On February 9th,
1849 in Rome, the capital of the Papal States, the Roman
Republic was proclaimed, based on principles of equality, democracy
and secularism. Pope Pius IX had ran
away seventy-seven days before to the fortress
of Gaeta, taking shelter by the king of the Two Sicilies,
Ferdinand II of Bourbon.
The Roman Republic ended after 145 days, on July 4th,
1849, crushed by the intervention of the French troops of Louis
Napoleon (future emperor Napoleon
III) who trampled even the French
constitution of 1848, according to which, in point V of the
preamble, the Republic "respects the nationality of foreign
states, as it causes its own to be respected. It undertakes no
wars with a view of conquest, and never employs its power against
the liberty of any people". Instead, Louis Napoleon's
troops attacked the Roman Republic, violently interfering in the
internal affairs of another nation, and contradicting the principles
of freedom, equality and fraternity of the French Revolution.
The Roman Republic of 1849 should not be confused with the Republic
of ancient Rome (from 509 to 27 BC) and with the Jacobin Roman
Republic of the Napoleonic period (1798-99).
Rome in
1849
In 1849 the city of Rome had 179,000 inhabitants (Natalini), while, according to the 1844
census, 2,929,807 inhabitants lived in the Papal States. (Severini) The same census in Rome counted
6,189 cardinals, bishops, religious men and women and only 4,427
people professed science, literature, fine arts and 756 were surgeons,
pharmacists and midwives. (Natalini)
The Papal States had a territory
including part of Emilia (provinces of Bologna and Ferrara), Romagna,
Marche, Umbria and part of present-day Lazio, with the exclusion
of the southern part of the current provinces of Latina and Frosinone
and of eastern part of the province of Rieti.
After the failed riots of 1820-21 and 1830-31, the years of rule
of the ultra-reactionary Pope Gregory
XVI had been marked by a blunt obscurantism and by a harsh
political repression, carried out by the police together with
the ecclesiastical power: the police handed over lists of liberals
to the bishops, who gave in return other lists. Even those who
did not attend mass assiduously or who had beards could be filed
as liberals. (Carocci)
There were also the desaparecidos: the testimony of any priest
was enough to make an alleged patriot disappear, by gangs of Sanfedisti
(Holy Faith fighters) and Pontifical Volunteers who had a free
hand in torturing and killing. (Carocci)
The clandestine meetings of the liberals were infiltrated by spies
who created plots to report them to the ecclesiastical authority.
The reaction was a covert, conspiratorial and violent opposition,
often based on political assassinations as a revenge. (Carocci)
The about-turn
of Pius IX
At his inauguration on the papal throne on June 21st,
1846, Pius IX (Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti) had generated great
hopes, he was a young pontiff (54 years old), apparently progressive,
open to the unification of Italy, so much so that it had even
been proposed by Giuseppe Mazzini and many others as head of state
of a future united Italy. (Monsagrati)
On July 17th, one month after his election,
the pope issued a decree of amnesty "To all our subjects
who are currently in the place of punishment for political crimes,
we condone the rest of the sentence".
Then came the "Springtime of the Peoples", the
sequence of revolts that broke out in 1846-47 in Palermo, Naples
and Turin (Natalini) and in 1848 and 1849 in various
European countries, which urged many rulers, including Pius IX,
to grant the constitution and an elective Assembly: Ferdinand
II, King of the Two Sicilies, granted the Constitution on January
29th, 1848, Charles
Albert, King of Sardinia gave the Statute on February 8th,
Grand Duke Leopold II of Tuscany allowed the Statute on February
15th. (Natalini)
These constitutions and statutes, except that of Carlo Alberto,
were then revoked with the reaction that intervened in 1849.
In March 1847 Pius IX even sent the papal troops to Lombardy,
under the command of General Giovanni
Durando supporting the King of Sardinia Charles Albert, to
fight against the Austro-Hungarians for the unification of Italy,
only to then call them back so as not to hurt the Austro-Hungarian
Empire, a Catholic power.
The concessions of Pius IX gave him great popularity, but also
generated ever greater expectations, which Mastai-Ferretti was
unable to satisfy. In reaction, the pope took increasingly retrograde
positions, prompted by the circle of reactionary cardinals he
had surrounded himself with, first and foremost the secretary
of state Giacomo Antonelli,
much talked about for his passion for money and women.
The Tuscan patriot Giuseppe Montanelli
described a mass officiated by the pope: "All the cardinals
were there. I looked at them one by one. I searched in vain for
a gleam of intellect and love on those faces. Faces of imbeciles
or wicked ones. What a gaze of hyena Cardinal Lambruschini!
has! What a sinister figure Cardinal Marini! Such a sly old fox
Antonelli is!". (Kertzer)
The Russian author Aleksandr Herzen saw
instead Cardinal Luigi Lambruschini
approaching the pope with "the appearance of an old jackal"
and "I expected him to bite the Holy Father, instead they
embraced smoothly." (Kertzer)
The emissary of the British Prime Minister, Lord
Minto (Gilbert Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, Earl of Minto), met
the pope and wrote about him and his Secretary of State: "The
ignorance of every thing beyond the walls of Rome is almost incredible
and they are therefore open to every species of intrigue."
(Kertzer)
Other
Republics in 1848 and 1849
On March 22nd, 1848 the Republic
of San Marco was founded in Venice, whose president was Daniele Manin, and which included
Veneto and Friuli, which after Campoformido treaty of 1797 belonged
to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. On July 4th
the Republic of San Marco voted its annexation to the Kingdom
of Sardinia, the core of the future Kingdom of Italy. The Republic
lasted a year and five months, until on August 22nd,
1849 it was overwhelmed by the Hapsburg army, which regained possession
of the territories, only to leave them definitively to Italy in
1866, after the third Italian war of independence.
On February 15th, 1849, the Tuscan Republic was
proclaimed in Florence, led by Francesco
Domenico Guerrazzi, which was overthrown on April 12th
by the supporters of the Grand Duke of Tuscany Leopold
II. The invasion of the Austro-Hungarian troops, led by the
lieutenant-field marshal Konstantin d'Aspre,
therefore also had free hand in Tuscany, where they plundered
brakeless and killed hundreds of people, in particular in Leghorn,
and occupied Tuscany until 1855.
The uprising
in Rome
The incentive for the unification of Italy, incited by the initial
support of the pope, went hand in hand with the request for the
end of the despotic regime of the Church: the people asked for
freedom of the press, removal from high offices of ecclesiastics
and clericals and their replacement with laymen, establishment
of civic militias in place of mercenary ones, construction of
railways and public lighting in homes. (Kertzer)
The civil claims were accompanied by protests over the sharp rise
in the prices of bread and flour, in a period of great unemployment.
The high prices were due to the famine caused by the drought of
1845 and 1846, which made it necessary to import wheat from North
America. (Demarco)
This contingency had prompted many speculators to buy wheat on
the Black Sea markets and from Russia, but the bountiful harvest
of 1847 had brought down prices, ruining many companies trading
on the grain market and paralyzing private credit and trade. (Demarco)
There were also episodes of Luddism, following the introduction
of operating machineries, which had caused the loss of jobs. In
Trastevere district there was talk of a plot of the wool workers
to destroy the power looms (Demarco),
according to Prince Agostino Chigi
in the Regola district on December 5th, 1847, there were rumors circulating
hostile to machines, which took away the work of the people, "and
of which almost none exists "(sic) and also in
Perugia in 1847 the proletarians, "exacerbated by the
lack of work and bread, and perhaps moved by the envy brought
to capital "(sic), planned to "destroy
the machines of the rich and shrewd cloth maker Leopoldo Bonucci.
" (Bonazzi)
The carnival of 1848 was celebrated in a plain way, as a sign
of mourning for the victims of the riots in Lombardy (Chigi), without the traditional feast of moccoletti (wax candles that
everyone carried with them and that they tried to keep lit, while
trying to extinguish those of the others). On March 19th,
1848, an order by the Minister of the Interior announced that
from now the white and yellow Pontifical Flags would have the
so-called ties of the three italic colors, namely green, red and
white. (Chigi)
A state of perennial agitation and revolt therefore arose in Rome
and in the rest of the Papal State, with social demands on the
part of the poorer classes, workers, artisans, agricultural laborers,
who threatened to raise a real insurrection against the wealthy
classes and the property ordering itself. The conservative press
did not hesitate to define all of them as "communists".
(Demarco)
Among the most active in the revolts, despite his loyalty to Pius
IX, still considered a liberal pope hostage to reactionary cardinals,
Angelo Brunetti, known as Ciceruacchio,
stood out. He was very popular among the Romans because he had
given great proofs of altruism and ability to help his neighbor
on the occasion of natural disasters.
The incandescent political climate led on November 15th,
1848 to the assassination of the head of the papal government
Pellegrino Rossi in the palazzo della Cancelleria (Palace of
Chancery), where he was on his way to speak to the council of
deputies.
The next day the crowd besieged the papal palace
of Quirinale to ask for reforms, they set fire to a gate,
aimed a cannon at the palace, someone shot and killed Monsignor
Palma while he was looking out of a window. (Kertzer) The strong tensions frightened the pope,
urging him on November 24th, 1848 to flee Rome for Gaeta,
disguised as a priest, in the coach of the Bavarian ambassador
Count Charles of Spaur, together with his wife, Teresa Giraud,
escaping the siege of the Quirinale laid by the civic guards.
In the palace meanwhile the French ambassador d'Harcourt pretended
to converse with him aloud to cover the escape. (Kertzer)
The Catholic powers, France, Spain and the Austro-Hungarian Empire
contended to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies for the honor of
hosting the pope, while also receiving offers of asylum from the
United Kingdom and even from New York.
(Monsagrati) Pius IX chose Ferdinand II as
his guest, who used to boast of the safety of his kingdom, saying
that it was defended on three sides by salt water and on the fourth
by holy water (the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was surrounded
by the sea and had just a land border with the Papal State). (Kertzer)
Rome without
the pope
What Garibaldi called "the shameful flight of the soldiers
of the priests and of the reaction", instead of creating
unrest due to lack of government, pushed the Romans to self-rule:
between December 1848 and January 1849 several governments followed,
until from January 21st to 22n , the elections for the National
Assembly were held, which saw the participation of about 250 thousand
voters, one third of those entitled, and they took place without
any turmoil. (Kertzer) They were the first elections
with universal suffrage in Italy and among the first in the world,
even if by custom only males voted.
The elected were 200, of which only 27 were noble. Among them
Carlo Luciano Bonaparte,
prince of Canino, nephew of Napoleon and cousin of Luigi Napoleone,
president of the French Republic, Pietro
Sterbini, Mazzinian poet and former member of the Carboneria
(a secret revolutionary society) and minister of both the Papal
State and the Roman Republic, and Monsignor Carlo
Emanuele Muzzarelli, intellectual and prime minister of one
of the last governments of Pius IX before the advent of the Republic,
not neglecting Giuseppe Garibaldi and Giuseppe Mazzini.
A Jesuit in his memoirs did not hide the annoyance for the strong
popular participation, in particular for the fact that the gravedigger
of Trastevere had received more than one hundred votes. (Carocci) The Constituent Assembly was
established in the National Assembly session of December 29th,
1848 (Mazzuca), and began its work on February
5th, 1849, with its members wearing the sash
with the Italian tricolor. (Chigi)
As proof of the liveliness of Roman public life there is the first
performance on January 27th at the Argentina
Theatre of Giuseppe Verdi's opera
“La battaglia di Legnano”
("The Battle of Legnano"), written at the request
of the theater itself, with a patriotic theme, which aroused great
enthusiasm among the Romans, that shouted "Viva Verdi!"
("Long live Verdi!") and "Viva l'Italia!"
("Long live Italy!") from the opening chorus
"Viva Italia! Sacro un patto / Tutti stringe i figli suoi
" ("Long live Italy! A sacred covenant / Clings
all her children") to the final chorus "Italia
risorge vestita di Gloria, invitta e regina qual'era sarà"
("Italy rises again dressed in Glory, uncdefeated and
queen as she was she will be").
The birth
of the Republic
On February 9th, 1849 from the Capitoline
Hill the National Assembly proclaimed the Roman Republic,
and immediately Goffredo Mameli sent a telegram to Mazzini: writing:
"Rome, Republic, Come". Mazzini entered Rome
from Porta del Popolo gate on
March 5th (Chigi). The Republic was led by a triumvirate,
a formula chosen to avoid the presidency, which gave too much
power to one, making it similar to a monarchy, while the consulate
could lead to a Napoleonic drift, and simple ministries would
have been too subject to crisis. (Severini) The first triumvirate was composed of Giuseppe Mazzini, Aurelio
Saffi and Carlo Armellini,
who, as a first act, which was not advertised, halved their monthly
allowance. (Monsagrati)
The Roman Republic, already on its first day of establishment,
issued the Fundamental Decree
proposed by Quirico Filopanti
(pseudonym of Giuseppe Barilli), approved with 120 votes in favor,
10 against, 12 abstentions (Natalini),
which established that the papacy had lapsed in fact and in law
by the temporal government of the Roman State, while it recognized
and guaranteed to the pope the exercise of spiritual power.
Until the proclamation of the Constitution, the Fundamental Decree
was the basic law of the Republic and the regime was de facto
democratic because all the acts of the various powers were subordinate
to the Assembly elected by the people. (Monsagrati)
The proclamation of the Republic was accompanied by great demonstrations of popular
jubilation, with cannon salvos, bells ringing, religious functions,
fireworks, parties and banquets, raising of trees of liberty,
tricolor banners, lighting of public streets and main buildings,
posting of government posters and proclamations on walls, impromptu
rallies and discussions and debates in public places. (Severini)
The choices
of the Republic
The Roman Republic, in its short life, was an authentic laboratory
of democracy, in which participation practices unknown elsewhere
were experimented. Many laws were made to guarantee civil rights
to those who had become citizens and no longer subjects: it was
the first European state to proclaim that religious belief was
free and could not constitute a discriminant for the exercise
of civil rights, death penalty and torture were abolished (Prili), universal suffrage was introduced
as well as women's participation in pre-election assemblies. Press
censorship was then abolished and ecclesiastical jurisdiction
over schools and universities ceased, except for seminaries, as
well as over hospitals, orphanages and all charitable establishments.
(Chigi) A Commission of nine deputies
was established to collect citizens' reports on problems, abuses,
wrongs suffered, needs, complaints and more, which was very active
(Monsagrati), the Tribunal of the Holy Office
(the Holy Inquisition) was abolished, and the release of the prisoners
of this court had a very high symbolic value. (Kertzer)
Civil marriage was established, as well as the age of majority
for men and women at 21, the exclusion of women and their descendants
from the succession was abolished, compulsory conscription was
abolished, the right to housing and the secularity of the state
were sanctioned. (Prili) The use of the Latin language
was completely abolished in the courts. (Chigi)
Other measures attacked the economic power of the Catholic Church:
the assets of the ecclesiastical corporations for 120 million
scudos were confiscated (Prili),
and the lands were given in free and perpetual emphyteusis to
peasant families, and there was a beginning of agrarian reform
giving a rubbio of land (some less than two hectares) to families
of at least three people. The palace
of the Tribunal of the Holy Office was seized and divided
into apartments to rent to the needy. (Monsagrati)
Every horse found in the Vatican and Quirinal palaces was confiscated,
as were those owned by the Papal Noble Guard. (Kertzer)
The structures of a modern state began to be created, such as
the Central Bureau of Statistics and the National
Institute of Vaccinations.
Other laws imposed a forced loan on the wealthiest, which could
reach two thirds of their assets, and the salt monopoly, granted
under contract to Duke Alessandro
Torlonia, which had yielded enormous earnings, was abolished,
with exclusivity of trade and collection of the tax. (Natalini) The price was reduced to one
baiocco per pound, and the tobacco monopoly was also abolished.
(Chigi)
For the rest, the Republic respected the men of the old regime,
apart from individual excesses, often due to revenges. In retrospect
Mazzini said "we governed without prisons, without trials".
(Morigi)
The press
of the Republic
Freedom of the press in the Roman Republic was expressed in a
large number of journals published mainly in Rome and which met
with great success, even if they often had a short duration. Among
them Don Pirlone, "journal
of political caricatures ",
Cassandrino, "comic-political
journal of all colors", triweekly, which from March 1849
continued with "Cassandrino
repubblicano : a little magazine of absolute freedom by the
grace of God and of the people", "Il
Tribuno", a daily, political, literary newspaper,
the daily newspaper "Il positivo",
the daily newspaper "Il contemporaneo",
in which Pietro Sterbini also wrote, "L'
Italia del popolo" : "daily newspaper of
the Italian National Association, directed by Giuseppe Mazzini",
Il costituzionale romano"
political triweekly newspaper, which at the end of the Republic
continued with "L'Osservatore Romano", predecessor
of the current Vatican newspaper of the same name.
A complete collection (75 journals) of the periodicals of the
Roman Republic and of the immediately preceding period, together
with thousands of other digitized documents on this subject, can
be consulted on the dedicated website www.repubblicaromana-1849.it
of the Biblioteca di Storia Moderna e Contemporanea di Roma (Library
of Modern and Contemporary History of Rome).
The defenders
of the Republic
At the proclamation of the Republic the papal army passed en
masse on the side of the insurgents (Prili), furthermore revolutionaries from all over
Europe, Germans, French, English, Poles, Belgians, Swiss, Hungarians
and Dutch, gathered in the Foreign Legion, of 1,400- 1,500 units.
(Carocci)
Mazzini in the Assembly urgently asked for measures for the survival
of the Republic, and on his proposal a military commission of
five members was elected, headed by Carlo
Pisacane, a former Bourbon officer who graduated from the
military school of the Nunziatella, to elaborate plans for the
defense of the State. (Natalini) Among the tasks of the Commission
there was also the distribution of weapons (spades, halberds,
stones and "any tool capable of injuring"). (Carocci)
On April 27th Giuseppe
Garibaldi entered Rome from Porta
Maggiore, called by Mazzini, two days after the French landed
in Civitavecchia. His troops were placed in the monastery of San Silvestro in Capite, in the
piazza San Silvestro, from which the nuns had been evacuated.
(Chigi) Garibaldi was appointed brigadier
general, but he was annoyed because he would have liked to be
general in chief. (Garibaldi)
Four brigades were formed. The first of 2,700 men, under Garibaldi's
orders to defend the sector between the gates Porta
Portese and Porta San Pancrazio, including the Garibaldi legion,
young veterans battalion, university battalion, emigrant legion
and customs officers.
The second brigade, of 400 men, commanded by Colonel Luigi
Masi, covered the area between Porta Cavalleggeri and Porta
Angelica, the third brigade commanded by Colonel Savini, was deployed
to defend the walls on the left of the Tiber, while the fourth
brigade, of 3,000 men, under the orders of Colonel Bartolomeo
Galletti, was in reserve, to intervene wherever there was
need, and including the Roman Legion, the Engineers' sappers,
and the Carabinieri. (Prili)
The Roman Republic suffered from a lack of men and weapons, so
much so that on April 1st a decree ordered citizens to
deliver their rifles for a fee. All the unused bells of the city
were employed to build cannons for the defense of the Republic
(Kertzer), and the coaches of the nobles
and cardinals were requisitioned and deprived of their bodies
to make wagons for military transport. (Chigi)
Pius IX
takes it the wrong way
Pius IX reacted violently to the creation of the Roman Republic,
and even after its end he spewed out a shocking amount of insults
and calumnies against his successors in power. In his long allocution
of April 20th, 1849, known as "Quibus
quantisque" he said, among other things: "the
demands for new institutions and the progress so preached by these
men aim only to keep the agitations alive, to eliminate every
principle of justice, virtue, honesty, religion; and to introduce,
propagate, and cause to dominate everywhere, with the gravest
harm and ruin to all human society, the horrendous and fatal system
of Socialism, or even Communism, as it is called, which is most
contrary to natural reason and natural law itself".
And furthermore: "you know very well, Venerable Brethren,
those horrendous and monstrous opinions, that arising from the
depth of the abyss for ruin and desolation, have already prevailed
and are raging to the immense harm of Religion and Society. Those
perverted and pestilential doctrines, the enemies never tire of
spreading among the people, in words and writings, and in public
spectacles, to increase and propagate more every day the unbridled
license of every impiety, every cupidity and lust".
And "the city of Rome, the principal seat of the Catholic
Church, has now become, ahi! a forest of wild beasts, overflowing
with men of every nation, who are either apostates, or heretics,
or masters, as it is said, of Communism or Socialism, and animated
by the most terrible hatred of Catholic truth, both in speeches,
in writings and in any other way possible, they are striving with
every effort to teach and disseminate pestilential errors of all
kinds, and to corrupt the hearts and minds of all, so that in
Rome itself, if possible, the sanctity of the Catholic religion
may fail, and the irreformable rule of faith".
(translation from: apostlesoftheendtimes.com).
The pope and his supporters took all possible measures to hinder
the republic, from boycott by civil servants to the customary
sorrowful madonnas or other sacred images that wept or opened
their eyes or discolored.
Pius IX was targeted by numerous caricatures and on May 26th,
1849 he was even the subject of a publication called "Corollario di jettature" ("Appendix
of bad luck") in which he was pointed out as a jinx,
indicating a series of negative coincidences that had as victims
people who had met him or places he had dealt with.
The pope excommunicated the promoters of the Constituent Assembly,
but the Romans took it as a joke, writing on a public urinal in
via Frattina "deposit of excommunication", and
taking the cardinal's tin hats, which were held on display by
chaplains, carrying them as in a mortuary procession and then
throwing them into the river from Ponte Sisto bridge. (Chigi)
To the
rescue of the pope
The pope insistently urged the Catholic monarchies to intervene
to put him back on the throne. The Austro-Hungarian Empire, to
which Lombardy and Veneto belonged, feared an excess of liberalism
in Italy (Prili), and on March 23rd,
1849, the day after defeating Carlo Alberto, Chancellor Klemens
von Metternich ordered to occupy the northern provinces of
the Papal State, with the army led by Franz
von Wimpffen, first Ferrara and its province, then Bologna,
where they met with fierce resistance, won only with an intense
bombardment, which caused many victims and destruction. The Austro-Hungarians
then conquered Imola, Forlì, Cesena and Rimini (Prili), then Umbria and the Marche.
(Monsagrati)
On April 27th the king of the Two Sicilies
Ferdinand II with ministers, dignitaries and army crossed the
border of the Roman Republic. Garibaldi, despite having been wounded
in the fighting against the French on 30th
April, left Rome to attack him on May 4th,
defeated him in Velletri and Palestrina and rejected him (Natalini), and only the prohibition by
the Republican military leaders prevented the "Hero of
the two worlds" to chase him into the Kingdom. The royal
soldiers had an almost religious terror of Garibaldi and his troops,
so much so that they were very inclined to surrender.
The Spanish army, on the other hand, intervened very late and
with few personnel (according to Chigi 40 or 50), practically
getting things done.
The French
intervention
France was instead
in a delicate position, the second Republic, born on February
25th, 1848, on the one hand was linked to its
own constitution according to which "never employs its
power against the liberty of any people" and established
the freedom of worship, and on the other hand she saw the newly
elected President of the Republic, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon's
nephew, taking ambiguous and opportunistic, but substantially
reactionary, positions.
France sent the "Mediterranean Expeditionary Force"
led by General Nicolas Charles Victor Oudinot,
who sailed from Marseille and Toulon on April 21st,
1849 with 7,000 men, passed off as defender of legitimate French
economic interests, in order to avoid the intervention of Austria.
Oudinot promised to "respect the vote of the Roman people"
and "not to impose on the people a government that they
did not want".
The French at 11:00 on April 25th, 1849 began to land in Civitavecchia,
where they immediately ordered and obtained the surrender of the
local Republican garrison, thus making understand their intentions.
Along the way to Rome, the French found numerous placards reminding
them of the commitments of brotherhood and non-interference imposed
on them by the Constitution of 1848.
Even the French residents in Rome addressed their compatriots
in uniform with a manifesto, asking
them not to betray the ideals of Republican France and not to
intervene in arms in support of absolutism.
A delegation of deputies from the Roman Assembly invited Oudinot
to cancel the assault, to avoid encountering a harsh resistance.
The general replied scornfully, "Nonsense! The Italians
don't fight. I've booked a table for dinner at the Hotel
de la Minerve, and I'll be there on time". (Kertzer)
Oudinot did not enjoy
high esteem as an officer: according to the French foreign minister
Alexis de Tocqueville, he was so
dull that he could not think of two things at a time: put an end
to the "terror" exercised by "demagogues"
and at the same time encourage the " party of the liberals
". A Times editorial on July 5th said:
"General Oudinot was chosen for his duty because he was
the son of one of the Napoleon's Marshals and man of good connections
in French society". (Kertzer)
Oudinot therefore
believed to find the gates open and on April 30th
he ordered the assault on the city, among other things planning
the entrance from the gate Porta Pertusa,
which had been walled for two centuries. (Natalini) The French were instead repelled with heavy
losses, leaving many prisoners, and encamped in Castel di Guido,
20 kilometers (12.4 Miles) from the city.
On May 7th, the Triumvirate decreed that,
never being able to consider the French and Roman Republics in
a state of war, the French prisoners were sent back to their army
and the people were invited to celebrate them, and so it happened.
(Chigi)
A de facto truce was then established, while Oudinot asked
for reinforcements and in the French National Assembly the left-wing
deputies imposed the sending of a plenipotentiary mediator, the
diplomat Ferdinand De Lesseps, to negotiate.
De Lesseps agreed with Mazzini on May 30th
on a sort of French protection of the Roman population. (Monsagrati), without interfering in the administration
(Natalini), but the Roman Republic was not
mentioned in the agreement. (Monsagrati)
Oudinot rejected Lesseps' proposals and meanwhile, on May 14th,
the legislative elections in France resulted in a strong reactionary
majority in the National Assembly. Lesseps was recalled to his
homeland and referred to the Council of State. His diplomatic
career ended and he went into business, successfully promoting
the enterprise of the excavation of the Suez Canal (1859-1869),
and with less success, the excavation of the Panama Canal.
In the meantime, 30,000 French reinforcements soldiers had landed,
and on May 30th, the same day as the Lesseps-Mazzini
pact, in the evening the French army occupied the hill of Monte
Mario. (Natalini)
The final
attack
Being at last certain of the support of the French National Assembly,
Oudinot announced his attack on Rome for June 4th,
but with one more unfair move, he began to attack at 3 am on June
3rd. (Garibaldi).
The Romans did not expect an early attack, and in addition they
had neglected the defense at the points where the French attacked
(Natalini).
The Oudinot attack lasted for a month, with strong cannonades
from the hills (Monti Parioli, Aventino) to avoid the hand-to-hand
fight, which would have been much more bloody for the attackers.
The French had 30,000 men with 75 cannons, the Republic 19,000
men, of which 12,000 were regular, mostly from the papal militias.
The Janiculum walls (Mura gianicolensi), built in 1643, were the
main defense of the Republicans. The hardest fighting took place
in the gates Porta Cavalleggeri
and Porta San Pancrazio, and
in the villas of the nobles, turned into defense ramparts: Villa
Corsini, known as the Casino dei Quattro Venti (Four Winds Cottage,
completely destroyed, on its ruins in 1859 the Quattro
Venti arch was built), villa Sciarra, villa Giraud known as
“il Vascello” ("the Vessel")
lovely building in the shape of a ship on a rock, manned by the
legion of Giacomo Medici, who
resisted for three weeks even when it was reduced to a heap of
ruins. (Prili) Villa Savorelli, now Villa Aurelia,
was Garibaldi's headquarters, and largely collapsed due to bombing.
In front of it the Montagnola battery, which in the night between
June 29th and 30th
opposed the French, and after a fierce fight at close quarters
all the gunners who defended it were killed. Villa Spada, Garibaldi's
new headquarters, was held by the Bersaglieri of Luciano Manara
until the very end. (Prili)
On the night of June 20th,
the French took possession of a section of the Trastevere ramparts,
after a struggle that saw the Roman army once again resist strenuously
and perhaps even this further confirmation of loyalty, induced
Mazzini once again to refuse to surrender. (Prili)
The French army managed to cross the Tiber at Milvio
bridge, despite the touching resistance of the Roman University
Battalion. It is said that the students, running out of ammunition,
even threw their books at the enemy. (Prili)
The number of victims of the Roman Republic is not certain: about
a thousand people died according to Severini, of which 942 were
identified, two thirds of them came from the Papal State and almost
half of them werre regular troops. Based on Prili, just in the
last battle, 3,000 Italians and 2,000 Frenchmen died.
Among the defenders of the Republic fell Goffredo
Mameli, not yet twenty-two, author of the text of "Canto
Nazionale" ("National Song"), then "Canto
degli Italiani" ("Song of the Italians"),
anthem of the Roman Republic, and from October 12th,
1946 anthem of the
Italian Republic, also known as "Fratelli
d'Italia" ("Brothers of Italy").
Mameli died on July 6th of gangrene from a leg wound
suffered in the battle of June 3rd. Other illustrious victims for
the Republic were Enrico Dandolo,
Luciano Manara, Francesco
Daverio, Angelo Masina, Emilio
Morosini. (Morigi)
The assassination
of the Republic
In 1850 Karl Marx in "The Class
Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850" mentioned "the
assassination of the Roman republic by the French republic".
On June 30th the final attack began, Oudinot
tried to impose the surrender, which was refused, believing it
was better to fall with honor. (Monsagrati)
Finally, it was the town hall that agreed with Oudinot how to
hand over Rome to the invaders, declaring to "yield only
to force". (Monsagrati)
On July 3rd, around 5 p.m., the drum and
the sounds of the French military band began to be heard from
afar: the vanguard of Oudinot's troops entered the gate Porta
del Popolo, marched on the Corso and via Condotti, passing in
front of the caffé Nuovo and caffè delle Belle Arti,
the two cafes most frequented by Republicans, where the French
were welcomed by whistles, shouts and by «mad yells:
"long live the Roman Republic, death to priests, death
to Pius IX, we don't want priests" ». (Severini)
Friday 12th April, 1850 in the afternoon,
after 17 months of exile, the pope returned to Rome from the gate
porta San Giovanni, "more
absolute than before". (Bonazzi)
On July 31st, the pope installed a commission
of three cardinals, ironically called "red triumvirate"
due to the color of the cardinals' robes, with the task of canceling
point by point the laws of the Republic but also those of Pius
IX with a liberal content. (Monsagrati)
The French authorities immediately suppressed the numerous newspapers
that had sprung up in the Republic's short window of freedom.
The decree was published in
the newspaper Giornale di Roma, the only one allowed, even
with the functions of an official journal, and as an irony of
things (or perhaps it was a deliberate choice) it was published
precisely on July 14th, 1849, the French national holiday,
but also the memorial day of the revolution of liberté,
égalité and fraternité.
Garibaldi in St. Peter's Square, in front of a multitude of cheering
people gave his legionaries a “small oration”: “I
am leaving Rome. Whoever wants to continue the war against the
foreigner, come with me. I offer neither pay, nor cantonment,
nor commissions; I offer hunger, thirst, forced marches, battles
and death. Whoever has the name of Italy not only on his lips
but in his heart, follow me ". 4,000 followed him (Monsagrati), to head towards Venice and defend
the sister Republic, but along the way they were attacked by the
Austrians and by troops loyal to the pope, who killed them or
put them on the run. Garibaldi, with his wife Anita,
who on June 26th had arrived in Rome from Nice
and was pregnant, headed for Venice, but were attacked by Austrian
ships and took refuge in the Po delta where Anita died on August
4th, 1849, probably of malaria, near the Guiccioli farm, in the Mandriole
area of Ravenna. In the following days, at a distance of 50 km
(31 Mi) Ciceruacchio, with his 2 sons (one 13 years old) and others,
and in Bologna the priest Ugo Bassi,
who fled Rome with Garibaldi, were shot.
Giuseppe Mazzini remained in Rome, as if to challenge the restoration
authorities to arrest him, and left only on July 16th,
setting sail from Civitavecchia, despite not having the documents
for expatriation, on a Corsican steamboat bound for Marseille,
from where he then reached Geneva. passing through Lyon. (Monsagrati)
The French troops remained in Rome until 1870: on July 16th
Louis Napoleon, in the meantime proclaimed himself emperor with
the name of Napoleon III, had declared war on Prussia. On July
18th Pius IX, during the First Vatican Council,
proclaimed the dogma of papal infallibility. This gave the French
emperor an excuse to abandon the pope to himself, so on July 27th
he ordered the withdrawal of the troops from Rome. (Kertzer)
Less than two months later, on September 20th,
the troops of the Kingdom of Italy occupied Rome, after having
entered the breach of Porta Pia,
and on February 3rd, 1871 Rome became the capital
of Italy, while the rest of the Papal State had been annexed to
Italy on various occasions, starting in 1859.
The damages
made by Oudinot to the artistic heritage of Rome
Oudinot's choice to avoid hand-to-hand combat with the Republicans,
but rather to carpet bomb Rome from the heights, could not fail
to create enormous damage to the jewels of Rome's artistic heritage.
Churches (Santa Maria in Trastevere)
and hospitals (Santo Spirito, four
bombs, one of which injured an orphan girl) were hit, the Pinturicchio's
frescoes in San Cosimato were completely
destroyed, those by Domenichino in San
Carlo ai Catinari and the Guido Reni's
Aurora at Palazzo Rospigliosi, were damaged, as well as the
so-called Temple of Fortuna Virilis
(now Temple of Portunus) at the Bocca della Verità (Mouth
of Truth). (Monsagrati)
The bell tower of
San Pietro in Montorio,
on the Janicolum, collapsed together with the roof inside the
nave. (Natalini)
The roof of the Sistine
Chapel was hit by 4 balls, which bounced elsewhere. In various
rooms of the Vatican Palace there were broken glass and crystals,
in the gallery of tapestries five balls of stutzen (carbines)
got in, one of which hit a Raphael tapestry (St.
Paul preaches in Athens), and St.
Peter's Basilica had many cannonball damage. (Natalini) In the Colonna
Palace a cannonball is still
preserved, that sticked itself in one of the steps of the gallery,
full of works of art and precious decorations, while another
ball is in the church of San
Bartolomeo all’Isola, and one is on the side of the church
of San Pietro in Montorio, found in 1995 and inserted in a commemorative plaque.
The consular representatives of the USA, England, Russia, Prussia,
Denmark, Switzerland, the Netherlands, the Kingdom of Sardinia,
San Salvador and Portugal sent formal protest to Oudinot to stop
the bombing, without any result. (Prili)
Werner's
testimony
A testimony of the state of the places after the battles was left
by the German painter Carl Werner
(1808- 1894), who painted a series of watercolors, from
which in 1858 the engraver Domenico Amici (1808-post 1871) drew
twelve etching plates ("Vedute dell'assedio di Roma nel
1849" meaning "Views of the siege of Rome in
1849"), preserved in the Istituto
Centrale della Grafica in Rome. The prints have been scanned
and are available on the Lombardy Region website https://www.lombardiabeniculturali.it/.
The women
of the Republic
The air of freedom and equality of the Republic was fully catched
by the Roman women, who from the very beginning took the political
initiative, participating in electoral meetings, and the military
initiative, fighting with the men on the walls.
The 23-year-old young lady Colomba
Antonietti , a baker from Foligno (born in Bastia Umbria),
died on June 13th in the fighting at Porta S. Pancrazio,
killed instantly by a cannonball that hit her with a ricochet,
after killing another patriot. To defend the Roman Republic she
had cut her hair and disguised herself as a man, following her
husband Luigi Porzi, lieutenant in the Republican army. She had
participated in the battles of Velletri and Palestrina, earning
Garibaldi's praise.
The women also participated in the construction of the barricades,
often adorning them with flowers, in the repair of breaches in
the walls, in the collection of "deadly stones and inexorable
rocks" in the manufacture
of cartridges and in the dangerous defusing of unexploded
bombs. Furthermore, many Roman women renounced their jewels to
support the republican coffers. (Carocci)
Princess Cristina Trivulzio di Belgiojoso
organized a military ambulance service for the first time in the
world, even before Florence
Nightingale (who began her work during the Crimean war in
1854), mobilizing many women protagonists of the Risorgimento,
including foreign ones. (Monsagrati)
Prostitutes stood out among the women who helped the wounded,
and this gave the pope the audacity to offend in a brazen way
all women who sacrificed themselves in a thankless task of pure
Christian piety towards their neighbor. In the encyclical Nostis
et nobiscum Pius IX wrote that the "enemies of all
truth, justice and honor (...) when some of their own number fell
sick and struggled with death, they were deprived of all the helps
of religion and compelled to breathe their last in the arms of
a wanton prostitute".
The following month Christina of Belgiojoso, in response to the
pope's words, replied: “Holy Father”, she wrote,
“I read on a French newspaper a part of an encyclical
by Y.H. to the bishops of Italy in which [...] Y.H. adds that
those victims were forced to expire in the arms of prostitutes.
Since the introduction of women into the hospitals of Rome has
been my work [...] I believe I must respond to the accusations
of Your Holiness. [...] All the hospitals were always regularly
served by priests, and [...] not one of the many victims,
rightfully by Y.H. lamented, did die without the assistance
of a priest and the comfort of the sacraments. If Y.H. ignores
it, yet your Delegates do not , because once the Cardinals had
just been reinstated in the fullness of their faculties by Y.H.
conferred on them, all the priests who had exercised their sacred
ministry in hospitals were incarcerated in the prisons of the
Holy Office." The letter concluded: "The accusation
made by Y.H. will not stand up to my denial, and those who gave
the merciful Roman women new shame and name of prostitutes will
be few in number, hard hearted and blind minded". (Kertzer)
The Jews
of the Republic
With the election of Pius IX, the Roman Jews had seen a possibility
of improving their condition, which imposed on them the obligation
of residence in the Ghetto, with
the closing of the gates and the prohibition to go out at night,
in addition to the denial of all civil rights. The representatives
of the Jewish community of Rome then forwarded a petition to the
pope. Having received no reply, they sent a copy of the document
to Salomon Rotschild, director
of the Vienna bank, who provided the pope with large sums on loan.
Rothschild had therefore met with the papal nuncio, asking him
to intercede with the pontiff. Perhaps for this reason Pius IX
in the first two years of his pontificate had relaxed the obligations
for the Jews, authorizing some of them to leave their neighborhood,
while the Ghetto's doors had been demolished on April 10th,
1848, probably by the Jews themselves. (Kertzer)
With the return of pontifical authority, at the end of the Roman
Republic, Cardinal Antonelli immediately made it clear that Jews
no longer had the right to open shops outside the Ghetto and that
they would soon be locked up again within their neighborhoods.
(Kertzer)
On the night of October 25th, 1849, at 4 a.m., the French
soldiers laid a security cordon around the Ghetto, where five
thousand Jews lived at the time, and for two days the papal police
carried out meticulous searches, house by house, with the intent
of recover stolen or fenced ecclesiastical property. They found
almost nothing but there was a confirmation of the racial hatred
of the most ignorant strata of the Roman people against the Jews,
useful as a scapegoat for the stalemate in Rome. (Kertzer) Actually, outside the Ghetto,
the worst subjects of the lowest populace rioted, prey to a never
dormant anti-Semitism. (Natalini)
Leon Carpi, in his diary "Blocco dei Francesi al Ghetto
di Roma" ("Block of the French to the Ghetto
of Rome") tells of the amazement and anxiety that struck
every family, also because the purpose of the measure was not
said. When it was finally learned at dawn of the following day
that house visits were to be made, the relief was canceled by
seeing honorable and respectable men "cruelly dragged
into prison, for no other reason than whim. Somebody yelled in
the streets that the state of siege would not be lifted
until the leaders of the Jewish community denounced those who
owned, they said, the objects stolen from some churches and the
Apostolic Palace". (Natalini)
The Constitution
of the Republic
The Roman Republic lasted only 145 days, but she left a document
of great importance, the Constitution
of the Roman Republic, written by the Constituent Assembly,
approved by the National Assembly on July 1st
and proclaimed by the Capitol on July 4th,
with the reading of all the articles, amidst thunderous applause
and waving handkerchiefs from the houses, in the presence of the
French, who in the meantime had occupied Rome, putting an end
to the Roman Republic. The Constitution contains highly advanced
principles for the time, but also of great relevance, such as
freedom of worship (principle VII), the abolition of the death
penalty (Article 5) and universal suffrage (Article 20), which
anticipated the Constitution
of the Italian Republic of 1948, ninety-nine years later,
as well as the flag
and the national anthem.
The difficulties
of the Republic and its downfall
The fall of the Roman Republic was mainly due to the simultaneous
attack by some of the most powerful states (Monsagrati), against a small army made up largely of
volunteers, who failed to establish international alliances. Furthermore,
the enormous public debt inherited from the papal regime and recognized
by the state was not able to be met: 46 million scudos in devalued
treasury bills in the hands of private individuals and foreign
banks, 37 of which are a legacy of the bad government of Gregory
XVI. (Severini) Those different practical problems
also brought disappointment and distrust in the citizens.
There were also ideological conflicts between Mazzini, who feared
that the Roman Republic would resolve itself into a local phenomenon,
rather than being the first nucleus of an Italian Republic and
Constitution , and the other Republicans supporting more progressive
positions (Mazzuca). Furthermore Mazzini tried to
keep at a distance any discourse that alluded to the class struggle,
and wrote: “the character, habits, local needs of the
Roman peoples offer a very ample guarantee of the moderate and
conservative nature of our Republic; those of self-styled Red
Republicans or Socialists are quite inapplicable to us. The Roman
Republic reduced and guaranteed in its normal and natural essence
can never be a propaganda of revolutionary principles and destroyers
of the universal balance". (Natalini)
Carlo Pisacane, on the other hand, thought of the Republic as
an instrument of social transformation, while lamenting the inadequacy
of the democrats to arouse free popular initiative. His idea of
a revolutionary army saw the union between the military question,
the political perspective and the social question, united in the
idea of a nation in arms for a mass initiative. (Carocci) A partly similar position was taken by
Quirico Filopanti and above all by Felice
Orsini, for whom the reasons for the defeat were attributable
to the excessive moderation shown by the Mazzini Triumvirate,
in his opinion responsible for not having taken more "radical
and revolutionary" measures and of not having extended
the insurrection beyond the borders of the kingdom of Naples.
However, despite the fact that in some cases the red flag was
waved (Monsagrati), and in spite of the accusations
of communism launched by Pius IX and the reactionary press, socialist
tensions existed only in embryo, and found it difficult to express
an independent identity. In addition to Filopanti, only Carlo
Rusconi, first elected in Bologna before Filopanti, took positions
similar to the socialist ones. Actually, the Communist Manifesto
had been published by Marx and Engels only a year earlier, on
February 21st, 1848.
Medals
General Oudinot, responsible for the French defeat of April 30th
and the treacherous attack on the night between June 2nd
and 3rd, was awarded by the pope with
the minting of a medal bearing on the recto
: "Vict · Oudinotius · Gallorum
· Exercitui · Praefectus" (Victor Oudinot head
of French army) and on the verso
"Urbem / Expugnare Coactus / Civium et Artium / Incolumitati
/ Consulvit / A. MDCCCXLIX " (forced to conquer the city
/ took care / of the safety / of the citizens and artwork). How
and how much Oudinot took care of the citizens and the artworks
was explained in the previous paragraphs.
There are also satirical medals against Oudinot and the pope,
such as the one showing on the recto: "Ultimo Assedio
_ 30 Giugno 1849" ("Last Siege _ June 30th,
1849") and
on the verso "Cani Francesi, / E Tu Brenno Imbecille /
E Tu Papa Impio / Maledizione / Sopra di Voi !" ("French
Cowards, / And you Stupid Brennus / And You Impious Pope / Curse
/ Above you!") (link).
Or the other, in French: "De Par /L. Napoleon, / La France
Papiste / En 1849 / Au 19° Siecle, / En Republique"
("By Louis Napoleon, papist France, in 1849, in the 19th
century, under the Republic") and on the verso: "Detruit
Rome, / En Faveur / de l'Exile de Gaete / Honte à Pie IX!
/ Honte / Aux Francais!" ("He destroys Rome in favor
of the exiled of Gaeta. Shame on Pius IX! Shame on the French!)"
(link).
Memory
of the Republic
For many years February 9th, the anniversary of the Republic,
was commemorated by the Republicans, especially in Romagna and
the Marche. (Severini)
In 1941 on the Janiculum Hill, near the church of San Pietro in
Montorio, in one of the places where the bloodiest fights took
place, the Mausoleo Ossario Gianicolense
(Janiculum Ossuary Mausoleum) was built, which houses the remains
of the fallen for the Roman Republic, among which, in at the bottom
of the crypt, that of Goffredo Mameli.
The gate Porta San Pancrazio, partially destroyed in the battles
of 1849, was rebuilt between 1854 and 1856, and on March 17th,
2011, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the Unification
of Italy, the Presidency of the Council of Ministers and the Department
of Cultural Policies and of Communication, Superintendence of
Cultural Heritage of Rome, have promoted the establishment within
it of a new museum space dedicated to the Roman Republic of 1849,
the Museum of the Roman Republic and of Garibaldi's Memory. (link)
On the same day, the President of the Republic, Giorgio
Napolitano, inaugurated
on the Janiculum Hill the Constitution
Wall of the Roman Republic of 1849. On the parapet of the
panoramic viewpoint of the Passeggiata al Gianicolo promenade,
near Villa Lante, the entire text of the Constitution is carved
on artificial stone panels, on a front fifty meters long.
It
would be nice to start again to celebrate the birthday of the
Roman Republic every year on February 9th.
Bibliography:
BONAZZI
Luigi (1879) Storia di Perugia dalle origini al 1860. Volume II
- dal 1495 al 1860. Tipografia Boncompagni e C., Perugia.,
Italy link
CAROCCI Roberto
(2017) La Repubblica Romana. 1849, prove di democrazia e socialismo
nel Risorgimento. Odradek, Rome, Italy.
CARPI Leone (1849) Blocco dei francesi al ghetto di Roma nell'anno
di grazia 1849 e secondo della loro repubblica. Tip. Sociale
degli Artisti Tipografi, Turin, Italy. link
CHIGI ALBANI
DELLA ROVERE Agostino (1906) Diario del Principe Don Agostino
Chigi dal 1830 al 1855. Stab. Tip. F. Filelfo, Tolentino, Macerata,
Italy - Wikisource link
DEMARCO Domenico
(1992) Pio IX e la rivoluzione romana del 1848 : saggio di storia
economico-sociale. Edizioni scientifiche italiane, Naples,
Italy.
GARIBALDI Giuseppe (1932) Memorie autobiografiche. Casa
Editrice Bietti, Milan, Italy.
KERTZER David Israel (2019) Il Papa che voleva essere re : 1849:
Pio IX e il sogno rivoluzionario della Repubblica romana. Garzanti,
Milan, Italy.
MARX Karl (1850) Le lotte di classe in Francia dal 1848 al 1850.
www.marxist.org. link
MAZZUCA Giancarlo (2007) La storia della Repubblica Romana del
1849. Libro aperto, Ravenna, Italy.
MONSAGRATI Giuseppe (2014) Roma senza il Papa : la Repubblica
romana del 1849. Giuseppe Laterza & Figli S.p.A., Rome
- Bari, Italy.
MORIGI Massimo (1986) Gloria alla Repubblica romana : compendio
de "La Repubblica romana del 1849" di Giovanni Conti.
Edizione Moderna, Ravenna, Italy.
NATALINI Guglielmo (2000) Storia della Repubblica romana del Quarantanove.
U. Magnanti, Nettuno, Rome, Italy.
PIO IX (1849) Allocuzione “Quibus, Quantisque”
del Sommo Pontefice Pio IX. Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Vatican
City. link
PRILI Claudio (2012) Anatomia di un sogno (La Repubblica romana).
Montedit, Melegnano., Milan, Italy
SEVERINI Marco (2011) La Repubblica romana del 1849. Marsilio,
Padua, Italy.
Websites
visited:
Biblioteca
di Storia Moderna e Contemporanea - Collezioni digitali - la Repubblica
romana. link
Papal Encyclicals
Online - Nostis et nobiscum link
Wikisource
- French Constitution of 1848 link
Musée
Carnavalet, Histoire de Paris. link
La Moneta
- Network di Numismatica e Storia - Numismatica Italiana link
page
created: April
20th, 2022 and last updated:
October
6th, 2022
