [Relatio de legaiione constaniino-
politana, M.G.H.S. III., p. 348). When the great
Norman, Roger, established his monarchy, St. Bernard
adapted the words of the fourth Gospel in his letter to
Lotharius : " Est Caesaris propriam vindicare coronam
suam ab usurpatore siculo . . . Omnis qui in Sicilia
regem se facit, contradicit Caesari " {Epist. 139, Migne,
Pat. Lat. 182, col. 294). Dante nowhere seems to
r^ard the Normans as usurpers, but he does emphati-
cally so represent the Angevin king of Apulia and the
Aragonese king of Sicily of his own day, Charles II.
and Frederick (Conv. IV. 6). In his eyes, Apulia
and Sicily had been reunited to the Empire by the House
of Suabia, and possibly an imperial investiture would
have regulated the position with respect to the Angevins.
In Par. VIII., it is implied that the children of Carlo
Martello, the son of Charles II., would have been rightful
sovereigns had they succeeded, but there is a special
reference to his being the son-in-law of the Emperor ;
these regi will be " nati per me di Carlo e di Ridolfo "
(Par. VIII. 72). On the other hand, the formation
of the Itahan kingdom would unquestionably have

43

ended the temporal sovereignty of the Papacy ; for
Rome is the seat of the Emperor's royal and imperial
government, and the temporal sovereignty is contrary
to the express words of Christ and opposed to the very
nature of the Church {Mon. III. 15).

II.

1. A. Bartoli, Storia dclla letteratura italiana, VII.
{Francesco Peirarca), p. 135.

2. Canzoni, Spirio gentil che quelle membra reggi
and Italia mia hen che' I parlar sia indarno {Rime di
Francesco Peirarca, ed. Carducci and Ferrari, liii. and
cxxviii.) ; Epist. de Reb. Fam. XIX. 15, Epist. metr.
I. 3, III. 24 {ad Italiam ex Galliis remeans), III. 25
{de Italiae latuiibus), De Reb. Fam. XIV. 5, XI. 8, III. 7,

Variae 48, De Reb. Fam. X. i, XVIII. i, Rer. Sen.
VII. I, Variae 3. [Epp. de Reb. Fam. et Variae,
ed. Fracassetti ; Epp. Rer. Sen. and metr., Opera,
Venice, 1501.]

3. Liriche cdite ed inedite di Fazio degli Uberti,
ed. R. Renier (Florence, 1883), Canz. xiv., p. 120 ;
Rime di irecentisti minori, ed. G. Volpi (Florence,
1907), p. 70.

4. The Canzone di Roma in Renier, op. cit., Canz.
xii., p. 96, and \'olpi, op. cit., p. 64 ; the Cantilena pro
Comite Virtutum of Francesco di Vannozzo and the
canzone of Simone Serdini {Novella monarchia giusto
signore) in Volpi, op. cit., pp. 220-225, 189-192. See
E. Levi, II vero autore delta Canzone di Roma {Bindo
di done del Frate da Siena), in R. Isiituto Lombardo
di scienze e lettere, Rendiconti, series II., vol. XLI.,
pp. 471-490 (Milan, 1908) ; E. Levi, Francesco di

Vannozzo e la lirica nelle corti lombarde durante la
seconda metd del secolo xiv. (Florence, 1908) ; A.
d'Ancona, // concetto dell' unitd politica nei poeti italiani,
in his Sttidi di critica e storia letteraria, Part I. (2nd ed.,
Bologna, 1912).

44

5- V. Rossi, // Quattrocento (Milan, 1900), pp. 2-4 ;
R. Sabbadini, Centoirenta lettere inedite di Francesco
Barbara (Salerno, 1884), pp. 92-102; Pit II. Com-
mentarii, IV. (Rome, 1584), p. 192 ; Pontano, Charon
dialogus (C. M. Tallarigo, Giovanni Pontano e i suoi
tempi, Naples, 1874, p. 726), Urania, V. 978-982
(/. /. Pontani Carmina, ed. B. Soldati, Florence,
1902, p. 177).

6. P. Villari, Niccolb Machiavelli e i suoi tempi
(3rd ed., Milan, 1912-1914), I., Appendix doc. i. ;
Codice Aragonese, ed. F. Trinchera, Vol. II., part ii.
(Naples, 1870), letters running froni Sept. 16, 1493, to
Jan. 17, 1494 ; E. P^rcopo, Lettere di Giovanni Pontano
a principi ed amici, in Atti delta Accademia Pontaniana,
XXXVII. (Naples, 1907), p. 53 ; Le Rime di Benedetto
Gareth detto II Chariteo, ed E. Percopo (Naples, 1892),
II., pp. 179-184 ; Boiardo, Orlando Innamorato,
III. ix. 26.

III.

1. II Principe, cap. xxvi. ; Dell' arte della guerra,
lib. VII. adfinem. Cf. Villari, op. cit.. III., pp. 373-385.

2. Orlando Furioso, XVII. 1-5, 74-79; XXXIII.
10 ; XV. 23-26 ; Molza, Sonnets in Carducci, Primavera
e Fiore della lirica italiana, I. pp. 218, 219 ; Guidiccioni,
Rime, ed. E. Chiorboli {Scrittori d Italia, Bari, 1912),
pp. 3-10.

3. Teofilo Folengo, Orlandino, II. 59, I. 4 [Opere
italiane, ed. U. Renda, Scrittori d' Italia, Bari, 1911,
etc.) ; Baldus (Le Maccheronee, ed. A. Luzio, Scrittori
d' Italia, Bari, 1911), XXV. 346-350: —

" Dum gentes italae, bastantes vincere mundum,
se se in se stessos discordant, seque niedemos
vassallos faciunt, servos, vilesque fameios
his, qui vassalli, servi, vilesque faniei
tempore passato nobis per forza fuere."

45

IV.

1. Le letter e di M. Bernardo Tasso (Venice, 1570),
p. 29U. Cf. V. Cian, La coliura e I'iialianitd di Venezia
nel Rinascimento (Bologna, 1905).

2. Vergine invitta il cut togato ingegno, in Letter e
del cavalier Gio. Battista Marino, aggiuntevi alcune
Poesie (Venice, 1673), p. 519. The canzone was
apparently written shortly before 16 14.

3. Boccalini, Pietra del Paragone politico, ed. C.
Teoli, pp. 45, 46, 64 ; Testi, canzone, AW Altezza del
Duca di Savoia, in Carducci, Primavera e Fiore, p. 324.
Testi followed this up, in 1617, with the Pianto d' Italia,
where Italy calls for a war of national independence,
in which the Duke of Savoy is to be the leader and
show himself " n^ia degna e non bastarda prole." The
Spanish n^onarchy is like the great image seen by
Daniel with feet of clay ; the valour of Charles Emanuel
is the stone wliich will smite and shatter it to pieces.
The same political tendencies are represented in prose
by the Filippiche contro gli Spagnuoli of Alessandro
Tassoni (1615). Although these writers did not antici-
pate the unification of Italy under the House of Savoy,
a certain Ascanio Allione, known as " il matto di
Verona," in 1624 declared that it had been divinely
revealed to him that God had chosen Charles Emanuel
to be king of all Italy. See A. d'Ancona, Letteratura
civile dei tempi di Carlo Emanuele I., in his Studi di
critica e storia leiteraria, ed. cit., part I. ; F. Gabotto,
Per la storia della letteratura civile dei tempi di Carlo
Emanuele I., in Rendiconti della R. Accademia dei
Lincei, Series V., Vol. III. (Rome, 1894).

4. Giannone, Discorsi storici e politici sopra gli
Annali di Livio, in Carducci, Letture del Risorgimento

italiano, pp. 6-8.

5. Alfieri, Del Principe e delle lettere, III. 11 ; Delia
Tirannide, II. 8. Carducci {op. cit., p. 41) writes of

the dedication of the Bruto : " E il primo scrittore che
nomina il popolo italiano ; e la prima volta che il
popolo italiano e nominato. Salve, o gran padre ! "

46

Cf. G. Mestica, La polHica nelV opera letteraria di Viitorio
Alfieri (discourse prefixed to V.A. prose e poesie
scelte. Milan, 1898) ; M. Scherillo, II ' vate nostro '
(prefixed to V. A., La vita, le rime, etc., Milan, 1917).

V.

1. Cf. Carducci, Per il tricolor e {Opere, X., pp.
413-421) ; E. Masi, // Risorgimento italiano (Florence,
1917), I. pp. 226-227.

2. The whole sentence is worth quoting : " Noi ci
contenteremo, per questa volta, col sacrificio di molti
denari, statue, quadri e viveri, di comprare la diminu-
zione dei Principi nella nostra Penisola, di acquistare
il diritto di parlare e di scrivere, e di odorare la liberta.
Se sapremo profittare di cio, e particolannente della
facolta di parlare e di scrivere, potremo sperare di
risorgere fra non molto." See G. Sforza, Contributo
alia vita di Giovanni Fanioni, in Giornale storico e
leiterario della Liguria, anni VII.-VIII. (Spezia, 1906-
1907). Of Fantoni's poems, cf. especially Odi, ii 41,
42, 49, 50, 51 (Giovanni Fantoni, Foesie, ed. G. Lazzeri,
Scrittori d' Italia, Bari, 1913).

3. Poesie e leitere di Giovanni Pindemonte, ed. G.
Biad^o (Bologna, 1883), pp. 43-49. I select these
lines as the first salutation to the national banner in
Italian poetry ; the poem closes with the picture of
the unification of Italy in the Republic : —

" Tu, fiorente Repubblica, tu cinta
d'alldr de 'figli tuoi da le grandi alme,
ritala tirannia fugata e vinta,
riposarti potrai su le tue palme.

" E regnerai sul bel paese intero,
che il mar circonda e I'Alpe, ed il Po valica,
e Appennin parte ; e cangerai, lo spero,
di Cisalpina il nome in quel d'ltalica."

For Italy under the Napoleonic regime, cf . the classical
passage in Cesare Balbo, Sommario della storia d' Italia,

47

VII. 34{ed. F. Niccolini, Scrittori d' Italia, Vol. II.,
pp. 148-150), and Masi, op. cit., Vol. I., cap. xxi.

4. Monti, Caio Gracco, Act III., Scene iii. ; G.
Chiarini, La vita di Ugo Foscolo (Florence, 1910),
p. 293, quoting Carlo Cattaneo. Cf. Mazzini, Orazione
di Ugo Foscolo a Bonaparte {Scriiti editi ed inediti, II.,
p. 123 ; Scritti letterari, in Classici italiani, Milan,
I., p. 115).

5. Manzoni's canzone, // Proclama di Rimini
(" O delle imprese alia piii degna accinto "), looks to
the union of all Italy under Murat's sceptre. There
are traces of an idealised Murat in the protagonist of
the Adelchi, particularly in the first sketch of the
tragedy ; but the moral of the great chorus at the end
of Act III. is that a people must expect no foreign aid,
but rely upon itself, for the recovery of its lost nationality
and independence. Cf. M. Scherillo, II decennio del-
Voperositd poetica di Alessandro Manzoni, prefixed to
Le iragedie, gl' Inni Sacri e le odi (Milan, 1907). The
abortive revolution of 1821 inspired Manzoni with the
ode, Soffermati sull' arida sponda, anticipating the
union of the Piedmontese and Lombards, to be followed
by the expulsion of the foreigner and the oppressor,
" dal Cenisio alia balza di Scilla," and " Italia risorta "
in her rightful place " al convito de' popoli assisa."
This poem, too, was cut short by the events ; but, in
1848, Manzoni added the stanza which was his last
utterance in poetry : —

" Oh giornate del nostro riscatto !
oh dolente per sempre colui
che da lunge, dal labbro d'altrui,
come un uomo straniero, le udri !
che a'suoi figli narrandole un giorno,
dovra dir sospirando : io non c'era ;
che la santa vittrice bandiera
salutata quel di non avr^."

When made a citizen of Rome in 1872, Manzoni claimed
as his only merit the " aspirazioni costanti d'una lunga
vita all'indipendenza e uniti d'ltalia."

48

VI.

1. Carducci, Giuseppe Mazzini (sonnet in Giambi
ed epodi, XXIII., in the one volume edition, Poesie di
Giosue Carducci, Bologna, 1901), For Mazzini's
doctrines and influence, see especially G. Salvemini,
Mazzini (Rome, 1916).

2. Mazzini, Scritti editi ed inediti (Milan and Rome,
1861-1891), XVI., p. 103, v., p. 216. Cf. XVIII.,
p. 41 {Doveri deU'uomo) : " Gl'individui muoiono ;
ma quel tanto di vero ch'essi hanno pensato, quel
tanto di buono ch'essi hanno operate, non va perduto
con essi ; I'Umanit^ lo raccoglie e gli uomini che
passeggiano sulla loro sepoltura ne fanno lor prd."
We know how Swinburne developed this passage in
one of the noblest of English lyrics, The Pilgrims.

3. See Carducci, A commemorazione di Goffredo
Mameli (Opere, X., and prefixed to the edition of the
Poesie of Mameli, in the Classici italiani). The phrase,
" tra un inno e una battaglia cadevi," is from Carducci,
Avanti ! avanti ! {Giambi ed epodi, ed. cii., XV.).

4. Scritti editi ed inediti, IV., pp. 218-219 (also in
Scritti letterari, II., p 325) ; XI., p. 246 ; XVIII.,
p. 57 ; X., p. 137 ; VII., p. 234 ; V., pp. 388-389 ;
XVI., pp. 1-4 ; XVIII., p. 65.

5. Scritti editi ed inediti, XL, pp. 63-66, 78-79,
80-82, 94. Ai giovani d' Italia is reprinted in Raccolta
di breviari intelletiuali, N. 129 (MUan). The words,
" Guai a chi la tocca," were uttered by Napoleon when
he took the crown of Italy. For Polish national
Messianism, see Monica M. Gardner, Adam Mickiewicz
(London, 191 1) ; Poland, a Study in National Idealism
(London, 1915) ; The Anonymous Poet of Poland,
ZygmurU Krasinski (Cambridge, 1919). Mazzini wrote
of Polish poetry : " Non conosciamo Poesia, da quella
della Polonia infuori, che abbia coscienza della propria
Missione : suscitar I'uomo a tradurre il pensiero in
azione " (XVI., p. 121). For his view of Mickiewicz,
" il primo poeta dell'epoca," see his two letters to his
mother (November 18, 1834, and August 5, 1836), in

49

Epistolario, III., pp. 215-216, V., pp. 7-9 {Edizione
nazionale of the works of Mazzini, Vols. X. and XII.,
Imola, 1911-12).

6. Scritti editi ed inediti, XVL, pp. 128, 156.

7. V. Gioberti, // primato morale e civile degli Italiani
(2nd ed., Brussels, 1845) ; Del Rinnovamento civile
d' Italia, ed. F. Niccolini [Scrittori d' Italia, Bari, 1911-12).
Cf. Masi, op. cit., II., pp. 11-19 ; E. Solmi, Mazzini e
Gioberti (in Biblioieca siorica del Risorgimento italiano,
Rome, 1913). For Gioberti's views on the Adriatic
question, see Primato, p. 512, and cf. Mazzini, Politica
internazionale (XVL, p. 144).

8. Cf. Carducci, Letture del Risorgimento italiano ;
V. Rossi, Storia delta letteratura italiana, III. (6th ed.,
Milan, 1915), cap. xiii. ; G. Tambara, La lirica politica
del Risorgimento italiano (1815-1870), in Biblioteca
siorica del Risorgimento italiano (Ronie, 1909). Like
the political odes of Manzoni, the lyrics of Gabriele
Rossetti, the poet of the Neapolitan revolution of
1820, and the romanzi of Giovanni Berchet, " il Tirteo
dei carbonari lombardi," chronologically precede Mazzini
and the Giovine Italia. The purest expression of
Mazzini's spirit in poetry is found in Mameli (see
especially his ode, Roma). The satirical poetry of the
Risorgimento is represented by the great name of the
Tuscan, Giuseppe Giusti, and the lesser one of the
Piedmontese, Domenico Carbone. The musical ballate
and stornelli of Francesco Dall'Ongaro, Giovanni
Prati's virile ode in anticipation of the liberation of
the South {a Ferdinando Borbone), still retain their
places in anthologies. The canti of Luigi Mercantini,
the author of the Inno di Garibaldi ("Si scopron le
tombe, si levano i morti "), run from 1848 to 1870.
Niccold Tommaseo calls Dalmatia " seconda Italia "
in his poem Alia Dalmazia {Poesie, Florence, 1911,
p. 37) ; his defence of the italianitd of Dalmatia may be
read in // primo esilio di Niccold Tommaseo, lettere di
lui a Cesar e Cantii, ed. E. Verga (Milan, 1904), p. 134
(letter of June 25, 1837). For the letter of Daniele

50

Manin, see Masi, of. cit., II., pp. 469-470. The signi-
ficance of the meeting of Victor Emanuel and Garibaldi
is finely brought out by G. M. Trevelyan, Garibaldi and
the Making of Italy (London, 191 1), pp. 271-272.

VII.

1. Poesie di Giosue Carducci, ed. cit. : AUe fonti
del Clitumno, A Giuseppe Garibaldi, Scoglio di Quarto,
Nell' annuale della fondazione di Roma {Delle odi barbare
libro I.) : Piemonte, Bicocca di San Giacomo {Rime
e ritmi). Cf. G. Mazzoni, L'Ottocento (Milan, 1913),
pp. 1292-1297 ; B. Croce, La letteratura della nuova
Italia, Vol. II. (Ban. 1914), Saggi XXV., XXVI.,
XXVII. I quote the pturase, " Egli senti il presente
con animo antico," from a review by Renier (of P. Papa,
Giosue Carducci, Arezzo, 1913), in Giornale siorico
della letteratura italiana, LXII. (Turin, 1913), p. 246.

2. Gabriele d'Annunzio, L'orazione e la canzone in
morte di Giosue Carducci (Milan, 1907) ; Le canzoni
della gesta d'oltremare (Milan, 1912) ; Per la piu grande

Italia, orazioni e messaggi (Milan, 1915). The lines
quoted are from the last of the Canzoni.

3. Giovanni Prati, Patria {Poesie varie, ed. O.
Malagodi, II. 287, Scrittori d' Italia, Bari). One of the
last poems of Domenico Carbone was a sonnet, A Trento
e a Trieste, written in 1878 {Poesie di Domenico Carbone,
ed. G. C. Carbone, Florence, 1885) : —

"Nontemete! La madre a cui fur tolti
i figli non ha pace, infin che tutti
al grembo antico non li avr^ raccolti."

4. Poeti italiani d'oltre i confini, canti raccolti da
Giuseppe Piccidla (Florence, 1914). The lines to which
I refer are in a sonnet of Francesco Babudri : —

" Ogni speco,
ogni marmo di Roma k una favilla,
o d'un veneto rugghio manda I'eco."

51

VIII.

1. Per consolare I'anima mia, versi di Luigi Sicilian!
(Milan, 1920) : Dum Romae consuliiur.

2. Antonio Cippico, Croce bianca e Croce rossa
d' Italia (Udine, Agosto MCMXV.).

3. U Altar e, carme di Sem Benelli (Milan, 1916).

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