talian unity, but because she forbade political
reform. Their risings, therefore, local and disunited in character, were
bound to fail; the first fifteen years after the Congress of Vienna were
occupied by a series of attempts to substitute a constitutional for an
absolute _regime_ in different parts of Italy, attempts which Austria
crushed with a heavy hand.

The period which followed, 1830-1848, belongs to Mazzini and his "Young
Italy" party. His task was to fire Italy for the first time with the ideal
of national unity and independence. The conception of unity was a difficult
one for Italians to grasp; all history seemed to fight against it. There
were, for example, not only the traditions connected with Rome to be
reckoned with, but there was also the difference between north and south,
and, perhaps most important of all, the local spirit of independence
associated with the great cities like Venice, Milan, Florence, Naples, etc.
Thus, over against Mazzini's ideal of a single unified State there arose
the counter-ideal of a federal system. In this, however, later events
proved Mazzini to be right. Where he failed in foresight was in regard to
the constitutional character of the State he dreamed of. He wished not
only to abolish all existing frontiers in Italy, but to do away with all
existing state-systems. The only Italy he could conceive was a republic,
and Italy was not ripe for a republic, which was, for the rest, a form
of government too much bound up with the disruptive traditions of the
City-States to be acceptable.[1] But if Italy was not to be a republic, she
must be a monarchy, and where could she find a prince to put at the head of
her united State? Clearly, she would accept no one who was not the declared
enemy of Austria and the declared friend of constitutional reform. For a
month or so in 1846 it seemed that the Pope himself might be prevailed upon
to undertake the role; and the elevation of Pius IX. to the Chair of St.
Peter was greeted with wild enthusiasm in Italy because he was believed to
be a Liberal. These hopes proved illusory, however, and so the eyes of all
patriots turned more and more in the direction of Piedmont.

[Footnote 1: It is noticeable that Greece also played with the idea of a
republic at first and eventually selected a monarchical form of government.
As a matter of fact, not a single nation-State, formed in Europe since the
Congress of Vienna, has adopted the republican principle.