¹ The Complete Poems and Plays of T. S. Eliot, (London 1969). Gerontion, p 38.

² A full description of this manuscript Autobiografia is given by Robert Sylvain, pp 517-18 of the second volume of his biography of Gavazzi (see n 23 below). Lodolini, [Armando] had described the manuscript earlier in his [Contributo alla biografia del Padre Alessandro Gavazzi] Rassegna storico del Risorgimento, 43 (Rome 1956) pp 434-48Google Scholar. Extracts have been published by Cencetti, [Giorgio], [Alcune pagine dell’autobiografia del P. Alessandro Gavazzi], Atti e Memorie della Deputazione di Storia patria per le Provincie di Romagna, Nuova Serie 1 (Rome 1948), pp 153-73Google Scholar. I have used these extracts, the only original text available to me, as well as occasional and translated paragraphs in Sylvain’s biography of Gavazzi, in this paoer. I visited Rome in 1974 in order to see this manuscript autobiography and other materials concerning Gavazzi, which sl•ice 1950 had been in a permanent exhibition Mostra didascalia at the Archivio di Stato di Roma, Palazzo della Sapienza. I was told that it was unavailable since a process of centralising all archives was being undertaken by the city authorities. I inquired about a copy of the manuscript in the possession of G. Conti, a close relation of the Conti who had known and written the last and uncritical biography of Gavazzi, but I was told ‘it was impossible to read the handwriting’ and I could not gain admission to Sig. Conti. Judging by the extracts given by Cencetti, and Sylvain’s translated citations, the autobiography should be a work of considerable importance for the history of the risorgimento, as well as the religious history of the nineteenth century in England and elsewhere as well as in Italy. Sylvain rightly describes it as strange that it remains unpublished, refers to it as ‘ce précieux manuscrit’, and states that ‘les faits sont-ils indiqués avec suffisamment de précision et d’honnêteté: on n’y surprend jamais Gavazzi falsifiant une circonstance biografique ou historique. Nous avons vérifiée, toutes les fois que nous l’avons pu, l’exactitude de son récit par la comparaison avec des renseignements venant d’autres sources. Or ces recoupements ont toujours confirmé la véracité du mémorialiste’. This is the more significant since it is the judgment of a roman catholic historian, who is justifiably distressed by Gavazzi’s ‘excès de plume . . . par tirades d’injures à l’adresse de ses anciens confrères et de ces coreligionnaires de jadis . . .’

³ These are in eight octavo volumes: there is also a quarto volume of cuttings called Memorie (as well as published works by Gavazzi in italian) in the library of the Facoltà Valdese di Teologia, Roma. These collections appear to have been made by Gavazzi himself, or those who acted from time to time as his secretaries. The closely printed cuttings are trying to read, and are accompanied often by not much more than a date.

⁴ The publicist, Indro Montanelli, in his L’Italia del Risorgimento (1831-1861) (Milan 1972) at p 685 Google Scholar under Bibliografia wrote: ‘Una completa bibliografia di opere sul Risorgimento è impossibile da redigere perché richiederebbe un volume a parte.’ This would be a conservative estimate.

⁵ Arnaldo Nesti, Gesu Socialista, (Turin 1974) p 10.

⁶ Trevelyan, George Macaulay, An Autobiography and Other Essays, (London 1949) p 13 Google Scholar.

⁷ Smith, Denis Mack, Cavour and Garibaldi: 1860 (Cambridge 1954)Google Scholar; Garibaldi, , A Great Life in Brief (London 1957)Google Scholar; Italy, A Modern History (Michigan 1959)Google Scholar. Maturi, [W.], [Interpretazioni del Risorgimento] (Turin 1962) p 688 Google Scholar: ‘Mack Smith è ossessionato dal problema del fascismo: nella storia d’Italia dal 1861 in poi tutto conduce al fascismo’, and, ‘garibaldinismo e fascismo’, p 689. Maturi’s judgment is not unique to himself, but is also noticed by recent historians. It is part of the purpose of this paper to suggest that Mack Smith’s view is illiberal (and does not do justice to the idealism and religious convictions of many of those who took part in the risorgimento) though not calling in question the thoroughness of his scholarship nor, for example, his conception of the rôle of Cavour.

⁸ That is, the Chiesa Libera d’Italia, eventually renamed Chiesa Evangelica d’Italia, see n 149 below.

⁹ For example: Spini, [Georgio], [Risorgimento e Protestanti] (Naples 1956)Google Scholar. [Torre, Arnaldo della], [Cristianesimo in Italia dai filosofisi ai moderni] (Milan no date). [Valdo] Vinay, [Evangelici Italiani esuli a Londra durante il Risorgimento] (Turin 1961)Google Scholar.

¹⁰ See n 103 for these priests.

¹¹ DrAchilli, Giacinto, a former dominicali friar described by [Wilfred] Ward in his [Life of Cardinal Newman] (London 1912) 1, p 276 Google Scholar, as ‘an unfrocked priest, not only without a character of any kind, but one who might without exaggeration be described as a portent of immorality’. Ward, p 279, quotes cardinal Wiseman’s detailed though florid indictment of Achilli’s career as a seducer of women ‘and worse’. However Bell’s Messenger - an unusual place for the review of a religious work - wrote of Achilli’s Dealings with the Inquisition, or Papal Rome, her priests and her Jesuits with important disclosures (London 1851)Google Scholar: ‘Dr Achilli’s most valuable book which, independently of the most important information it contains, breathes a spirit of fervent piety and devotion which no one but a man thoroughly convinced of the truths of Christianity as set forth in the only infallible Word of Truth, could have used.’ (I derive this citation from the second edition which contains extracts from reviews of the first edition.) It was this sort of acceptance by protestants of Achilli which helped him to bluff his way as an honest convert, and made Newman’s task at the famous libel trial so difficult. Achilli’s book has a thoroughly offensive self righteous tone. His manuscript autobiography is in the British Museum.

¹² Quayle, Eric, The Collector’s Book of Books (London 1971)Google Scholar describes the first edition, and calls the book ‘A one-time shocking tale of sex and murder in a nunnery in Montreal. . . invented by the revd. J. J. Slocum . . . who had a consuming hatred of the Roman Catholic Church’.

¹³ See Cencetti, n 2 above. Sylvain, however, states that the first two parts are entitled: La Famiglia and Il Chiostro, p 517. This is not indicated by Cencetti in his introduction to the Alcune pagine, but Sylvain who knew the manuscript well must be correct. In the ‘Introduzione’ Gavazzi wrote... ‘mi ritrarrò quale fui nella famiglia, nel chiostro, nella crociata, nell’esigilo e nel rimpatrio . . .’

¹⁴ The autobiography apparently ceases at 1870 (‘Ritorno, va de 1859 à 1870’: Sylvain p 517). Conti, Ludovico, In occasione del centenario della nascita di Alessandro Gavazzi: cenno biografico (Rome 1909)Google Scholar - a pastor of Gavazzi’s Chiesa Libera d’Italia who knew him well in his later years. Unfortunately, his account of these years has nothing of the force and interest of Gavazzi’s own writing, and contains more of pious adulation than of useful analysis.

¹⁵ Concetti p 160.

¹⁶ Ibid pp 157-60.

¹⁷ Ibid p 158.

¹⁸ Ibid ... i traffici, l’oscurantismo, la superstizione, il sillabo, ed il vaticanismo . . . cordialemente mi odiano.

¹⁹ Ibid p 158: Non sono moderato. Se il nome in Italia non fosse stato, sconsacrato da una camorra d’inetti, d’ambiziosi, di egoisti, di broglioni, di ladri; vorrei anch’io essere dei moderati nel vero senso del liberalismo progressivo, conscio che gli estremi non durano.

²⁰ Conrad, [Joseph], [Nostromo] (London 1923) p 24 Google Scholar.

²¹ Cencetti p 158: . . . che chi è nato cattolico deve morire cattolico . . . perchè io tornai alla religione vera dei Padri Italiani, di cui essi cattolici non sono che antifrati di apostasia . . .

²² Ibid p 159.

²³ Although Sylvain worked at the library of the Facoltà Valdese at Rome, he seems to have overlooked some of Gavazzi’s pamphlets that arc available there.

²⁴ L’Eco d’Italia was an italian newspaper for immigrants to New York, edited by Gavazzi’s friend Secchi de Casali.

²⁵ Two are short admiring accounts - G. B. Nicolini (not to be confused with the neoghibelline writer G. B. Niccolini): The Life of Father A. Gavazzi, Chief Chaplain to the Roman Army of Independence (Edinburgh 1851)Google Scholar. This was reissued at New York ‘continued to the time of his visit to America’, 1854. This bibliographical point is not noticed by Sylvain, in his admirable bibliography, p 526. Campanella, G. M., Life of Father Gavazzi (London 1851)Google Scholar: Campanella was ako a friar who had left Catholicism for exile and protestantism and who also wrote and published an interesting autobiography cited below, n 60. The other two lives by men who knew Gavazzi are that of Conti in italian already mentioned above, and the [Life of Alessardro Gavazzi] by King, [J. W.] (London 1857)Google Scholar which contains first-hand reports of Gavazzi’s recollections of his life before he came to England as well as extracts from letters of Gavazzi and King used below.

²⁶ Santini, [Luigi], [Alessandro Gavazzi] (Aspetti del problema religioso del Risorgimento), Collezione storica del Risorgimento Italiano, 2, serie 3 (Modena 1955)Google Scholar.

²⁷ Volume 2 of Sylvain’s work, the pages of which are numbered consecutively from volume 1, contains from p 287 to p 442 (the remainder of the volume of text is completed by p 511) very detailed accounts of Gavazzi’s visits to the USA and Canada, with much useful material on the history of roman Catholicism in those countries. Sylvain, while objective and fair, writes in the manner of catholic historians before the second Vatican council - the church is always right, this apologetic stance is occasionally wearing on the reader.

²⁸ Sylvain, 1, p 18, n 23, quoting Gavazzi’s My Recollections [of the Lives of the tast Four Popes] (London 1858) pp 8-9.

²⁹ Origo, Iris and Heath-Stabbs, John, Giacomo Leopardi - selected prose and poetry - (London 1966) p 195 Google Scholar.

³⁰ Ugo Bassi (1801-59), barnabite friar, poet, martyr in the struggle for Italian unity. In common with other men of the risorgimento his career is the subject of controversy between anti-clerical writers and catholics. He shared Gavazzi’s religious background and training, and took part with him in the forties in impassioned oratory for the reunification of Italy. He had a more sensitive and reserved character than Gavazzi. He was executed by the austrians and died a catholic, though expelled from his order shortly before his death. It was bitter reflection in exile on Bassi’s treatment by the pope and the austrians, which led Gavazzi to deliver a funeral oration for his dead friend in London after which he began to turn from Catholicism. Information on the career in the order of barnabites of both Bassi and Gavazzi can be found in Boffito, [Giuseppe], [Scrittori barnabiti, 0 delia Congregazione dei Chierici Regolari di San Paolo, 1533-1933, Biografia, Bibliografia, Iconografia,] 4 vols (Florence 1933-37)Google Scholar. An excellent catholic account of Bassi’s Life is: de Ruggiero, G. F., Il Padre Ugo Bassi (Rome 1936)Google Scholar.

³¹ Il beato Giacomo Elemosinano Panegirico del P. Alessandro Gavazzi, Barnabita di Bologna (Orvieto 1844). This book was well-printed on fine paper. The copy in the library of the Facoltà Valdese is bound in leather and the words cited are on the front cover printed on a leather label. Presumably after his mother’s death Gavazzi placed it in his own library. For some time after the second world war, many books of Gavazzi’s library were in the possession of the methodist church which took over Gavazzi’s house and church (see below p 350). I have been informed by the reverend R. Kissack who for a period lived in Gavazzi’s former house at Rome, that among books given to Gavazzi, was one from W. S. Landor. That Gavazzi attracted the attention of Victorian English men of letters should not be overlooked in assessing his achievements, see n 111 below.

³² Boffito 1 and 2.

³³ My Recollections p 10; again, on the squalor of the poorer districts of Rome, p 232.

³⁴ Gavazzi, , A mio padre Angelico, lettera (Pistoia 1864) p 22 Google Scholar, cited in Santini, p 17, who states that Gavazzi was not alone in this protest. Rosmini and others made similar though less pungent criticisms.

³⁵ Conrad p 21.

³⁶ He should not be confused with Raffaele Lambruschini one of the strongest supporters of the movement for reform in the catholic church. (See below p 336.) For Luigi Lambruschini’s lecturing programme, see Santini p 17 n 6.

³⁷ My Recollections p 81.

³⁸ Count Solaro della Margarita wished to write a history of Italy to defend his position, which was that of leader of the piedmontese clericals opposed to all liberalism. See Maturi pp 228, 229. Against Gioberti’s gesuito moderno he believed that opposition to the Jesuits was ‘war on governments, religion and God’. Sylvain p 42.

³⁹ Gavazzi’s comment appeared in L’Eco d’Italia (New York, 7 January 1854). Santini p 17 Google Scholar, notes that Omedeo, Adolfo in his Le Missioni di riconquista cattolica nella Francia nella restaurazione, (Aspetti del cattolicesimo della restaurazione) (Turin 1946)Google Scholar points to the poor training of the clergy at this period.

⁴⁰ Cenni sul battello a vapore che per primo partirà da Torino per Venezia, coli’aggiunta di una poesia sullo stesso soggetto (Turin 1840).

⁴¹ Margarita, Solaro della, Memorandum storico-politico (Turin 1930) p 138 Google Scholar: Io avversai fin dall’alba queste congreghe tanto applaudite’ because he knew that ‘scienza e arte non essere che il pretesto apparente, il vero fine la rivoluzione italiana’.

⁴² Nielsen, [Fredrik], [Tlie History of the Papacy in the nineteenth century] (London 1906) 2, p 75 Google Scholar: ‘The moderate Liberalism which desired that the papacy should accommodate itself to modern times, was in his eyes [Cardinal Lambruschini] as dangerous as the revolutionary ideas of Mazzini; and the new Secretary of S ate [Lambruschini] regarded lighting by gas, railways and scientific congresses with as much suspicion as Liberalism.’ However, it was Gregory XVI himself who opposed gas and railways. See Gregorio, XVI: [Miscellanea Commemorativa], part 2 (Roma 1948) p 343 Google Scholar. Also G. Gioacchino Belli, in his Sonnetti Romaneschi, dialect verses which show the dislike of the romans for Gregory’s administration (see below p 353 and n 140), has a poem on the subject of Gregory after death wanting to go to heaven; eventually he arrives there and meets saint Peter who asks him: ‘How long was the journey?’ ‘A month’ replied Gregory. ‘Why so long?’ asks St Peter. Gregory replies: ‘Ben ti sta’ gli soggiunse, poteri fare la strada ferrata e a quest’ora saresti già arrivato.’

⁴³ Sulle missioni straniere, submitted for the consideration of the chapter general in 1844. It consists of twelve quarto sheets, and is now in the archives of the barnabites at Rome. To the credit of Gregory XVI it should be stated that he ‘dedico viva attenzione alle missioni’, for example he increased the number of vicars apostolic in China - see Bihlmeyer, [K.] [and Tuechle, H.], [Storia della Chiesa], italian translation by Igino Rogger (Brescia 1962) 4, p 149 Google Scholar, and also section 206. - though ‘viva attenzione’ is overstated.

⁴⁴ This book has been described above, n 31. A characteristic passage is: E insiemente ehe ei possa ascoltato esaudito perorare in pro vostro, ve lo accertino le sue ferite sostenute per amor di giustizia, e che in lui sono come meriti messi d’altri maggiori privilegi; sicurando Agostino che esse sono nel martire altrettanto valevoli bocche a chieder grazie, ad ottenere favori. E non vorrà proteggervi? Troppo vorrà. Giacché chi meglio di esso si può conoscere di voi? Al vostro Giacomo è cognita l’aura di questo cielo, l’aspetto di questa natura, il suono di questa favella: i consapevoli colli della sua infanzia, il dolce loco che lo raccolse bambino, il focolare di sua paterna casa a lui sono noti: palpita in quel suo caldissimo petto un cuore pievese: egli è il naturale patrono della sua patria, (pp 28-9).

⁴⁵ Perugia, 1845. Lodolini, gives illustrative materials from the Archivio di Stato di Roma, Direzione Generale di Polizia, anno 1847, Padre Alessandro Gavazzi, Busta 266. The chief of papal police, Nardoni, when reporting Gavazzi’s attacks considered his sermon nevertheless to be ‘sublime preaching’. See Lodolini p 436.

⁴⁶ Lodolini p 437.

⁴⁷ See Gualtieri, L., Memorie di Ugo Bassi, Apostolo del Vangelo, Martire dell’independenza Italiana (Bologna 1861) p 49 Google Scholar for a description of this grim remote monastery in Umbria where in ‘solitude and silence’ both Bassi and Gavazzi at different periods were confined as a penance for politically dangerous preaching.

⁴⁸ My Recollections pp 273 et seq.

⁴⁹ Nielsen, 2, p 114.

⁵⁰ Pio IX Pontifice Massimo. Tributo di affetti di A. Gavazzi, Bolognese (Florence 1846)Google Scholar. Two specially bound copies were presented in turn to count Mastai and later the Pope. Among other emotional declarations in these poems is the following: Io amo Pio l’amo dell’amore onde si ama Dio senza linuti, senza misure, senza ragioni, tutto virilità e caldezza . . . Santini p 39.

⁵¹ ‘Paternal power, in every law-abiding country, brings about a kind of children’s slavery, more stringent, because it is more domestic, and more oppressive than any law, and which . . . can never fail to produce a most damaging effect. . .’ Giacomo Leopardi p 11. Gavazzi’s sermon at the Count’s funeral was published, Nel funere del Conte Monaldo Leopardi, parole del p. Alessandro Gavazzi, Barnabita bolognese (Loreto 1847).

⁵² Il genetliaco di Pio IX Pontefice Massimo. Discorso del P. Alessandro Gavazzi, Barnabita bolognese, recitato nel Duomo di Senigaglia, il 13 maggio 1847 (Senigaglia 1847)Google Scholar. Il busto di Pio Nono donata dai Romani ai Bolognese, Epigrafia e sonnetti di Alessandro Gavazzi (Rome 1847)Google Scholar.

⁵³ Gavazzi related this interview in his Autobiografia, p 091284, according to Sylvain who translated some sentences from this conversation. Gavazzi also related the interview in [The] Lectures Complete [of Father Gavazzi as Delivered in New York] ed Nicolini, G. B. (New York 1854) pp 259-60Google Scholar.

⁵⁴ F-H., [G. and Berkeley, J.], [Italy in the Making January ist 1848 to November 16th 1848] (Cambridge 1848) p 19 Google Scholar. The troubles began on 3 January in Milan, known as ‘I Lutti di Lombardia’.

⁵⁵ This was called afterwards the opening of il dramma delia regenerazione d’Italia; Gavazzi addressed a huge crowd of 40,000 calling for a guerra santa. Cardinal Manning was present and described the impression this vast passionate crowd made on him. Purcell, E. S., Life of Cardinal Manning, 1, pp 374-5Google Scholar.

⁵⁶ This was the agonising dilemma for Pius IX - he had not intended attack by his troops on the austrians, but he must have known that once the enflamed patriotic youth of his states had marched north, they could not sit down at the frontier and do nothing to help the piedmontese. In any event he had placed the command of his army ultimately under orders from the king of Piedmont. But Pius had not formally declared war, and there was the possibility of his troops, if an attack commenced, being captured and shot out of hand as franc-tireurs by the austrians. The piedmontese and their supporters elsewhere in Italy including those in the papal states were determined to draw Pius into supporting the war on Austria. Massimo d’Azeglio, the piedmontese writer and politician, who had been appointed adjutant general to Durando, had a clear eye for the position and issued an order of the day on 5 April in the name of Pius which showed papal and piedmontese troops as conducting a crusade against the barbarous Radetsky: Durando approved of this attitude and intended to carry out its implications. See cap 9 The papal difficulties, in Berkeley p 153 et seq. Nevertheless the difficulties which Pius IX felt did not turn him aside from the fundamental conviction that the papal states were inviolably his province as ruler. The belgian ambassador at Rome, Van de Weyer, wrote to Leopold I, on 6 February 1859, (though this is a decade later, other evidence would bear out that the views of Pius had always been consistent on this point) citing a remark made by Pius IX to Odo Russell the British representative in Rome, who corresponded regularly on roman affairs with the foreign office (see below n 58): ‘Quoiqu’il arrive ajoute le S. Père, je serai toujours pape; mais plutôt que de séculariser le gouvernement, je suis prêt à descendre aux catacombes, nouveau martyr de l’Eglise.’ Archives Generales Royaume Bruxelles, Van de Weyer Papers, no 124: cited in Aloïs Simon, Palmer ston et les Etats Pontificaux en 184g, Rassegna Storica [del Risorgimento], 43 (Rome 1956), p 542. Simon added: ‘En maintenant les Etats Pontificaux le Saint Siège voulait certes conserver certains droits acquis par l’histoire et surtout sauvegarder l’indépendence spirituelle du souverain pontife, mais il avait aussi une nostalgie de la théocratie.’ Ibid p 543.

⁵⁷ Gualtieri, Luigi, Memorie de Ugo Bassi, apostolo del Vangelo, martire della Indipendenza Italiana (Bologna 1861) pp 68-9Google Scholar. Sylvain regards Gualtieri as too much biased in favour of Gavazzi and Bassi, and states that he was responsible for some accepting too readily exaggerations about the circumstances of the death of Bassi which embittered Gavazzi and Garibaldi when these were reported to them verbally, and adds that Gualtieri’s book was accepted too uncritically by Trevelyan, [G. M.] in his [Garibaldi’s] Defence [of the Roman Republic] (London 1907) p 308 Google Scholar. Nevertheless no effective help was given by catholic prelates and clerical diplomats on Bassi’s behalf, who it should be remembered was still a priest and had not carried arms.

⁵⁸ The bitterness aroused by this allocution among italian patriots is understandable because the papal declaration helped in the defeat of the Italians in 1848. It was in any case, as the events showed, fatal to the intention of Pius to preserve the temporal power. Patriots now saw that unity could only be achieved by challenging and overcoming papal rule in the papal states. Whether the danger of schism was as immediate and probable as Pius claimed is an open question. That his dilemma, however, was extremely difficult is plain: that his resolution of it and the way he became increasingly obstinate later in trying to repress the risorgimento were wise is less plain. For the allocution see the italian translation in Farini, L. C., Lo stato romano dal anno 1815 al 1850, 4 vols (Florence 1853) 2, p 92 Google Scholar. The pope in addressing german language catholics claimed that considerable measures of reform had been under way in the papal states, therefore, since he was carrying out the advice of european governments, how could he be regarded as a revolutionary ? How far Pius was effecting reforms can be seen from Odo Russell’s despatches from Rome, The Roman Question, ed Blakiston, N. (London 1962)Google Scholar which show how often Russell repeated the advice of the British government for the pope to reform his administration, to the irritation of Pius, in the years 1858-70. Reform obviously meant different things to Palmerston, and his successors, and to Pius. Russell’s report of the opinion of Pius on Italians is interesting: ‘The Italians are a dissatisfied, interfering, turbulent, and intriguing race, they can never learn to govern themselves. It is impossible. ... A hotheaded people like the Italians require a firm and just government to guide and take care of them . . .’ Russell’s reply, exemplifying the lack of justice, led Pius only to smile and take snuff, p 37.

The second part of the allocution was addressed to Italians stating that Pius could not prevent volunteers from among his subjects fighting for Italy, but he had not declared war since he represented on earth the author of peace, and that his duty as sovereign pontiff was to show equal paternal love to all peoples. In the third part of his allocution he vigorously rejected the idea that he could preside over an italian republic, rather Italians should remain loyal to their legitimate sovereigns - these included the austrians: the point that embittered Gavazzi and Italian patriots generally.

⁵⁹ ‘Thus vanished the dream of Gioberti.’ A. M. Ghisalberti published the letters of count de Liederkerke de Beaufort to the belgian government in two differently titled books: from the second, Rapporti delii cose di Roma (1848-1849) (Rome 1949)Google Scholar Sylvain cites this quotation 1 p 327. For Gioberti see below p 332. The count’s letters, like those of other despatches from foreign ambassadors or government representatives at Rome, including those of Odo Russell, give more objective reports on the events and attitudes of the time than those of the participants. The violent emotional reaction of the patriots of the papal states helped to plunge Rome into revolution against the pope. Within a few days of the allocution the papal government was losing control: the political clubs (Circoli) and the civic guard began to take over, Berkeley 3, p 185.

⁶⁰ Santini reports, p 63 n 30, a letter sent from Venice to Gavazzi’s mother by three of her sons, Giovanni (a colonel of volunteers), Paolo (a sergeant-major) and Alessandro, describing their safety after the battle of Treviso, to be found in the appendix to Zaccagnini, G., Pistoia durante il Risorgimento nazionale (Pistoia 1940)Google Scholar. G. B. Nicolini in his Lectures Completes, who was present at the battle describes Carlo, another brother of Gavazzi, shouting to Alessandro not to expose himself to the storm of austrian bullets but to shelter with him behind a tree: but Gavazzi ignored him and carried wounded men under fire to the ambulances. In his Autobiografia, in the section on the battle of Treviso, printed by Cencetti, Gavazzi does not refer to himself but he describes with pride how a troop of miei Voluntarii charged up a steep valley against the austrian guns which was a preludio gloriassimo di quella di Balaklava in Crimea sotto la guida di Lord Cardigan, p 167. Another brother of Gavazzi, Pietro, a doctor served in this campaign as an army surgeon. Campanella, [G. M.], [Life in the cloister in the Papal court and in Exile: an Autobiography] (London 1877)Google Scholar, see above p 311, n 25, wrote in the appendix (p 9) that he visited Gavazzi’s mother in Bologna in 1848 - she ‘was truly one of the strong women of ancient times. . . inflamed with the love of country. She told us how all her five sons had exposed themselves bravely against the foreigner . . . the mother was truly worthy of such sons’.

⁶¹ Sylvain, 1, pp 174, 175, translates a passage from Gavazzi’s, L’Italia inerme e accattona, p 45, demonstrating this.

⁶² Sylvain 1, p 175.

⁶³ Cencetti p 169. Also see Un Esperimento, number 8, Garibaldi a Bologna, an enthusiastic article by Gavazzi describing the scene at the hotel. This journal by Gavazzi ran for eight numbers, 17 October to 11 November 1848, Bologna. (Library of Facoltà Valdese, Rome.)

⁶⁴ Loevinson, Ermana, Garibaldi e la sua legione nello Statto Romano, 3 vols (Rome 1902-7) 1, p 11 Google Scholar. Holding back Garibaldi and his legion near to Rome was of fundamental importance, and Gavazzi was the most probable influence in this. Also see Casini, T., Garibaldi nell’Emilia, Archivio Emiliano (Modena 1907) p 182 Google Scholar.

⁶⁵ Epistolario di Luigi Carlo Farini, ed Rava, Luigi, 4 vols (Bologna 1911-35) 2, p 668 Google Scholar, for the pope’s demand to cardinal Amat; also see M. Minghetti Miei Ricordi 3 vols (Turin 1889-90) 2, p 398. These references are cited by Sylvain, who is better on the literature favourable to the clerical interpretation of these events than with that of the men of the risorgimento.

⁶⁶ Cencetti p 171, ‘. . . che morte si, ma giammai mi avrebbero avuto prigione.’

⁶⁷ Garibaldi in his Memorie Autobiografiche (Florence 1888) does not write directly of Gavazzi - there are many omissions of persons in this collection of not over-articulate reflections - but various contemporary writers and journalists show that Garibaldi respected Gavazzi’s courage and appointed him more than once as chaplain and organiser of ambulances. Moreover, he was glad of Gavazzi’s aid in Naples and elsewhere as one who could enhearten his soldiers and obtain popular support by his irresistible oratory. The slogan originated with the american, Patrick Henry: it had a more literal meaning for many young Italians who died believing it, than for Henry’s more cautious hearers.

⁶⁸ The bishop of Montefiascone and Corneto was deeply alarmed at the prospect of Gavazzi being incarcerated in the ‘Ergastulum’ for immoral priests, since he was sure disturbances would occur, but the papal administration was now in disarray after the murder of Rossi. A. Zappoli, L’arresto di Padre Gavazzi, an article in La Constituente, 25 November 1848. Sylvain cites here G. Natali, Il padre Gavazzi e l’entrata di Garibaldi nello Stato Pontifico in Il Comune di Bologna, 21 (1934).

⁶⁹ The prominence of Gavazzi at this stage is shown by the fact that it was he who after assisting at mass on easter Sunday in St Peter’s, blessed the crowd with the blessed sacrament from the Vatican loggia. He wrote: ‘Io feci benedire il popolo dalla gran loggia Vaticana nel giorno di Pasqua col Santissimo Sacramento.’ (Eco d’Italia, 1 October 1853.) The mass at St Peter’s was sung by a piedmontese priest who had been inhibited for supporting the risorgimento. To usurp thus the privileged papal altar was a sacrilege which seems not to have worried Spola, the celebrant, nor Gavazzi, the assistant, nor the vast crowd who gathered there.

⁷⁰ Bianchi, Luigi, Incidents in the Life of an Italian (London 1859)Google Scholar. Bianchi describes himself as present, and saw a chamber high in the roof with heaps of bones. He added (p 146) that an aged bishop and two nuns were set free. This matter has long been a disputed difficulty. Gavazzi recounted these horrors later in Britain and North America when the inquisition was one of his most successful anti-papal subjects. Clerical writers affirm that the bones, furnace and instruments of torture were hastily set up in the prison of the holy office - there was a cemetery nearby - as an exhibition of papal cruelty. Anti-clerical writers deny this. Gavazzi claimed to have been the first to enter the prison and his horrified description points to visible evidence. I have found no instance of calculated lying on matters of fact by Gavazzi elsewhere, but this, of course, does not preclude his being the victim of a theatrical display by republican anti-clericals who had worked hard as scene-shifters in the hours before he entere \ the prison on 1 April 1849.

⁷¹ Translated from Paul Dudon, Lettres inédites de Lamennais à Ventura, Etudes, 1 (March 1910) p 612. The date of this letter to Ventura was 14 May 1826.

⁷² Lampedusa, Tornasi di, Il Gattopardo (Milan 1958)Google Scholar. Translated here from the 1963 Feltrinelli edition, pp 13-14.

⁷³ Campanella, [Anthony P.], [Giuseppe Garibaldi e la Tradizione Garibaldina una] bibliografia [dal 1807 al 1970], Comitato dell’Instituto Internazionale di Studi Garibaldini, 2 vols (Geneva 1971)Google Scholar. ‘The roman catholic church, the perennial enemy of liberal garibaldian principles... has, through its vast network of churches, schools and propaganda media . . . precluded any dissemination of the true facts concerning him.’ To this church ‘Garibaldi represents the anti-Christ par excellence’. He adds that the Christian democratic party of Italy sought consistently to undermine Garibaldi’s prestige and neglected the publication of his correspondence. The phrase ‘true facts’ show Campanella as too emotionally committed, but the basis of his criticism is sound.

⁷⁴ Campanella bibliographia. The citations are from his introduction.

⁷⁵ Ibid. He adds thus ‘honouring the great enemy of italian independence’.

⁷⁶ Maturi, pp 602-3, refers to three historians who have discussed the influence of Jansenism in northern Italy. For brief statements on Ricci and the synod of Pistoia, Bihlrneyer-Tuechle 4, pp 57, 103, with accompanying references to the literature of the subject.

⁷⁷ For a brief view of the later views of Lamennais see Catholicisme, publ Centre Interdisciplinaire des Facultés catholiques de Lille, 6 (Paris 1967) cols 1721 Google Scholar, 1722. Vidler, A. R., Prophecy and Papacy (London 1954)Google Scholar unfortunately ends before examining the later years of Lamennais in which his social and political views were so widely influential.

⁷⁸ Maturi also cites a chain of those who demonstrated ideas of national independence for Italy: Machiavelli - Vico - Cuoco - Mazzini - Gioberti, p 526. P. Giannone (d 1748) was a historian who wrote on his native Naples with a strong anti-papal bias and who believed in minimising hierarchical control of the church. A. Muratori (d 1750) is a name famous among ecclesiastical historians for his integrity, diligence and objectivity as a scholar, whose ecclesiastical position can be seen reflected in the dislike shown to him and his works by the Jesuits. G. B. Vico (d 1744) wrote the remarkable Scienza Nuova (Naples 1725) showing the history of civilisation as a spiral, though Vico’s view of history as guided by God’s providence has little interest to historians in our time. His interest in language influenced James Joyce, ‘a lord of language’.

⁷⁹ Salvatorelli, Luigi, Il problema religioso nel Risorgimento, [Rassegna Storica], armo 43, fasc 1 (1956) p 213 Google Scholar: ‘. . . il Mazzini fece del Risorgimento italiano, e anzi della sistemazione europea in associazione di nazioni libere, una esigenza della religione “Dio e Popolo”.’ - this excluded the papacy. Also see Mazzini, Opere 4, p 1; 5, pp 42, 43 (Salvatorelli’s reference) - (see n 89 below).

⁸⁰ Torre. Torre claims that Gioberti affirmed that Italy contained in itself, above all through its religion, all the conditions required for its material and political renewal. For a list of Gioberti’s major writings see Maturi, p 721, and for the historiography on Gioberti see Maturi’s index.

⁸¹ Manzoni’s novel still attracts numbers of readers, and has had a renewal of life in a new English version. The viewpoint of Manzoni has been described in Maturi (p 40) as una formula felice, namely ‘nel considerare come ideale dello storico la fusione del Vico e del Muratori, della filosofia e della filologia, dal gusto di vedere le cose dall’alto con genialità di pensiero e del gusto del particolare preciso appurato dopo pazienti indagini archivistiche’. Nevertheless it is a moving story, and owes something to the powerful influence of Walter Scott on the continent.

⁸² Massimo d’Azeglio was a potent figure, his I miei ricordi -best edition edited by Ghisalberti (Milan 1963) - is one of the better autobiographies of the first half of the nineteenth century - he was an artist, a professional soldier and politician, and author. His observations and judgments are shrewd, and forceful.

⁸³ Rosmini is attracting attention among catholic writers today because his views are more acceptable to their contemporary theological needs than those of the ultimately antagonistic Gioberti and Lamennais. But it is significant that references to him are few in Maturi’s index.

⁸⁴ Sylvain cites the manuscript of Gavazzi’s Autobiografia, p 091024 for Gavazzi’s view of his father as a conservative if not a reactionary.

⁸⁵ My Recollections pp 196-7: ‘. . . my only uncle, the general of the civic guard [at Bologna] who afterwards merited the honour of being exiled for the cause of Italy, and died in exile. The reader will, I trust, pardon my honest family pride.’

⁸⁶ Santini p 31. Silvani again renewed relationship with Gavazzi in 1847.

⁸⁷ King, p 96 quotes Gavazzi: ‘During my seven years’ exile I have never seen Mazzini nor have I corresponded with him. ... I am the last to approve him as a political leader.’ Mazzini instituted secret societies. There is no evidence to connect Gavazzi with freemasonry, in Italy a politically oriented and anti-clerical body - moreover his brusque common sense would have no taste for its rituals.

⁸⁸ Spini p 76.

⁸⁹ Torre quotes Mazzini as demanding a new religion, a religion of duty in which there would be three dogmas, the existence of God, the law of progress, and the general co-operation of men (cited from Mazzini’s Fide e Avenire).

⁹⁰ Santini p 5 ‘Pio VII che, spogliato dal regno e condotto prigioniero a Savona, assorgeva a simbolo della nazionalità oppressa’.

⁹¹ Torre p 96, citing Mazzini Opere 4, 1.

⁹² Torre p 118, citing Rossetti’s Roma verso la meta del secolo XIX (London 1840). Gabriele Rossetti was to make a famous name for himself in exile in England not so much by his writings or by his becoming professor of italian at the newly founded King’s College, London, but by becoming the father of a remarkable literary family - Christina, Dante Gabriel, and William Michael. He adopted strong anti-catholic polemical views and, in later life, some degree of protestant evangelicalism. Vinay p 123.

⁹³ The Priest in Absolution: an Exposure, ‘by Gavazzi, Alessandro, Minister of the Free Christian Church in Italy’ (London 1877)Google Scholar. The following sentence (p 31) has a period flavour’. ‘And yet, after the experience of centuries, Dr Pusey dares to assert, in one of his letters to the Daily Express that a great injustice has been committed towards “a large body of well-educated English clergymen, in thinking that any clergy of ours would ask anything, or English wives and daughters listen to, what it would be unfit for father or husband to hear”.’

⁹⁴ Torre cites Mazzini writing these words to Lamennais, and gives Opere 5, pp 42, 44, as the reference.

⁹⁵ ‘Niccolini non era democratico, ma liberale laico.’ Maturi, p 403.

⁹⁶ Gavazzi wrote Che sia il plimiittismo: Studio storico-polemico (Florence 1876) in order to counteract their infiltration of his free churches. His sources were: The Errors of Darby and the Plymouth Sect, The Record (1862); Plymouth Brethrenism: its ecclesiastical and doctrinal teachings, British Quarterly Review (October 1873); The Heresies of the Plymouth Brethren, Carson, J. L. (Coleraine 1862)Google Scholar; Brethrenism or the special teachings ecclesiastical and doctrinal of the Brethren, or Plymouth Brethren, Macintosh, Duncan (London 1872)Google Scholar; A Catechism of the doctrine of the Plymouth Brethren (London 1866). There were several Scottish presbyterián ministers working in Italy - R. Stewart of Leghorn who worked with the valdesi, and J. MacDougall whose work was among English-speaking presbyterians in Italy, were among these. The latter showed sympathy to Gavazzi, but Stewart strongly opposed him in Italy and in Scotland. Gavazzi found Stewart a constant thorn in the flesh.

⁹⁷ Torre p 167.

⁹⁸ Ibid p 167.

⁹⁹ There has long been discussion on the origin of this famous phrase. E. Passerin d’Entrèves, Rassegna Storica 41 (1954) pp 494–506 Google Scholar argued that Cavour adopted it from Montalembert the french liberal catholic associated with the famous journal L’Avenir and the historian of the monks of the West. Montalembert claimed this himself. But Cavour wished Rome to be the capital of Italy and Montalembert did not; moreover he was an ardent ultramontanist which Cavour was certainly not. It is more likely that Cavour, who knew french-speaking Switzerland well, derived it from Alexandre Vinet the distinguished theologian of Lausanne, who broke away from the cantonal state church to found une église libre. What is not in doubt is that Cavour opposed any authority being given to the catholic church in temporal affairs.

¹⁰⁰ See p 355 below.

¹⁰¹ Monti, A., Pio IX e il Risorgimento italiano (Bari 1928)Google Scholar cites this from a letter of Pius to monsignor Papardo, 9 June 1860.

¹⁰² Santini p 143.

¹⁰³ Palumbo, Beniamino, Preti del Risorgimento, Rassegna Storica 43 (1956) pp 511 Google Scholar et seq.

¹⁰⁴ Ibid pp 513, 514.

¹⁰⁵ King p 40 - Freeman, the american consul, had attended the celebrations after the flight of Pius from Rome, and american opinion supported the republican ideal, and opposed the temporal power of the pope.

¹⁰⁶ Campanella p 137.

¹⁰⁷ Santini p 103: ‘era frate e frate sarebbe rimasto per sempre.’

¹⁰⁸ King p 47. Wiseman inhibited him as soon as Gavazzi’s sermons in italian were announced at a small chapel near Soho Square: Gavazzi refused to recognise the inhibition after an interview with Wiseman who said Gavazzi needed a licence from the pope.

¹⁰⁹ Mannin, [Ethel], [Two Studies in Integrity: Gerald Griffin and the Rev. Francis Mahony] (London 1954) p 147 Google Scholar. The first quotation is from the reverend George O’Neill, SJ, who wrote a centenary study of Mahony for the National Literary Society in 1905. The second quotation is from a writer in the North British Review (December 1866).

¹¹⁰ Mannin pp 152, 153.

¹¹¹ Campanella p 135: ‘A numerous attendance of persons of every social position filled the large rooms in which these lectures were given. I remember to have seen Earl Russell, and Lord Palmerston several times at the lectures given by the generous patriot’. The quotation from Palmerston is in Ashley, E., The Life of H. J. Temple, Viscount Palmerston (London 1876) 1, p 257 Google Scholar. In 1850 Ruskin broke an engagement to hear Gavazzi lecture, and Carlyle told his wife Gavazzi was a blockhead - but somebody had enthusiastically claimed that Gavazzi reminded him of Carlyle. Rudman, W. H., Italian Nationalism and English Letters (London 1940) p 229 Google Scholar.

¹¹² King p 49.

¹¹³ King p 53.

¹¹⁴ King p 63.

¹¹⁵ Spini pp 192 et seq, and also Paolo Sanfilippo, II Protestantismo Italiano nel Risorgimento (Rome no date) pp 31 et seq.

¹¹⁶ Campanella.

¹¹⁷ d’Azeglio, Massimo, Things I Remember, trans Vincent, E. R. (London 1966) p 311 Google Scholar.

¹¹⁸ All of these topics recur frequently in newspaper reports of his meetings in the volume of newspaper cuttings and printed ephemera, Memorie, and also in the volumes of newspaper cuttings Orations, in the Facoltà Valdese at Rome. These topics are also to be found in Lectures of Gavazzi at New York (New York 1854).

¹¹⁹ Campanella Bibliografia, no 7819. Nikolai Aleksandrovic Dobrolinbov, Gavazzi, Otez Aleksandr, i ego propovedi, in Sobranie Socineniy (Petersburg 1862 and 1911)Google Scholar.

¹²⁰ Trevelyan, Defence p 76, n 2.

¹²¹ Orations [of Fr. Gavazzi (Decade the Second)] (London 1851) p 69. (Mahony had helped with the translations of Gavazzi’s first lectures.) Gavazzi replied in The Globe, 18 March, with this reference to ω’μωρε.

¹²² Memorie pp 3, 4.

¹²³ Memorie, cutting from Daily Review of Glasgow for 7 November 1865.

¹²⁴ Memorie p 43.

¹²⁵ Orations p 82.

¹²⁶ I owe this information to a member of the staff of the national library of Wales, Aberystwyth; another member provided the translation of the reporter’s welsh phrase in Y Faner.

¹²⁷ Memorie p 210, Southport Daily News (the newspaper cutting is cut too close to give the date, but it must have been on a visit to England by Gavazzi after 1870).

¹²⁸ These arguments are from the first section.

¹²⁹ These arguments are from sections 2 and 3.

¹³⁰ Wiseman, [Cardinal N. P.], Recollections [of the Last Four Popes and of Rome in their times] (London 1858)Google Scholar. Gavazzi, My Recollections in the preface, p v, wrote: ‘In answer to his lecture on the Four Popes I delivered one after in the same place. How did they resemble each other? As much as Italy and Ireland.’

¹³¹ Ibid p vi.

¹³² Ibid p 10.

¹³³ Ibid p 38.

¹³⁴ Ibid p 200.

¹³⁵ Ibid p 255. The Encyclopaedia Britannica, (11 ed, New York 1911) 19, p 355, pompously stated: ‘The story of Nelson’s visit to Naples in the June of 1799 will probably remain a subject for perpetual discussion’ - this means he acted in a discreditable manner. Emma Hamilton persuaded Nelson to support the queen of Naples and the feeble bourbon king, and he acted entirely arbitrarily in quelling republicans and hanging their leaders. Gavazzi was one of those Italians who evidently neither forgot nor forgave this.

¹³⁶ Ibid p 274.

¹³⁷ Ibid p 277, see also n 140 below.

¹³⁸ Sylvain, 2 p 459.

¹³⁹ Mazzini copied a sonnet of Belli’s in his London exile in a letter to a friend, see Ghisalberti, A. M., at Gregorio XVI 2 p 350 Google Scholar (see n 140 below).

¹⁴⁰ ‘Il carabiniere A. Bianchi Giovini’, wrote Il Papa e la sua Corte (Rome 1860)Google Scholar according to A. M. Ghisalberti, ‘Gregorio XVI [e il Risorgimento’], in Gregorio XVI, 2, and described the ‘fig-like’ nose of Gregory and of his abuso del vino. Ghisalberti also refers to Gaetano Moroni’s beautiful wife, and quotes Belli’s poem of 1835, Er Papa Omo, in his Sotmetti Romaneschi no 1533 (see n 42 above):

See Tutti i Sotmetti Romaneschi , ed Cagli, Bruno, 5 vols (Rome 1964-5) 4, p 361 Google Scholar. These pieces of Belli’s were not immediately printed but passed around in manuscript. Gavazzi’s use of this material shows that touch of vulgarity referred to (below p 356). In any event Wiseman had already gracefully dealt with Gregory’s large nose in his Recollections.

¹⁴¹ My Recollections p 51.

¹⁴² Ibid pp 185, 186.

¹⁴³ Liddon, H. P., Life of E. B. Pusey (London 1898) 4, p 107 Google Scholar. Pusey wrote to Keble a letter which he called his ‘First Eirenicon’ - this was a defence of the catholicity of the church of England against an attack on it by archbishop Manning in 1864. But it also contains suggestions on how re-union could be achieved between Rome and Canterbury.

¹⁴⁴ No Union with Rome: an Aiiti-Eirenicon (London 1866) pp 50, 51.

¹⁴⁵ Ibid p 277.

¹⁴⁶ Ibid p 96.

¹⁴⁷ Ibid p 299.

¹⁴⁸ Ibid p 299. See Santini p 185 et seq, chapter unnumbered, entitled ‘Problemi delle giovani Chiese protestanti italiane (1877-1883)’.

¹⁴⁹ Sixteenth Evangelization Report of the Free Christian Church in Italy (Glasgow 1887); J. R. McDougall prepared this report, and after 1896 he stated that this church had no independent future.

¹⁵⁰ Lockhart, J. G., The Life of Cosmo Cordon Lang (London 1949) p 27 Google Scholar.

¹⁵¹ Trevelyan, Defence p 308.