Civilization and Democracy: The Salvernini Anthology of Cattaneo's Writings 9781442627284

Table of contents :
Contents
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations of Cattaneo’s Collected Works
Introduction
Carlo Cattaneo and Varieties of Liberalism
Cattaneo’s Life and Work
Selected writings
1. International Affairs
2. Public Economy
3. Education and Militia
4. Local Autonomy
5. The Social Question
6. Literature
7. Aspects of World History
8. The Risorgimento
9. Human Sciences
References
Index

Citation preview

CIVILIZATION AND DEMOCRACY: THE SALVEMINI ANTHOLOGY OF CATTANEO’S WRITINGS

THE LORENZO DA PONTE ITALIAN LIBRARY General Editors Luigi Ballerini and Massimo Ciavolella, University of California at Los Angeles Honorary Chairs †Professor Vittore Branca Honoràble Dino De Poli Ambassador Gianfranco Facco Bonetti Honorable Anthony J. Scirica Advisory Board Remo Bodei, Università di Pisa Lina Bolzoni, Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa Francesco Bruni, Università di Venezia Giorgio Ficara, Università di Torino Michael Heim, University of California at Los Angeles Amilcare A. Iannucci, University of Toronto Rachel Jacoff, Wellesley College Giuseppe Mazzotta, Yale University Gilberto Pizzamiglio, Università di Venezia Margaret Rosenthal, University of Southern California John Scott, University of Western Australia Elissa Weaver, University of Chicago

CARLO CATTANEO

Civilization and Democracy The Salvemini Anthology of Cattaneo’s Writings Edited and introduced by Carlo G. Lacaita and Filippo Sabetti Translated by David Gibbons

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London

© University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2006 Toronto Buffalo London Printed in Canada isbn-13: 978-0-8020-9205-2 (cloth) isbn-10: 0-8020-9205-5 (cloth) isbn-13: 978-0-8020-9445-2 (paper) isbn-10: 0-8020-9445-7 (paper)

Printed on acid-free paper This book is a translation by David Gibbons of Le più belle pagine di Carlo Cattaneo scelte da Gaetano Salvemini (Milan: Fratelli Treves Editore, 1922). The Lorenzo Da Ponte Italian Library Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Cattaneo, Carlo, 1801–1869. Civilization and democracy : the Salvemini anthology of Cattaneo’s writings / Carlo Cattaneo ; edited and introduced by Carlo G. Lacaita and Filippo Sabetti ; translated by David Gibbons. (Lorenzo da Ponte Italian Library) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 0-8020-9205-5 (bound) isbn 0-8020-9445-7 (pbk.) 1. Italy – Civilization – 1789–1900. 2. World politics – 19th century. I. Lacaita, Carlo G. II. Sabetti, Filippo III. Gibbons, David IV. Title. V. Series dg450.c38 2006

945 .08

c2006-903395-1

This volume is published under the aegis and with the financial assistance of: Fondazione Cassamarca, Treviso; Ministero degli Affari Esteri, Direzione Generale per la Promozione e la Cooperazione Culturale; Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali, Direzione Generale per i Beni Librari e gli Istituti Culturali, Servizio per la promozione del libro e della lettura. Publication of this volume is assisted by the Istituto Italiano di Cultura, Toronto. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP).

Contents

Acknowledgments Abbreviations of Cattaneo’s Collected Works

INTRODUCTION CARLO CATTANEO AND VARIETIES OF LIBERALISM carlo g. lacaita and filippo sabetti

xi xiii

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The Context Cattaneo’s Standing in Intellectual Life The Paradigmatic Significance of Cattaneo Salvemini’s Discovery of Cattaneo Promoting Cattaneo’s Ideas The Organization of Salvemini’s Anthology Gaetano Salvemini: The Making of a Public Intellectual

6 13 17 29 38 43 45

CATTANEO’S LIFE AND WORK gaetano salvemini

53

Early Studies Il Politecnico Political Ideas Prior to 1848 The Events of 1848 Between 1848 and 1860 Federalism

53 55 56 60 63 66

Contents

The Nation in Arms Defeat His Final Years

70 71 74

SELECTED WRITINGS 1 International Affairs The Far East The New World of the Pacific Ocean The British Empire The United States of America French Centralization The Austrian Army and Nationalist Issues Swiss Neutrality The Ottoman Question International Solidarity

79 80 81 86 87 88 90 91 93

2 Public Economy Agriculture in Lombardy The Basis of Fertility Tendency of Capital toward Land Ownership The Transportation Problem in Sicily Uncultivated Land Agriculture Comes from the Cities Freedom of the Seas Commerce Modern Economic Life Currents of World Trade The Geographical Position of Milan Protected Markets and Commercial Power Economic Nationalism Raw Materials Nascent Industries From Protectionism to Freedom ‘White’ Coal In Favor of an Active, Industrious Life The Abolition of Capital Intelligence and Will as Sources of Wealth

vi

94 97 97 99 100 100 102 103 104 105 108 109 110 111 112 112 113 113 116 116

Contents

3 Education and Militia Division of Labor in Universities Literary Education Scientific Education The Study of the Bible Agricultural Training Military Training War and Civilization Railroads and War The Nation in Arms The First Military Force Is the Will

120 122 123 125 126 127 128 129 130 133

4 Local Autonomy The Nation in Arms and Federalism Local Patriotism Autonomy for Sardinia The Error of Centralization The Illusion of the Constituent Assembly The Servile Status of the Communes The Regions Must Arise On the Independence of Small Communes

136 137 138 140 141 141 142 143

5 The Social Question The Advent of the Fourth Estate The Fifth and Sixth Estates The Comforts of the Poor Universal Suffrage The New Criminal Law

146 146 147 147 149

6 Literature History and Poetry Opera in Music and Drama in Prose The Prejudices of Romantics The Feebleness of Italian Culture Popular Writing The French Language Heine Byron

vii

151 154 156 158 161 162 162 163

Contents

Translations The Common Enterprise of Humanity

163 163

7 Aspects of World History The Polygenic Origins of Humanity The Origins of European Civilization The Presumed Flood of Peoples Languages and Dialects Living Languages Roman Unity The Breakup of Roman Civilization The Revolt of the Mercenaries Feudal Society Relics of Ancient Civilization Classes and Nations in the Middle Ages The Origins of Communes Communal Wars Firearms National States The Decadence of Mercantile Cities in the Middle Ages The French and Spanish in Lombardy

165 168 175 176 177 178 180 182 184 185 186 186 188 189 191 192 193

8 The Risorgimento Lombard Reforms in the Eighteenth Century Napoleon and Italy Italian National Sentiment The Five Days The Tricolor 1848 Pius IX

195 198 199 202 213 214 216

9 Human Sciences Experimental Science and Metaphysical Science The Role of Philosophy Man in History and Metaphysics Sensation in Associated Minds Ideas as Products of Associated Minds Eighteenth-Century Rationalism and Nineteenth-Century Historicity

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218 219 221 222 223 225

Contents

Historical Studies False Accounts of Civilization Natural Conditions and Intellectual Progress Foreign Interference Intellect and Will in Social Life The Force of Tradition Thoughts Come from Facts, before Facts Come from Thoughts

227 229 234 235 236 240 241

References

243

Index

253

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Acknowledgments

We wish to thank Professors Luigi Ballerini and Massimo Ciavolella for including this volume in the series ‘Lorenzo Da Ponte Italian Library,’ and Aaron Thomas, who has done much to facilitate publication. Two anonymous readers contributed useful suggestions and constructive criticisms to our introduction, as did our colleagues Arash Abizadeh, Aurelian Craiutu, Alan Kahan, and Aaron Thomas. Christina Tarnopolsky was especially thoughtful in her extended comments. Translation is not an easy art, and we appreciate the good work to this effect by David Gibbons. It has been a pleasure ‘negotiating’ with him on how best to render Cattaneo’s ideas. The translation was made possible through the efforts of the Comitato nazionale per le celebrazioni del bicentenario della nascita di Carlo Cattaneo in conjunction with the Comitato per la pubblicazione delle opere di Gaetano Salvemini, help which Carlo G. Lacaita in particular wishes to acknowledge. Filippo Sabetti also wishes to acknowledge the support of the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (grant no. 410-2001-0624), of the Earhart Foundation, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and of Liberty Fund, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana, for his research on Carlo Cattaneo and liberalism. Special thanks to Ron Schoeffel at the University of Toronto Press for his help and encouragement throughout and to Kate Baltais for superb copyediting, which made the presentation of Cattaneo’s ideas far clearer.

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Abbreviations of Cattaneo’s Collected Works*

EP

Epistolario di Carlo Cattaneo, edited by Rinaldo Caddeo, 4 vols. Florence: Barbera, 1949, 1952, 1954, 1956 SE Scritti Economici, edited by Alberto Bertolino, 3 vols. Florence: Le Monnier, 1956 SF Scritti Filosofici, edited by Norberto Bobbio, 3 vols. Florence: Le Monnier, 1960 SL Scritti Letterari, edited by Piero Treves, 2 vols. Florence: Le Monnier, 1981 SP Scritti Politici, edited by Mario Boneschi, 4 vols. Florence: Le Monnier, 1964, 1965 SPE Scritti Politici ed Epistolario, edited by Gabriele Rosa and Jessie White Mario, vol. 2. Florence: Barbera, 1894 SSG Scritti Storici e Geografici, edited by Gaetano Salvemini and Ernesto Sestan, 4 vols. Florence: Le Monnier, 1957

*Gaetano Salvemini selected Cattaneo’s writings from the collected works available at the time: the seven volumes of Opere edite ed inedite edited by Agostino Bertani (Florence: Le Monnier, 1881–92), and the three volumes of Scritti politici ed epistolario edited by Gabriele Rosa and Jessie White Mario (Florence: Barbera, 1892–1902). We decided to cite Cattaneo’s writings from the more recent, and more accessible, Le Monnier edition of Cattaneo’s collected works. The text of Cattaneo’s writings remains unchanged.

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INTRODUCTION

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Carlo Cattaneo and Varieties of Liberalism carlo g. lacaita and filippo sabetti

Carlo Cattaneo (1801–1869) was widely regarded by contemporaries as a gifted public intellectual and a leading figure in the republican, federalist, democratic current of the Italian Risorgimento. Following the collapse of the 1848 revolts, he took refuge and settled in Switzerland, where he is now regarded as one of Canton Ticino’s outstanding nineteenth-century figures. Cattaneo was four years older than the other great republican of the Risorgimento, Giuseppe Mazzini, whose national and international reputation completely overshadowed his own. But it is Cattaneo who has been hailed variously, since his death, as ‘Italy’s greatest political economist and philosopher’ (White Mario 1875, 465), ‘the most profound and versatile intellectual of all the Italian Risorgimento’ (Woolf 1979, 343), ‘the only self-conscious theorist of liberalism in nineteenth-century Italy,’ comparable in many ways to John Stuart Mill (Bobbio 1971, 183, 209), ‘a committed comparativist’ (Cafagna 2001, 11), and even ‘the last of the great Encyclopedists, the universal scholar’ (Carbone 1956, 56). When every possible allowance is made for exaggeration, there is something to these characterizations. The chief reason is that, to borrow from the description of John Stuart Mill by John Gray (2000), Cattaneo’s ideas and framework of analysis – like Mill’s – were not shaped by a narrow intra-academic agenda, but by the great social, economic, and political transformations of his time. From the 1830s to his death, Carlo Cattaneo dedicated himself to many of the theoretical and practical problems of his day. His writings span the fields of economics, history, politics, philosophy, and law, and address topics as diverse as the nature of chemistry, the construction of railroads, and the study of language and literature. This anthology was originally published in Italian in 1922 as a selection of Cattaneo’s writ-

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ings chosen by the historian and political activist Gaetano Salvemini, a fierce critic of Fascism who later was active in organizing the Resistance during his exile in the United States. All of Cattaneo’s known publications and almost all of his correspondence – amounting to twenty volumes – continue to be readily available in whole and in part in several collections published since the 1880s, when a first collection of his writings came out. Many studies now exist in Italian of Cattaneo’s life, his involvement in the politics of the Risorgimento, and his contribution to particular fields of inquiry. Bibliographies of this specialized research are contained in two books (Armani 2001; Brignoli and Massagrande 1988). The commemoration of the bicentenary of Cattaneo’s birth in 2001 spurred the publication of several volumes, including new annotated editions of his correspondence and works.1 Yet, for all the enduring interest and tribute, Cattaneo’s ideas have remained largely unknown outside a small circle of Italian scholars and informed citizens. Interest in Cattaneo outside of Italy has grown, but progress has been slow.2 A chief aim of providing an English translation of Salvemini’s anthology is to hasten this progress, as the essays chosen by Gaetano Salvemini constitute perhaps the best introduction to Cattaneo. The anthology shows not only the range of Cattaneo’s interests, but also the skill, thoughtfulness, and sensitivity that he brought to various 1 To mention some, Agliati 2001; Ambrosoli 2001; Cafagna and Crepax 2001; Colombo 2004; Colombo, Della Peruta, Lacaita 2004; Della Peruta 2001; Lacaita 2001, 2003; Preda and Rognoni Vercelli 2005. For a comprensive view of the rich literature now available, see Canella and Lacaita 2005. 2 There are at least two English-language dissertations, one in the United States and the other in England, that explore Cattaneo’s philosophy of history, both unpublished (Angotti 1972; Murray 1963). Clara Maria Lovett’s (1972) biography of Cattaneo, centering on his role in the politics of the Risorgimento remains, to date, the only book-length biography published in English. Intellectual historian Martin Thom (1999, 2001, 2004) has written several essays on Cattaneo’s thought, while a political scientist has drawn on Cattaneo’s method of analysis to show how and why a search for good government in modern Italy can generate antitethical and counterintentional results (Sabetti 2000). The English translation of Paolo Grossi’s study of collective property in the juridical consciousness of nineteenth-century analysts has brought to the fore, albeit only too briefly, Cattaneo’s contribution to the study of Swiss commons (Grossi 1981, 19–22). The only translations of Cattaneo’s work are some abridged essays that focus on protectionism, used in connection with two Liberty Fund colloquia on early nineteenth-century Italian economic thought, and the 1859 essay on thought as a principle of public economy (Lacaita and Vitale 2001), in the United States published by Lexington Books.

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Introduction

subjects. At the same time, the disparate writings form a fairly consistent treatise, rendering the volume much larger than the sum of its parts. For it is Cattaneo’s great merit to have seldom lost sight of the need to understand how people try to make sense of their world and the possibilities available to further human progress. He did not merely seek to fashion a new theory of knowledge. He sought to provide a deeper structure to the paradigmatic shift required to channel human civilization toward the constitution of open societies in and beyond Italy. In brief, Cattaneo’s aim was never just to inform his readers, but to move them to act in order that they might achieve two objectives simultaneously: to become free of foreign rule and illiberal regimes and to contribute their share to ‘ the common enterprise of humanity’ (p. 164 of the anthology). For, in words that he first penned in 1839, under Habsburg censorship, ‘there is now no people that contains within itself alone the reason for its own movement or civil life, that can say it is the free lord of its own opinions, nor even of the forms with which such opinions clothe themselves. And pity if it could, for within a few years it would find itself a puppet or mummy, the plaything of living peoples’ (p. 164 of the anthology). This urging people to act is what led to Salvemini’s interest in Cattaneo as Mussolini’s Fascist movement stood on the threshold of power. For as the dark and ominous clouds of totalitarianism loomed on Italy’s cultural and political horizon, Salvemini clearly saw how vitally important Cattaneo’s enlightened philosophy could be to the public life of democracy. Thus, the collection of Cattaneo’s essays presented here for the first time to English readers is as much an attestation of the enduring quality of Cattaneo’s writings as it is a measure of the capacity and power of Salvemini’s mind to rise above the ruptures and diversions in his life to continue a tradition of thought that could serve as a public philosophy, or program, for laying new foundations to public life. Cattaneo’s life and intellectual merit are ably described by Salvemini in his biographical introduction. Immediately after our introduction, we have appended a short biographical sketch of Salvemini himself, who identified with both Cattaneo and Mazzini. No purpose is served here by covering the same ground, and the reader anxious to know more about Cattaneo’s and Salvemini’s life can go directly there. But even as sympathetic a portrayer of Cattaneo’s life as Salvemini is compelled to admit that Cattaneo’s writings are fragmentary in nature and that they can easily lead first-time readers astray. Cattaneo’s insecure place in Italian political thought itself may be attributable to the broad and fragmentary

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nature of his work and may help to explain why in Italy his work has been both admired and ignored at the same time. We suggest that this paradoxical situation is the result of misperceptions about Cattaneo’s mode of analysis that can be easily resolved. Since the Salvemini anthology first appeared in print in 1922, there has been considerable research on the variety of liberal thought in the nineteenth century. We draw on this research to situate Cattaneo’s work in the context of European as well as Italian currents of liberalism. Therefore, the first part of this introduction serves to clarify why Cattaneo’s ideas deserve to be better known. We then turn to how Salvemini discovered his writings and the challenges that he experienced in selecting and presenting Cattaneo’s ideas. With the anthology, we hope to open new vistas in the study of modern social and political thought. The Context 3 Cattaneo’s preoccupations were shared by many thinkers of his generation throughout Europe, and we cannot really understand what he sought to do until we see that the basic problems and the aspirations that gripped him were those of his time. This requires the removal of several layers of misunderstandings about nineteenth-century Italian political thought, while keeping in mind that there is no commonly accepted definition of what liberalism is. Cattaneo’s time included different kinds of liberalism, at both the national and European levels, to the point that, in the words of Alan Kahan, ‘even if one restricts the applicability of the term to the period after 1750, there is at present no definition that is at once both useful and correct’ ([1992] 2001, 137). First, the study of political thought in nineteenth-century Italy was undermined by the rise of Fascism and by nationalistic as well as Gramscian and non-Gramscian revisionist historiography. It became easier to project twentieth-century political failings, or excessive expectations, onto the previous century and to employ the theme of failure as the general explanatory key to characterize the entire Risorgimento and the Liberal Italy that followed (the same might be said for nineteenth-century Spain; see Ringrose 1996, chap. 1). As a result, pre–First World War appraisals

3 This and the subsequent sections on Cattaneo draw heavily on Filippo Sabetti’s booklength manuscript, in preparation, and tentatively entitled ‘Carlo Cattaneo’s Passage to Modernity.’ The sections on Salvemini draw heavily on Carlo G. Lacaita’s work.

6

Introduction

of the liberation and unification of Italy as ‘the most marvelous and difficult struggle for freedom recorded in modern times’ (Thayer 1911, 2: 507, quoted in Romeo 1965, vii) were replaced by scornful and contemptuous reappraisals. There is not much to add about Italian political and social thought when failure, disillusionment, and deceit are said to dominate. So runs the received wisdom. But it is precisely these old prejudices and mindsets – in all their variations – that have prevented us from approaching and appreciating, in a comparative perspective, the different strands of liberal understanding that are to be found among Italian thinkers in the nineteenth century. A second tendency has been to gloss over the variety of liberal rhetorics and discourses and the contradictions within the movement itself and among its participants and historians, following the spread of the term ‘liberal’ from Spain. The intellectual dynamics that apply to nineteenth-century Italy have been observed among other liberal thinkers of the period across Europe, leading Kahan to note that ‘there is not one scale on which a liberal discourse can be weighed and classified’ ([1992] 2001, 144; see also Craiutu 2005; Lilla 1994; Siedentop 1979). Still, there is something to the view that liberal and modernizing ideas in nineteenth-century Italy were the product of a sharp rupture with the past (as it was presumed to have happened with the French Revolution) and with the Catholic Church. Cattaneo himself often succumbed to such views in his polemical, anticlerical writings and in his treatment of progress as a novelty, discovered and initiated by the Enlightenment and entirely foreign to the Middle Ages and to ancient writers on history. But this is not the whole story. What saved Cattaneo from following this erroneous path was the way in which he framed his inquiry. By holding fast to the idea of the unity of humanity, he came to see human progress not in terms of what happened to this or that particular society and civilization at a particular point in time, but in terms of the unfolding cumulative advancement of humanity since prehistoric times. Adherents and adversaries, for different reasons, often have presented one-sided and distorted views of liberal ideas. Such views, in turn, evoked some predictable reactions. They incited the papacy, throughout much of the nineteenth century and beyond, to issue general condemnations of liberalism, causing problems for liberal Catholics in Piedmont, Sicily, Lombardy, France, and other parts of the world who supported the teaching authority of the pope but saw nothing sacred about his temporal power. They served to give the broad transnational movement of liberal ideas narrow, nationalistic profiles. Several generations of schol-

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ars have referred to John Stuart Mill as the representative of the more advanced political and philosophical culture of industrializing England, obscuring the fact that, like other philosophic radicals of his time, Mill was critical of many aspects of British society and actually looked to continental Europeans for what lessons they could teach the British. ‘Mill himself was to no small degree a “French Mill”’ (Thom 2004, 392) – which raises questions about what it means to call Cattaneo the Italian Mill, as some have done (Bobbio 1971, 186; White Mario 1875). Equally important, the tendency to emphasize a sharp break with the past fostered considerable misunderstanding about the communitarian sources of modern individual rights and the problematics of change and reform that more recent scholarship is trying to correct (Berman 1983 and 2003; Frohnen 2005). A third tendency combines the previous two: squeezed between the two dominant philosophical schools of Anglo-American empiricism and skepticism and of German idealism, the contribution of nineteenthcentury Italian liberal thought appeared at best to be derivative, certainly weak and lacking vigor (e.g., De Ruggiero [1927] 1957). Why bother to retrieve it from the dustbin of intellectual history where it had been relegated by Fascism, Hegelians, and Gramscians alike? Not surprisingly, a widely used post–Second World War text in the anglophone world put matters this way: ‘The contribution of Italian writers to political thought has alternated between lofty ideals and cynical realism. On the one hand, Dante, Vico, Mazzini; on the other, Machiavelli and Pareto’ (Bowle [1954] 1964, 168). Some twenty or so years later, another historian noted that ‘the commonest assumption [is] that after Machiavelli, or at any rate after Vico, Italian thought went into hibernation, an empty parenthesis that endured down to the turn of the present century, when it was closed by the sudden emergence of Croce or perhaps Gramsci’ (Jacobitti 1981, 2). This anthology attempts to correct all three tendencies. Liberal ideas in the first half of the nineteenth century sought neither to liquidate the entire legacy of the Italian past nor to make a tabula rasa of culture and religion, while opposing a return to the old regime of the alliance between church and state or to the ecclesiastical domination of society. Quite a few of the attributes of liberalism were operational in varying degrees in Italian (and European) public life even before the nineteenth century, for example, a meliorist ‘science of man’ that recognized human liberality and freedom without denying fallibility (if only as original sin), assorted forms of self-organized and self-governing ven-

8

Introduction

tures, systems of representative government, due process of law, and a complex bundle of property rights, together with exchange mechanisms for movable and immovable goods. What helps to explain such enduring currents of ideas and accompanying institutions of varying durability are two sets of facts: For one, long before the creation of a single Italian state, in the 1860s, the area had seen many other experiments in political, economic, and ecclesiastical organizations, and, for another, the Italian Enlightenment has some features that are unique unto itself. As late as the eighteenth century, the Italian peninsula, to use Franco Venturi’s apt characterization, was ‘still a sort of microcosm of all Europe’ where, even more than in Germany, it was possible to compare and contrast ‘a great variety of political forms and varying constitutions – theocracy, monarchies, dukedoms, and republics, from Venice to San Marino. The Italian setting was fertile ground for examining the clash between kings and republics and the tension between Utopia and Reform in the Enlightenment’ (1971, 20). But outside observers were apparently predisposed to not treating the Italian scene seriously as a laboratory for exploring the clash between kings and republics and the tension between utopia and reform. In his first tour of Italy in 1764–5, Edward Gibbon was dismissive of the Italian universities, singling out the University of Padua as ‘a dying taper’ (quoted in Chadwick 1981, 91). We now know that the eighteenth century was not a good time for universities anywhere in Europe, including Oxford. Since Italy at that time had the largest number of public universities in the world, it is possible that some Italian universities were worse off than the British. Owen Chadwick’s work on the Italian Enlightenment casts doubt about the generalizibility of Gibbon’s observation to the entire Italian scene for several reasons. The University of Padua was not, or was not in all faculties, ‘a dying taper.’ Moreover, ‘several seminal minds occupied chairs in Naples, Pisa, Bologna, Padua, Pavia. All the northerners regarded the Papal States as poor, obscurantist and backward. But [the Papal States’] historic university at Bologna was the only university in the world to have two women among its professors’ (ibid.). Chadwick continues: ‘The Northerners found it hard to understand Italy. The works of Galileo stood upon the Index of prohibited books. Northerners imagined therefore that no one might teach that the earth goes round the sun. They could not understand it when they found that the seminary at Padua was one of the leading centers of Galileo-study in all Europe, and that the statue of Galileo set up in Florence was erected there with the complaisance of the Roman Inquisition’ (ibid. 92). It is

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true that most Italian Enlightenment figures rejected truths based on mystery, miracle, and probably even divine revelation as taught by the Catholic Church, but they all retained an important feature of Catholicism – an emphasis on the union of thought and action. This emphasis served to orient people toward a tradition of inquiry aimed at acquiring useful knowledge and problem-solving skills. ‘The tendency to be very practical’ (ibid. 90) is a chief characteristic of the Italian Enlightenment, including the intellectual tradition in which Cattaneo grew up. Intellectuals and officials formed habits of thought that were constrained by what to do ‘about practical problems, economics, prosperity, government, penal reform and education,’ applying to the goals and projects of political philosophy, arguably for the first time, the phrase ‘the greatest happiness of the greatest number’ (Chadwick 1981, 90). They had little of the antihistorical bias that often characterized the philosophes and legislators of France. All this does not mean that the union of thought and action was easy to establish and maintain. The history of Catholic institutions and spirituality suggests how difficult it is even for individuals who willingly accept such norms to so order their lives and live by them constantly. Equally, some Italian intellectuals and officials in Naples, Milan and Florence did try to emulate the French – espousing, in the words of Alexis de Tocqueville, ‘a literary view of politics’ ([1856] 1956, pt. 3, chap. 1). But the widespread legitimacy of the union between thought and action as a deeply held societal norm served to check both revolutionary inclinations and foreign rulers, as well as to temper the tension between utopia and reform. When some Italians succeeded in emulating the French – as in the case of the Neapolitan Viceroy of Sicily Domenico Caracciolo in the 1780s and of the Neapolitan Jacobins involved in the 1799 revolution for the Parthenon Republic – they failed to get the support of the very same people whom they thought needed to be delivered from bondage. In the course of the nineteenth century, liberalism gained broader dimensions. It came to stand for the replacement of absolutism by constitutional government and the rule of law, secularization or a complete break with the Catholic Church, private property rights unrestricted by other forms of property, and electoral reform aimed at broadening political participation, if only on the basis of some restrictive capacity like education and property qualifications. By contrast, in France and England liberal ideas and practices grew within long-established states, with the result that thinkers like Benjamin Constant, François Guizot, John Stuart Mill, and other ‘lights of liberalism’ (Harvie 1976)

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Introduction

sought either to redefine political power and sovereignty or, as in the case of Tocqueville, to challenge the very entrenched view of the European state. Liberal ideas on the Italian peninsula combined with a quest for national independence to generate a variety of ways through which to achieve national as well as individual liberation and independence. In the past, liberal ideas had remained fundamentally regional, so that we can speak of Neapolitan as opposed to Sicilian or Piedmontese national aspirations. By 1848 the prospects of a federal union helped liberal ideas to encompass plans for the liberation from the dominion of foreigners, for a view of liberty as national independence, and for the search for a constitutional design appropriate to an entire nation. It was the commingling of liberalism and nationalism that helped to extend constitutional aspirations to the nation as a whole. But, at the same time, the strong local and regional roots of constitutionalism – in the words of Raymond Grew, ‘a rich constitutional culture’ (1996, 221–31) – posed dilemmas in the Risorgimento about the meaning of the past and how to face the future. The search for an appropriate constitutional knowledge grounded in human liberation offered a critical challenge concerning what useful knowledge ought to be applied for rethinking the conditions of life associated with the progress of civilization (incivilimento) and whether the world of action should have reference less to education and more to plotting and waging wars of liberation using the alluring rhetoric of statecraft. Unlike the case in Germany, no clash occurred in Italy between the liberal creed and the struggle for national independence (Woolf 1979, 359–60). But the fundamental challenge faced by Italian liberals and patriots was made all the more problematic by the nationalist and democratic tendencies of the time. As Mazzini put it in his essay on ‘Thoughts upon Democracy in Europe’ (for a British journal in 1847): ‘The democratic tendency of our times, the upward movement of the popular classes, who desire to have their share in political life – hitherto a life of privilege – is henceforth no Utopian dream, no doubtful anticipation. It is a fact, a great European fact; which occupies every mind, influences the proceedings of governments, defies all opposition’ ([1847] 1891: 4, 98). And, partly in defense of his own years as an agitator, Mazzini continued: ‘Whatever may be said to the contrary, no one, nowadays, sees in the ever-strengthening voice of rising nations, of generations desirous of laying the foundations of a better future, of oppressed races claiming their place in the sunshine – nothing more than the vain imagination of a writer, or the cry of an agitator thrown out haphazardly among the crowd. No, it is something

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Civilization and Democracy

more serious; it is a page of the world’s destiny’ (ibid.). Liberalism, with its emphasis on constitutionalism, representative government, the rule of law, and private property, had been reconciled with nationalist aspirations, but what constituted democratic governance and constitutionalism remained, as yet, unclear. The last decade of the eighteenth century brought the word ‘democracy’ into the public discourse of different speech communities, to the point of being favorably invoked and used by people as diverse as Paine, Robespierre, and the prelate who became Pius VII in 1801. But, according to R.R. Palmer (1959, 1: 18; see also Grew 1996, 222), ‘it was in Italy that the word “democracy”, in a favourable sense, was most commonly used in the years from 1796 and 1799’ (but cf. Rosanvallon 1995). The French Revolution also gave the word ‘constitution’ political currency throughout Europe. Likewise, this word gained ‘a particular resonance in Italy where nineteenth-century constitutions were associated with the liberties of medieval communes; the historical and patriotic perspective of Muratori; the romantic figure of Paoli popularised by Rousseau; and the eighteenth-century projects for constitutions in Corsica, Tuscany and Lombardy, which were written by prominent Italians and widely discussed across the peninsula’ (Grew 1996, 221). Common usage, however, was not enough to fix their meaning and make these terms operational. A chief problem was that many self-declared democrats in Italy, as elsewhere in Europe, tended to equate democracy either with an egalitarian Jacobin state or with the citizens as a whole (Palmer 1964, 2: 302– 5). For some, like Mazzini, the object of constitutional democracy was clear: ‘let man commune with the greatest possible number of his fellows’ (Mazzini, cited in Mastellone 2000, vii). Others, like the Sicilian democrats of 1848, understood democracy less as a social revolution and more as political independence from Naples based on a revised version of the ‘Anglo-Sicilian’ constitution of 1812 (Fentress 2000, 4–5 and 56– 60). What still remained unclear was what kind of institutional arrangements could bring about and sustain such democracies and realize, all at once, individual social and political equality as well as national political liberation and independence. Counterposing free government to absolutist government was not enough, for ‘free government’ was loaded with a variety of local, regional, and countrywide meanings, ranging from the British constitutional monarchy to the failed French egalitarian democracy championed by Filippo Buonarroti (see also DiScala and Mastellone 1998, 2–5).

12

Introduction

Practically every region of Italy could point to some form of ‘free government’ or republican democracy in the past (Grew 1996, 221), with the result that in his own time Mazzini could still write, ‘the union of the democratic principle with representative government is an entirely modern fact, which throws out of court all precedents that might be appealed to; they have nothing but the word in common; the thing is radically different’ ([1847] 1891, 4: 102; italics in the original). What this complementarity – Mazzini called it a ‘thing’ – stood for and how it could be achieved was not entirely obvious. It is true that, in his study of democracy in America, Tocqueville made equality of conditions the sociological definition of democracy and the great engine of revolution in modern society. But he did not clarify the political dimensions of démocratie – to the point that modern scholars are still debating what Tocqueville actually meant by ‘democracy in America’ (see, e.g., Craiutu 2005; Schleifer [1980] 2000). Moreover, in his critique of Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, John Stuart Mill suggested that liberty and not equality might be the real engine of human progress ([1840] 1977). One issue, however, seemed clear enough: neither the liberal nor the democratic movement, or some combination of the two understood as liberal democracy, offered a satisfactory resolution to the paradox that had emerged with the French Revolution and that was reaffirmed in the 1820 and 1848 revolts. In the aftermath of successive failed revolts, and in spite of Mazzini’s revolutionary fervor, one fact had become evident in Vienna as in other European cities: just as national armies could not indefinitely shore up absolutist rule, so popular uprisings could not succeed without falling back into new forms of tyranny and subjugation. For these reasons, and terminological ambiguity aside, Tocqueville was not exaggerating when he noted that ‘the organization and establishment of democracy in Christendom is the great political problem of our times’ ([1835] 1961, 1: 337). Cattaneo’s Standing in Intellectual Life By the time of the Risorgimento, Lombardy occupied a leading position among all the Italian communities in the making of books. Its extensive agencies of literature and thought included reading rooms as well as periodicals. Lombardy had evolved into the most economically prosperous and politically progressive community of all the Italian communities. Perhaps no other thinker of the period typifies the liberal, democratic movement of ideas in Lombardy more or better than does Carlo Cattaneo.

13

Civilization and Democracy

Yet, the enduring interest in Cattaneo has done little to alter the fortune of his ideas. The situation has changed little from what Norberto Bobbio, a philosopher who did much to revive interest in Cattaneo after the Second World War, acknowledged in 1971: It is hard to find in the history of Italian political thought a writer who has been more admired and less followed than Carlo Cattaneo; who has achieved more recognition and exercised so little influence; whose relevance has been proclaimed and reproclaimed at various junctures, but each time without effect. Those who have encountered his ideas in their intellectual journey could do no less than pay homage to his geniality, versatility, power and rigor of style, but they would each proceed to get away from them as quickly as possible. (1971, 182)

This paradoxical situation stems from several problems. One is the voluminous, broad, and fragmentary nature of Cattaneo’s writings. What Cattaneo wrote has the surface appearance of being totally unrelated, a point that Salvemini also notes in his introduction. But this is so only when each piece is treated separately. On several occasions it must have appeared so to Cattaneo himself, as he shared, in letters to friends, doubts about the intellectual coherence of his inquiries (see e.g., his letter to Gaetano Strambio [1855] 1952, in Epistolario di Carlo Cattaneo [henceforth cited as EP, 2: 329; letter to Agostino Bertani [1862] 1956, EP, 4: 5). But all that this tells us is that the author himself was not fully aware of the structural and analytical coherence of the pieces he had written over several decades. In spite of the sprawling, uneven nature of Cattaneo’s work, there is a remarkable continuity of both ideas and activities over the course of his lifetime – enough to view him as a skilled intellectual craftsman, concerned with the way ideas and deeds complement each other to give meaning to human life and to incivilimento. Indeed, it is a measure of the capacity and power of Cattaneo’s mind that he rose above the scattered and often unsystematic exposition of his ideas, and the limited access to the scholarly resources imposed by his relative isolation, to sketch new standards by which to tackle old issues in the epistemological tradition of Western philosophy. As we noted earlier, and as we shall see from his writings, Cattaneo did not seek merely to fashion a new theory of knowledge; he sought to provide a deeper structure to the paradigmatic shift required for the constitution of open societies in and beyond Italy. His aim was not just to inform but to spur readers to act. For all these

14

Introduction

reasons, it is fair to assume that he meant what he said, even when he wrote under the watchful eye of Austrian censors. He crafted all his writings, including his correspondence, in a lucid and elegantly sparse, if at times Latinate, prose. It is, therefore, possible to reconstruct from his scattered, and seemingly unsystematic writing a theory of politics and of history faithful to his intention. A second problem is that many readers have turned to Cattaneo in the expectation of finding reinforcement for their own ideas, only to come away disappointed at his failure to lend complete support. Cattaneo was rare among post-Restoration Italian intellectuals for his openness and support of science and technological progress – indeed, he saw liberalism and science as allies – without, however, either believing that one could, in principle, master all things by calculation or becoming ‘disenchanted’ à la Max Weber. Secularist analysts can find ample ammunition in Cattaneo for their salvos against the temporal power of the pope, ‘jesuitical and monastic obscurantism,’ and metaphysical disquisitions, but not enough to discredit the importance of religion and local parishes for a democratic society. Idealists have been attracted by Cattaneo’s insistence on the creative role of ideas in life, but the problem is that Cattaneo belonged to a class of intellectuals who did not deal exclusively in the realm of ideas, and thus, in the end, disappointed, they have judged him not enough of an idealist. Positivists, lured by Cattaneo’s concern for useful knowledge and positive analysis, soon realized that this is not enough to make him the first Italian positivist or a positivist in the manner of August Comte. Materialists, too, found some support in his economic writings, but he had still, in Antonio Gramsci’s colorful words ([1948–51] 1978, 56n5), ‘too many fancies in his head’ to be regarded as one of them. In a world that was increasingly being challenged to decide between the good or evil of capitalism and socialism, Cattaneo was not afraid to admit that there was something good in both. He remained a friend of both business and labor. Cattaneo drew on Giambattista Vico to temper the extreme rationalism of Enlightenment doctrines and, in the process, tempered Vico’s own seemingly ‘antimodern’ doctrines. It is true that Cattaneo could at times write rhapsodically about Lombard accomplishments, but his emphasis on the local as the essential foundation for a democratic society cannot be solely attributed to his attachment to Lombardy; thus, his theory of politics does not quite support – or justify – appropriation of his ideas by ideologues of the Lega Nord or by secessionist tendencies in present-day Lombardy (see also Colombo 2004, 190 and 190 n67).

15

Civilization and Democracy

Cattaneo’s appreciation of cultural diversity and the multiform nature of European civilization is beyond question, but it was of little solace to a nineteenth-century form of intellectual multiculturalism known as Eclecticism, which had spread from France to Italy. This movement and its major French liberal exponent, Victor Cousin, tended to incorporate ideas from different traditions with, in Cattaneo’s view, little or no concern for the truth claims of each. Cattaneo reserved some of his sharpest criticisms for the spread of Eclecticism, because he was of the view that a free society without a strong concern for the quest for truth is especially vulnerable to skepticism and indifference. A third problem is that we have often tended not to read Cattaneo on his own terms and, as a consequence, have not always grasped the paradigmatic significance of his work as an example of a new science of politics. For Cattaneo the challenge in Italy and elsewhere posed by the crumbling political order established at the Congress of Vienna and the advance of civilization was, first and foremost, a problem of cognition, a shift in the way we approach and frame inquiries about politics and economics – in essence, a search for what vision of political economy should serve as a guide for action in replacing the old order and in designing institutions appropriate to human progress, including aspirations for national liberation and economic well-being. In emphasizing the importance of ideas and the modifications of the human mind, Cattaneo was also close to Vico. But by replacing Vico’s theory of recurrent cycles in human history with variety and progress, Cattaneo was much closer to St Augustine’s renovatio mundi than he was willing to admit. His conception of the Risorgimento was above all that of a cultural and moral rebirth. What is distinctive about Cattaneo, and clearly distinguishes his liberalism from that of those like Cavour, who advanced the cause of Italian unification under the Savoy monarchy, is that perhaps more than any other Italian thinker of the time Cattaneo looked to republican, federal, and non-unitary principles of organization as providing a solution to the problem of how to reconcile liberty with independence and national unification with local autonomy. He sought to effect self-rule by means of shared rule without hierarchical coordination. If these concerns are not kept firmly in mind, if we do not recall that he tended to view almost all of his life’s work in pedagogical and practical terms, if we fail to appreciate his lifelong preoccupation with the importance of education both as a liberating force and as an agency for sustaining and reproducing practices of self-governance after a demo-

16

Introduction

cratic political order had been established, then Cattaneo’s work makes little sense. No wonder that so many have come away from his writings disappointed not to find in them a fully developed philosophical system or a fully developed theory of the state, or even of federalism. While impressed by Cattaneo’s capacity to comprehend and penetrate realities beyond the confines of his little world – other than a trip to Paris, he never set foot beyond the Swiss Alps or below Naples – many have failed to treat his insights as essential ingredients in a general theory of politics that seeks to harmonize and foster equality (the focus of democratic theory), liberty (the focus of liberal theory), and heterogeneity (the focus of federalist theory).4 This is so largely because of the tendency to approach his work through state-centered or faulty intellectual constructs. It helps to explain why Cattaneo’s contribution to nineteenthcentury political thought has been dismissed by nationalist writers or, when noticed, has not even been properly identified.5 In brief, Cattaneo stands at the meeting point of several intellectual currents of his time but, if read selectively or in a restricted way, is apt to run counter to them all. Against this backdrop, it is easier to see why he has been, sometimes at the same time, both praised and neglected. There is still ‘the need to recompose the fragments and to lay bare the structure of the theoretical analysis in Cattaneo’s work’ (Romeo 1977, 100). Filling this need and laying bare the structure of the theoretical analysis in his work is a book project of its own, well beyond the scope of this introduction. But we can briefly sketch his paradigmatic significance in a comparative context. The Paradigmatic Significance of Cattaneo The paradigmatic significance of Cattaneo is that he tried to do for Italy what Tocqueville was trying to do for France. They both sought to guide people of their generation to orient themselves toward the challenge implied by the progress of civilization, the long-term trend toward equality, and the aspirations of people to govern themselves. 4 The thoughtful comments by Christina Tarnopolsky on an earlier draft of this introduction helped to bring into sharp focus these insights as components of a general theory of politics that Cattaneo sought to construct. 5 For example, both Palgrave’s Dictionary of Political Economy (1925, 234) and Guido de Ruggiero’s well-known text The History of European Liberalism (1927, 312–13) identified him as someone whose principal subject of interest was either land tenure, in general, or Lombard agriculture, in particular.

17

Civilization and Democracy

Cattaneo’s interest in the self-governing arrangements of American democracy developed independently of Tocqueville. Just around the time that in Berlin Georg Wilhelm Friederich Hegel ([1830] 1975, 170) was suggesting to his students that there was not much to learn from America, and when Tocqueville was still composing the first volume of his most famous work, we find Cattaneo using the Nullification Controversy between the State of South Carolina and President Andrew Jackson to reflect on the American political experiment (Cattaneo [1833] 1956, Scritti Economici, henceforth SE, 1: 11–55). What could Americans teach Europeans? Both Cattaneo and Tocqueville concurred that that the American political experiment could teach several things: (1) that human beings are not forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force and can indeed exercise reflection and choice in creating systems of government; (2) that such choices draw upon certain conceptions articulated as principles that are, in turn, used to specify structures or forms so that, when acted upon, these conceptions and structures have effects that bear significantly upon the safety and happiness of a people and upon other fundamental values important to their lives; (3) that it is possible to have local autonomy, and to fashion selfgoverning units, without reference to unitary conceptions of rule or to a central authority; (4) that rulers can also be ruled through a system of overlapping jurisdiction, checks and balances, juridical defense, and individual sovereignty; (5) that possibilities other than central government monopoly exist for solving public sector problems; and (6) that, contrary to prevailing fears in Europe, the long-term trend toward equality and equality of conditions itself was not incompatible with the maintenance of liberal practices like representative institutions, individual liberties, local autonomy, private property, and even religion. Both of these thinkers viewed slavery with deep forebodings for both the oppressed and the oppressors, as ‘no one offends the laws of humanity with impunity’ ([1833] 1956, SE 1: 27). It is evident that their individual projects were animated by a common vision of what constituted a proper political order and by a strong interest in connecting political theory to political practice. But the circumstances of their lives, including the specificities of their particular political problems, led them to pursue their respective inquiries differently. Whereas Tocqueville used the American experience to present an alternative vision to that offered by the philosophes and the French statist experience, Cattaneo suggested that the alternative vision provided by

18

Introduction

America was consistent with the basic features of Italian and European ways of life and with what was universal, even if hidden from view, in the human condition. If in writing Democracy in America, Tocqueville sought to overturn the established French idea of the state, Cattaneo in his work sought answers to the fundamental question facing Italians in the time of the Risorgimento and people in similar conditions: can national liberation and independence be achieved without destroying institutions of self-rule – that is, without following the model history of European nation states and without repeating the paradox of revolution experienced in France? Can local autonomy and even local patriotism be compatible with, and made to work for, national unification? Cattaneo drew particular inspiration and support from developments taking place in Lombardy-Venetia. There, under Habsburg rule, a veritable agricultural, industrial, commercial, and educational revival was taking place that had all the characteristics of a risorgimento. In his now classic work on economics and liberalism in Lombardy between 1814 and 1848, Kent R. Greenfield successfully captured the course of action that had the potential of achieving, through reflection and choice, the combined goal of independence and liberty: ‘It is clear that in the inner circle of publicists who ventilated the public interests of Italy between 1815 and 1848 there was a common idea that even when cooperating with Austria they were working toward ends that were beyond the reach of Austrian policy, and also a common conviction that they were in conspiracy with the course of events, with the march of the “century”; in other words, that they had found a method of action which compelled even the national adversary to cooperate with them, in so far as that power was alert to its material interests. This was their “conspiracy in open daylight.”’ (Greenfield [1934] 1965, 286–7). If such a conspiracy in broad daylight continued, unhindered to other parts of the peninsula, the time would come when it would be extremely difficult for any absolutist government or army of occupation to defeat it. But events connected with the revolts of 1848 and their aftermaths reduced the prospects of this strategy, as Piedmont became the only parliamentary, constitutional monarchy with a standing army, capable of taking the lead on the diplomatic front while inspiring liberals throughout the peninsula to favor unification under its banners. After 1849, from his refuge in Switzerland, Cattaneo focused most of his attention and correspondence, and used all his power of persuasion and prestige, in trying to convince radical liberals and republican revolutionaries not to engage in secret conspiracies and revolutionary activi-

19

Civilization and Democracy

ties. He feared that the rush to action – with the inevitable reaction – would take precedence over learning and reflecting about what ideas to articulate as principles of self-governance. A widespread shared understanding of what liberty and self-governance meant was essential for a proper articulation of ideas as principles of governance. Without such an epistemic base, liberals of all sorts as well as republican revolutionaries would be tempted to mistake – and even engage in – struggles for sovereignty and power as struggles for freedom, as if what type of political order replaced the old made no difference in terms of what it meant to be free. National independence should not be achieved at the expense of liberty. This, Cattaneo thought, would be a disaster of major proportions, and this put him at odds with both Mazzini and Garibaldi. Writing to Mazzini, in September 1850, what is generally regarded as the letter that marked the end of their collaboration and the beginning of a disagreement that changed into hostility, Cattaneo tried at some length to convince him – in a language that at times Mazzini must have assuredly found upsetting – that his ‘little undertakings [i.e., uprisings] will be ineffective if the people do not rise en masse, and they are superfluous if the people truly rise. Go and try to have a levée en masse!’ True to his evolutionary perspective, and given his experience with the conspiracy in broad daylight in Austrian Lombardy, Cattaneo went on to urge Mazzini to spend all his efforts to effect a change in the people’s heart and mind: ‘I advocate the dissemination of writings that slowly but surely awaken mass consciousness about rights (diritto), sentiments of freedom and self-mastery, contempt of princely concessions and transactions, respect of nations and reciprocal help, and peaceful resolution of questions of borders and commercial free trade’ ([1850] 1952, EP 2: 45– 6). Cattaneo continued, ‘our enemies are the enemies of the people. They are required by necessity to lie, and contradict one another. All that we have to do is to reveal the truth. When we have public opinion behind us, which we do not have now, we will have money, armies, soldiers, and everything else. Educate the multitude and opposition will crumble’ (ibid., 46). But Mazzini would not listen. He was too impatient to wait for the fruit of what Cattaneo proposed, and continued his conspiracies. So Cattaneo’s ideas were doubly rejected in his own lifetime: first by the victorious liberal current of the Risorgimento headed by Cavour and then by his own political circle, including close and better known friends like Mazzini and Garibaldi. News of the American Civil War must have added to Cattaneo’s disappointment as the war appeared to discredit further the extension of

20

Introduction

federal principles to Italy and Europe. Even the creation of the Spanish federal state in 1868 must not have been a source of optimism for Cattaneo as the new federation contradicted an important premise in his mode of analysis: the Spanish federal system had not emerged from below; its constitution was imposed in haste from the top down, without much reflection about Spain’s unique regionalist tradition and experience. What, then, sustained Cattaneo’s positivity? On what did Cattaneo ground his optimistic prognosis for an eventual public acceptance of federalism both as a theory of liberty-in-action and as a practice of selfgovernance for Italy, all of Europe, and other parts of the world? Cattaneo’s experience under foreign occupation made him especially sensitive to what to look for in the way of unobtrusive foundations for democratic self-governance. He spent his apprenticeship years at the review Annali universali di statitica (Universal Annals of Statistics) between 1831 and 1834, scanning domestic and foreign news and writing reports concerned largely with the diffusion of knowledge, commerce, and technology around the world. He wrote about many topics, including the opening of the Welland Canal in Upper Canada and the introduction of the telegraph in Bengal. If read in an isolated way, these reports appear of little or no theoretical interest. But placed in the larger context of Cattaneo’s concerns, they take on entirely new meaning: they convey attentiveness to the rich diversity of human developments across space and, at the same time, to an increasingly common characteristic of people in different settings and circumstances struggling to become selfgoverning as they confronted problematic situations in their lives. Hence, the range of news covered must have been puzzling to the Austrian censors as it went – to use one of his memorable phrases – ‘from the immortality of human ingenuity to the raisin trade’ ([1833] 1964, Scritti Politici, henceforth SP, 1: 47). In fact, his news notes take on renewed significance when read against the backdrop of his subsequent attempts to come to terms more directly with the relationship between civilization, progress, and liberty. It was in the second half of 1830 that Cattaneo began to construct for himself a more systematic framework of analysis – a public science, he called it – concerned with foundations of democratic self-governance. Here we can only give a brief sketch. First, Cattaneo argued, there is a need to discern between institutions that are accidental and transitory and those without which a human society cannot stand. This is no small matter for philosophers, who have often asked the wrong question: What would life be like without government? For him, this question is based on the false presupposition that

21

Civilization and Democracy

government refers only to the state, which explains the widespread tendency to treat the study of politics almost exclusively as either the study of power or the study of why some states are more powerful than others ([1842] 1957, Scritti Storici e Geografici, henceforth SSG, 1: 255– 301). The way to identify which mechanisms are fundamental to human existence is to focus on how human beings the world over deal with questions of complementarity, interdependence, and coordination. For Cattaneo, a common language as ‘the first element in social aggregation’ is one such mechanism ([1837] 1981, Scritti Letterari, henceforth SL 1: 222). People had solved many problems of living together and acting in concert (convivenza civile) through all sorts of human associations, including communal societies and societies of neighbors – and these have existed beyond the family and kinship groups – prior to the consent of state legislators. It must be quickly added that, for all his profound reservations about ‘the’ government and ‘the’ state, and for his selfconscious use of terms, Cattaneo himself could not at times escape linguistic conventions in adopting terms like the state as synonyms for non-unitary political forms and political systems in general. A second set of theoretical factors had to do with being open to the possibility – Cattaneo at times called it a ‘generous persuasion’ – to appreciate the constitutive dynamics of human beings in the world. He argued that we should stop treating individuals as blind instruments of a particular time or culture while at the same time remembering that they are not self-sufficiently alone or metaphysically independent of society. The pressing task is to construct a public science or political economy incorporating history, institutions, and culture, and at the same time, individuals as beings capable through their actions of destroying, derailing, or refashioning the legacy of the past and existing equilibria. Interested as he was in the origins of words and the use of language, Cattaneo seldom forgot that the root of civilization is civis, the citizen. A common language is an important principle of aggregation but not sufficient, even in a united Italy, to achieve self-governing patterns of human relationship and to prevent domination and exploitation. Finally, the constitutive dynamics of human beings that manifest themselves in the world – which Cattaneo liked to describe as the field of human liberty (il campo della libertà umana) – must be studied in context, within the specificities of a particular time and place. This field of human liberty takes individuals to be co-creators with God of the world they live in, implying that much of the world in which humans live is artifactual – Cattaneo used the term artificiale to refer to artifacts shaped

22

Introduction

by human knowledge like agriculture, commonwealths, and irrigation networks. But this artifactual world cannot be theorized about in vacuo, as this practice has already produced much disorientation in the history of philosophy. He had a particular dislike of what he regarded as the extreme rationalism associated with – as he saw it – Plato, Descartes, Kant, and Thomas Aquinas. This is why Cattaneo was mindful of Vico’s conclusion that ‘the natural law of philosophers is not the same as the natural law of people’ (quoted in Fisch and Begin [1944] 1975, 48). Nor can human and political artifacts be studied solely at the macro or national level, for the history of countries relatively free of foreign domination, like Japan at that time, reveals that ‘the independence of a state is no automatic assurance that its citizens are free’ ([1860] 1957, SSG, 3: 61). By contrast, the work of interconnected local institutions that, over many centuries, transformed the originally inhospitable Lombard Plain and created the social, economic, and political wealth that Lombardy has achieved, was the artifactual creation of free people, patient tillers of the soil, as well as engineers and masters of canals – in brief, the display of human ingenuity, as even the soil was not a gift of nature ([1845] 1956, SE 3: 5; see also [1844] 1957, SSG 1: 419–33). From this experience, Cattaneo drew theoretical implications for the problematics of change and for the study of self-governance that were to inform all his future work: ‘the culture and well-being of peoples do not depend so much on spectacular name changes from one regime to another, but rather on the steady application of certain principles that are passed on, unnoticed, through the working of institutional arrangements often viewed as having secondary importance’ ([1847] 1956, SE 3: 114–15). At the same time, Cattaneo acknowledged the emergence of a more nuanced comparative understanding of civilization than that of the previous century, thanks in part to the retrieval of Vico’s ideas. This more persuasive understanding flowed from an undeniable truth highlighted by Vico, which had probably attracted him to Vico in the first place, and allowed him to tolerate Vico’s excruciatingly tedious, if colorful, prose. The truth, in Vico’s words, is ‘that the world of civil society has certainly been made by men and that its principles are therefore to be found within the modifications of our own minds’ (Vico [1744] 1994, para. 331, 96). But Cattaneo did not stop there. He extended this conclusion to Vico’s own ‘new science of humanity’ for, despite the emphasis on human artisanship, Vico’s theory presumed uniformity where there is variety, and cyclic immutability where there is adaptation

23

Civilization and Democracy

and even progress. In fact, Cattaneo continued, the European discovery of Sanskrit in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries had enlarged the universe of human culture and revealed the extent to which Vico’s own understanding of humanity was largely confined to where it came from, the Greco-Roman world of classical antiquity ([1846] 1957, SSG 2: 97–113). In Cattaneo’s narrative, incivilimento carried a double meaning: the civilizing process as the progress of humanity and the civilizing progress as the progress of Europe. This led him to pursue simultaneously three separate, but complementary avenues of inquiry: What accounts for the emergence of civilization and its multiform nature over time? What has made western European civilization unique? What accounts for its evolution, or progressive development, ahead of all other Eurasian civilizations without, however, denying the Eastern origins of Western civilization? Cattaneo was less concerned with a question that has often been made to flow from the second – how to explain the astonishing success of England within Europe. This was so in part because Cattaneo was aware that what made European civilization stand out had to do with features that antedate the Industrial Revolution and British success. For him a far more important issue to recognize and address was the realization that democracy is neither the necessary outgrowth of the general properties of basic social institutions, nor the inevitable outcome of human progress. Democratic transformation is strewn with many false paths to modernity. Cattaneo’s attempt to understand human progress through a comparative inquiry of incivilimento and the profound optimism that this aspiration implied were not at all unusual, if we consider the spirit of the age (see, e.g., Mill [1836] 1977). With the Enlightenment, the term ‘civilization’ came to be widely used to refer to an advanced state in human society in which a high level of culture, science, and industry, and government had been reached. In the nineteenth century, the term was explicitly used by analysts as different as John Stuart Mill and Karl Marx to refer to the superiority of European civilization in relation to other civilizations, past and present. From the vantage point of European progress, it became easy to derive the superiority of Europeans as human beings and to look at other, less advanced or extinct civilizations as resulting from people endowed with a baser nature, or with a different type of humanity. Quite a few European liberals of the time were attracted to this argument not only to justify conquest, colonialism, and even slavery in other parts of the world, but also to suggest the superiority of their own social class at home and of their own country within

24

Introduction

Europe. Alongside Romanticism and nationalism, this was also the age in which important European advances were being made in the historical and contemporary record of non-European peoples and civilizations, while immense achievements and benefits of science were also giving support to faith in a common humanity and its ability as a species to adapt to successive challenges. Ensconced first in Milan and then in Castagnola, a hillside village overlooking Lugano and its lake – locations generally regarded to be more at the periphery than the center of European developments – Cattaneo worked away, in relative isolation and obscurity, at making sense of what principles or systems of knowledge articulated as civilization give meaning and content to universal basic institutions and lead to human progress. By 1840 Cattaneo was already on record against the conceit of nations, insisting on a common nature of human beings the world over and on human history as the history of incivilimento; in 1844 he suggested the possibility that, in spite of different starting points, every region of the world had the potential to join in the progress of humanity ([1840] 1957, SSG 1: 129; [1844] 1957, SSG 1: 338). Chapter 7 of this anthology reprints Cattaneo’s rejection of the racial inferiority thesis that was advanced by Josiah C. Nott and George R. Gliddon in their 1854 book Types of Mankind, generally considered the high-water mark of nineteenth-century American scientific racism. In Cattaneo’s four-volume collected correspondence, there is nothing that resembles the exchange that passed between Tocqueville and Joseph Arthur Gobineau, as the former tried to dissuade the latter about his odious insistence on the inequality of the human races and the fate of individuals born in different races (Tocqueville [1843–4] 1959). Yet, the persuasiveness of what Gobineau voiced publicly must have been difficult to resist. In 1844 Cattaneo succumbed in a brief sentence to the tempting argument – that some people are more open to progress or civilization than others because of their nature or race – in a review essay on a book by Alexander von Humboldt ([1844] 1960, Scritti Filosofici, henceforth, SF, 1: 171). With this exception, Cattaneo’s inquiry about how to account for progress and regress was free of the racialist views of the period, but his inquiry departed from that of others on different grounds as well. Like François Guizot, Cattaneo used the term ‘civilization’ to refer both to societal and individual improvement. Like Guizot, Cattaneo attributed the unequalled progress of European civilization to its multiform, heterogeneous, and open nature. Unlike Guizot, however, Cattaneo

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Civilization and Democracy

sought to explain European advances not in terms of the work of a divine plan or social (bourgeois) class, but as the cumulative expression of a series of ideas concretized into assorted artifacts, borrowing freely ideas and institutions from other peoples over the course of time ([1846] 1957, SSG 2: 111). Understanding how these events came about led Cattaneo to conjectural history, a passion he shared with eighteenthcentury Scottish Enlightenment writers. Where he differed from them (and from John Stuart Mill) was in his attempt to account for progress less in terms of subsistence and more in terms of ideas and beliefs. For Cattaneo, as for Tocqueville, the evolution of mankind passed more through different systems of knowledge or beliefs than through the hunter/gatherer, pastoral, agricultural, and commercial stages. The progression of stages did not fit the case of the ancient Mexicans and Peruvians, for they practiced agriculture before pastoralism, and many other cases from as far back as those reported by Cato for antiquity and as recent (1790) as those reported by Arthur Young about pastoral farming as a complement to agriculture ([1857–8] 1960, SF 3: 148–9). As much as Cattaneo shared Tocqueville’s mode of analysis, he differed with Tocqueville in one important respect. Whereas Tocqueville sought to identify human progress and to trace democratic potentials over the course of about seven hundred years of European history and civilization, Cattaneo used a broader comparative-civilization frame of reference. As noted earlier, however, this very mode of analysis put Cattaneo, at odds with his own, often repeated, view that the idea of progress was itself a novelty to be found only since the Enlightenment and entirely foreign to medieval and ancient writers on history. Cattaneo was saved from following this erroneous path by holding fast to the idea of the unity of humanity and to the view of human progress not as what happened to this or that particular society or civilization at a particular point in time, but as the unfolding, cumulative advancement of humanity since prehistoric times. This allowed him to reach the conclusion that stationary peoples and societies do not exist except in the abstract or in the minds of some theorists of his time (including Mill, Tocqueville, and Jacob Burkhardt). He illustrated the point using the example of China. After comparing Italy and China, Cattaneo turned specifically to the latter, focusing especially on its resource-based achievements that required considerable human artisanship. He summarized these accomplishments in this way: The person who considers China stationary will find it in continuous agita-

26

Introduction

tion if he looks closely to its history. He will see [people in] China introducing agriculture over a vast territory, embanking rivers, digging up canals, establishing settlements of cultivators along the thousand valleys of its two major rivers and innumerable cities, absorbing barbarous tribes from the mountains, embracing all its peoples in one civilization with the bond of a common language; fashioning laws, arts, and writings; and China had achieved all this when Europe was pertinaciously barbarous and stagnating. Then we see China breaking up into several federated realms, and in this comparative liberty developing popular and assorted philosophies; then transforming itself now into one empire, now into two, as Marco Polo found. Twice, as in the case of Italy, barbarians conquered China; the first time it succeeded in expelling them; in other times, it softened their impact and aggregated the conquerors into its civilization. In the meantime, assiduous mental work was propagating on one side the Socratic philosophy of Confucius, and, on other sides, the abstract philosophy of Lao Tsue, and the theological metaphysics of Buddhism; more recently, the foments of a new revolution have come from the Bible [i.e., Christianity]. ([1861] 1957, SSG 3: 150–1)

Cattaneo continued, saying that the China we know from history books is an artifactual creation made by successive generations of people – that is, all of these activities reflect the development of knowledge and its application to solve, for the most part, concrete problems of human existence. In this sense, China is no different from Lombardy or other parts of the world. The history of humanity is more similar from country to country than we commonly believe; and the type of progress open to human beings varies as a function of the course of events specific to particular contexts, and not as a function of racial or natural predestination. To Johann Gottfried Herder, who characterized the Chinese as lacking a progressive and inventive genius, and suggested that whatever the Chinese could accomplish had already been done by others, Cattaneo noted ironically that ‘if when Charlemagne subjugated barbaric Saxony to Latin civilization, some Roman or Byzantine had decreed that the semi-Gothic race could not give itself new institutions shaped by new knowledge and that it was forever trapped by its own nature, that prognostication would be rejected by the emergence in contemporary Germany of people like Herder himself’ ([1861] 1957, SSG 3: 151). And for the same reasons, it is the plurality of constitutive elements, this heterogeneity, that denotes the level of potential progress in a society. Variety is life and a closed epistemic system is death. Those who invoke perpetual

27

Civilization and Democracy

peace, through a single universal republic, would reduce the world to an impossible situation. If in his own time, Cattaneo noted, Europe had become synonymous with civilization and Asia with barbarism, this was so precisely because movement and heterogeneity were present in the former and reduced to the minimum in the latter. Why was this the case? How could one explain stagnation? Look, Cattaneo said in providing his own response, to what afflicts cities in Asia. Their chief problem has not been the lack of commerce, industry, a certain tradition of science, the love of poetry and music, beautiful gardens, perfumes, the opulence of palaces, and a civilized lifestyle. What afflicted public life in China was this: people had neither freedom nor autonomy; cities were without urban law and, as a consequence, without municipal consciousness and patriotism. Most urban dwellers had been conditioned to live as if they were inanimate beings, as if they did not have a capacity to reason and to take individual and joint initiatives. Communal apathy and inertia do not flow from personal characteristics, or even from community ethos. Whatever fatalism, inertia, and apathy could be observed in China did not derive from an innate incapacity or inability of Asians. Rather, they derived from the dominant organizing principle of political life and institutional arrangements that shape the political economy of everyday life for most ordinary people. Cattaneo identified China’s chief problem to be the rituals of filial piety toward the emperor, or a descending conception of filial piety that stagnated an entire nation. Against this backdrop, fatalism and inaction can and did become a way of coping with conditions of life devoid of chances to pursue individual and joint opportunities. Cattaneo seldom lost faith in the view that human beings in Asia, as elsewhere, could learn to break out of such vicious circles ([1858] 1957, SSG 2: 395). The problematics of change and reform cannot be reduced to simple formulas. The play of the principles that influence a society is not, properly speaking, dialectic. Change does not occur this way; rather, it occurs slowly, unevenly, and in a piecemeal fashion. As a result, we may consider all legislation or laws as involving a series of transactions aimed at resolving or meliorating tensions and contrasts among multiple societal elements. Heterogeneity, then, is both the result and source of good institutional design. Cattaneo continued to use the term ‘state,’ but defined it as a set of fundamental rules that allow the many elements of social life to have an autonomous, self-governing existence while playing their part

28

Introduction

in society. The state is an immense transaction where, among others, property and commerce, what can be held and what can be disposed of, luxury and savings, the useful and the beautiful, operate every day to either conquer or defend portions of the public sphere that allow them to enhance their respective exigencies and compete with one another’s way of life. And, thus, the supreme formula for good government and civilization is to design a system of governance whereby principles and ways of life do not override one another, where none is denied its own space. Just as important – for someone like Cattaneo who remembered his Montesquieu, valued the Enlightenment for drawing attention to how to put individual self-interest in the service of the commonweal, and took pride in the long-enduring institutions surrounding the Po River – there was the need to educate and shape the interests of those controlling collective-choice mechanisms so as to enable such officials to invest in maintaining and even crafting better rules for action. This science of association can be extended with the application of federal principles of organization – in short, by the application of what Cattaneo called federal law. Federalism for Cattaneo is a theory of liberty in action, as it promotes liberty as a plant with many roots. So understood, federalism is a critical ingredient in his attempt to sketch a general theory of politics that sought to harmonize and foster equality, liberty, and heterogeneity. This is why, against all odds, Cattaneo held firm to a positive view of life and to his vision of the possibility to achieve a good life, if only for generations yet to come. Salvemini’s Discovery of Cattaneo When The Selected Writings of Carlo Cattaneo appeared on Italian bookshelves in 1922, Gaetano Salvemini was forty-nine years old. At the forefront of Italian cultural and political life since the end of the nineteenth century, Salvemini had shown considerable civil passion both as a professional historian and as a political writer. Cattaneo was a key point of reference for Salvemini from the winter of 1898–9, when during his stint as a senior-school teacher at Lodi he discovered Cattaneo’s writings in the town’s library; he was then twenty-six. He came to regard Cattaneo one of the few ‘men of genius’ in nineteenth-century Italy – the others, in his view, were the poet Giacomo Leopardi, Cavour, and the literary critic Francesco De Sanctis (Salvemini 1961, 2: 9). His reading of Cattaneo strengthened his natural antipathy toward abstractions and respect for

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Civilization and Democracy

concrete reality, and made him resistant to every form of dogmatism, starting with Marxism, to which he had initially been attracted as a result of his strong sense of justice. The Cattaneo with whom the young Salvemini came into contact was the author of the Insurrezione di Milano and the Archivio triennale delle cose d’Italia, who, having taken part in the Milanese uprising of 1848, had initiated reflection on national events and outlined a federalist and democratic program. Faced with the disordered, frenetic disturbances of 1898, and the heavy-handed response of the state, Salvemini found in Cattaneo’s program more than just the ‘basis’ of an understanding of the Risorgimento that was very different from the official, moderate, and monarchist version. It gave him also ideas for a plan of action that could serve simultaneously to reform the state, overcome the division between north and south, and foster the political education of ordinary people. In his essay entitled ‘The Southern Question,’ published in 1898, Salvemini identified the centralized state as one of the three ills with which southern Italy was afflicted, the other two being the ‘economic oppression’ exerted on it by the stronger northern Italy, and its own long-standing ‘semifeudal structure,’ which prevented its people from developing their skills at self-government ([1898] 1963, 2: 71). The first priority was to break up the existing collusion between central government and the latifondisti, who dominated in the south ahead of the petite bourgeoisie. To achieve this, two things were necessary: one was the implementation of a federalist structure, which for Salvemini would be in the form of ‘administrative autonomy’ that was to be extended to the neighborhoods of cities like Naples); the second was the introduction of universal suffrage, which Salvemini saw as one of the socialists’ and democrats’ primary political objectives. It was important, in his view, to strengthen the ‘communes and regional federations of communes’ by means of the broadest transfer of functions (this was how Salvemini understood federalism even at this stage, following Cattaneo),6 and to

6 Thinking back over these years and his positions at that time, in 1955 Salvemini wrote: ‘What was my federalism? The same as Cattaneo’s. National unity was untouchable. But an army that was recruited regionally, rather than nationally; regional and communal autonomies; finance, education, hygiene, roads, ports, all subjects not related to foreign policy and its immediate relations, these should be off bounds for the central government of a federal republic and ought to be entrusted to autonomous local institutions’ (Salvemini 1961, 2: 671). Indeed, he had written in 1900: ‘Let the communes and regional federations of communes take care of the roads, water, justice,

30

Introduction

encourage the masses to take part in public life by granting them universal suffrage. This way, he suggested, it could be possible to do away with the unequal, artificial, and unjust mechanisms that had been put in place following unification and that had permitted the northern regions to become stronger economically, while the southern regions remained subject to the decisions of others, and suffered accordingly. Weaving these objectives together would lead to the renewal of the country as a whole and give its effective unity a major boost. Salvemini felt that a broad convergence of more advanced, democratic- and socialist-inspired forces could, and should, be achieved through such a program of action. However, he also thought that the liberal and other opposition groups,7 which had defeated the late nineteenthcentury authoritarian line, had been unable to formulate a common program of general reforms since 1903. They had, instead, ‘arrogated to themselves the political influence of all the parties, and are concentrated around the Giolittian group in order to exploit the state’s finances’ for the benefit of the corporate interests that they represented ([1913] 1958, 45). It is true that, following the assassination of King Umberto at Monza in 1900, and the ‘New Liberalism’ turn by Giovanni Giolitti in 1901, a tacit compromise had been reached between the ruling class and the socialist leadership of the northern working class. The problem was that this agreement excluded the southern rural proletariat de facto. When Salvemini later came to look at Giolittian Italy with the detachment of a historian, he saw it as a democracy in the making, cut off in its prime by the reaction to the First World War – and by his own ‘criticism that did not help the evolution of Italian public life toward less imperfect forms of democracy’ ([1945] 1960, xxi). But in the fiery polemics of those pre-1914 years, Salvemini published an anti-Giolitti pamphlet eloquently entitled Il ministro della mala vita (‘the minister of the underworld’), in which he claimed that Giolitti donned a velvet glove when dealing with the north and an iron glove when dealing with the south ([1910] 1962, 73–141). education, public order, finances, of everything that is not foreign policy, customs policy, monetary policy, and all affairs that are not truly of general interest; let the regions and communes take care of their own money, apart from what the government needs to carry out its own functions in the national interest; then, only then, expenses will be shared equally, precisely because they will not be shared, for everyone shall keep their own money and spend it on the ground as they see fit’ (Salvemini, 1961, 2: 173). 7 A mixture of individuals under different banners identified as radical, republican, socialist, Catholic, and liberal constitutionalist.

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Civilization and Democracy

Meanwhile, Salvemini continued to hear the ‘mind of Cattaneo’ filling his head, as we know from a letter dated 1899. After the initial dramatic encounter, he continued to read Cattaneo, moving from the works that dealt with the events of 1848 to all the other writings available at that stage, in particular the seven volumes of Cattaneo’s Opere edite e inedite and the three-volume Scritti politici ed epistolario, which had appeared in 1881–92 and 1892–1901 respectively. He also read writings that were not included in these collections, such as Cattaneo’s essays on the subject of railroads, those on economics published in the Annali universali di statistica, and the series of essays on ‘the city as the ideal principle of Italian history.’ Being the rigorous historian that he was, Salvemini also examined the Cattaneo papers kept in the Museo del Risorgimento in Milan,8 and leafed through draft letters and unpublished texts that would eventually be issued in the new and more extensive collection of Cattaneo’s works to be published by a group of scholars, including Salvemini himself following the Second World War.9 In the first version10 of his Introduction to the 1922 Selected Writings, Salvemini recalls discovering Cattaneo this way: As a devotee of historical studies, ever since the time when, many years ago, I discovered Cattaneo’s volume on the Insurrezione di Milano in the town 8 In a letter to Arcangelo Ghisleri on 29 December 1899, Salvemini brought his attention to the issue of the Cattaneo papers, expressing his desire that a committee should be appointed to deal with them and offering his services in this connection (cited in Bucchi 1988, 273–4). In a later article Salvemini (1900) expressed the fear that the papers might be lost. 9 Published under the auspices of the Italian-Swiss Committee set up after the liberation of Italy, the new and more extensive edition of the collected works of Carlo Cattaneo was graced with the input of the by now aging Salvemini, who, in conjunction with Ernesto Sestan, one of the many historians trained by Salvemini, edited the four volumes of Cattaneo’s Scritti storici e geografici (1957). The entire collection in fourteen volumes is now available in digital format at the initiative of the University of Milan and the Italian-Swiss Committee, set up to celebrate the bicentenary of Cattaneo’s birth in 2001; it is distributed as a CD-ROM by Florence-based publisher Le Monnier. For more information see Canella and Lacaita 2005. 10 The text of Salvemini’s first preface to the Cattaneo anthology was preserved among Ugo Ojetti’s papers before being transferred to the Salvemini archive and eventually published by Sergio Bucchi (1981). In the following quotations we have maintained Bucchi’s transcription, although we have corrected several errors of transcription discovered as a result of collating Bucchi’s text with the Salvemini manuscript held in the Archivio Salvemini (Section I, 9/2 and 9/3) at the Istituto Storico della Resistenza Toscana, Florence.

32

Introduction

library of Lodi, which led me to read all his other writings, too, and since the time when, as a result of this revelation, I too was ‘taken over’ for the rest of my life – what made such a profound impression on me was what Graziadio Ascoli described as the ‘boundless superiority’ of Cattaneo’s historical speculation compared with the thinking of all other contemporary Italian historians. And every time I turn back to read my favourite author in my spare moments, with whatever little new culture and increased experience of life I have gleaned in the meantime, I nonetheless feel a sense of elation when I discover that the old Master is even fresher than before in terms of genius and truth. (Salvemini cited in Bucchi 1981, 129)

As Norberto Bobbio (1971, 198) has argued, it is to Salvemini (and very few others) that we must turn when we speak of Cattaneo’s successors, as opposed to his admirers. Like Cattaneo, Salvemini believed in the creative force of ideas and the logic of scientific inquiry – that is, the fruit of reason as it proceeds by means of proofs and checks. This is why Salvemini fought every form of fanaticism, remained open to a culture of inquiry, and strenuously opposed absolute conceptions and ontologically closed systems of ideas. There were other affinities between the two thinkers. Both Cattaneo and Salvemini shared a reformist view of political action not inclined to make a tabula rasa of all existing institutions and, truth be told, neither one was easy to get along with at a personal level. Whereas Cattaneo recognized his limitations as a politician and never pretended to be one even when elected to parliament, Salvemini seldom did so. As a result, he often produced more harm than good to his own cause, as a sympathetic biographer has recently described (Killinger 2002). Cattaneo and Salvemini often fought unpopular battles that reflected a federalist-liberal tradition, battles already lost before they started, ranging from those for local autonomy to those against protectionism. They were brothers in liberty not so much in the sense that they were positivists, as in that they both loved positive investigations – the empirical analysis of concrete problems. If Cattaneo’s review Il Politecnico was a ‘repertoire of studies applied to prosperity and social culture,’ as its subtitle suggested, Salvemini’s L’Unità clearly stated that its aim was to deal with the ‘problems of Italian life’: its first object was to educate Italians toward greater concreteness. Bobbio concluded that in Cattaneo, Salvemini found ‘everything he was groping blindly for and struggling after, an excellent model to imitate, a man in whom matchless clarity of intellect and style combined harmoniously with moral rigour and politi-

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Civilization and Democracy

cal radicalism – in other words, a progressive vision of history and a democratic conception of collective life’ (Bobbio n.d. but 1974, 21). Salvemini founded L’Unità after completing his transition from ‘absolute federalism,’ which bore the imprint of his youthful intransigence and was inspired by his first encounter with Cattaneo, to the ‘moderate federalism’ that he developed gradually as he matured and based on a more in-depth knowledge of Cattaneo’s political theory. Salvemini’s initial view of federalism derived from his conviction that the political transformation of the liberal-moderate kingdom was a precondition to solving both the social and southern questions. As he put it: ‘in a republican federation, all problems will be resolved, including those of Southern Italy’ (1963, 2: 671). At the time he strongly believed that the proletariat and the Socialist Party could have a decisive role in Italian public life with the support of the Republican and Radical parties.11 His later, moderate, version of federalism was the result of reflection, influenced by Giustino Fortunato12 and others, on the political weakness of those social forces that ought to have been key players in the struggle for federal solutions (see also Ganci 1976; Salvemini [1922] 1963, 2: 672–3). This understanding was nourished by a more ‘realistic’ view of history and society and the complex social transformation required for developing ‘new conditions of life’ for the masses, still largely inert and unable to ‘do things themselves.’ In part for these reasons, Salvemini tended to assign some importance to enlightened ‘minorities’ for promoting positive changes (1961, 434–5).13 11 He wrote in 1955: ‘I didn’t know what to do with the middle classes […] and was looking for salvation to come from the northern proletariat, which would have given the southern proletariat a federal regime that excluded the bourgeois, as they were unable to govern […] However, this proletariat in 1912 had ceased to be of marxist, or rather pseudo-marxist, extraction, as it had been from 1896 to 1902. I saw it for what it was: a mass of daily farmhands, small lease-holders, tenants, small landowners, laborers, artisans and fishermen. These constituted by far the majority of the population, but were like incoherent dust with no connecting tissue to hold them together’ (Salvemini 1961, 2: 673, 680). 12 Giustino Fortunato (1848–1932) was one of the greatest southern intellectuals of the time. Beginning in 1878, he published analyses of the resources and economic structures of the entire south, shattering illusions about southern prosperity. He also sharply criticized southern landowners and the educated classes of Naples for their laziness and indifference to local conditions. 13 Indeed, it was to such minorities that L’Unità was addressed. At this stage of his intellectual development, Salvemini was also influenced by Gaetano Mosca’s theory of the ruling class (see Salvemini 1961, 2: 211, 1961 2: 434).

34

Introduction

If the encounter with Fortunato reinforced Salvemini’s conviction that the southern question was central, it also undermined his initial belief in the possibility of a renaissance for the south through the dismantling of centralized public administration. Fortunato held that the inferiority of the south vis-à-vis the rest of Italy was linked to its natural – e.g., physical, geographical, and climatic – features that would be difficult to change without major state intervention. Furthermore, the remedy for ancient ills could not be federalist autonomy per se, for whatever local autonomy had been granted by the Italian state had paved the way for local elites to gain new powers of domination, or to maintain existing oppression. Thus, while emphasizing the democratic value and the liberating role of autonomy, Salvemini began to think that federalism as a system of government and process would take a long time to realize. It could best be promoted and implemented in different stages experimentally from the grassroots, starting with communal autonomy. Cattaneo himself, Salvemini reasoned, had expressed his federalism in different terms at various stages in the course of the Risorgimento, before eventually arriving at what Salvemini described as ‘administrative federalism’ following Unification (1961, 2: 434). During the ten years of its existence, Salvemini’s newspaper L’Unità continued to debate the problems raised by federalism and decentralization, but along the lines of ‘moderate federalism.’ It also recognized the regionalist tendencies that had emerged since the First World War, with the intention of influencing their most active forces through analyses and suggestions. ‘Until a few years ago,’ the historian and Salvemini’s friend and colleague Gino Luzzatto14 noted in 1920, ‘what few, weak manifestations of autonomy there were, with the exception of the old Sicilian separatism which had never entirely vanished, took place only in the wealthiest regions which had benefited most from the unification of the kingdom.’ Whereas in Lombardy Cattaneo’s ideas ‘had always had a certain number of followers, including people from the industrial and working classes’ who were ‘hostile to administrative methods that were rigidly centralist, and which seemed to have been dreamt up deliberately to snuff out any form of local or individual initiative,’ in the poorer regions the people never went beyond complaining about the lack of care from the state and were ‘always careful to preface and follow up 14 Gino Luzzatto (1878–1964), economist and intellectual, was an important public figure between the two world wars. He is generally regarded as the founding father of economic history in modern Italy.

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Civilization and Democracy

their critical enquiries with the most unconditional declarations of fervent faith in unification.’ But the war reversed these roles, causing protests against administrative centralization to rise up in the Veneto, Sicily, Calabria, and Sardinia, ‘where the problem of decentralization and autonomy has been raised repeatedly in these past months’ (Luzzatto cited in Ganci 1976, 160–1). Rather than recklessly ride the wave of these new regionalist tendencies, for Salvemini it was more important to give such tendencies a more thorough theoretical grounding, as he showed in the note he published to Gino Luzzatto’s article ‘Decentramento o federalismo?’ on 5 April 1919 (cited in Finocchiaro 1958, 584–5). In Salvemini’s view, there was a lack of a ‘sound current of federalist thought’ in Italy; federalism must be seen and adopted not just as an objective, but also as a method consistent with the end being pursued. Indeed, given the alternative as to ‘whether the reconstruction of local autonomies or federalism ought to take place in the form of regionalism, or whether functions and state income should be transferred to the communes and provinces,’ Salvemini peremptorily declared: ‘I myself am in favor of the latter,’ adding that ‘the existing provinces, enriched by functions and income and rendered perfectly autonomous, must, in such unconditional autonomy, retain the option of not merely associating with one another through initiatives of common interest, such as public works, junior and middle school education, and so forth, but also of joining with one another to form more extensive and complex regional administrations.’ He went on to note that such associations and combinations must emerge spontaneously to meet local needs desired by the autonomous local administrations themselves, rather than approved and decreed a priori by a central parliament. Likewise, he saw the potential for regional reorganization only if such reorganization were in the hands of local institutions (cited in Finocchiaro 1958, 586). For Salvemini, it was wrong to focus on the regions as objects of priority for, unlike the communes and provinces, which were well rooted in Italian history, the regions were ‘non-existent entities,’ whose necessity was at best ill-defined and at worst dubious. If recognized as necessary by the peoples themselves, they ought to arise ‘federalistically’ from the grassroots, rather than as a result of a decision taken from on high. He concluded: ‘If I am not mistaken, I am even more of a federalist than my friend Gino Luzzatto, for he would have the regions arise from an act of will on the part of the central powers, whereas I would let them arise from the independent union of local autonomies, if they are indeed necessary’ (cited in Finocchiaro 1958, 586–7). But Salvemini did not

36

Introduction

seem to have had clear ideas on how independent unions of local autonomies could spontaneously emerge and become viable entities without the renewal of local political classes. Against this backdrop, Salvemini began to prepare the Cattaneo anthology. The political climate was tense, with the survival of representative institutions at risk. He was more than a little anxious, as he wrote in his diary at the beginning of 1923: ‘In Italy today, it is the fashion for men to imagine themselves to be “revolutionaries” and to despise “democracy” insofar as … they are Fascists, nationalists, dreamers of hierarchies and rigid, closed aristocracies. Such scorn, which trade unionists, republicans, socialists, anarchists, and even such men as Prezzolini,15 Gobetti,16 and so forth display for “democracy,” testifies to their lack of political sophistication and their inability to analyse their own ideas, which is the fundamental malaise of Italian and non-Italian “democrats”’ (cited in Pertici 2001, 195). By the 1920s, Salvemini understood democracy or liberal democracy as the admission of all citizens to the use of liberal institutions (Salvemini cited in Bobbio 1977, 118). He distinguished three main aspects: democratic institutions, such as the freedom of the press, freedom of association, freedom to strike and freedom of conscience, universal suffrage, and so forth, which had been won during the previous half-century; these institutions constituted not just the means whereby to achieve democratic ideals, but a large part of those ideals themselves, in the sense that they were vital to attain the chief goal of enabling as many individuals as possible to gain for themselves the right to the fruit of their own labour against any form of exploitation and repression. Then there were the democratic parties, which in carrying out their activities could fail as well as succeed in the role they have assumed. Salvemini came to regard political parties as ‘poor witnesses,’ but he was careful not to scorn and reject democracy itself, as both the Left and the Right at the time were doing. Democracy for Salvemini was the only road to political salvation. 15 Giuseppe Prezzolini (1882–1982), a leading intellectual of the time, was often viewed as a great agitator of ideas before and after the First World War. Eventually he settled in New York City, where he taught at Columbia University. By the late 1930s, he and Salvemini were both on this side of the Atlantic, but this was their only common tie. They had taken different positions on Fascism and thus become bitter enemies. 16 Piero Gobetti (1901–1926) was one of the foremost radical liberals of the period. He advanced the notion of liberalism as a revolutionary theory that encompassed both the individual and social political movements. His book On Liberal Revolution, originally published in 1922, is available in English, edited with an introduction by Nadia Urbinati.

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Civilization and Democracy

Promoting Cattaneo’s Ideas Salvemini chose to introduce Cattaneo to post–First World War Italian readers, following his unhappy stint as a member of parliament and his decision to return to his activity as a professional historian (see Gaetano Salvemini, below). The idea of the Cattaneo anthology was born in conversation with Ugo Ojetti – a ‘man of letters plying his trade as a journalist,’ as Ojetti liked to describe himself (1954, 185). Salvemini and Ojetti had been in contact since the early 1900s, and remained friends until their different stances on Fascism drove a wedge between them for good. In 1920, Ojetti, in conjunction with the Treves publishing house in Milan, was preparing a new series of classics targeting an attentive but non-specialist readership. Ojetti intended to turn the new series entitled ‘Selected Writings of Italian Authors Chosen by Living Writers’ into a channel through which the national heritage could be brought within reach of emerging classes, aided by a format more suited to ‘modern-day haste and mobility’ (publisher’s letter cited in Rogante 1987, 81–5). The books were to be in handy pocket-sized format, and elegantly bound in blue cloth, providing the general reader with an abundant selection of writings by specific authors. Each volume would consist of a concise introduction accompanied by essential biographical and bibliographical information, plus a limited number of documents, letters, anecdotes, and critical opinions by the authors’ contemporaries and successors. While pursuing this possibility, Salvemini also explored the prospect of another Cattaneo publication designed for a more specialized audience. He wrote to the Bologna publisher Zanichelli, on January 16, 1921, proposing to publish a volume of Cattaneo’s historical writings, but the proposal went no further. Thus, of the two Cattaneo volumes conceived at the end of 1920, only Cattaneo’s Selected Writings was completed, albeit somewhat later than envisaged in Ojetti’s editorial program. The Cattaneo anthology published in 1922 was the fifth to appear in the Treves classics series. The delay was not due to Salvemini, who had managed to prepare the entire manuscript in the space of just three months, but to the series editor, who objected not only to the number of pages that Salvemini had chosen and their arrangement within the volume, but also to his introduction, as several extant letters testify. Salvemini wrote to Ojetti on August 10 in the following terms: ‘I have moved the texts you suggested, cut out various passages and replaced others [...] I have placed the texts on human sciences (sociologia) at the end [...] However, I have not been able to lighten them. In any case,

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Introduction

Cattaneo’s most original theories are those which deal with the origins of Europe, and it would be unfair to keep the reader ignorant of such ideas, even at the risk of being somewhat high-brow’ (cited in Bucchi 1981, 118). The publisher Treves, in the person of its managing editor, insisted on changes in the introduction, which occasioned further delay. Treves also queried the final part of Salvemini’s introduction and in particular the passages where the author, always willing to institute comparisons between past and present, had expressed his views on the recent war in Europe and the key military events involving Italy, namely, the rout at Caporetto and the victorious Battle of the Piave. In the end, Salvemini decided to rewrite the introduction, giving it a more biographical and less thematic slant. This was done, among other things, to meet the need underlined by Ojetti to make the book series as accessible as possible to the general reader. If in the first version of the introduction Salvemini presumed readers to be already familiar with Cattaneo’s work, concentrating on his concept of history and his theory of federalism, in the second and final version, he took as little as possible for granted. Salvemini’s second introduction provides a straightforward outline of Cattaneo’s entire biographical and intellectual development. As it (like the rest of the volume) had to be kept to a minimum number of pages, only certain parts of the first version could be included in the second. Indeed, if we compare the two versions, it soon becomes apparent that the organization is very different, that is, biographical as opposed to thematic, as is the structure – three main themes are discussed through four sections in the first version, while nine sections cover Cattaneo’s entire life in the second. Very little of the first version is used in the final draft, which is more wide-ranging. Still, it may be worth looking at the superseded (1921) draft in some detail, for what it reveals of how Salvemini read Cattaneo. Salvemini began the first version by illustrating what, in his view, was the central nucleus of Cattaneo’s philosophy. In the section entitled ‘Historical Ideas,’ he introduced Cattaneo’s concern for human sciences, that is, his ‘general theory of civilization,’ on which Cattaneo had based his theoretical reflection since the years of his youth, when he studied with philosopher and lawyer Gian Domenico Romagnosi17 17 Gian Domenico Romagnosi (1761–1835) was a leading philosopher, economist, and jurist, and mentor and friend of Cattaneo. Romagnosi is also believed to be the first person to publish, in 1802, an account suggesting a relationship between electricity and magnetism, about two decades before Hans Christian Orstead’s 1819 discovery of the same relationship.

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(Lacaita 1983). In the second section, which is divided into two parts entitled ‘Federalism’ and ‘The Nation in Arms,’ Salvemini concentrated on Cattaneo’s political philosophy. In the third, he illustrated why Cattaneo’s political ideas could not be implemented at the time of Italian unification and discussed their relevance to the contemporary situation – incurring his publisher’s displeasure in the process, as we have seen. The first section was the longest, as well as the most complex and least adaptable to a brief biographical outline: accordingly, it was omitted from the final (1922) version. Both parts of the second lent themselves more easily to being reused in the published version, on the grounds that they could more directly be linked to Cattaneo’s own life and the political role that he had played during the Risorgimento. It is instructive to look at the omitted sections for what they say about some themes and aspects of Cattaneo’s thought. After underlining the multiplicity of Cattaneo’s interests and the originality of so many of his ideas, in which ‘economists, lawyers, agronomists, glottologists, sociologists and educationalists’ still found much to admire, Salvemini concentrated on Cattaneo’s concept of history, in the (correct) belief that it is in his reflection about human civilization that the roots of Cattaneo’s entire intellectual production lie. No other Italian historian of the nineteenth century, Salvemini wrote, ‘shows such a felicitous ability to allow his mind to range widely across all times and countries; to note confidently and precisely the essential aspects of the problems; to shed abroad flashes of unexpected connections and syntheses, which are subsequently developed to different conclusions ... [and] … to bring the entire development of human civilization within a complete organic system’ (cited in Bucchi 1981, 129–30). Salvemini expounded, and made his own, Cattaneo’s conception of history and society by insisting that ‘civilization [...] is not the monopoly of chosen peoples, nor is it the spontaneous and irrefutable gift of privileged physical environments.’ Salvemini went on to note that, in Cattaneo’s view, humanity is not spread across the globe from a single starting point. As the selections in Chapter 7 herein make clear, the polygenic origins of humanity are emphasized without any of the racist views that many had attached to them in the middle of the nineteenth century (cited in Bucchi 1981, 130; see also Haller 1970). Salvemini concluded by affirming that ‘the unity of mankind is not to be found at its origins, but is the product of communication between peoples and of mutual influence, and develops with the history of world civilization’

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(cited in Bucchi 1981, 130).18 However, it is not always the case that the best system, that is, the system most richly endowed with realism and civilizing force, comes to prevail. This helps to account for progress and decadence (ibid., 131). Moving onto the subject of force and conquest, Salvemini provided an accurate interpretation of Cattaneo – which has often escaped subsequent scholars and created not a few misunderstandings as a result: ‘Wars and conquests have always been (especially in primitive times), and may always be, a useful and perhaps necessary means to bring about contacts and unions. Revolutions are crises that are internal to groups, and occur when a lower class within the group, having grown in social influence as a result of some change in production technology or through the intellectual and moral degeneration of the upper classes, opens the way for new rights to be won, and creates more or less rapid fluctuations within the union of which it forms part, until such time as a new equilibrium is reached.’ Salvemini noted that Cattaneo saw disadvantages in violence because it ‘causes the ideologies of the victorious parties to prevail not merely in proportion to the realistic elements contained within them, but also in proportion to the size of the victory and the vanity of the strong, who may be revealed by subsequent and broader experience to be regressive’ (ibid.). Salvemini concluded by recalling that, in Cattaneo’s view, a civilization is as a rule the richer, the more numerous are the groups composing it. Even if in fact this combination occurs by means of wars and revolutions, the vanquished very rarely are so defeated as to no longer retain any of their own traditions of thought and will, and thus exert no influence at all on the traditions and will of the victors. The wealth of the new combined entity has a much better chance of having more strength and variety the freer that this association is. No one prior to Salvemini had focused clearly on such a central nucleus of Cattaneo’s thought. Unfortunately, these passages were omitted from the final version of the introduction, and failure to publish them in the Selected Writings, or elsewhere, distracted attention from the core of Cattaneo’s work. In the final part of the unpublished draft, Salvemini discussed two 18 There follows a passage in which Salvemini compares Cattaneo’s conception with Darwin’s and Spencer’s theory of ‘natural selection.’ Such an interpretation was common in late nineteenth-century positivistic culture, but is not justified by Cattaneo’s texts.

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themes of relevance in the early 1920s: first the Great War, directly related to the issue of the nation in arms, and then the system of national bureaucracy. Concerning the nation in arms, Salvemini wrote: ‘half a century after Cattaneo’s death, has the crisis in Europe not perhaps demonstrated how inadequate professional soldiers and standing armies are when faced with the formidable needs of modern warfare?’ Of the Italian victory at the River Piave, he continued, ‘was this not the triumph of an army in which discipline had been made more courteous and human, in which noble propaganda issued by international justice had made the soldier more attached to his calling and sacrifice, and in which the duty of national defense, once finally understood by all, had made each individual will an organic part of one single will?’ (cited in Bucchi 1981, 135). Salvemini then advanced a case for the need of a centralized public administration at the time of the unification of Italy – and this implied the acceptance of the forced union of Italy that had taken place, opposed by Cattaneo. Within his way of thinking, Salvemini was compelled to admit that at that time a federal system of public administration would not have worked for obvious reasons: ‘many parts of our country required bureaucratic protection in order to be moved in the direction of modern civilization’; ‘all the bureaucracies of the pre-unification regimes,’ still working with their traditions of antiquated thought, ‘could have resurrected local egotisms at the earliest convenient opportunity’; and Italians still had to be educated in ‘the sentiment of national political unity.’ Now, in the early 1920s, Salvemini believed Cattaneo’s proposal could be seen more positively, for it was hard to say ‘what useful function’ centralized administration still played in an environment that had changed so profoundly (ibid., 136). Unfortunately, Salvemini did not suggest how and what steps might be taken to transform centralized administration. It was only after the Second World War that he confronted this argument. Writing in 1949, and taking Cattaneo’s position as a point of departure, Salvemini affirmed that he would propose to diminish the authority of the prefect over local and provincial administrations and affirm their autonomy, within the limits of their own respective powers. He quickly added that, in his view, communal bylaws should never be allowed to be in conflict with provincial regulations, just as provincial regulations should not conflict with national laws. He envisaged that the courts would rule on any conflict of jurisdiction (1961, 2: 629–30). He also acknowledged the right of autonomous communes to detach them-

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selves from a province in order to join another province, and the right of a group of communes of the same province to form a new province. He went further by noting the possibility of several provinces becoming a federation, forming more extensive permanent regional administrations, or associating themselves in order to provide for particular common interests. Still ‘whoever wants to stay as they are may stay as they are. All this should be possible without having to ask for any authorization from the central parliament or the Roman bureaucracy’ (ibid., 630). Salvemini predicted that ‘the day in which [the people] understands the need to combat bureaucracy will be the day on which Carlo Cattaneo’s federalism shall point the way to the task of reconstruction’ (cited in Bucchi 1981, 136). The Organization of Salvemini’s Anthology The original Italian edition of this anthology carried first Salvemini’s own introduction. In tracing Cattaneo’s intellectual and political life, Salvemini penned some memorable descriptions of Cattaneo’s ‘greatest achievement, the review Il Politecnico,’ and his method of working: ‘it is difficult to say what is most admirable: the variety of subjects covered, the originality of thought it displays, or the beauty of its form.’ But equally noteworthy are, for example, Salvemini’s comments on the relationship between Cattaneo and Romagnosi (which was debated at length by subsequent historiographers, only for them to reach the same verdict), on the conclusions that Cattaneo reached in his Interdizioni israelitiche, and on Cattaneo’s ‘classicism’ and political ideas prior to 1848.19 On almost every page, Salvemini highlighted major historiographical issues. He acknowledged and upheld the positive influence that political inspiration can have on historiography, but he also strongly emphasized the responsibility of historical criticism, maintaining that a clear distinction should always be drawn between that which has the substance of historical interpretation and that which is linked to the contingency and partiality of political judgment. Salvemini wisely went beyond the more Italian dimensions of Cattaneo’s activities to highlight his multifaceted interests. 19 Regarding which he stated that, if there had been more space available for the introduction, he could have included at least some of the pages from the first version dealing with ‘Historical Ideas,’ which, as we have seen, were certainly worth saving (although possibly the author was already thinking of publishing them elsewhere).

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The selected writings, reproduced from the entire corpus of Cattaneo’s writing then known, were arranged for the reader’s convenience into nine thematic sections: international affairs, public economy, education and the militia, local autonomy, the social question, literature, universal history, Italian unification, and human sciences. The range of topics reflects the many themes considered by Cattaneo in the course of his forty-year career. No doubt, Salvemini’s choice of texts has had something to do with the fact that the volume has retained its value over many decades, both for anyone approaching Cattaneo’s work for the first time, as well as for specialists who find in it extensive and representative selections of his ideas. The book was immediately greeted with interest and enthusiasm by an attentive public, namely, the most active and informed cultural and political circles of the time. In fact, those who drew inspiration from the republican, liberal, and socialist political traditions all concurred in recognizing the importance of the volume for portraying the political principles and values that Cattaneo in his lifetime had sought to propagate: a secular public realm, individual freedom and political equality, and the need to think of constitutional and participatory democracy beyond the entrenched view of the centralized government and administration of European states.20 20 The critic and writer Emilio Cecchi, who had earlier identified Cattaneo as one of the best writers of non-fiction to have come out of the nineteenth century, praised Salvemini for choosing the texts well: ‘Cattaneo coherently put together from thousands and thousands of pages, leaving the reader who is eager to study the work of this great writer in more depth, the surprise of discovering on his or her own that Cattaneo is as marvellous a writer of prose as he is a thinker and politician. Indeed, we may say that Cattaneo is the best Italian writer of theoretical prose since the time of Manzoni’ (Cecchi [1922] 1999, 59–63). Another reviewer, the journalist and Risorgimento historian Alfredo Comandini, equally praised Salvemini for his introduction and his choice of readings: ‘In Salvemini’s volume all of Cattaneo is displayed … with all his wealth of erudition, his vigor of thought, his sharpness of judgment, and the originality of his customary discipline. There could be no better representation of the soul and character of this father of radical democrats and Lombard positivists’ (Comandini 1922, 185–6). In the leading Italian daily Il Corriere della Sera, historian and lawyer Francesco Ruffini took the opportunity to explain why, in his view, Cattaneo held up better than Mazzini. Cattaneo was both a proponent of local self-government and a thinker of great worth for the ‘soundness, vastness, and modernity of his knowledge’ (Ruffini 1922). Liberal intellectuals like Piero Gobetti highlighted the fact that nineteenth-century Italian culture had allowed Cattaneo to languish. In a dense review article, inspired by Salvemini’s volume, which appeared in Gramsci’s L’Ordine nuovo, Gobetti rejected the

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Salvemini’s Selected Writings of Cattaneo succeeded in putting forward an image of the Milanese thinker as a multifaceted, energetic, and productive intellectual who still had something to say to successive generations. This image was especially dear to those individuals and movements that struggled to keep alive the torch of civility, liberty, and democracy during the dark years of Fascism. After the fall of Mussolini, it became easier to rescue Cattaneo from the oblivion to which official culture had condemned him. As Bobbio observed amid the ruins of the Second World War, ‘if [Italians] have to build bridges to the past, Cattaneo is a pillar on which [they could] safely lay [their] arch’ (1971, 10). The Salvemini’s anthology was reissued in 1947, alongside numerous other collections of Cattaneo’s writings, and it was reprinted for Italian readers once again in 1993. In making the anthology available in English, we hope to fill a gap in the history of modern social and political thought, by sharing the work of Cattaneo and Salvemini with a wider audience. Gaetano Salvemini: The Making of a Public Intellectual Gaetano Salvemini was born on 8 September 1873 at Molfetta in the region of Apulia, the son of a small landowner. He attended the local seminary before winning a grant to attend the Istituto di studi superiori in Florence. He published his doctoral thesis in 1896 as La dignità

judgment of Cattaneo’s historical thought as expressed by idealist philosopher Giovanni Gentile, arguing that Cattaneo’s speculation, which sought to identify ‘unexpected experiences rather than illusory laws,’ was ‘most original’ and productive. Cattaneo, Gobetti concluded, ‘put forward a philosophy that was identified with freedom and independence, and brought together its requirements in a coherent fashion, without engaging in naive rhetoric […] Cattaneo’s idea of freedom expressed itself as realism in ethics, as productiveness and initiative in economics, as liberal creativity in politics, as vindication of experience in philosophy, and as a classical cult of liberal values and the liberal tradition in art’ (Gobetti 1922, 176–81). In Gobetti’s own journal La Rivoluzione Liberale, a review by Luigi Emery (1922) also placed in sharp relief the contemporary relevance of Cattaneo’s ideas. Front-line exponents of anti-fascism chose to emphasize the greatness and vitality of ‘the marvellous Cattaneo.’ Mario Vinciguerra (1922) reviewed Salvemini’s anthology in the Bolognese newspaper Il Resto del Carlino, which he directed. Tommaso Fiore (1923) went as far as to reprint excerpts from Salvemini’s closely argued introduction, following the example of Oliviero Zuccarini, who had done likewise in another review, La Critica politica (cited in Tagliacozzo 1985, 4–5).

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cavalleresca nel comune di Firenze, then in 1899 another volume on medieval Florence entitled Magnati e popolani in Firenze dal 1280 al 1295. (Both books were subsequently reissued by Einaudi in 1960.) From 1897 onwards he contributed to Filippo Turati’s review Critica sociale under a variety of pseudonyms including ‘Un travet,’ ‘Rerum scriptor,’ ‘Tre stelle,’ ‘Il Federalista,’ and ‘Il Pessimista.’ In 1901 Salvemini was appointed professor of medieval and modern history at the University of Messina. The importance of his historical research gained widespread acceptance and he was awarded prizes by the prestigious Accademia dei Lincei. He and Giuseppe Kirner organized, in 1901, the Italian federation of middle-school teachers, to increase general awareness of the difficulties faced by the school system. Salvemini played a significant role in the preparation of a 1906 law governing the legal status of teachers. In 1905 he had been invited to take part in a royal commission whose purpose was to analyze the secondary schooling system in Italy and promote the requisite educational and administrative reviews, but he resigned this post in 1907 following a difference of opinion with the majority of commission members, who were resolutely in favor of a single middle school. Salvemini and Alfredo Galletti researched the subject together, and published their findings in a book entitled La riforma della scuola media in 1908. Thereafter he was a regular contributor to Giuseppe Lombardo Radice’s educational review I nuovi doveri. Salvemini’s wife and their five children were killed in the Messina earthquake of 1908. The following year Salvemini went to Gioia del Colle in Apulia to study the electoral methods of the pro-Giolitti candidate Vito de Bellis, which resulted in the volume Il ministro della mala vita. In 1910 he agreed to stand for election at Albano, but withdrew his candidacy when he saw that his supporters wanted to rig the ballot box and the vote count. He was an active contributor to the journal La Voce between 1909 and 1911, and in 1908 and 1910 took part in two national Socialist Party congresses, steering the debate in the direction of his own political ideas. In 1911 he founded L’Unità, after quietly moving away from the Socialist Party. When Italy entered the Great War in 1915, Salvemini suspended publication of L’Unità and enrolled as a volunteer, at the age of forty-two. After several months’ training at Arezzo, he was moved to an infantry regiment in the trenches on the Carse. However, he was soon physically exhausted; he became seriously ill, and was eventually discharged from the army. Salvemini resumed publication of L’Unità in Rome in 1916, co-di-

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rected with the economist and nobleman Antonio De Viti De Marco, another Apulian. He co-authored with Carlo Maranelli a book entitled La questione dell’Adriatico, refuting nationalist arguments in favor of annexing Dalmatia to Italy. This work could not be published until 1918 because of censorship. He also wrote lecture outlines in 1918 for young junior officers; these were collected into a single volume, along with some of his conversations with the soldiers. Groups of ‘friends of L’Unità’ formed in various Italian cities in 1919, with the intention of transforming the tiny intellectual opinion-making movement into a political party. A conference of such ‘unitarians’ was held that year in Florence, from April 16 to 19, 1919 with the title: ‘League for national renewal.’ Salvemini was elected from a list of infantry soldiers in Apulia in 1919, but was never at his ease in a parliamentary grouping that was nationalist and even quasi-Fascist. Suffering health problems, he did not stand for reelection in 1921. Salvemini went to London in the summers of 1922 and 1923, where he gave a course of lectures at King’s College on the subject of Italian foreign policy from 1871 to 1915. Not longer after this he published the book entitled Dal patto di Londra alla pace di Roma, with Piero Gobetti. In February 1923 he founded the ‘Circolo di Cultura’ in Florence, but this was raided by Fascist squadristi and closed down on January 5, 1925, for ‘reasons of public order.’ On June 8, 1925, Salvemini was arrested in Rome and sent to the Regina Coeli prison before being transferred to the Delle Murate jail in Florence. The amnesty passed on July 25 of that year led to the charges against him being dropped, and he escaped to France with the help of the historians Federico Chabod and Alessandro Passerin d’Entrèves, who met him in Aosta and helped him across the border. From France he went to England, where he was warmly received in liberal and labor circles. The Manchester Guardian, as it was then known, agreed to publish his articles. This way Salvemini began his long career as a political journalist, striving to make known outside Italy the reality of Fascism. On January 31, 1926, the Fascists stripped Salvemini of his Italian citizenship and confiscated his possessions. Costanzo Ciano even struck his name off the civil state records, in a solemn ceremony at Molfetta. Salvemini went on a conference tour of the United States in 1927, where his book The Fascist Dictatorship in Italy was published. He came into contact with the anti-Fascist group in Paris that same summer. In 1932, after intense anti-Fascist activity in conjunction with the Giustizia e libertà movement, Salvemini published the book Mussolini diplomatico,

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and later that same year went to America for a third time. He began to teach at Harvard University in 1933, where he held a chair in the history of Italian civilization. In 1936 he published his third book on Fascism, entitled Under the Axe of Fascism. In 1939 he published a critique of Crocean historicism, under the title Historian and Scientist. In the summer of 1940 Salvemini and others founded the Mazzini Society for antiFascist propaganda in the United States. Salvemini applied for and received American citizenship. A few weeks prior to the fall of Mussolini on July 25, 1943, he published What to Do with Italy? written in collaboration with George La Piana. Salvemini returned to Italy for the first time in 1947, but continued to teach at Harvard. Still at Harvard, he also started teaching at the University of Florence in the fall of 1949, with an inaugural lecture entitled Una pagina di storia antica. By 1953 ill health (he was eighty years old by this time) prevented him from maintaining his teaching commitments at Florence. He published a long history of diplomacy in 1953, entitled Prelude to World War II. Salvemini retired to Sorrento on the Amalfitan coast as guest of Marchesa Giuliana Benzoni. In 1955 he was awarded the international prize for history by the Accademia dei Lincei and was invited to Oxford to receive an honorary degree. He continued to write for several newspapers and reviews. Gaetano Salvemini died in Sorrento on September 6, 1957, at the age of eighty-four. Salvemini’s collected works amount to nine volumes: Opere di Gaetano Salvemini, edited by Ernesto Rossi (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1961–78). His publications might readily be grouped under the following headings: medieval history La dignità cavalleresca nel Comune di Firenze ed altri scritti, ed. by E. Sestan, xv + 469 pp., 1972. Contains Salvemini’s thesis, first published in 1896, other writings on the Middle Ages, and ‘La caduta dell’impero romano,’ taken from a series of lectures that Salvemini gave at Harvard in 1939 and 1940. Magistrati e popolani a Firenze dal 1280 al 1295, ed. by E. Sestan, xl + 248 pp., 1966. First published in 1899, and reprinted by Einaudi in 1960 along with La dignità cavalleresca nel Comune di Firenze. modern and contemporary history La rivoluzione francese (1788–1792), ed. by F. Venturi, xvii + 272 pp., 1962. Seventh and last edition prepared by Salvemini himself, and published for the first time by Laterza in 1954. Scritti sul Risorgimento, ed. by P. Pieri and C. Pischedda, xiv + 664 pp., 1961. Contains Mazzini, the preface to Le più belle pagine di Carlo Cattaneo, the lecture

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course given by Salvemini on the Risorgimento at the University of Florence in 1949–50, and various other writings on this subject. Stato e chiesa in Italia, ed. by E. Conti, xxxvii + 498 pp., 1969. Includes the long essay ‘Stato e chiesa in Italia da Pio IX a Pio XI,’ which Salvemini began in 1929 and which the editor reconstructed from archival research. italian foreign policy Come siamo andati in Libia e altri scritti dal 1900 al 1915, ed. by A. Torre, xvi + 530 pp., 1963. Includes Salvemini’s first writings on Italian foreign policy in socialist newspapers, and his articles on the Libyan expedition and its diplomatic preparations, which had been published under the same title in 1914. Dalla guerra mondiale alla dittatura (1916–1925), ed. by C. Pischedda, xxviii + 760 pp., 1964. Contains articles that mostly appeared in L’Unità and had in part already appeared in Dal patto di Londra alla pace di Roma, published by Piero Gobetti in 1928, as well as the second edition of Questione dell’Adriatico, which Salvemini wrote in conjunction with geographer Carlo Maranelli, and which was first published in 1918. La politica estera dal 1871 al 1915, ed. by A. Torre, xvi + 590 pp., 1970. Contains the essay of the same title, reproduced from its 3rd ed. (Florence: Barbera, 1950), and also the article on the ‘Tripla alleanza,’ published in Rivista delle Nazioni Latine (1916–17), and ‘La diplomazia italiana nella guerra mondiale,’ which appeared first in the New York World between 1939 and 1941. Preludio alla seconda guerra mondiale, ed. by A. Torre, xvii + 812 pp., 1967. Includes the Laterza edition of Mussolini diplomatico (1952), and an Italian translation of Prelude to World War II, based on Salvemini’s own manuscript and featuring numerous appendices taken from unpublished documents. southern italy and italian democracy Il ministro della mala vita e altri scritti sull’Italia giolittiana, ed. by E. Apih, xv + 578 pp., 1962. Contains the famous 1910 pamphlet of the same name, as well as ‘Le memorie di un candidato’ and other articles from the first decade of the century. The final section contains Salvemini’s writings on Giolittian Italy from the later interwar period. Movimento socialista e questione meridionale, ed. by G. Arfé, xxii + 692 pp., 1961. Reprint, with the addition of Tendenze vecchie e necessità nuove del movimento operaio italiano (1929) and Scritti sulla questione meridionale (1955). italian educational system Scritti sulla Scuola, ed. by L. Borghi and B. Finocchiaro, xxx + 1072 pp., 1966. Comprises Salvemini’s extensive output on the Italian school system, ranging from presentations at conferences of the national federation of Italian

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middle-school teachers to items written following his return to Italy, including La riforma della scuola media, which he wrote with Alfredo Galletti in 1908, and Il programma scolastico dei clericali, published by La Nuova Italia in 1951. fascism Scritti sul Fascismo, ed. by R. Vivarelli, xii + 656 pp., 1961. Contains the Italian version of The Fascist Dictatorship in Italy, published in England in 1928, and the Harvard lectures on L’Italia dal 1919 al 1929. Scritti sul Fascismo, ed. by N. Valeri and A. Merola, xxiv + 632 pp., 1966. Contains the first edition of the diary kept by Salvemini in 1922–3 entitled Memorie e soliloqui, along with articles, essays, and letters to newspapers from 1925 to 1937. Scritti sul Fascismo, ed. by R. Vivarelli, xxviii + 496, pp., 1974. Contains Sotto la scure del fascismo (the Italian version of Under the Axe of Fascism), based on the 1936 U.S. edition, and an anthology of Salvemini’s writings from 1946 until his death in 1957. italy seen from america L’Italia vista dall’America, ed. by E. Tagliacozzo, xl + 736 pp., 1969. Comprises much of Salvemini’s output from the years of the Second World War, including the volume La sorte dell’Italia, written with George La Piana and published in New York in 1943. various writings Scritti vari, ed. by G. Agosti and A. Galante Garrone, xxxviii + 966 pp., 1978. Contains Salvemini’s autobiographical writings, his historical methodological writings, his Memorie di un fuoruscito, a selection of the articles he wrote for L’Unità, and a selection of the articles he wrote following his return to Italy, most of which had been published by Einaudi in the 1959 volume L’Italia combinata. correspondence Carteggi 1895–1911, ed. by E. Gencarelli, xxxi + 547 pp., 1968. Under Feltrinelli’s original publication program, the Carteggi should have had a second volume, for the years 1911 to 1925, but instead these were included in the Collezione di Studi meridionali, promoted by the Associazione nazionale per gli interessi del Mezzogiorno d’Italia. The following volumes have been edited by E. Tagliacozzo and published in Rome-Bari by Laterza: Carteggio 1912–1914 (1984); Carteggio 1914–1920

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(1985); Carteggio 1921–1926 (1985). A new, expanded edition of the earlier correspondence, previously published by Feltrinelli, is currently being prepared for publication in the same collection: the first volume, Carteggio 1894– 1902, ed. by S. Bucchi, was published by Laterza in 1988; the second, Carteggio 1903–1906, also edited by S. Bucchi, is to be published by Lacaita (Manduria); and a further two volumes are also planned.

Other collections of Salvemini’s letters and correspondence that have appeared include: Calì, V., ed. Salvemini e i Battisti. Carteggio 1894–1957. Trento: Edizioni Temi – Museo del Risorgimento, 1987. Galante Garrone, A., ed. Zanotti-Branco e Salvemini. Naples: Guida, 1984. Salvemini, G. Lettere dall’America, vol. 1: 1944–46; vol. 2: 1947–1949. Ed. by A. Merola. Rome-Bari: Laterza, 1967, 1968. Salvemini, G. and A. Tasca. Il dovere di testimoniare. Carteggio. Ed. and introd. by E. Signori. Collezione di Studi meridionali. Naples: Bibliopolis, 1996.

Two anthologies of Salvemini’s writings have been published in the Collezione di Studi meridionali series: Socialismo, riformismo, democrazia: Antologia di scritti politici, civili, autobiografici, ed. by E. Tagliacozzo and S. Bucchi (Rome-Bari: Laterza, 1990) and Medioevo, risorgimento, fascismo: Antologia di scritti storici, ed. by E. Tagliacozzo and S. Bucchi (Rome-Bari: Laterza, 1992). An anastatic edition of the entire L’Unità series was published by Arnaldo Forni in 1978, covering the years from 1911 to 1920 and edited in eight volumes by E. Camurali. Two anthologies have also been published: ‘L’Unità’ di Gaetano Salvemini, ed. by B. Finocchiaro (Venice: Neri Pozza, 1958) and La cultura italiana attraverso le riviste, vol. 5, ‘L’Unità’ e ‘La Voce politica,’ ed. by F. Golzio and A. Guerra (Turin: Einaudi, 1962). The following bibliography has been published: Bibliografia salveminiana 1892–1984, ed. by Michele Cantarella (Rome: Bonacci, 1984). Works on Salvemini The works listed below represent only general and well-known items. For a more detailed bibliography of Salvemini’s works, see Michele Cantarella, Bibliografia salveminiana (mentioned above), and the bibliographies in the Collezione di Studi meridionali volumes (also referred to earlier).

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Antiseri, D., N. De Giacomo, M. Moretti, and G. Quagliarello. 1996. Gaetano Salvemini metodologo delle scienze sociali. Soveria Monelli: Rubbettino. Artifoni, E. 1990. Salvemini e il Medioevo. Naples: Liguori. Basso, L. 1959. Gaetano Salvemini socialista e meridionalista. Manduria: Lacaita. Bobbio, Norberto. 1984. Maestri e compagni. Florence: Passigli. Contains the previously published essays ‘La non-filosofia di Salvemini’ and ‘Salvemini e la democrazia.’ Bütler, H. 1978. Gaetano Salvemini und die italienische Politik vor dem ersten Weltkrieg. Tübingen: Max Niemayer. Cingari, G., ed. 1986. Gaetano Salvemini tra politica e storia. Rome-Bari: Laterza. De Caro, G. 1970. Gaetano Salvemini. Turin: Unione Tipografico – Editrice Torinese. Galante Garrone, A. 1981. Salvemini e Mazzini. Messina-Florence: D’Anna. With an appendix containing unpublished lectures by Salvemini. – 1984. I miei maggiori. Milan: Garzanti. Contains all the author’s writings on Salvemini. Killinger, Charles. 2002. Gaetano Salvemini: A Biography. Italian and Italian & American Studies. Westport, Conn.: Praeger. Rossi, E. ‘L’uomo Salvemini.’ Appendice a Opere VIII, 960–6. Originally published in Il Mondo, on September 17, 1957, under the title ‘Il non conformista.’ Salvadori, M.L. 1963. Gaetano Salvemini. Turin: Einaudi. Sestan, E., ed. 1977. Atti del Convegno su Gaetano Salvemini, 8–10 novembre 1975. Milan: Il Saggiatore. Sestan, E. et al. Gaetano Salvemini. 1959. Bari: Laterza. Tagliacozzo, E. 1959. Gaetano Salvemini nel cinquantennio liberale. Florence: La Nuova Italia. – 1990. ‘Gaetano Salvemini: Un profilo biografico.’ In G. Salvemini, Socialismo, riformismo, democrazia: Antologia di scritti politici, civili, autobiografici (Rome-Bari: Laterza). Included in the 1959 Salvemini volume published by Laterza; published as a separate pamphlet by the Associazione italiana per la libertà della cultura (Rome, 1963).

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Cattaneo’s Life and Work gaetano salvemini

Early Studies Carlo Cattaneo’s ancestors were from the Val Brembana above Bergamo. Every year they came down from the mountains with their herds to spend the winter in the plains around Milan, where they became tenantfarmers. By the end of the eighteenth century one branch of the family had settled in the Lombard capital, and Carlo Cattaneo was born there on June 15, 1801. He could thus boast of having urban, or one might now say bourgeois, origins. However, his relatives’ experience of farming, coupled with his own observations from the early years he spent in the countryside at Casorate and Pizzabrosa, gave him a keen sense of the rural environment. His interest in such issues would subsequently make him a most perceptive and original thinker in the field of agricultural economics. One of his relatives, Gaetano Cattaneo, was a cultured man, whose achievements included helping found the numismatic museum of Milan during the Napoleonic regime. He numbered Goethe, Vincenzo Monti, and Alessandro Manzoni among his friends. It was doubtless as a result of Gaetano’s connections that Carlo, in his youth, had opportunities to mix with many famous and cultured men of the time during his holidays in Brianza. Yet Cattaneo’s father, a goldsmith, could never have been well off because of his burgeoning family. The economic crisis that followed the breakup of the Napoleonic Empire and continued for several years afterwards, stretched the family’s finances still further. At the end of 1820 the young Cattaneo, ‘unable to pursue his studies, which [were] at a very advanced stage due to the difficulties affecting his family,’ was compelled to give up attending courses at the University of

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Pavia. He began to teach Latin grammar at a state school in Milan. In 1824 he was promoted to teaching humanities, now the equivalent of the final two years at the ginnasio superiore.1 These were years of ‘hardship and degradation’ in a school run in a recently built, unheated basement, where the temperature in winter could fall to as low as twelve degrees below zero Celsius. While earning his living in this way, Cattaneo went on studying for his university law exams by attending Gian Domenico Romagnosi’s private school in Milan. He graduated with a law degree from the University of Pavia in August 1824. But he never practiced, such was his passion for the life of learning. Romagnosi’s teaching had a major impact on Cattaneo’s intellectual life. Many of Cattaneo’s most important ideas were sketched first by Romagnosi. Cattaneo was also a loyal friend to his old teacher, helping him at the end of his life in 1835 and more than once defending his memory with energy and passion. Until the age of thirty-two, Cattaneo appears to have published nothing apart from the translation of two German textbooks for use in Italian schools. In 1832 he began to write for Annali universali di statistica [Universal Annals of Statistics], a review that Romagnosi had founded nine years previously. He continued to contribute articles and statistical and bibliographical notes, often anonymously, until 1836. In 1835 Cattaneo published the Interdizioni israelitiche [Interdictions against the Jews]. In this work he argued that the laws passed in previous centuries to deny the Jews the right to own land, to have access to many liberal professions, to live where they wanted, to build their own places of worship, to wear the same clothes as Christians, and so on and so forth, had had the unintended consequences of increasing the personal property and wealth of the very people the laws were intended to oppress. Cattaneo reasoned that, if the intention was to remove the economic advantage that the Jews enjoyed over the peoples they lived alongside, there could only be one solution: to give them equal standing under the law, without exception. This work reveals the full range of Cattaneo’s vast learning, vigorous originality, and splendid style for the first time. Meanwhile, the family’s economic situation had improved. By the end of 1835 Cattaneo’s health had deteriorated, but he was able to give up his teaching job and draw a modest pension. 1 Roughly the equivalent of a North American upper high school. This and all the subsequent notes, unless otherwise stated, are by the volume co-editors.

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Il Politecnico Cattaneo founded Il Politecnico [The Polytechnic] along with several friends in 1839. He directed and edited the journal for its five years of existence. ‘My spirit lives there,’ he used to say when recalling the enterprise, which undoubtedly represented his greatest achievement. The aim of Il Politecnico was to spread scientific culture and to promote the practical applications that science could offer. ‘Science’ for Cattaneo was not just the product of mechanics, chemistry, and physics, which provide for the most basic needs of life. He believed that the scientific method should also inform and improve those disciplines concerned with the organization of society. In this sense, the study of the inner man could also be scientific, as could the study of literature, provided it was not ‘frivolous.’ The review was run by a man who, in his own words, strove to remain ‘determinedly practical’ and who boasted that he had become ‘somewhat rough-edged as a result of economics, statistics, and worse still.’ ‘Rather than the easy display of literary chatter,’ he preferred – and accordingly Il Politecnico gave priority to – ‘unadorned goods’ such as locomotives, gas-holders, and skew bridges, ‘concrete, unembellished, almost workmanlike research’ into legislative reforms, tariffs, and banks, and ‘the obscure way of scientific application and popular interests.’ Most issues of the review, sometimes as much as three-quarters each, consisted of articles by Cattaneo, both anonymous and signed. He also revised and rewrote the contributions of others, as the need arose. When one looks at this splendid array of intellectual output as a whole, it is difficult to say what is most admirable: the variety of subjects covered, the originality of thought displayed, or the beauty of its form. Cattaneo’s curiosity is bid in all directions: demography, architecture, accounting, public education, geography, currency, banking, geology, Italian and non-Italian literary criticism, archeology, philosophy, civil and political history, history of science, prison reform, customs duties, railroads, hydraulics, linguistics, dialectology, chemistry, anthropology, agriculture. In tackling each subject, his immense learning gives rise to a continual flow of unexpected associations and fertile new theories. His ideas are formulated densely, clearly, elegantly in a mathematical kind of way and authoritatively. However, such riches are too fragmentary in form. The author never paused on any one subject for long. He sowed his ideas randomly as they come to him, inspired by his readings on a wide variety of topics, condensing the substance of many duller, more shoddily written pages

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into extremely effective summaries. But very rarely did he have the patience to bring his thoughts together systematically. In later years he would come to regret this dissipation of his intellect. Preparing a collection of essays for publication, Cattaneo wrote to a friend in 1855 that ‘as a writer, I wasted my time working too much as a journalist on ideas that were old hat or were other people’s; working on my own thing would have been easier. As a result, much of my work has ended up lost in a hodgepodge of others, to the point that it does not even look as if it is my own. I am somewhat ashamed to reappear with such a ragbag before a public that has not so wasted its time’ (letter to Gaetano Strambio, [1855] 1952, Epistolario di Carlo Cattaneo, henceforth EP 2: 329). But in this ‘ragbag,’ even now, more than half a century after the writer’s death, economists, lawyers, agronomists, glottologists, sociologists, educationalists, and historians still find much to admire as new for the time in which it was written, and much that is perfectly in line with the state of science today. The linguist Graziadio Ascoli, one of the greatest minds to have enlightened Italian learning in the second half of the nineteenth century, said he had been ‘obsessed’ with Cattaneo’s ideas right from his earliest studies and observed that ‘today [1901] we all are able to trace the history of every idea throughout any country in Europe, but the intrinsic value of the projects launched by Carlo Cattaneo is in no way diminished by such examinations.’ In 1844, while directing Il Politecnico in the last year of its life, Cattaneo also edited a volume on Lombardy entitled Notizie naturali e civili [Natural and Civil Events]. His introduction to the volume may be considered his best work. It still stands as a model of regional geographical anthropology that is without parallel in Italy. A second volume was supposed to be published in 1847, which would have been of greater interest to economists and historians, but this initiative ultimately foundered as a result of petty local disputes. Political Ideas Prior to 1848 Before 1848 it was illegal for people in Lombardy to concern themselves with public and political affairs. Cattaneo’s ideas on the problems of Italian national life during this period, therefore, cannot be reconstructed from his writings, but must be surmised through indirect allusions. Cattaneo was certainly very hostile to the despotic, centralist regime of Metternich’s Austria. He was equally scornful of the intellectually mediocre nobles into whose hands Austrian law had entrusted the running of many Lombard institutions, thereby excluding the local citizens.2 He 56

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grew more unashamedly anticlerical, the more Church censorship prevented writers from freely expressing their thoughts on the subject of religion. This irritated aversion to clericalism, along with Cattaneo’s clearly rationalist, positivist mindset, also accounts for both the Foscolian3 classicism of his literary criticism and his antipathy toward christianized Romanticism. Despite his opposition to the Austrian regime, Cattaneo believed that for Lombardy to be conquered by the House of Savoy would be no better than for it to be ruled by Austria. The Piedmont of Vittorio Emanuele I, Carlo Felice, and Carlo Alberto was, until 1848 at least, no less despotic than the Austrian Empire, and in fact, it was more dominated by the clergy. Its system of feudal privileges was also more pronounced than that of Lombardy, and its system of public administration much less free and more profoundly bureaucratic. By exchanging Austrian dominion for the scepter of Carlo Alberto, Lombardy would gain nothing in terms of political freedom and lose a great deal in terms of its own best civil [public] institutions: ‘First have your own revolution at home,’ Cattaneo said in the summer of 1847 to a Piedmontese moderate, who was trying to enlist him in propaganda for an anti-Austrian war under the banner of Carlo Alberto, ‘and don’t come with your court and confessionals to try and thwart what we have achieved and return us to the time of turtles’ (letter to Abate Carlo Cameroni, [1852] 1952, EP 2: 194). Independence would be servile and not worth gaining if all that was obtained was Carlo Alberto’s army replacing the Austrian army or a Russian-style independence with no internal liberties. Giuseppe Mazzini’s solution to the problem [of liberation and independence] was for a popular uprising that would abolish the various states or anciens régimes dividing the Italian peninsula at the time and unite the nation’s forces in a war against Austria. Yet, Cattaneo had no faith in such an insurrectionist project. As a federalist friend, Alberto Mario, recalled later: One day in Lugano in 1859 Cattaneo said to me: ‘The conspiracies of carbonarismo 4 actually worsened our standing vis-à-vis Austria. I remember 2 Citizens here carries a more specific meaning, referring to the local middle class and liberal professions. 3 Ugo Foscolo (1778–1822) was a poet and novelist whose fictional The Last Letters of Iacopo Ortis (1796–1802) stirred Italians for generations. 4 Literally it might be rendered as ‘the practice of charcoal burning,’ but in fact it refers to a secret revolutionary movement active in uprisings in southwest Europe in the early nineteenth century, especially in Spain and the Italian peninsula.

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how our Lombard soldiers during the Kingdom of Italy used to look on the Austrians with disdain, wounding them with insolent comments and even treading on their toes. They had defeated them everywhere and on every occasion. The Austrians would look down, put up with the scorn, and suffer the discomfort in silence. They felt worthless, vanquished, and if anyone dared raise his head he risked being challenged, invariably finding himself on the wrong end of a saber cut. But after the Austrians defeated the Italians at Rieti in 1820 and humiliated them at Novara in 1821, they began to be taken more seriously, first of all by our soldiers. And the people, who had taken the lead from the soldiers and shared their contempt and sense of superiority, now became demoralized. If the victories reasserted the prestige of the Austrian army, the determination with which their government pursued conspirators, no matter how many or how illustrious, instilled fear. The days of July and the subsequent uprisings in Emilia and the Marche did not give the population [popolo] much cause for hope […] The population could not see that Italians had either the heart or the means to forcibly break free from the empire; even more troubling, they did not have that perception and awareness of their own rights which constitute the basis for freedom on the eve of a revolution.’ (Mario 1887, 375–6, 447)

As Cattaneo himself explained, before March 1848, ‘a popular uprising did not seem an immediate priority. Lombardy was a small part of an empire larger than France. To incite the Lombards to rebel would be to expose them unarmed to the vengeance of fierce generals, and to abandon our cities to looting and our families to barbaric violence. Our very hope of freedom would be tested. Anyone who loves his homeland should desist at the thought and turn his mind to less uncertain and less discomfiting designs’ ([1849] 1967, Scritti Storici e Geografici, henceforth SSG, 4: 20). Cattaneo’s designs were similar to those of the Balkan federalists and the socialist parties of Austro-Hungary, who toiled in vain against the unshakable blindness of German and Magyar nationalists and the Habsburg bureaucracy, until war eventually broke out in Europe. Cattaneo hoped that the pressure of nationalist aspirations from the peoples of the Habsburg empire would transform it into a federation of equal free states held together by a union with the reigning dynasty. ‘Unless each respective nationality can express itself freely,’ Mario, his loyal correspondent, explained, ‘so many peoples, races, languages, traditions, affections, and interests cannot meet without some form of conflict, major disturbance, or even ultimate breakdown. To each its own state,

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parliament, administration, finances, schools, and army’ (Mario 1887, 446–8). It was vital, above all, that each national grouping should have its own army to defend its liberty against whomever, if necessary. In such a federation, Lombardy-Venetia would certainly have a pre-eminent position, given its advanced degree of civilization compared with the other confederate nationalities. Nothing would prevent it from subsequently withdrawing from the Austrian federation and becoming part of the federation of Italian states, if it so desired. But this should only happen once the Italian states embarked on a path of economic, administrative, and political freedom, and once Lombardy-Venetia was sure that such an alliance would not diminish or demean its state of development. It was, therefore, vital to prepare the way for such a future, Mario continued, by insuring that Lombardy-Venetia sustains a high degree of intellectual progress, enriched by a wealth of assets such as railroads, roads, canals, and industry, purged of unscientific opinions in the areas of agriculture, public economics, religion, and everyday life – all the while skillfully promoting belief in its freedom before the police, and dexterously increasing the correspondence between the sum of its thoughts, ideas, and affections and the thought, idea, and utmost affection for the Italian fatherland. This way Lombardy-Venetia will itself promote imperial federalism, or at least be able to advocate it effectively and speed up its progress. Once this aim has been reached, in whatever way, it should treasure it so that, at the right time, it may split off and ineluctably take up its rightful place in the Italian federation of states. (1887, 446–7)

This way of thinking explains why, before 1848, Cattaneo was not averse to taking part in demonstrations of dynastic loyalty that were, in any case, obligatory for those not wanting to openly incur the wrath of the governors. But still the police did not trust him. In January 1835 the governor of Lombardy Count Hartig had him cautioned by the head of his school for being ‘hot-headed,’ a condition that must have been political if the warning came from no less than the governor himself. The Interdizioni israelitiche, written in 1835, could not be published until early 1837 because of problems with censorship, and even then a chapter was omitted. Cattaneo’s membership in the Istituto lombardo di scienze, lettere ed arti [Lombard Institute for the Advancement of Arts and Sciences], for which he was shortlisted several times, was consistently rejected by the government, until in 1843 members of the institute proposed

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three separate lists of three candidates with Cattaneo’s name on each of them, in order to force the supreme authorities’ hand. He was scheduled for deportation early in 1848. The Events of 1848 The disturbances of 1847 and the early months of 1848 seemed to favor the realization of his program for action. As he explained in the fall of 1848: It was obvious that the imperial finances were in a bad shape, and that the various nationalities had grown in self-awareness, opening the possibility for the breakup of the empire. Little by little the imperial army itself would become powerless and dissolve, as each people would increasingly want to keep its own money and men, and prepare to organize its own defense. Faced with a possible dissolution, and the loss of the abundant revenues expected to come from Lombardy alone, the Austrian minister of finance could be expected to take our side against the arbitrary rulings of the police, and sell us our freedom in dribs and drabs. Indeed, faced with the prospect of financial instability, the Viennese bankers had already and on several occasions asked the Austrian government to come to some kind of agreement with us. We would thus have been heading for freedom through a series of royal grants, as had occurred in England and elsewhere, but with the difference that now they would materialize with a rapidity with which every political principle in our day is put into practice. Once this was in place, all that was needed was to hold the occupying enemies to the hard and thorny path of legality [for the alternative, war and violence, would have instead delivered us to military oppression]. ([1849] 1967, SSG 4: 21, bracketed passage omitted by Salvemini)

When news of the revolt in Vienna reached Milan, on the evening of March 17, 1848, Cattaneo felt the time had come, with the newly acquired freedom of the press, to start publishing his own ideas. ‘Let each people henceforth have its own tongue,’ he wrote in the manifesto of Il Cisalpino [The Cisalpine], the newspaper he was planning to issue the following day, and, accordingly, let them each have its own flag and army. Woe betide the unarmed! Let every nation have its own army, but confine it to the sanctuary of its own homeland […] These nations, all free, all armed, can live side by

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side without harming each other or getting in each other’s way […] Do we not see different tongues peacefully coexisting in the same province or canton in Belgium and Switzerland? Not, to be sure, that such acts of associating together, in whatever way the times demand or predispose, should serve to divide us from those who are most like us. We are confident that time can eventually bring about peaceful and voluntary combinations that will simplify matters and make them conform more to what nature has decreed and prepared. In the meantime, let us enjoy the gifts of the present and leave the future to the future. For now, agreement in council and to arms. The people must be master of their own house [literally, ‘the country must belong to the country]. ([1848] 1965, Scritti Politici, henceforth SP, 2: 410)

He had barely finished preparing the first sheet when, just after dawn, two friends came to tell him that a demonstration had been planned for that afternoon, in which the chief Milan administrative officer [podestà] Gabrio Casati would be taking part. Conflict between the demonstrators and troops was certain to erupt. What was to be done? Cattaneo counseled vigorously against the venture. But the following day, at the appointed time, the unarmed leaderless crowds began to fight heroically against the soldiers, encouraged by the ardor of a few brave young men. Faced with what was by now an irrevocable fact, Cattaneo – the man of thought, the man of empirical studies and of little faith – soon revealed himself to be a man of faith and action. At dawn on March 19, the group of citizens leading the revolt as best as they could, at his suggestion abandoned Palazzo Vidiserti, which was too exposed to enemy attacks, and moved to Palazzo Taverna, a safer house amid gardens and winding roads that were easier to barricade. At the break of the third day, March 20, Cattaneo and three young men – Giulio Terzaghi, Giorgio Clerici, and Enrico Cernuschi – constituted as a council of war officially took charge. Acting on behalf of the council, and against the advice of podestà Casati and the other leading moderates, Cattaneo steadfastly refused the offer of a fifteen-day armistice put forward by Marshal Joseph Graf Radetzky, the Austrian commander in Lombardy. The following day, March 21, he again went against the advice of the same moderates and refused another offer of a three-day armistice. No sooner had this issue been settled than another arose, following a proposal made by one of Carlo Alberto’s agents who had managed to infiltrate the city. The proposal was this: if the Milanese pledged their loyalty to Carlo Alberto, the Piedmontese army would

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immediately enter the fray on their side. The moderates agreed, but Cattaneo firmly refused. Meanwhile, the battle for the city raged, and the next day, March 22, Radetzky was routed and he abandoned Milan. The tensions between moderates and democrats that had barely been suppressed during the Five Days now bitterly exploded. The moderates forming the provisional Lombard government stated in their manifestos and official documents that the people of Lombardy retained their inalienable right to decide their own future once the war was over. At the same time, they went against the democrats by calling on the help of the Savoy army to reinforce the victory over the Austrians. They secretly urged Carlo Alberto to unite Lombardy with Piedmont, even by means of a coup. They placed endless obstacles to prevent the volunteers from being armed, because this was unacceptable to Carlo Alberto and could have strengthened the democrats. Mazzini rushed from London to Milan, protesting that all he wanted was victory over Austria. He, too, wanted to defer the question of what political form the new state should assume until after the war and insisted that the interim government should step up the arming of volunteers and battle operations. But he had no faith in either the moderates or Carlo Alberto, and it was certain that sooner or later the king would pull out of the whole enterprise and the moderates prove not to be up to the task required of them. Mazzini was looking for a republican or democratic uprising, as the king and the interim government were bound to lose credibility. Carlo Alberto, too, said he had come ‘as a brother to help his brethren,’ and officially deferred any question of internal policy until after the war was over. But, worried that a republican revolution might break out behind his back, he dared not commit himself fully against the Austrians. He gave halfhearted support to the uprisings in Venice, where a republic had been declared, and was impatient to secure the support of the Lombard areas. ‘While Radetzky was working to recruit soldiers, he [Carlo Alberto] was working to secure votes.’ When the truce was eventually broken, and the moderates sought a plebiscite for the union of Lombardy with Piedmont, a hail of reciprocal accusations of disloyalty and abuse of power ensued. Ultimately, the victor was Radetzky. He expelled Carlo Alberto from Lombardy, put the Lombards – both moderates and democrats alike – back under the Austrian yoke, and deprived Mazzini of the means to create a republic. Cattaneo emerged as the moderates’ prime target during the months of violent clashes. For his opposition to the forced fusion of Lombardy with Piedmont, they accused him of being an Austrian agent, had slo-

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gans daubed on the walls of Milan saying ‘Death to Cattaneo,’ arrested his friends, and began legal proceedings against him. However, Cattaneo could not count on agreement with Mazzini, either. He did not understand, and detested, Mazzini’s religious mysticism, rejected his unionist plans, and disapproved of his tactics of waiting for Carlo Alberto to fail before launching a democratic revolution and starting a new war against Austria. For Cattaneo, these were extremely painful days of isolation, irritation, and disgust. The agitation of these struggles is vividly documented in his Insurrezione di Milano [The Milanese Uprising] and Archivio triennale delle cose d’Italia [Three-Year Archive of the History of Italy]. The former is a proud, passionate work of polemic against Carlo Alberto, his generals, and the moderates – who had obstructed the strategy of legal conquest that Cattaneo advocated, thwarted the revolution that Mazzini wanted, and showed themselves incapable even of safeguarding their own interests by waging war vigorously and intelligently. The latter, meanwhile, is a veritable treasure trove of documents, magisterially selected, ordered, and framed by Cattaneo with his own introduction and notes. Here both moderates and Mazzinians are put on trial, and both are found wanting. This is why the parties have waged a war of silence against both works, and very few historians dare quote from them, lest they too be struck by some form of silent prohibition. Certainly, any historian trusting Cattaneo alone as his guide to understanding the events of 1848 runs the risk of being misled, in more ways than one, into the kind of bitter polemic that sees every unintelligent move by Carlo Alberto and the moderates as an instance of calculated treachery. But when the history of the Risorgimento finally becomes something more than the hero worship of its victors and is able, once again, to find the generous truth that lies concealed in the angry polemic and ably constructed lies expressed by the calm, mellifluous rhythm of these pages, both the Insurrezione and the Archivio, purged of those judgments that are clouded by excessive emotion, will become the cornerstone of all work purporting to be scholarly on the political aspects of the Milanese revolt and the war against Austria in 1848. Between 1848 and 1860 By August 6, 1848, Milan was once again under the Austrian yoke. Cattaneo, representing the exiled Lombard democrats, went to Paris to plead with the French to intervene in a new war against Austria. He found them deeply uninformed as to Italian affairs: few in favor, many

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indifferent, some downright hostile. While he was there, in September 1848, he wrote L’Insurrection de Milan. He left Paris for Lugano in November 1848, publishing the Italian version of his work in January 1849. This new version was expanded to include notable additions, but some feel that it lacked the raw, closely argued impact of the former. He was invited to be a candidate for the parliament of Turin, then for the Tuscan constituent assembly, and finally for the office of minister of finance in the Republic of Rome – but turned them all down. He did not feel that he had the stamina to put himself in such anxious, stressful positions. He felt he did not even manage his own finances well. He noted that ‘the ability to dispense the odd bit of advice does not make you able to lead.’ He did not know the condition of the Papal States well enough to dare become one of their ministers. Each nation should choose its governors from among its own people and borrow men from other regions. The experience of the Five Days had made him somewhat diffident regarding his own intellectual capabilities, feeling he was too rational to cope with unexpected turns of events. ‘There are many resolutions that on my own I would never propose or even support, yet that I wholeheartedly approve of when I hear them put forward and adopted by others. My modicum of experience and fifty years of age discourage me from hasty reasoning, which is why I think it is good if assemblies are filled with younger people. A bit of warm-bloodedness helps the logical processes more often than people think’ (letter to Francesco Restelli, [1849] 1949, EP 1: 319). In his refuge at Castagnola, half an hour from Lugano, Cattaneo devoted himself to collecting as many memoirs, documents, pamphlets, and newspapers of interest with regard to the 1846–8 period as came to hand. He wanted to bring together and publish all the fragments of this great and painful chapter in the history of Italy before they were lost. ‘From knowledge of the past,’ he wrote, ‘arises an understanding of the future’ ([1850] 1965, SP 2: 471). He began late in 1849 with the collection Documenti della guerra santa [Documents of the Holy War], and continued between 1850 and 1854 with the three volumes of the Archivio triennale delle cose d’Italia. This work, which was meant to go up to the Armistice at Salasco on August 6, 1848, in fact only reached April 8 of that year before funds for its publication ran out. In 1852 Cattaneo accepted an offer to teach philosophy in the cantonal high school of Lugano. This gave him two thousand lire a year, enough for a living. After the experience of 1848 Cattaneo no longer hoped for or even wanted federal reform from Austria. Lombardy-

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Venetia now had at all costs to distance itself completely from the Habsburg Empire: ‘It would be better to receive evil than good from the hand of Austria’ (letter to Anatole Brenier, [1859] 1954, EP 3: 117). And he was no longer so skeptical about revolutionary attempts as he had been prior to the Five Days. He wanted every Italian state to win its own representative regime, as Piedmont by this stage had done. As individual states were gradually reformed, they could join together in a federation providing permanent solidarity in the face of foreign aggression, and await whatever circumstance of international politics or fresh nationalist crisis in Austria would help Lombardy-Venetia free itself from foreign domination and become part of the Italian federation. Each state would yield to the federation that portion of local sovereignty required to ensure that the national union was sound. However, time had to be allowed to do its work in bringing about internal reforms in each state. Initiatives taken spontaneously by the more advanced regions would act as an example and spur to those lagging behind, without the latter paralyzing the progress of those that were more advanced. He also urged his friends to make clear that, while federalist theory was indeed opposed to the hasty fusion of all the Italian states into a single unified Italian state, it was not opposed to immediate national unity, nor to the gradual unification of laws. On the contrary, a federation of free states would be a better way of achieving national unity than to absorb them all into one. Federal agreement was not a principle of isolation and separation. Rather, it was a principle of association, a promise of all fighting for one and one fighting for all. Instead, fusion would not be concord but conquest, the cause of tensions, and ultimately, perhaps, of divorce. But the revolutionary uprisings – through which Mazzini expected to achieve unification and Cattaneo federalism – did not materialize. The miracle of 1848 could not be reproduced. Instead, we had the alliance between Napoleon III and Victor Emmanuel II and the 1859 war against Austria. For Cattaneo this was a war of centralization and conquest, rather than the result of a free agreement of federal union between the states of upper Italy. It was at any rate an anti-Austrian war of liberation, against which he, unlike Mazzini, was careful not to protest. Admittedly, Napoleon III was the man of December 2 and the expedition to Rome, and certainly the intentions of the allied sovereigns were far from clear, and the diffidence of the democrats was justified. However, in the meantime another way had been opened for Italy to exist, and one thing can lead to another:

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He who wants to fight, let him fight. Those who have arms and those who are free can accept or object to the war. But defenseless and imprisoned peoples, whom an ungenerous and base enemy has subjected to infamy, must embrace every opportunity to wage war. If they cannot have war for freedom’s sake, in the meantime let them have war for war’s sake! If someone knows he has two enemies, and both these enemies are on the point of attacking one another, he can launch himself equally with eyes closed at either one of them. What does it matter? In either case he will obtain half his vengeance. Only one question is legitimate: if two have waged war on us, and now the two are enemies, which of them is it better for us to attack? Can you doubt for even one moment? On one side is Austria. This tie has already been severed. Take no heed of your scruples, you may side in all conscience with whom is against Austria […] Do you believe in the ultimate triumph of liberty in Europe? Do you or do you not have this faith? In which case, look to the future, and take no notice of the fleeting mists of the present. (Letter to Italian expatriates in London, [1859] 1954, EP 3: 136)

Federalism In the crisis of adjustment that Lombardy and the rest of Italy went through following the Villafranca Armistice,5 the tensions between Cattaneo and the moderates experienced in 1848 broke out in bitter fashion. ‘It is impossible for me to hold a royal appointment, or work anywhere with such people,’ Cattaneo replied to a friend who invited him to work with the new regime (letter to Cristoforo Negri, [1859] 1954, EP 3: 164). The moderates were equally mean-spirited:6 they denied him his arrears as a member of the Istituto lombardo which Radetzky had seized; they made Cavour refuse his appointment as secretary of the institute, and even tried to deny him his status as an Italian citizen, on the grounds that he had received honorary citizenship from Switzerland; 5 The armistice takes the name of the town, Villafranca di Verona, where in 1859 France and Austria concluded a preliminary peace after the Battle of Solferino. Austria ceded Lombardy, which was added to the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont under the House of Savoy. Tuscany, Parma, and Modena, where revolutions had broken out, were to be restored to their rulers. The Savoy ruler, who was not represented at the negotiations, repudiated some of the clauses and in 1860 annexed the central Italian states to the nascent Kingdom of Italy. 6 The expression Cattaneo used was more colorful than the translation suggests: ricambiavano a misura di carbone.

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they challenged his entitlement to draw a teacher’s pension, and attacked him in the newspapers as a friend of Austria and enemy of Piedmont and Italy. The controversy intensified with the political elections in March 1860, after it was proposed that Cattaneo should stand as candidate. Initially, he refused to let his candidacy stand, but the invectives of his enemies and the insistence of his friends gradually persuaded him to relent. Three days before the vote he agreed, tendering his candidature via telegram, but offering no program. He was elected in three constituencies. He could not leave his teaching post in Lugano for financial reasons, and the idea of swearing allegiance to the monarchy was anathema to him. What is more, while he possessed political passion to the utmost degree, in that he was deeply concerned with questions of public interest, he absolutely lacked parliamentary passion – that is, the need to deal with problems only insofar as these could serve the political fortunes of one group or individual – and had no taste whatsoever for the skirmishing he was bound to face in the parliamentary assembly: ‘With regard to the parliament, I cannot even begin to flatter myself that, on my own and with no experience, I am strong enough to face an assembly where there are hundreds of men, who, if not loyally persuaded, are at least irremovably linked by a line of thought that happens to be contrary to my own’ (letter to Giuseppe Musio, [1860] 1954, EP 3: 351). ‘I’ll keep my own parliament better at home’ (letter to Giuseppe Ferrari, [1860] 1954, EP 3: 329). He preferred to serve the country by dealing in writing with issues as and when they came up and by seeking to shape public opinion regarding them. This is why, in January 1860, he resumed publication of Il Politecnico, aiming as before: ‘to convey in understandable forms the new directions in scientific thought, and to extend practical enlightenment to those involved in promoting the nation’s culture and prosperity’ ([1860] 1960, Scritti Filosofici, henceforth SF, 1: 373). ‘To think about science and art is not to divert minds from the supreme thought of the nation’s salvation or honor. Legislation, warfare, and navigation are all science. All the professions that provide for our people and increase our nerve for war are being transformed in the light of physics and chemistry. Agriculture, the ancient mother of our nation, is about to be transformed into a scientific calculation. Knowledge is power’ ([1859] 1960, SF 1: 370–1). ‘Here we must not confine ourselves indefinitely to a single subject or waste time in writing this or that work in great depth. For what little our strength is worth, we shall seek to shake up all the science, to arouse

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interest, and to turn our studies in all directions so as to awaken and engage the studies of others, to awaken and engage the thoughts, hopes, desires, and boldness of the nation’ ([1862] 1965, SP 4: 235). Two main ideas sustained this new publication venture: administrative federalism and the nation in arms. Federalism is the political system adopted by people wanting to safeguard their own political independence against foreign interference while maintaining equal rights and distinctive local features in their reciprocal relations. Administrative centralization in a large state cannot function without forming a massive bureaucracy, which will necessarily end up setting itself up as the dominant class. A country that heedlessly entrusts itself to centralized administration, in the belief that this is a precondition to national unity, is deluded into thinking it is free, if it has an elected parliament alongside that bureaucracy. Deputies can never hope to exert effective control over the day-to-day workings of a large bureaucracy, nor can the members of a central parliament have the expertise required to solve problems of administration, economic relations, agrarian contracts, family law, etc. which differ so considerably from region to region. The difficulties are at their most acute in a country as varied as Italy. What can a man from Piedmont or Lombardy understand of what is required to solve the special problems of Sardinia or Sicily? Where will a single parliament find time to discuss the whole mass of affairs that administrative and legislative centralization have taken away from local government to channel toward the capital, the seat of all wisdom and authority? In practical terms, the questions will be decided not by the parliament but by the bureaucracy. The country will become slave to the government officialdom and those groups of politicians who succeed in gaining control of central government with the blessing of the bureaucracy. Conversely, a Swiss- or American-style federal government would entrust to central offices only those political functions that are of national interest, thus reducing the capital’s bureaucracy to a minimum and enabling the central parliament to retain effective control over it. In such a system of government, local administrations, which are closer to the interested parties, retain management of local life, with the result that community issues would be determined by the elected local bodies themselves. This way even those issues that need to be delegated to national administrative officers are kept under the immediate surveillance of the interested parties. By minimizing the rise of unaccountable, and hence irresponsible, bureaucracy throughout the country, it be-

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comes all the more possible to reconcile the freedom of individual and local administrations with the national requirement to guarantee the freedom of all against foreign abuses of power. This would also be the way to avoid indecorous and dangerous arguments over income and expenditure between the various parts of the nation, for majorities in assemblies are concerned only with themselves. In a single national assembly with its tendency to invade the jurisdiction of local affairs, the interests of some would be sacrificed to those of others in the fierce competition that all would engage in regarding state funding. Where, instead, the functions of central government are kept to a minimum, there is apt to be no abuse of power, and no great discords are likely to arise. ‘My solution,’ Cattaneo wrote to Francesco Crispi7 on July 18, 1860, ‘is a United States, or, if you prefer, a United Kingdom, a hydra with many heads which in reality is just one beast. Sicilians could do Italy a great service by giving the correct meaning to the term “annexation,” which is not the same as “absorption.” A common congress for common matters, but each brother should be in charge in his own home. Where each brother has his own house, the sisters-in-law never quarrel. You must act quickly, before you fall prey to a general parliament that thinks it is doing Sicily a favor by paying attention to its affairs in three or four sessions a year. Just look at Sardinia, which after twelve years of parliament is worse off than Sicily.’ ([1860] 1954, EP 3: 373) Cattaneo also had little time for the idea of decentralized administration, that is, of devolving central government functions to peripheral government offices, because everything would reduce to putting public administration into the hands of a bureaucracy that was appointed and paid for by the capital, save for the question of whether or not such a bureaucracy should run the country from the capital or be farmed out to the provinces as minor dictatorships. The need to prevent the formation of a bureaucratic caste could be met by creating the largest possible number of legislative autonomies and locally elected officials, and by reserving to the national parliament only those affairs that were truly of common interest. 7 A lawyer from Sicily and a supporter of Garibaldi, Crispi (1819–1901) was a Leftist leader in the revolutionary movement for the liberation of Italy. A volcanic revolutionary by temperament, he eventually retreated from republicanism with the much-quoted slogan ‘the monarchy unites us, the republic would divide us.’ He was prime minister of the Kingdom of Italy during 1887–91 and 1893–96.

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The Nation in Arms The idea of the nation in arms forms a single system of thought with the idea of federalism. A permanent French- or Piedmontese-style army, such as there was prior to 1870, only conscripted a small percentage of the arms-bearing population, and subjected such conscripts to lengthy periods of national service, below a hierarchy of career soldiers who represented a closed caste and tended to think of themselves as superior, and indeed opposed, to the remainder of the nation’s civil corps. Such an arrangement, Cattaneo observed, was excellent for imposing the will of the ruling class on a herd of unarmed subjects, but inadequate as an instrument of national defense, because in a war it would leave enormous reserves of human forces unused, and during peacetime consume financial resources, paying for the officers’ salaries and the soldiers’ upkeep that would be so precious in a time of war. Cattaneo contrasted the idea of a standing army with that of the nation in arms, such as was found in Switzerland. All citizens were obliged to do military service, but they were not taken away from their homes or their ordinary professions, not holed up for months on end in barracks to practice routine drills that were useless for war, or merely to laze about idly. Instead, they were educated in military service right from their earliest years in school, required to practice the use of arms in endless festive drills, and summoned at regular intervals to take part in maneuvers lasting several days at a time. Officers too, apart from a small permanent core required to keep the special services efficient and hone their skills, were to learn the appropriate military disciplines for each specialization while at school or at university, and live off their civil professions, save for taking part in drills on the same conditions as the massed ranks. In other words, they were to have the rank of officers but not draw a regular military salary. ‘Warriors all, soldiers none’ ([1850] 1957, SSG 2: 178). ‘Above all, it is necessary to prepare the body of the nation for a form of defense which, by arming the majority freely, and as few as possible in return for a salary, will waste as little in times of peace as it gains in the terrible moments of war. This is an economic issue, which becomes a military issue, then one of public law and morality. Because all the interests, thoughts, and affections of every individual citizen, of every individual state, and of the entire nation, are transformed into flexibility, energy, and power at the moment of conflict’ ([1860] 1960, SF 1: 384). Put in these terms, the problem of military organization became a

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problem of educational organization and internal liberties, and above all the latter, in the sense that only a people that feels it is its own master and not subject to a satrapy of governors could be armed without fear of it then turning against those who armed them; only a people for whom foreign policy is not an impenetrable mystery and who see that war is clearly the only way to achieve its salvation in the face of unjust aggression, only such a people can be ready to offer the kind of awareness, concord, and impetus without which there can be no spirit of resistance or readiness to accept sacrifice. The problem of internal liberties is also a problem of administrative liberties, that is, of federalism. A bureaucratic regime cannot perpetuate itself if it does not have a military class alongside the government bureaucracy. The group that manages to take charge of central government, while day in, day out oppressing and exploiting the country with the silent machinery of bureaucracy, requires an armed organization that is external to the country, in order to tame outbreaks of illegal discontent by force. A centralized administration requires a standing army. A federal system of government and a nation in arms offer answers to the same question of national liberty, from a political and military perspective. ‘A nation that subjects four hundred thousand gladiators [i.e., a standing army] to the judgment of one or a few will always be a nation that is subject to the will of others. And even the very expressions of liberty will become opportunities for corruption. France – whether you call it a republic or a kingdom is of little importance – is made up of eighty-six monarchies [i.e., prefectures] with just one king in Paris. It matters little if he is called Louis Philippe or Cavaignac, if he reigns for four years or twenty, if his reign ends because a decree law has expired or because the people have tired of him. He is still the man with a telegraph and four hundred thousand armed slaves [i.e., standing army].’ ([1850] 1957, SSG 2: 178) Defeat Garibaldi’s venture in southern Italy looked briefly as though it might allow federalist ideas to triumph. And in September 1860, when Garibaldi, fresh from his triumph over the Bourbon monarchy, invited Cattaneo to Naples to assist him with his counsel, Cattaneo felt unable to refuse, and left his retreat in Castagnola. In Naples, toward the end of September and beginning of October, Cattaneo took up the cause of a group of

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Garibaldi’s followers, who wanted special parliaments to be elected for Sicily and the Naples region, so that they could retain local autonomy and negotiate an agreement of national union with the government in Turin. Supporters of both Mazzini and Cavour, meanwhile, wanted northern Italy to annex the south immediately and unconditionally. After a long and agonizing delay, Garibaldi finally gave in to the centralists. In northern Italy, to which Cattaneo’s mind inevitably turned when discussing problems of this kind, a large and prosperous manufacturing, commercial, agrarian, and intellectual bourgeoisie felt it was able to organize and lead the rest of the population and to hold the reins of government at the level of local institutions; hence, they vigorously resisted the attempt by the Piedmontese public administration following the Villafranca Armistice to extend its laws and administrative practices to the territories that it had recently annexed. But in the south, the small bourgeois and petit bourgeois groups, consisting mostly of intellectuals, who made up the backbone of the liberal and anti-Bourbon national party, were not strong enough to hold the country on their own in the face of peasants’ revolts. They could not hope to maintain their political power without the support of some external military force. Moreover, some of the old Bourbon officials, whose loyalty was uncertain, also needed to be replaced and, in some instances, absorbed and controlled by a new governing elite possessing the requisite administrative knowhow. Southern Italy was not in a position to supply the personnel for such a purpose, even though it was swarming with an infinite number of petitioners for employment of any kind. Centralized administration was thus the only way in which southern liberals could conceive of national unity, and Hegel’s theory of the state, which several of the most authoritative southern patriots professed, lent itself admirably to idealizing the contingent necessity as an immanent necessity. Mazzini’s tenacious propaganda against regional legislative autonomy also discredited federalist ideas among democrats. The need to bring together all the available forces under one head as soon as possible and as best they could, so as to bring independence and political union to completion, further favored the centralist movement. As for the idea of the nation in arms, if it had been extended to southern Italy in 1860, it would have enlarged the ranks of brigandage. And with regard to the north, did a high level of civility and a firm sentiment of national solidarity, without which the Swiss-style citizen soldiers that Cattaneo was advocating for Italy as a whole would be impossible, really exist among all classes? The railroad network had barely

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begun to be mapped out; the rural masses, not as yet linked into a system of new ideas by teachers, medical officers, or the newspapers, were everywhere under the exclusive sway of the clergy and wholly unaware of any idea or interest that was not local. Would putting guns into the hands of people who were so unprepared and under such leadership establish a new order, or would it merely serve to restore old ways? These conditions explain why Garibaldi, with his perfunctory yet consummate sensitivity to the realities of the moment, recognized the need to avoid what would have been a desperate struggle for the federalists and immediately left the way wide open for the centralists. The Piedmontese bureaucracy, whose ranks had been swelled with the accession of the old regimes’ officials, did the rest. Every hope that Cattaneo entertained of seeing his ideas come to fruition thus faded. He was now close to sixty years of age. He had heart trouble and felt tired and discouraged. ‘This is life without pleasure and without hope. Only constant work allays my dark thoughts and maintains my naturally jovial disposition, but inside I am dead’ (letter to Agostino Bertani, [1861] 1894, Scritti Politici ed Epistolario, henceforth cited as SPE, 2: 346). He was invited to accept new candidatures for Milan, Genoa, and Gallipoli in January and June, 1861, but he declined them all. ‘You don’t embark on new careers and start giving first signs of ambition at my age. From now on I think I have acquired the right to do my duty in my own way as I see fit, with as little time lost and as little extra burden as possible’ (letter to friends in Milan, [1861] 1954, EP 3: 447). He felt unable to submit to the discipline of a parliamentary group or party. ‘I could neither impose my own ideas, nor submit to those of others. I place freedom above all things and independence as a precondition to freedom, fully persuaded that the natural result of such independence and freedom will be concord, and therefore true moral unity […] Whoever wants to can do more, less, or the same. I cannot compel anyone. I am not a man of action’ (letter to Agostino Bertani, [1861] 1954, EP 3: 493). ‘In all my life I have never subscribed to any political society, whether open or clandestine, for the simple reason that I could never entirely share its ideas, and I did not want to compromise or pretend’ (letter to Antonio Martinati, [1864] 1956, EP 4: 194). He worked passionately on [the new] Il Politecnico: ‘It is the only way I can put my studies to use and publish a word of my policy’ (letter to Agostino Bertani, [1862] 1956, EP 4: 5). But the moderates boycotted him, removing some two hundred subscribers from the [public] librar-

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ies and private libraries in Milan (letter to Gabriele Rosa, [1861] 1954, EP 3: 467). He also fell out with his publisher Daelli, who was disorganized and unscrupulous. Toward the end of 1863 Cattaneo was forced to give up his editorship of the journal. It was the end of a modest but vital income: ‘I have become poor, and I no longer feel I can do what I want’ (letter to Agostino Bertani, [1864] 1956, EP 4: 221). His Final Years His friends were dying, and worse still, his friendships were dying amid political disagreements (letter to Enrico Rosmini, [1864] 1956, EP 4: 222–4). He felt as though he had wasted his life and intelligence in vain effort: ‘I fear it is true, after wasting [my time] on other people’s interests and thoughts, I wake up to find I have done nothing for myself. I shall leave no mark on the world of learning’ (letter to Ferdinando Trivulzi, [1864] 1956, EP 4: 227). ‘I do not even have anything I can call a real work. I have fragments, mostly for immediate public consumption and not in the elaboration of a particular idea. They merely go to prove that I, too, could have done better, if only I had put myself first’ (letter to Giovanni de Castro, [1866] 1956, EP 4: 435). As he said to Jessie White Mario one evening in 1867: ‘I shall become selfish; I shall devote myself to philosophy, summarize my whole life’s learning, and leave some mark in the arena of time’ (cited in Mario and White Mario 1884, 153). His impassioned pleading for the Gotthard railroad, which was economically and politically preferable to any other alpine railroad route both for Italy and Switzerland, aroused controversy and provoked gossip from those who favored other projects. An argument he had on this subject with the president of Canton Ticino led him to resign from his position as schoolteacher in October 1865, a stance he maintained despite numerous attempts to persuade him to reconsider, but which led him into financial difficulties. However, ‘such was the dignity that accompanied every act of his life that he managed to conceal his domestic difficulties from even his closest friends, and it was only the indiscreet hand of death that ultimately revealed the unmerited and noble poverty he had so ably hidden’ (Macchi 1870, 135). He was offered another candidacy in a by-election in the Como constituency in February 1867. He again refused: ‘Inexperienced in parliamentary skirmishing, I would not know how to avoid the compromises and expediencies that the politicking of friends would impose on me at every moment. It would be very impractical for me to lead in front as to

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be at the tail end as a follower’ (letter to Giuseppe Brambilla, [1867] 1956, EP 4: 451). But the following March, once the chamber had been dissolved, he allowed himself to ‘play dead,’ that is, he did not oppose his name being put forward in the first Milanese constituency. On March 17 he was elected with 629 votes against 516 (there was still no universal suffrage at this point), and at the end of the month he left for Florence, then the capital of Italy. It was like purgatory to him. He was not confident of being able to make a useful contribution ‘amid the ties of party loyalty, the ambushes of enemies, the cunning of the chairmen, and all the other obstacles that parliamentary proceedings place in the way of the truth.’ He preferred ‘always to deal with questions of public interest at home, after calm and independent reflection’ (letter to Gilberto Porro Lambertenghi, [1867] 1956, EP 4: 459). 199). He stayed in Florence for three weeks, without once setting foot in the Chamber [of Deputies]: ‘All these speeches upset me. I am too old, they should let me come back home. I have no interest whatsoever in what is going on here’ (letter to his wife, Anna Pyne Woodcock, [1867] 1956, EP 4: 463). ‘They are accustomed to see me as a curious kind of animal, completely different from them, for when I look quietly at them they do not know how to respond and look comically confused’ (ibid., 464). ‘Florence is beautiful, more beautiful than it first appeared to me; but it is like living in the sky, as the swallows do, and swallows like to return to where they came from’ (ibid., 468). He could barely believe it when he got back on the train and returned to the ‘cats, kittens and rats’ of Castagnola (ibid., 468). Unfortunately, he was not left in peace even here in his ‘den.’ ‘One day it’s the parliament, another it’s the joint chiefs of staff of freemasonry despite the fact that I never belonged to it, another it’s representing one city in the congress for peace, the next day another; another day it’s the universal exhibition, or a statistics conference, the geographical society, the opening of the Galleria [Vittorio Emanuele] in Milan, the Romagnosi monument, and so on. Oh my dear friend, with this shred of life I have left, at least let me do my own thing, wash my own clothes at home and at little cost’ (letter to Gaetano Strambio, [1867] 1956, EP 4: 503). He went back to Florence for the Mentana crisis in the autumn of 1867, again for just a handful of days, to advise and take advice from friends, refusing once more to take part in public meetings, staying away from the Chamber of Deputies. He set out his thoughts on the ideas being presented to voters in the Gazzetta di Milano [The Milan Gazette]. Meanwhile, his health was deteriorating, and 1868 was a year of con-

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tinuous crises and relapses. His condition became critical at the end of January 1869, and after a few tortuous days of paroxysms, fevers, and returns to lucidity, he died in the night between February 5 and 6. Summer 1921

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1 International Affairs

The Far East Despite being keenly concerned with our own destinies, we cannot close our eyes to the great innovations that are transforming the face of the earth around us, ushering in an era for humanity that is new in every respect. The peoples who think small also become weakened in their actions. Some six hundred million human beings, we might say the majority of mankind, belong to the two Indian peninsulas, the ancient civilizations of the Chinese empire, and the islands of Japan. These peoples have flourished since times when Europe was still largely savage, but the institutions that gave them their precocious culture also gripped them so tightly that they never experienced those unquenchable urges for liberty that have continuously renewed civil life in Europe. They lead a way of life imposed on them by the authority of the past, where everything is rigidly defined, where the reasoning of their forefathers takes precedence over their own, even to the point of nullifying their will. These peoples show what Europe would have been like if reaction had ever managed to shackle the continent’s genius for progress and liberty. Eastern Asia, compared with Europe, is like the sterile and inane unity of Byzantium set against the freedom and creativity of Greece, a fighting, thinking nation that was invincible to the barbarians even during its ill-conceived dissensions and that was open to every inspiration of the mind. But our civilization has expanded so dominantly and so imperiously that conflict between the two systems of West and East is unavoidable and fatal. The entire way of thought and life there is in need of renewal, whether by force of trade or by might, or both. ([1860] 1957, SSG 3: 62) 79

Civilization and Democracy

The New World of the Pacific Ocean Inspired more by its natural genius than by the fleeting splendor of gold hidden in its desert sands, the American republic founded a new state, a new center for its manifold and free vitality, on the shores of the Pacific Ocean in California. To its north a scientific expedition came from the eastern lakes of Canada, crossed the greatest expanse of the continent, and mapped out the settlements of a new British colony. Also on the shores of that great ocean a new British empire now embraces the whole coastline of Australia, a sweep almost as broad as that of all Europe. A new England, larger than the old one, has been forming for some years now in the two islands of New Zealand. New attempts at French colonies have been springing up here and there in the scattered lands of Polynesia. A new Russian Empire says it, too, wants to extend along the banks of the Amur to the Pacific. The United States government has reopened the great refined kingdom of Japan to the community of nations, after it had been sealed for centuries as a result of European excesses countered by Asian envy, and has brought with it the most recent findings of civilization as a pledge of its friendship to that people. Meanwhile, the ancient Chinese nation, assailed in its vast sanctuary from over land and sea, and suffering from great rebellions among its innumerable masses, faces the alternative of either succumbing to a new conquest or fortifying itself with ideas from Europe, and boldly taking its part in the current of free trade and new science. But the people of this industrious and sober race, the most numerous on the earth, have also for some years now been expanding silently along the shores and islands of the Pacific, released from the many bonds that tie them to their native soil, able by dint of intelligence and learning to penetrate every secret of our arts and sciences, and wellsuited by temperament to hard work even in those climes where Europeans cannot make the land fertile, save through the hand of others. So, in the course of but a few years, a new civilized world has assembled around this vastest of oceans, sailed for the first time more than three centuries ago by the ship of Magellan. Following the example of the freest people in the world, and under the influence of shipping, which has always been an instrument of liberty, a new people will be formed from the felicitous coexistence of so many races. Goodness knows what new ideas will emerge from that midst and from the clash of so many different elements, as was the case in ancient Greece and Italy […]

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Full of pride from their new ideas, and busy dividing up the easy conquest of Asia between them, Europeans have all too quickly forgotten the many centuries in which they, too, were oppressed by authority: when they, too, were weak as states because weak in thought and when they stumbled before the Arabs, Mongols, and Turks. However, they cannot be sure that the minds and wills of the Asian peoples shall not return to being as robust and expansionist as they were in previous ages, once contact with new ideas has demolished their dormant traditions. There is not one European creed that lacks the confidence in its own ability to triumph over the ancient religions of Asia. But before this immense enterprise is undertaken – which would immerse them in centuries of bloodshed if the various rivalries do not render it impracticable – experimental science, which is perforce but one, and which does not waste time with disputes, may penetrate everywhere with its benefits. It would reawaken those peoples to the same kind of intellectual and moral uprising that took place among us and extend the mantle of tolerance and philosophical brotherhood over religious discord. Therefore, where Europe thirsts for conquest and plunder, we see preparations being made for an ultimate undertaking of liberty and humanity. Where others see only idols to be shattered and idolatries blown away, we, mindful that Plato and Aristotle were followers of idolatry, see future companions and successors in the work of reason, which should renew its fertile course in the regions where it began. ([1860] 1960, SF 1: 375–8) The British Empire The Colonial Dominions In whatever part of the globe one turns one’s eye to, English ships, fortresses, trading centers, and colonies can be seen. From its secluded isles this nation was able to unfurl its sails over all the world’s seas. In the great contests in European politics, it was able to seize ports, force passage through straits, and fatally wound those states whose capital cities lay on the sea. In cruising along currents of water and wind, it could ambush enemy vessels, prevent them from weaving themselves into fleets, and train for those great developments that, in the space of a day, could give or take control of the ocean and world trade. From Heligoland England watches over the coasts of Denmark and Germany; from the Channel Islands it eyes the shores of France; from

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the Rock of Gibraltar it keeps the gateway to the Mediterranean; and from Malta it divides the sea into two separate enclosures. Its dominion extends from the cape in one hemisphere to that in the other. It dominates Newfoundland, the shores of the Arctic Ocean. It holds Acadia, the vast expanses of Canada, the Bermudas, many of the Antilles. From the shores of Mosquito and Honduras its reach extends along the narrow strip of land dividing the two oceans; down the rivers of British Guiana it can reach to the unknown plains of the South American interior; from the Falkland Islands it overlooks the Strait of Magellan and the new fishing reserves of the southern hemisphere. If its Mediterranean fortresses hold Africa from the north, its stations in Guinea, Fernando Po, Ascension Island, St Helena, and Cape Colony, the latter of which is as vast as the mother country itself, the archipelago of Mauritius and Socotora Island all enclose it from the other directions. This formidable chain continues along the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, into Aden and Bushehr via the old universal trade routes. ([1842] 1957, SSG 1: 257–8) The British Aristocracy What is known as the English aristocracy is not a privilege of birth, as in Venice, Poland, or Hungary, but a league of men who are leaders, not merely as a result of ancient wealth and illustrious lineage, but of successful industry, military achievements, or political genius. Young nobles, who become needy as a result of unequal inheritances, and are unable to bear the thought of a life of obscurity, thus embark on strenuous careers, both within the United Kingdom and elsewhere. They spend the flower of their youth in the armies, navies, courts, priesthood, colonies, legations, travel, or universities. In time, and with the encouragement of ambition and the restraint of inexorable publicity, they bring their wealth of experience into the parliament, which arbitrates every war and peace, finances the continent’s powers in the field, and with its gold and iron moves and envelopes every nation of the globe that does not have sufficient art to place merit and intelligence at the head of its affairs and that, consequently, in war falls inevitably into dependence, whether salaried as friends or despoiled as enemies. So while wealth, nobility, glory, experience, and intelligence are bound tightly around the eloquent men who govern the parliament, the masses see their hoped-for leaders at every moment swept up into this whirlwind

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and are left without counsel, force, or wealth, unable to enjoy their electoral rights and theatrical liberty. The peers dominate farmers because they have lordship of land, over which they are increasingly extending the bonds of primogeniture. They dominate industry, for it is they who distribute the law’s favors and are in charge of the mines, the built-up areas, and large sums of capital. They dominate the army and navy, by buying up ranks with generous wages and pensions. They dominate the poorer classes, by occupying leading positions in the endless charities, and deciding on the price of corn, which they reduce and increase according to the needs of the moment. They dominate the majority’s conscience, by determining the opinions of the clergy with their patronage of sumptuous prebends, their university congregations, and their episcopal authority. They even dominate their opponents, by virtue of the power and glory that their counsel and blood brought to the nation, for however inflamed public opinion may be, the pride that all citizens reserve to their common nationality remains undiminished […] The unequal distribution of wealth unintentionally strengthens the power of the nation, because it drives the restless and eager masses to distant colonies, while from the midst of ruling families the same principle serves to press into service new, bold, and capable leaders, while the immense national riches and power ensure that they have ready capital and undisturbed safety. So it is that this British race, amid the indifference of the prosperous nations and the impotence of the lowly nations, is driven by the force of fate to take the largest share of the earth’s inheritance. Year after year it expands its possessions, multiplies its cities, exalts commercial activities with new successes, and derives from everywhere new resources and new treasures. ([1842] 1957, SSG 1: 269–72) English Rule in India A few thousand Englishmen, continually renewed, rule with an almost invisible hand over a hundred and fifty million men. One man is judge over a million. If one day this mysterious hand were to shrink or wither, would those people fall back under the ancient influences that enslaved them for so many generations? Or would that sense of free will, which we believe to be innate in all human nature, come forth from deep within their souls?

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Now, all judgment on the merit of British rule in India comes down to this: in what state would it leave the Indian people? Would it return them to the same hands that abandoned them to England in the first place? Would it return them to the mercy of the ancient castes? To a Moghul or Afghan family? Some seafaring power? To a federation of Marathi or a horde of Pindari thieves? Is there anyone in Europe who can swear that the ancient state on the Island of Ceylon will rise again? Only a few years have passed since, in 1800, the English ambassador saw the nobles of that unhappy land lying prostrate at the foot of the throne, kissing the dust, and an old minister with a white beard bearing the king’s commands, crawling along a wall on all fours like a dog. Or, since, in 1814, when British arms brought down that monstrous power, which had the wife of a rebel minister and mother of five children condemned to watch them being beheaded before her and to pound their severed heads herself in a mortar. If pantheism, the caste system, and the slavery of harem and community should, under British rule, give way to free coexistence (convivenza), free private property, and experimental science; if so many millions of minds should finally be joined to the noble confederation of human dignity and creativity, who could begrudge England some of the earnings gained by cadet members of its ruling class in the course of such beneficial transformation? ([1845] 1957, SSG 2: 76–7) Russia and England in India Which power will succeed England in ruling over India? […] Writers attempt to resolve this issue by looking at the map to see which European nation is closest physically to India. But the nation that rules over India in the meantime, England, is also geographically the most remote from it. This is not, therefore, a question to be resolved by looking at a map, with the help of a pair of compasses. Before England came along it was France that looked certain to control India; before France it was Holland, and before Holland it was Portugal. Thus did blind fortune go seeking her favorites from shore to shore, further and further away from Asia. One day, perhaps, she will seek them from beyond the Atlantic. Rule of India will follow rule of the waves. All writers repeat that the two European giants, the British and the Russians, are coming closer and closer and must one day collide on the Asian plateau […] The great Muslim nations are no easy matter for conquest. The

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English are toiling in Afghanistan and Arabia, just as the French are in Algeria and the Russians in Circassia and Kirghizia. The states where Islam is the faith of the people are very different from those where Islam lords it over Christian or Brahmanic populations indifferent to, or possibly eager for, change. Passage through those regions of warfaring peoples, such as Turkey, Persia, Afghanistan, and Bokhara, who are so scornful of all that is foreign, may prove easy to gain, but it will not be so easy to maintain open and secure. No one could counsel a Russian army to plunge further into the south, leaving behind it that hodgepodge of inhospitable peoples led by unstable governments, volatile in their alliances, necessarily opposed to those who are victorious, unable perhaps to sustain an ordered battle, but always revived when it comes to dispelling a conquest. The hard task is not so much for an agile army to stage a quick and surprise invasion of India, as to establish a stable army base on its barbarian and mountainous borders, to maintain a wide and free access to it there year after year, to replace armies exhausted by the weather, and to support lengthy wars of attrition with money and weapons – which would make it akin to the battle of the Scipios in Spain. It is one thing to upset the rule of the English in India, quite another to replace it. ([1845] 1957, SSG 2: 73–6) The Hardness of the British Race The greatest wrong to weigh on the British race in both hemispheres [North America and Europe] is precisely that pride and hardness with which, in their dealings with other peoples, they hold tenaciously to even the most frivolous of their habits and opinions, as if such trifles were a guarantee of reason and morality. But this does at least place some limit on their power, thank God. For if they were to add the art of compromise and the charm of geniality to the power they possess, the British race would soon end up ruling the whole world. ([1842] 1957, SSG 1: 283–4) Great Britain and the United States of America It matters little whether the British race is organized under one or more governments or that one part is referred to as the United Kingdom, the other the United States. The mixture and temper of the Anglo-American stock is the same, as are their language, their religious traditions, their expansive force, their

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talent for great associations, their disregard for place, the greatness and perseverance of their thought, their respect for merit, the creativity of their inventions, and their ability to apply and expand them. If every offshoot of this octopus had independence of movement and government, it would be even better equipped to promote and conduct every feature of its immense fortunes in all parts of the world. What use would it be for the other nations, if the different members of this huge body came into temporary conflict? We have already reached the stage where the best hope for an enemy of the European British would be an alliance with the American British. Yet no one asks what force could resist these people, if the whim of events and the power of interests momentarily brought them together to create some kind of pan-Hellenas or union of all Anglo-Americans. Certainly, home rule in Canada and Ireland, national bankruptcy, and the dismantling of the peerage – all events that have long been sought, and often predicted, by England’s enemies, and the many who hoped to see it returned to a nation of fishermen overnight – would not result in its death. They would have no effect other than to cause the republican principle to prevail and to rapidly assimilate the mother country to the colonies. How can the rest of the human race, with its discordant interests and bizarre centralizations, ever stand against the powerful simplicity of the American way of associating wherein the interests of the parts and of the whole coincide with one another? ([1842] 1957, SSG 1: 273) The United States of America The least suitable epithet that one can give to the inhabitants of America is that of being ‘new.’ Their fields and their roofs, their ports and their steamers, their 300-mile-plus canals are all new. The people themselves are not. They are from old European stock; indeed, very often they were Europe’s rejects and waste. Some had escaped from justice, while some were in fact deported by justice. They seek to renew and purify themselves, and succeed in so doing more swiftly and successfully than elsewhere, albeit not without effort. Still, languages, good, and dismal, books, civil and criminal laws, religious sects, factions, customs, prejudices, family bonds (and often feuds), loves, all tended to follow them from Europe to America, as they were neither thrown overboard, nor washed away in the waters of the Atlantic during the three weeks’ sailing. Let us consider the facts. What was the first sequence of events to take

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place in the Anglo-American colonies two centuries ago? The martial law of Thomas Dale and the civil war in Maryland, New York, and Virginia. Members of various sects came to New England to finish the battles that they began in Old England, pursuing each other from colony to colony. In their conversations […] prison, exile, and the gallows were the arguments of persuasion. What more? Did the settlers in 1677 not burn Jamestown, the first city that they themselves had founded in that part of the world? So it is. But thanks to the quality of certain institutions, subsequent generations grew up better than their fathers, who themselves were better than their forefathers, and the generations to come will be better still, because they will be raised with care and in good faith, amid order and reason. ([1833] 1956, Scritti Economici, henceforth SE, 1: 25–6; italics in the original) French Centralization The British government does only that which private individuals and their associations cannot do on their own, standing ready to bring its formidable forces to bear whenever those individuals and associations choose to invoke it. Richelieu’s principle of centralized power, meanwhile, has survived every revolution, through being applied to industry and shipping by the educationalist Colbert, clothed with opulent grandeur by Louis XIV, refashioned by the fearful vigor of the Convention and the systematic genius of Bonaparte, and associated with all the glories of intelligence and valor. While it forms the nexus of French unity and power, it has always undermined the very power of the French to expand on a large scale, and to reproduce itself in distant lands with independent offspring, alive with their own life. The branches of one trunk alone cannot give shade to the whole earth. Religion, education, shipping, colonies, construction, industry, even manufacture of rugs, mirrors, and ceramics: everything had to be unique, perfect, and absolute. The rest of Europe had to accept sugar beet from French chemistry, the Mediterranean had to become a French lake, lawyers in Florence and Rome had to devise speeches in French. The health of the empire depended on it. But it was also what brought about its downfall. The nature of things is such that it abhors being forced into arbitrary uniformity, which is why we have the plains and the mountains, the desert regions and the floating glaciers, the Italian people and the French people.

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In France the municipal order, which combines the vitality of provinces with the unity of states, is little understood. Nor is the principle of self-organization as applied to associations much grasped. As a result, whereas England and America are streaked with railroads in every direction, France is forced to wait for them from the hand of official omnipotence. The hope in the last century that it would import an American-style government proved vain, as did the hope for a British-style government in this century. In vain it was announced more recently that goodness knows what combination of the two principles of government would be introduced. In the end, the principle of a single prefecture, and a single university re-emerged – the absolute principle, which the great cardinal drew from the traditions of Constantine’s century, always resurfaces. But if French centralization does not favor the growth of robust colonies and stable conquests, if its maritime exploits are inspired rather by generous rivalry than by pressing necessity or the natural abundance of its naval forces, it is equally true that France – were it to lose all its ships and colonies – would never lose what constitutes that which is the core of its true strength. On the contrary, it was precisely after Trafalgar, when its colonies were occupied, its ports closed, and its ships pursued from shore to shore, that its power seemed most irresistible and inevitable, that all the capitals of Europe fell before it, and that all friendly and hostile nations were swept away by it in a torrent of conquest. No nation of equivalent size would dare invade France, whereas France could swiftly attack any nation of comparable dimension. The ancient nationalities into which medieval France was divided have been completely erased. Normandy and Aquitania retain no trace of English union, while Lorraine and Burgundy no longer conceive how they could have been part of Charles V’s empire. How could Avignon return to the Papal States? How could a man from Roussillon or Franche-Comté kiss the hand of a Spanish nobleman? The Calvinist and Jewish minorities, as well as the faded ruins of the Basques, Bretons, Alsatians, and Flemish, have been absorbed into a uniform plurality. The masses understand only one language, serve only one banner, aspire to only one glory, boast only one faith (or one non-faith), and look to only one city, which thinks and wills for the rest and which rebels or surrenders on behalf of all the rest. ([1842] 1957, SSG 1: 285–7) The Austrian Army and Nationalist Issues If not all the popular revolutionary forces were pressed into action in 1848, the same equally applies to the revolutionary forces contained 88

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within the Austrian army. If each of those nations [within the empire] were hostile to our name and flag, they were not hostile to their own flag or the name of freedom, so cherished by all. No one took the trouble of finding out if there was a way to release the multitudes chained by force to the imperial banner, all of whom were strangers and enemies to each other, and resentful of such oppressive unity. The Italian agitators did not want, then or thereafter, to deploy foreigner against foreigner, to use the ancient art of pitting one race against another, to the detriment of Austria. They railed against foreigners who might have been friendly, but failed to recognize those enemies who unfortunately were not foreigners. Not so Austria. It used the same effort against Italian unity that others employed in bringing the various regions of Italy under one prince; against Hungarian unity it turned the uprising of nations that tended to split the empire; it used the name ‘Slav’ to inflame the Croatians and Sirmians and to divide the Bohemians; it pitted Ruthenians against Poles, Saxons against Romanians; it used the German tricolor to encourage Viennese youth to fight Italian youth, thus averting two dangers simultaneously and destroying two enemies in one battle. Unfortunately, rallying peoples around specific banners in this way led them to inflict vast damage on each other and, through their hatred and arrogance, to replicate the power of their oppressors. This recalls the tradition of barbarous enmity that gave birth to conquest and slavery in the first place and, in effect, proclaims a vow of never-ending war, because such a war will continue for as long as the nations themselves continue to exist. There is one banner alone that oppressors may never use: it is the flag of all, the flag of equality which is justice, the flag of liberty and humanity. This flag would not be foreign to Italian, French, German, Hungarian, or Polish soldiers. It would declare that every people that fights for the freedom of another is, in fact, fighting for its own – for every people in slavery is a weapon in the hands of the enemies of liberty, a perennial danger, and a threat to all mankind. The expansionist force of the revolution was thus limited, because at its forefront was placed not the notion of universal liberty, but the narrower concept of particularistic independence. If one bears in mind that, within just a few months, the Hungarians were fighting the Austrians, one cannot but deplore the youthful impatience that led to the first blows being leveled against the Hungarian grenadiers at Monforte and the Hungarian hussars at Camposanto, inspiring in their desire to avenge their murdered comrades, a sentiment that was even stronger than their hatred of the Germans. If it is also considered that the colonel of those

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hussars, nominally appointed by Carlo Alberto and Radetzky, was Meszaros (later to become the champion of freedom in Hungary), one shudders to think of the fanatical joy it would have given the fighters to have seen him, at the head of his troops, fall dead from a shot fired from one of their rifles. Time has revealed these nationalist secrets, then hidden by the strangeness of foreign languages, by the detested uniforms, and by reciprocal ignorance and pride. No, if the weight of three or four million soldiers now burdens Europe, this does not mean that the cause of the peoples has three or four million enemies. It is not the four or five hundred thousand soldiers in the Austrian army who have an interest in oppressing themselves in the shape of the people. They are forced to do so. They are slaves twice wretched, burdened by the dual chain of being subjects and soldiers. Their will is suppressed, their soul has been fused with that of the fifteen or sixteen thousand officers. Who are they, but the sons of ten nations, required to appear as strangers and enemies to their own people and to wear the mask of unity which is their common torture? No one looking at these densely arrayed battalions of strong young men, splendidly armed with the spoils of their nations, in whose brow shines a ray of barely repressed intelligence, should allow themselves to be blinded. No: the color of a flag, a sudden item of news, a word, the starting up of song would all be enough to confuse that attractive order and turn it into a bloody scrum, where national vengeance cries out in ten different languages against the one hated voice of authority. Not even a clash with another army is required. The Austrian army carries within its own ranks the elements of its own destruction. ([1850] 1957, SSG 2: 289–2) Swiss Neutrality Amid the divergent ideas that persist between governments and peoples, Switzerland is called to act as a conciliatory, vigilant mediator, by virtue of its neutral, peaceful, hospitable attitude, alien from any expansionism, threat, and deception. It represents the common interests of virtually a hundred million men, divided by three languages into three large groupings, all too often enemies and never genuine friends, always dominated by bloody ambitions. They manage to live together freely, justly, faithfully, and amicably only insofar as they form part of the

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confederation, which sees the good of its own people also in the good of others, first and foremost that of its linguistic brethren […] Even in the unfortunate moment of those disastrous wars on the Rhine and the Po, whose recurrence seems to make a barbarous mockery of the times, the trade and industry of the fighting nations must hope that some of their provisions and sales find refuge from the mutual reprisals on their borders. Swiss liberty is an institution that can protect the bordering nations from the effects of their own errors and temporary madness. The sanctuary of liberty must be the sanctuary of humanity. ([1863] 1964, SP 1: 265–7) The Ottoman Question It is especially in Asia Minor, and only in part in Thracia and Illyria, that the Turks may consider themselves a people. These are old military colonies, originating from beyond the Caspian Sea, where their native tongue occupies much vaster areas. They turned Muslim in order to become the soldiers of Arab caliphs. When these fell they received their vast inheritance, and when the Greek empire crumbled and was torn apart by the Crusades, they invaded it. They conquered the Serbs, the Daco-Romans, and the Magyars, and invaded Germany, attacking Vienna. The only insurmountable obstacles they faced were Venice and Poland. But when Europe was released from its feudal shackles, and was able to institute a comparable defense, the magic conjured up by a nation of soldiers faded, the fear that the name of the Turks inspired dissolved, and the tide of conquest flowed back eastwards. The life or death of this empire now depends on European ambitions. What constitutes its barbarism? Is it the people who are barbaric, its religion, or its government? Does the race itself need to be eradicated, or should it merely have a new faith imposed on it? Is it necessary to repeat the sad cycle of conquest in this land of Asia, which is eternally promised to those who bathe it in bloodshed? There is one fact that does not seem to have occurred to Europe. The Orient today is in a very similar state to that in which the west found itself during the Middle Ages. For a thousand years after Constantine the cities of Europe lay in ruins, their streets erased, their ports deserted. The countryside was thick with woodland and marshes, with the odd castle scattered here and there, without which the military caste that had

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been broken up and worn down could not have defended itself against the Hungarian and Norman marauders. Vendettas, private wars, the right of force, serfdom, all gradually began to emerge from these castles, and with the latter the most immoral form of polygamy, the right of barons and prelates over the daughters of peasants. Agriculture was deemed to be a way of keeping men and women on a par with the animals (fundus vestitus, id est, cum bobus et villanis). Let us remember that, at that time, the least barbarian regions were the kingdoms that the Muslims had invaded. It was to them that one went in order to learn how to use a compass or to learn arithmetic, algebra, chemistry, medicine, and astronomy. This should be sufficient to resolve the question of whether or not barbarism is the ultimate prerogative of any one race or religion. Indeed, to say that the Orient today resembles the West of that period is an exaggeration, for neither Turkey, Egypt, nor Persia currently offers such a sorry spectacle. These countries have large prosperous cities. Their rural inhabitants may be poor and barbarous, but they are not servants of one land; they can at least take their misery wherever they desire. In one sense, the Ottoman Empire could be compared to the Austrian Empire. Not that the Germans and the Turks are alike, but in both empires there is a people in whose name other peoples are oppressed, despite the fact that the oppressors are not much happier than those whom they oppress. There is a chain that binds them all to a more or less undignified and painful degree. Perhaps being conquered by the Russians or even, we might say, by the French would make the peoples of Austria or Turkey less miserable? No: it is not a question of changing their yokes, but of granting both oppressors and oppressed their liberty. The Turkish and the Austrian peoples will themselves be less enslaved when their own despots cease to keep other peoples in chains. We cannot admire those statesmen who, for the regeneration of the peoples of the Ottoman Empire, look to the institution of a standing army, to be drawn from all nations and religions, and capable of extending equal obedience over all. Equal despotism for all will be no less harsh or less absolute. We will merely have Austria instead of Turkey. This is not enough, if we have to make a vow. We honor human nature in all peoples and believe that no people aspires to live under despotism. To remodel an army is not the same as to reawaken a nation. To re-establish their power does not vindicate reason [...]

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Our mistake is to regret that the Turkish government has become impotent in the eyes of its peoples. Our error is to want to arm despotism rather than freedom. We must let people arm themselves, even if that means they might wound themselves in the process, like inexperienced children. Do we not wage wars ourselves? Do we not also burn villages and towns? What kind of hypocrisy is this: is it only we who are permitted to be barbaric? The army should be the vanguard for science among the most barbarian races; military sciences should be the vehicle of philosophy and the shield of reason. In the Orient we must allow despotism to be broken down, so that every people may become master of its own home, every family may find enough space in the desert for its own roof and field, without fear, without taxes, and without any other feudal shackle. Peoples need no longer be legally organized as theocratic religions, governed by hierarchies, and forced to kill in order to avoid being killed. Instead, peoples must be allowed to organize themselves in neutral, secular fashion to transform shapeless cities into municipalities and desolate countryside into leagues. To dream of the Crusades today is folly, and to reopen the wound of conquest is a crime. All of Asia, not just Turkey, cries out for renewal, but not by reblending from ancient dregs Brahmanism, Buddhism, or any other theology that keeps three-quarters of mankind in slavery; nor by a hundred multicolored reforms, which in the end would be no more than a hundred deceptions; but by telling all the peoples the one sole common identical truth. Since, thank God, there is only one mathematics, one geography, and one chemistry. ([1860] 1957, SSG 3: 88–90, 94) International Solidarity It is useful to consider man not just as a member of a particular nation, but of all nations, that is, of mankind, because the common state of mankind contributes to determine the state of each nation and, indeed, of each individual. A war in any part of the globe disturbs the trade and industry of all nations. By contrast, the peace, prosperity, and culture of any people offer beneficial returns to others, in a thousand different ways. The inventions of science and art, printing, railroads, compasses, and telegraphs are spreading throughout the world. For this reason, countries ought to have an interest in protecting the liberty of all peoples, for the process of extending civilization in each of them serves to expand the dominion of justice over the earth. ([1853–4] 1960, SF 3: 342) 93

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2 Public Economy

Agriculture in Lombardy Natural Features Westward from the Stelvio the Alpine range extends as far as the Gotthard, where it turns sharply almost due south toward Monte Rosa. Another chain also branches out from the Stelvio, at a similar angle, but penetrates further into the plain, dividing our rivers, which are tributaries of the Po, from the valley of the Adige. Whence, if Monte Rosa towers in the west, the Cristallo and Adamo reach similar heights in the east. This Camonia chain is not part of the Alps. It does not surround Italy; it merely divides its two main rivers’ internal, domestic dominions. However, over most of its mass, it is made up of the same snakelike granite extrusions, clothed with broad glaciers so lofty that, Mont Blanc and a handful of other peaks in the western Alps apart, it surpasses all other mountains in Europe. Thus, to the north, a broad arc stretching from the western Pennine Alps to the southern Camonian Range encloses that part of the Cisalpine region whence the Ticino, the Adda, the Oglio, and the Mincio descend to the Po, and separates this area from the dominion, not just of the Inn and the Rhine, but also the Sesia, the Rhone, and the Adige. A region of great and deep lakes – which form a string to the bow represented by the mountains described above – is the recipient, on the slopes of these mountains, of precipitous floods, which the thaws and rains call forth from the hidden valleys, consigning clear, slower waters to the rivers that flow from it […] The summers are invariably hot and dry. The plain is erratic and

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siliceous and would by itself grow barren, like the steppes of the Volga that lie on the same latitude, if, in the recesses of the mountainous region, there were not also hidden treasures of ice and snow, which swell the veins of the rivers as the temperature rises. These summer waters would be a fruitless gift, too, if they did not flow through vast swathes of countryside extending down a gentle, and even slope made not of stubborn clay, but of looser materials thirsty for irrigation. They would also be less precious if the rains were more frequent and widespread and the light of the summer sun less unrelenting. Nor are our lakes a mere surface mirror without depth, like the vast Lake Balaton. They go down hundreds of feet below sea level, and never freeze over, lying as they do at the foot of high unbroken mountains that deflect the southern winds and on the edge of a plain that inclines toward the Adriatic’s mild influence. Internal circulation, which in the winter is favored by the specific gravity of the colder layers and in the summer is slowed by the comparative lightness of the warmer layers, also regulates the temperature so that, at moderate depth, it remains eternally unchanging. These water masses, hemmed in along their upper bank by uniform scrubland made of erratic incoherent matter, do not merely issue into rivers, but actually seem to penetrate inland and underground, thus extending, between alternate layers of gravel, those watery layers that the annual snows and rains make more or less abundant and that, in the successive inclination of the plain, come closer to the surface. In primitive times, when artisanship had not yet tapped them so exhaustively in support of agriculture, they may have filled the plains, as yet unflattened by centuries of labor, with pools of clear water. To begin with, then, this was a large, marshy area, the result not of obstacles to the course of the rivers due to clay soil or a depression in the earth’s surface, but rather of an uninterrupted flow of waters from its internal veins that sprang forth from the earth’s depths, and felt the icy chill of the winter only after laying exposed for some time. In this way, the lofty mountains and the depth of the lakes, the enclosed rivers and the uniform siliceous plain, the underground currents and the tepid winter waters, the intercepted north winds and the sea breezes, the abundant rains and the clear, sunny summers: each was like a part in some vast agricultural machinery. All that was missing was a people who, in completing the vow made by nature, would arrange the scattered elements into lasting order. ([1844] 1957, SSG 1: 333–8)

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A Country Made by Human Effort 1 It was by hard work that the houses, river banks, and canals were built. Perhaps three thousand years have passed since the people bent their backs over this primitive moorland and removed the last residue of native harshness from it. Erratically formed masses gave way beneath the diligent scalpel, and the vast mound took on the form of houses, fields, and roads. The waters descended from the mountains, dirty with clay and full of lime, and although directed there for quite another purpose, covered the rough gravel and quick sands with silt, spreading almost unnoticed a natural fertilizer over the plains, which slowly expanded and sank into the earth’s surface. Who can tell the treasures that are indivisibly buried here? If we confine our attention to the narrow area between Milan, Lodi, and Pavia, and look one by one at the attempts made to turn up the natural deposits and render them more receptive to the influence of sun and rain, it is easy to calculate that, in such a small area, the commercial value equal to several thousand million lire of work must be invested. This area’s ability to feed a population, what might be called its natural or uncultivated fertility, would amount to perhaps one-tenth of that value. In other words, nine-tenths of the land is not the work of nature, it is the work of our hands, an artificial country (una patria artificiale). ([1845] 1956, SE 3: 4–5) The income currently derived from the area described above does not match the treasures that over time have been lavished on it. The same could be said, I believe, of the Netherlands and certain parts of England and other intensively cultivated countries. These people placed their capital at very low rates of interest, but they invested it in the soil of their homelands, ensuring for themselves a lasting means of earning their living, even during less prosperous times. Such unnaturally fertile fields are like marble palaces, which outlive the families for whom they were built. The bare, toasted field of the Irish farmer is in keeping with his straw, lotus hovel. ([1847] 1956, SE 3: 121) It is unkind and disloyal to maintain that everything we enjoy is the product of nature and benign celestial influences. If our country is prosperous and beautiful, and in our lake region it is perhaps more beautiful than any other, we may also say that no other people ever 1 In the original ‘una patria artificiale,’ literally an artificial country; ‘artificial’ in the sense that it was made by human effort.

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worked kind nature’s gifts with such perseverance of industry as we have. ([1844] 1957, SSG 1: 433) The Basis of Fertility The natural worth of uncultivated land being virtually nil, the value of cultivated land corresponds closely to the capital invested in its labor and resources. Human art can vary the labor and resources according to the nature of soil and climate, but these will always remain forms and modes of capital. Irrigation and drying involve giving one element to, or taking one element away from, the land-water balance, that element being water. But irrigation in itself is not, as many seem to think, more excellent or useful than drying, marning, fertilizing, or any other method of altering the basic fact of raw nature. The extremely high value of the soil in our plains is due to capital, that is, to labor, applied in the form of irrigated fields, or marcite.2 The extremely high value of our hilly regions and the shores of our lakes is due to capital, that is to labor, applied in the form of ronchi,3 olive groves and lemon groves. In the former case, the capital, that is labor, obtains water for the flat, dry surface; in the latter, it obtains earth for the rocky, rugged surface. ([1847] 1956, SE 3: 113–14) But the basis of productivity is always labor; water and land are merely instruments. It is from this marriage-like union between land and capital, namely, human works, that the agricultural wealth of nations derives. Such wealth is the joint product of the natural amenity of the location and the abundance of capital. Without them – that is, without labor and cultivation – the natural fertility of the soil would be worthless, or would soon be exhausted. ([1836] 1956, SE 1: 266) Tendency of Capital toward Land Ownership Personal wealth, accumulated through the unregulated exercise of professions and trade, can grow at an incredible rate even in the midst of the most disastrous circumstances. If frittered away, it may be scraped back again; if oppressed, it may change country; it gives way only in the face of constant violence over many generations or in the face of a 2 Lombard term for water-meadow (translator’s note). 3 Lombard term refers to the terracing used in developing hillsides for agricultural purposes (translator’s note).

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complete extermination of a nation. What the accumulation of wealth does is to surround man and his offspring with all sources of well-being and pleasure. Little by little it tempers the sharp excitement that a passion for wealth and for wealth-creating activities can engender. As the risks of an industrious life require a never-ending tension of thought and deed, with activity having to increase disproportionately as accumulated wealth grows, it reaches the point where it neither inspires nor nourishes the peace of mind required to enjoy the pleasures of a good life. Man begins to look around himself to see whether there might not be a form of existence requiring less daring and courage, and suddenly the man who had been most averse to possessing his own land begins to desire it. So much so that the reverence attached to this type of wealth by the masses, the display and splendor of opulence that it extends around the earth, ensnare him with, among other things, the blandishment of vanity. For the most part, even without a strong desire to change status, when a man acquires landed property, he seeks to restrict the cumbersome volume of capital that he has set in motion and that has become surplus to the requirements for his activities and ventures. He attempts to secure more credit through the appearance of stability, which satisfies the minds of the multitude, or is constrained by the course of events to offer collateral for mercantile transactions and nuptial agreements. Whichever is the case, there may be no doubt that wealth accumulated amid the uncertainties and solicitudes of an industrious life frequently comes to rest in the security and ease of life offered by landed property. This inclination of the industrial classes to tie up their wealth in land is the soul of agricultural life. The industrialist is accustomed to speculate subtly on the gains he may make from his transactions, to run a scrupulous, painstaking administration, and to occupy his time and abilities diligently, not hardened by blind practices and by prejudice, nor forced by hereditary vanity to remain above common considerations and to abandon himself to the dissipation of a grandiose lifestyle. Untroubled by lack of funds, he constructs capacious buildings, plants trees, goes in search of irrigation waters – in short, he lavishes money and attention on the land, which only in this way is able to display the inner strength of its resources. This is how the marshes of the Netherlands, the gravelly area around Milan, the lean hills of Lucca and Florence, and the Rhine Valley became the happiest, most populous and civilized places in the world. It was the treasures of ancient industry, concentrated on grateful soil, that

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caused these regions to be so thickly covered with prosperous villages and sumptuous cities. Herein lies the difference between the numerous and magnificent municipalities of northern Italy and the poor provincial towns of the south and the islands, not to mention all of northern and eastern Europe. In these regions, nations untamed by the attractions of trades barely have what is required to embellish a single capital city, while the entire national territory displays an uncared-for rustic simplicity. Herein, too, lies the difference between medieval Spain, so rich in activities and communes, and renaissance Spain, with its idle and slovenly courts, in the centuries that followed. The wise Guicciardini used to boast that for several generations already Italy had been cultivated right up to the backbone of its mountains – a sign of great financial potency (potenza) spread throughout the population, which accordingly attested to a long-standing industriousness. ([1836] 1956, SE 1: 271–3) There are two very different forms of agriculture. The first is primitive, barbarian, meager, semi-barren agriculture, steeped in sweat and dirt, with no buildings, no machinery, no resources, no roads, no irrigation, and no commerce. Given that it cannot change a large proportion of what it produces, such agriculture lies useless and cumbersome, a matter for rude consumption. The second form of agriculture, meanwhile, is the youngest daughter of ancient commerce, supplied with all the resources of financial power and all the illumination that science can give. ([1836] 1956, SE 1: 201) The Transportation Problem in Sicily Large-scale agriculture is a commercial activity requiring markets and roads. The railroads cannot reach everywhere. All communal roads must be built forthwith. These will immediately add value to all products and increase volumes. In Lombardy the communes must have spent forty million lire in fifty years. But Sicily cannot afford to wait fifty years! A general plan, well connected with the railroads, should be drawn up straight away, so as to proceed with the work in orderly fashion, beginning with the most important and effective branch routes first. Then a special loan should be granted: special, for otherwise the money will end up being diverted to things that appear to be more urgent, whereas this, in fact, is most urgent of all – for it helps everything. This special loan should be granted by selling or pledging state lands, but I cannot say anything about this, for I am not in possession of the figures.

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Ensuring that all country roads are built straight away would magically transform the entire island […] Distributing uncultivated land to poor soldiers will have no effect whatsoever. Giving land away to those without capital is like giving out bottles with no wine in them. We have to give the land to those who have money. Money cannot be made to bear interest without giving work to the poor; this is what really matters. (letter to Francesco Crispi, [1860] 1954, EP 3: 372–3) Uncultivated Land Here it is necessary to correct the opinion entertained by some with regard to the idea of distributing uncultivated land free of charge to the poor. It is to be assumed that such lands are, by their very nature, relatively barren. To choose to apply labor to lands such as these would, therefore, be tantamount to deploying it where it is least productive. The ownership of virtually useless property would first of all instill in the poor the desire to realize it, either selling or pledging it. Nor could they be prevented from doing so without also depriving them of the chief right of property it is purported thus to bestow. Rather than encourage the desire to sell, it would be better to encourage the desire to buy, and to buy at the most noble of all prices: the price of diligence (cure) and hard work. ([1847] 1956, SE 3: 143–4) Agriculture Comes from The Cities Monsieur Lavergne4 witnessed the vast influence that industry had on English agriculture, both by opening up the market 5 for it and by injecting a new spirit of calculation and mercantile adventurousness into it. Yet he tried to attribute a large part of the achievement to a certain propensity for the rural life among the English, proof of which, for him, was to be found in the estates that the magnates kept in the countryside, rather than in the cities. But this custom in England is as ancient as the

4 Louis Gabriel Léonce de Lavergne (1809–1880). A French economist and politician, he was the author of, among others, the widely cited study Essai sur l’économie rurale de l’Anglettere, de l’Ecosse et de l’Irlande (Paris: Guillarmin, 1852, 1855), translated into English as The Rural Economy of England, Scotland and Ireland (London, 1855). Lavergne is generally regarded as one of the ‘fathers’ of the school of French rural economics. 5 Italics in the original.

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nation itself, whereas intensive cultivation has only been current for some eighty years. It was also common in France for the landowner to live dans ses terres, and the practice is still widespread in Germany, Poland, and Russia. This, however, does not mean there was intensive cultivation by prosperous, calculating, independent tenant-farmers; rather, there was merely non-intensive cultivation by humble serfs. In Insubria [the area around Milan extending to Como, Varese, and Lecco], where intensive cultivation was first spontaneously manifested in Italy for the first time without foreign imitation, the landowners do not dwell on the large estates that they rent out. On the contrary, due to the unhealthy air caused by irrigation and above all the rice fields, they do not even holiday there. They remain completely unknown, sometimes even by name, to the villagers who dwell in their tenant farms; they set their rural retreats amid the households and rented properties on the hills or in the small holdings situated on the lakes. One cannot agree, either, with the opinion that holds that agriculture was more popular and esteemed by northern peoples than it was by the Latins. Our elders, Varro says, esteemed rural Romans more than the city-dwellers (nostri majores proeponebant rusticos romanos urbanis).6 It was always more honorable in Rome to have the votes of the tribus rusticae than those of the urbanae. No Norman baron, no Saxon thegan, no Angle or Dane, would have allowed himself to be seen with his hand to the plough like the consuls of ancient Rome […] The term villico was never uttered in Italy with the same scorn and hatred as villain in the French language across the Alps, where it is made to sound like a synonym of ugly or base, or villain in England, where it is used to signify a type of rascal […] What is more, a love of hunting and woods is not the same as a love of agriculture. To plant forests, the Normans destroyed hamlets. De re rustica was not written by King William, nor by King Alfred, but by Cato the censor. Many centuries before Thomson and Gray, rural life was beautified in the poetry of Virgil and, in the sixteenth century, by Alamanni and Rucellai. Until recently, there were poets in Italy who wrote of the cultivation of olive trees and cedars and mountains and even rice fields.7 The first writers of agrarian prose came from outside the walls of industrious mercantile Florence, which could hold its own against France, Flanders, and England. 6 The Latin passage is cited in the original. 7 Italics in the original.

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Agrarian trade is part of a people’s mercantile life. It does not spring from natural genius or bucolic whim, but derives in its turn from the institutions and laws that grant capital and industry access to the soil […] Agriculture is an act of civilization, not an act of barbarism. Agriculture comes from the cities. ([1857] 1956, SE 3: 298–300; italics in the original) Freedom of the Seas8 At one time transit would be directed by force to one port rather than another. Only Italians had power and reputation in the Mediterranean and struck fear into the hearts of pirates from overseas. The names of the English, Russians, and Dutch were unknown. France, which was still chivalric, was in an uncouth ragged state and had neither canals nor roads. Marseilles and Acquemorte were ports for transporting friars and pilgrims. Malta was an unnoticed part of the kingdom of Sicily; Odessa did not exist; Caffa and Pera belonged to Genoa, and Greek sailors were in the pay of our cities. Given that the whole sea was Italian, it was natural that the ports of Italy should be the trading centers of the Mediterranean. Genoa and Venice were literally the first ports of call in Europe. Transit at those ports comprised all the trade between inland Europe and our seas, and all other regions of the world as it then was. The profits were enormous, for there was no competition. The reason for such transit trade has now utterly ceased to be artificial, and obeys the laws of maritime freedom. Merchandise no longer passes where the power of monopoly draws it, for there is no longer any one nation with sufficient power to rule over the seas. If a nation has its own ports, it receives its imports directly from the sea and sends its return goods back via the same route. Transit trade is thus reduced to the needs of those people living inland, far removed from the sea. But there are few such people in Europe, and in an emergency they have access to the sea in a variety of directions, which leads to competition and limits the potential for profit. Switzerland, for instance, in one direction descends into Italy, in another it can ship goods via the Rhine, and in another it approaches the Rhone and the canals of Burgundy. Hungary to one side has Fiume, and to the other, in just a few hours it can reach the Black Sea or head for the navigable parts of the Vistula. So if anyone is of the opinion that free transit may, by dint of human industry, become what

8 All the italics in this section are in the original.

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forced transit was in another era, they are gravely deluded. ([1836] 1956, SE 1: 135–6) Commerce (La grande industria) In the Middle Ages few goods were able to cope with being transported long distances. As a result, they were confined to localities near where they were produced, supplying needs that were ongoing and well known. Demand preceded supply; commerce was poor and received modest returns. But in later times supply began to precede demand and to seek to solicit and procure it, working to anticipate needs that were uncertain, imprecise, and hypothetical. To conquer new markets, to defeat and rout competition, there was no other weapon than to lower prices. Opulence grew, but unevenly, uncertainly, shared too unequally among the many who worked to generate it, while the propertied class increasingly lost its position of pre-eminence […] The French Revolution, from the start of the eighteenth century, had been deeply rooted in the ranks of society, long before it took on the name of revolution, before it flared up with popular force and before it became enshrined in the form of new legislation. It is not the will of man that brings about a revolution, neither can the will of man repress one; when a revolution is embedded in the heart of society, it cannot but come to light and take charge of the laws. So once the division of labor had changed every productive industry into a series of partial, highly simplified tasks, each of which could be accomplished with a bare minimum of intelligence, eventually an inanimate machine was discovered that could take the place of human labor. In 1775 Richard Arkwright invented the first of those giant machines that would ultimately dismantle the entire edifice of the ancient guilds. The guilds, which already faced a movement wanting to abolish them in the Estates General of France since 1614 and not long afterwards in the German Diet, on the grounds that they constituted a hindrance to the new industries (alle nuove industrie), were eventually dissolved by Turgot in 1776. But the feudal world must have judged itself to be in real danger, as the very principle of privilege no longer permeated society from top to bottom. Thus, the feudal world worked so hard that the king revoked the edict within six months of the guilds’ abolition. What had been attempted in vain since 1614 was effected with the storming of the Bastille, in the space of a day. Thus does the impotence of reform bring forth revolution. It was impossible to introduce machin-

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ery into production as long as the statutes of the guilds prescribed the numbers of masters and apprentices, as long as each single branch of the guild was legally (penalmente) distinct and separate, and as long as each manufacturer was allowed to practice one trade alone. The first machine thus wound, in its spindles and its wheels, the ultimate abolition of the privileged guilds: a revolution for all industrious citizenry. Who can tell whether, in our own day, some discovery may indeed contain the germs of another revolution – and will one day destroy the very same power that now welcomes and celebrates its arrival, while keenly pursuing impotent adversaries. ([1862] 1965, SP 4: 387–8) Modern Economic Life Thus do all the arts help and fulfill each other; thus does industrial activity (industria) transform raw materials in a thousand different ways, giving them unforeseen added value. This is a spectacle that exalts the mind, inspires man to an awareness of his own dignity, and offers a glimpse of new and even greater progress. At what point will this movement end, which now embraces the entire earth and strives without rest to conquer new aspects of wealth and power? To what unexplored avenues will this irresistible impetus turn man’s industrial genius? In the meantime, the exchange of products continues incessantly. Sweden cuts down its forests and digs its mines. Russia prepares its bales of ermine and marten; the Netherlands loads its ships with herrings, oil, and whale bones. In a few months the vessels of Toulon will cover Swedish ships with French sails. The inhabitants of Naples, Genoa, Leghorn, and Sardinia will expose dried Batavian fish to the sun; the ermine fit for Archangel Gabriel will grace the shoulders of sultans; Italy, in its turn, will pour the oil from its fertile olive trees into northern vats, and the French will weave their draperies with silk brought overseas from China to Constantinople. The eastern empire has disappeared, but the silkworm still exists. Industry has found it hiding under a rustic leaf, and this leaf is a source of wealth! An ell [about 114 centimeters (45 inches)] of lace cannot be manufactured in Malines (Mechelen in Flemish) without an ell of cotton being woven in Bergamo at the same time, and an ell of muslin in Aleppo. A rod of iron comes forth from the mines of Upland, in the same instant that a firearm is pulled from the furnace in Brescia, a ship’s anchor in Birmingham, and a hail of metal rods in Bristol. Thus does each man respond to another, and each hammer blow has its own distant echo. ([1862] 1965, SP 4: 311–12) 104

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Currents of World Trade The new current [of world trade] will come from Suez: this point is irrevocably determined by the shape of the earth. If it is considered that around the Indian Ocean are located the British dominions of India and the ports of Malaysia, the nascent colonies of New Zealand, which are vaster than Italy, and those of Australia, which are vaster than all Europe, it is clear that this current at its other end will be directed toward England. Land Routes Now, let us take a map of Europe, with one corner reaching down as far as Suez. If with a piece of string, or with the edge of a sheet of paper, we connect Suez with London, we will see that this straight line does not, properly speaking, go to Italy, but passes between the islands of Rhodes and Crete before heading to the Greek peninsula and the Balkans, skirting the back of Trieste, reaching the Rhine through the Tyrol, heading further north to Strasbourg and reaching the sea at Calais. However, since it would not be possible to follow a straight line so closely, except by climbing and descending the spurs of a continuous chain of mountains until after the Rhine, and since the wretched state of the Balkan regions promises too modest a return on such costly railroads, the quickest route by land in practice reverts to the nearby Italian coastline, which opens a flat well-populated passage as far as the Alps. But this particular sea journey is not the shortest. The straight line is broken by passing to the west of Crete and the Ionian islands and reaching the heel of Italy. It then touches Ancona, by land or sea, before going this time not through the middle of the Tyrol, but through Switzerland, reaching the Rhine at Basel. This line, which runs through all of Italy and cuts Switzerland in half, is the line of greatest speed. The postal routes and the Calais-Brindisi express necessarily follow it, as do those travelers whose journeys are the longest and who wish to travel fastest. For all other travel, the beauty of the regions through which this line runs is such that the railroads connecting the Italian cities, the Swiss cantons, the valleys of the Rhine and Main, Paris, Belgium, Holland, and England, should all be considered as branches alive of the same tree. Here, to the left and the right, in front and behind, a hundred million intelligent industrious people line up over a short distance, who are eager to make congenial journeys and who are visited daily by all the 105

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other peoples of Europe for reasons of commerce, politics, studies, and various other curiosities. This constitutes the most rapid whirl of social activity on the planet. Such continuous movement of people would make a significant contribution toward paying for the viaducts, tunnels, and dual-gauge railroads on which goods can then be transported for modest freight duties. This, seeing as the Balkan straight-line idea will never take place, gives priority to the Swiss-Italian axis and its continuation. ([1865] 1965, SP 2: 387–8) Sea Routes If the railroads, and hence those peninsulas which extend furthest into the sea, have the virtue of being the fastest routes, maritime transport still has the advantage of being relatively cheaper. This is because the wind is still free, and the sea’s surface is not subject to wear and tear in the same way as the iron of the rail tracks is. This is why the bulk of freight transport takes place, out of natural convenience, from gulfs, or, at least, from those ports which extend furthest inland. On the route which stretches from Suez to central Europe, this advantage is clearest in the four ports of Trieste, Venice, Genoa and Marseilles, for they all run along the same line, which is oblique to the meridian, and which intersects the fastest, most direct route at right-angles […] If, however, we compare the four ports in the front line facing towards central Europe, we will find that the closest of the four to the fastest, straightest route is Venice. Trieste and Genoa are approximately equidistant, but Marseilles is five times as far away as Venice! Marseilles lies two hundred miles to the west of Genoa. The opportunities it affords for arrivals to the West are as great as the disadvantages it occasions for arrivals from the East, which are forced to return to the longitudes whence they came. Such a lengthening of the journey, by sea or by land, is unnecessary to say the least. It is idle to suggest that another day or two’s sailing is neither here nor there. In the course of time, the thousands of chartered vessels going back and forth cannot help but notice the difference. It is a perpetual tax, levied by nature on those ports which are more or less remote, and no legislative artifice can avoid its being paid, whether by trade or by the nation itself, if the latter intends to reward the loss-making operations of its ships, rather than redeploy its resources to more naturally profitable enterprises. There is another disparity in the oblique position of the four ports. Genoa extends further into mainland Europe than does Marseilles,

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Venice further still, and Trieste furthest of all. The latitude of Trieste exceeds that of Marseilles by two and a half degrees, which, as you are aware, makes for a distance of 150 miles. Marseilles is more southerly than La Spezia and Fiume, but also more so than Leghorn and Ancona! Which is why, for all transit trade coming from the north, the Italian ports save approximately the difference between the expense of mercantile shipping and that of freight. The position of Marseilles is so far to the south and west that deliveries from Suez to central Europe, including to some of the most industrialized parts of France, have to pay for a longer journey by both land and sea if they choose to go through it. This is why all Swiss cities without exception, and all cities of the Rhine without exception, are significantly closer to the sea via Genoa than they are via Marseilles. Even Geneva, which is in the Rhone Valley, is a good 41 kilometers [25 miles] closer to Genoa through the Cenis route. Genoa represents an enormous saving of 348 kilometers [217 miles] out of the 802 kilometers [500 miles] separating Zurich and Marseilles, provided one passes via the straighter Gotthard route – virtually half the entire journey. Moreover, Genoa, again provided one passes via the straighter Gotthard route, can offer, right within the French border, the industrialized city of Mulhouse a decisive saving of 186 kilometers [116 miles] by rail, not to mention the similar advantages it can give to Colmar, Strasbourg, Metz, Nancy, Sedan, beyond the Vosges and as far as the Ardennes! ([1865] 1965, SP 2: 389–91) The Gotthard Gateway The mind is exalted when it contemplates the fact that this brief trunk route of a hundred or so kilometers [sixty or so miles] contains the most necessary part of that great route of the nations, predetermined by nature when it laid out on the same continuous axis the great Rhine Valley and the two Italian seas, whose direction, oblique to the meridian, joins the south and the extreme far east with the west and the north. On one side it flows toward Belgium and England, spreading its branches out toward northeastern France, to Holland, the vast Germany, and the Baltic. On the other, it extends through the entire Italian peninsula and, skirting the Greek archipelago, Syria and Egypt, stretches toward the mouth of the Red Sea, where the great shipping lines of East Africa, Arabia, Persia, India, China, Japan, Malaysia, and Australia all converge. This route reduces the distance between England and India by more

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than half. Adding up the population figures, it appears that the trade of three-quarters of mankind is concentrated over this brief distance. On this route lies Switzerland. On this route lie the resources that can fill up the weak dividends of its railroads. But all this will remain an unproductive favor bestowed by nature as long as the great gateway of the Gotthard stays closed. ([1863] 1964, SP 1: 263–4) The Geographical Position of Milan All railroads in Italy, from Turin, Genoa, Leghorn, Florence, Ancona, Venice, and Trieste, now converge directly on Milan. This came about due to the inherent force of events, without any special measures being taken, as the citizens of Milan gave and continue to give little or no thought to the railroads of Milan. The least connected, most divergent, and even hostile plans, for the most part jealously pondered and coordinated by hostile interests, brought about this convergence in a way that was entirely spontaneous, involuntary, and unforeseen. In truth, the ancient roads of Rome, the Emilia, the Flaminia, and the Postumia had already been made to converge on this point. Along these roads flourishing colonies and cities subsequently arose, and inhabited centers were established that became fixed points that would remain unavoidable 9 for all time. Milan, too, was the common destination of the Celtic tribes representing the permanent mass of the population in the Po Valley, even before there were man-made roads: it was known as Mediolanum gallorum caput – Milan, the head of the Gauls. The basic geographical fact is that Milan is situated on both the great horizontal axis of northern Italy and the common vertical axis, comprising the Italian peninsula, the two seas, and the islands, that is continued and mirrored in the Rhine Valley and that follows the line of contact between two other great nations, whence it is connected by way of the Netherlands and Belgium to the British Isles, even as, at its opposite extremity, it stretches toward Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt. This could be described as the supreme route of ancient and modern commerce, of ancient and modern civilization. Rome is the center of position and gravity for the entire Italian system, but if one considers northern Italy alone and the population of fourteen or fifteen million people residing between Rome and the Alps, it is clear that one-third of these live to the east of Milan, one-third to the west, 9 Italics in the original.

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and one-third to the south. Switzerland to the north, in the direction of its center and Basle, completes the cross formation. ([1860] 1965, SP 2: 296–7) Protected Markets and Commercial Power The larger the field and the market for production, the vaster, more varied, more powerful, and more ambitious will be industry. If England were divided into eight or more customs regions, as Italy is and as Germany until recently was, and if each such region were to be allotted a proportionate amount of current British trade, all its industrial dominance would be crushed and annihilated. The sum of the new parts would not be equal to the previous whole. The reason for this is clear. Let us suppose that ten small states each have their own woolen cloth, cotton fabric, or bronze factories. If the protective regime ensures that each factory supplies the surrounding territory, every factory shall have to supply both lord and peasant, army and priesthood. There will thus be either the usual traffic of luxury goods, meaning the factory will revert to the most trivial of work. If it chooses to try and satisfy the variety of needs, it will have to acquire for itself a proportionate variety of equipment, premises, raw materials, dyes, designs, and labor, with no prospect of the high sales for each category of product that would be required to compensate the capital and labor thus invested. Let us now group the ten states into one single customs regime. The ten producers, after the temporary upheaval that invariably accompanies any sudden change and as a unit not having lost any regular customers, will naturally tend to share the various areas of activity among themselves. One will target demand from peasants, another will be able to oppose contraband with a commendable assortment of luxury goods. With less varied equipment, design, and effort, and with fewer raw materials and finished goods, that is, with greatly reduced capital, each producer will generate an increased value of production and, therefore, ease prices – supplying households with greater quantities of goods at the same cost. For goods of similar quality, the rivalry that will arise between factories will profit industry as a whole, generating the strength required to counter competition from elsewhere. If, following the example of the ten factories, we suppose that the ten states are actually one hundred, the argument becomes even more persuasive […] The more customs borders are abolished, the [more the] energy and

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courage that industry will derive from the two key principles of the division of labor and free competition will increase in proportion to the growth in the size of the market thus served. ([1843] 1956, SE 2: 390–1, 397) Economic Nationalism Some want to set up a nursery in every far-flung corner of the earth’s surface to nurture the most recondite industries. But palm trees fare poorly in the pine forests of the Alps. If Geneva can supply all mankind with watches, Lyons with the most splendid silk fabrics, Bohemia with cut glass, and England with machinery and steel, it is not worth the effort of subverting the natural trend and the productive division of labor so as to turn Lyonnais into watchmakers and the Genevois into silk sorters. When each man has been taken away from the trade of his native country and instructed in the ways of some other abstruse art, it is true, as people are accustomed to say, that Lyons will no longer pay taxes to foreign industry in Geneva, but equally, the Genevois will no longer pay taxes to Lyons. Now, a mutual tax is in effect no tax at all. Rather, it is a contract of exchange that is mutually beneficial to both parties. The same quantity of work produces more watches in Geneva than it would in future factories in Lyons, and by the same token, more beautiful silks are produced in Lyons than could ever be conceived of in Geneva. Both cities gain when the exchange is between two more-robust, productive industries. What poor watch factories we would have if customs regulations forced us to have one in each city and prevented us from wearing foreign watches! The less subdivision, gradation, ease, certainty, and specialization of labor there is, the more we will have to spend to wear more miserable, less elegant watches! What a huge tax to levy on all to make up for the gains lost from the division of labor and its appropriateness to and stability in the local context! An idle people pays taxes to no one and lives abject and in tatters. By contrast, an industrious people – whether it manufactures arms, lace, or cloth – does not pay taxes to other peoples’ industry, but uses the best fruits of its arts in exchange for the products of those arts that occasion or years of practice have made most lucrative for it. Well may war come with its revolutions, and peace with its new borders and new states, and trade involving the most select products of the entire world. But until the obstacle of protectionist customs duties intervenes, a manufacturing

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industry, rooted in its own local region and backed by its own strength rather than propped up artificially, enjoys without fear the benefits of progress made by every other industry, for such progress increases the commercial value of the useful things it receives in exchange for those it supplies. Only in such free competition can the smallest state have a field to work of the same size as the largest state. Those who apply a protectionist duty to foreign industry, in effect, wield a two-edged sword, and it is impossible to say whether it harms others or themselves. The customs wall that halts the path of foreign industry also holds back the nation’s own progress, and eventually, when all available space has been divided into such enclosed areas, the prisoner owning the smallest of them will be worse off and have the harder life. ([1843] 1956, SE 2: 413–15; italics in the original) Raw Materials If one intends to help a particular industry (arte) by allowing it to freely import raw materials from abroad, be they timber, iron, or wool, without paying attention to that country’s forests, foundries, or flocks, then there are no firm grounds for denying another industry (arte) the right to freely introduce yarns, fabrics, hides, or materials for use in furnishing or clothing, for these items in such professions take the place of raw materials. If staple yarn is the raw material of the spinner, that of the weaver is thread, that of the dyer or printer is fabric, and the work performed by these men forms the primary product for other professions. Now, if he who grants protection over staple yarn, which is an agricultural product, is wrong to do so, according to List10 in that he creates difficulties for the spinner, then he who concedes an advantage to the spinner is equally wrong, for he thus forces weavers to buy protected thread, which is recognized as being of inferior quality and worth, precisely because it was necessary to levy such a hefty duty on it; he is wrong to constrain the weavers, printers, calenderers, and other tradesmen to operate on such false premises, as this behooves them to 10 Friedrich List was a German economist (1789–1846) whose work, The National System of Political Economy (originally published in 1841), advocated imposing duties on imports of food, raw materials, and manufactured goods to protect a country’s national economy against both ‘universal trade’ and the commercial supremacy then exercised by England which he took to be virtually the same thing.

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employ more capital and inferior-quality goods. In short, he increases the difficulties of one industry by as much as he claims to facilitate and make more lucrative the exercise of another. In seeking to defend them all against foreign competition, by protectionism he retards their progress and condemns them all to a longer infancy, during which they may be subject to unsuspected dangers, either through events of war or peace, or as a result of sudden trade treaties or new tariffs, or due to the inevitable resumption of contraband. ([1843] 1956, SE 2: 410–11) Nascent Industries Whoever engages in erecting protective barriers to favor nascent or future industries is subsequently forced to continue such protection in respect also of mature industries, for reasons of justice and good faith. Are you sure the day will come when the French sugar industry will declare itself ready, like the bread or wine industries, to stand on its own feet? In this way a tenacious resistance to financial reform emerges and consolidates into a formidable mass of interests, becoming a millstone around the neck of the state, which has a good deal of other duties to perform besides. If the border is rigorously closed, this will merely provoke retaliation curtailing all international trade, losing the state an important source of finance. If the border cannot be closed successfully, in any case the finance is lost, honest trade is distorted into contraband, people are taken on who are either under judicial investigation or already in prison, public morality and safety are exposed to an infinite number of dangers, and the population’s supreme productive forces are blighted at root. However easy it may be to hide oneself behind the protectionist principle and strew the field with rickety edifices, it is equally difficult, curiously so, to escape from it without bringing about widespread ruin. I firmly believe this is the thorniest of all the current public issues: to escape from the protectionist labyrinth without occasioning such ruin. ([1843] 1956, SE 2: 410–2, italics in the original) From Protectionism to Freedom It must be said, however, that complete freedom of trade (industria) could not be introduced suddenly without major havoc also being wrought. Such free trade should, rather, represent an ideal model, a polar star toward which the legislator directs its cautious movements. However hard it is to approach such an ideal, to move any further away

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from it would be fatal, especially when it is realized that the journey back again will have to be made at a later stage. All customs reforms must be intelligent compromises that reconcile the timid expectations of established trade with the great interests of progress. If free trade is an absolute scientific principle, while protected trade is a principle of administrators; if it is true that many writers, when they become men of state, seem to abandon their liberal ideas; this only goes to show that men of state cannot reach the pole directly, but must steer their course with the aid of their sails. It is not the light of the stars that moves the ship of state, but the strength of the wind that blows behind it. Interests make up majorities in parliaments and on councils, and political power, which involves heading the voting majorities, cannot openly stand against them. It was for this reason that the great Gian Domenico Romagnosi divided the entire science of state affairs into two separate parts: the speculative order of ends and means and the operative order of the will. ([1843] 1956, SE 2: 421–2; italics in the original) ‘White’ Coal Nature located the resources of Belgian industry far underground, where a large part of that people lives in darkness in order to mine and extract them. It prepared the same kind of motive force for us, without such inconvenience and at lesser expense, in the perpetual currents of our rivers, in the furrows of our beautiful valleys, on our high, salubrious plains, and in full view of the Alps. ([1845] 1956, SE 3: 18) In Favor of an Active, Industrious Life Unfortunately, there are those who locate the happiness of men not in motion, as is the desire of all nature, but in the quiet of the grave, and who would consequently prefer it, if all human affairs were decreed in advance with rules that are inviolable. They would prefer it, that is, if there were professional instruction that could number the threads of every fabric; if there were a form of architecture that could predetermine all possible combinations of life, a degree of perpetual wealth for all households, a philosophy of perennial syllogisms from which every detail of science and learning could be drawn, a dictionary in which words themselves could become fossilized – with the result that an inexorable predestination would bear down on all of the thoughts and hopes of man.

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But unhappy is the generation that proposes to be in everything as its fathers were! For if the fathers shone with every valor and glory, the sons, in order to add nothing to their exploits, would have to remain as degenerate from them as inertia is from work or as stasis is from motion. How much thought, how many sleepless nights and troublesome days did Columbus have to endure in order to open the way to America! But the sailor who today travels from Cadiz to Cuba without a care or a thought in the world is so much less like Columbus precisely because he follows in the wake of that immortal man. Safe in the certainty of his well-traveled route, safely accompanied by his compass, maps, and the considerable horse power of his steamer, he is free to be inept with impunity. How different are those who found cities on the scrub of ancient woodlands, and arm and decorate them, from those who are born to move peacefully beneath constructed colonnades and in leafy gardens! If we raise our eyes to the Duomo of Milan, we recall the courage of the prince who commissioned it, as a symbol of that regal power that already burned secretly in the recesses of his mind. Imagine the anxious joy of the architect in the happy moment in which the glorious ruler commanded him to design a cathedral that would be the largest and most beautiful in all of Christendom. Remember how many men, over the course of five centuries, wracked their brains to design all those poses for the statues, that entire forest of marble; remember, too, all those who devoted time and efforts just to study the methods of extracting it from the slopes of the Alps to bring it over land and water to this distant city. We know that, in the process of thinking up the easiest method whereby to transport such a mass, these excited, inspired minds gradually hit upon the wonderful invention of the lock, which would soon cross the great isthmuses of the terrestrial globe and carry the heaviest ships from ocean to ocean. So, when all this intellectual effort was complete, when all endeavor was at an end, and man could finally stand content before the temples that had been erected, the marble that had been sculpted, the arts and inventions of centuries gone by, and, the fates of this vale of suffering having changed utterly, he was able to repose in an eternal sabbath rest. What slumber of the soul! What rust for the mind! What desperation for merit! What arrogance for fortunate demerit! In the same way, the cowardly, careless Low Empire succeeded thoughtful, generous Athens, and the meek and almost mute Rome of Onorius succeeded the belligerent, eloquent Rome of Caesar, until in the perpetual struggle which the Lord of Hosts imposed on human destinies, an

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adventurous band of soldiers finally crushed the sluggish race in its ancient nest. It is therefore imperative, a moral necessity, that each generation construct its own temples and arches, that it fashion its own sculptures, open new routes across Alps and lagunas, erect new bridges no longer just over rivers but also lakes, over seas, and not just above the mirror of the water’s surface but also beneath their forbidding maelstroms. Through deeds of daring and temerity men must put themselves into positions whereby, faced with urgent obstacles, they become fearful and bewildered. Their genius so reawakened, they become more aware of themselves and find new ways to confront old nature. For this healthy mental training ground to give courage to an entire people, and transmit to even the lowliest family the vigor that comes from an active and industrious life, the entire array of useful arts must be renewed, step by step, in line with the daily progress of science. If a people has, since the times of its distant forefathers, exercised the art of smelting iron, let it discover new types of furnace, new fluxes, new tinder for fire, new methods of ventilation. Let it kindle flame with flame. If a family has, for centuries, hammered the gold beater’s rock, the inheritance of a poor father handed down to poor children, let the new power of galvanic currents come and upset all the old workshop’s teaching, let it transform the splendid arts, and teach them how to forge bronze artillery and statues of heroes using neither furnace nor flame. If, for many generations, the lowland farmers learned and taught that the mulberry tree is suited to the sunny slopes of the hills, may the day come when an entire people strives to plant the vast plains of the Serio and Oglio, too, with mulberry trees and, in so doing, may humble families and unknown hamlets be raised to sudden opulence. Not that the main benefit of such renewal is the sudden increase in personal wealth. For of much greater importance is to cause the attractions of its distant splendor to shine amid habitual indolence, giving substance to thought and stimulus to the will, providing hope and competition. To tell the truth, neither are we especially concerned to swell the ranks of those for whom wealth proves to be no more than a bed for idle spineless pride. May our unanimous prayer, therefore, be that in the midst of fruitful honorable peace, amid harmony between civil orders and the increasing ease which industry and trade are furnishing and which the fine arts embellish with their gifts, there should be a revival of the useful arts, too, like that of the salubrious tides of the sea, or the vital circulation of our respiration, or the happy return of spring that is able to keep minds

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alert, to feed intellects with honest expectations, and to fill households with cordial industry. ([1845] 1956, SE 3: 25–8) The Abolition of Capital Imagine that today all loans, partnerships, mortgages, annuities, discounts, extended terms, maritime bills of exchange, insurances, leaseholders’ securities, subsidies to landowners and spinners, banking transactions, savings banks, and pawnbrokers were simultaneously abolished. What would happen to our merchant houses, our banks, our manufacturing, our rural rents, all our building and speculation? All circulation would cease, the economic life of society would be blunted, a horrible outbreak of misery and desperation would devour the peoples, and, in the space of a few generations, Europe would be reduced to an uncultivated wasteland, with only the occasional ruined dwelling place left. ([1836] 1956 SE 1: 209–10) Intelligence and Will as Sources of Wealth Intelligence There is no labor or capital that does not begin with some act of intelligence. Before all labor and capital, when things lie as yet uncared for and unknown in the bosom of Mother Nature, it is intelligence that begins the work and marks them out with the imprint of wealth for first time […] The English and Flemish trod unawares on the fossilized coal that lay beneath their feet over the entire territory of their provinces, even several centuries after Marco Polo had described it as being widely and commonly used by the Chinese […] The people in what is now Peru were unaware of the use of iron, which our holy texts suggest goes back further than Noah […] but were familiar with the use of guano, which our sailors have come to know only in our day, three centuries after they took useless possession of the islands that are covered in it. Let us look at the oldest and most persistent phenomenon of the human race, the savage, who by virtue of as yet to be explained reasons, still continues to exist in Australia. He wanders through sands that conceal gold, blindly following the succession of rain and drought, with no bow, no clothing, and no roof over his head, happy to squat here and there under a rock or in a tree trunk. The savage is poor and naked, often famished, sometimes a cannibal, not because an enemy fights him

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for the natural riches that for thousands of years have lain unused all around, but because he does not know how to use these riches, nor does he know how to exchange them for others; he does not even realize they are there. For him, the precious woods that the cabinetmaker and dyer seek in the forests of Brazil are as useless as the waves of the sea. They acquire value only in those nations that have gone through a long chain of intellectual processes. ([1861] 1956, SE 3: 344–6) Before conceiving of the use of fire, spears, bows, ships, and nets, the savage had to expend considerably more effort merely to procure his daily food and defend himself against his enemies. Each of these inventions made him less weak and less poor, less uncertain of the day ahead, less anxious by hunger or fear. Now, the hut, fire, the spear, the net, and the ship are all first and foremost gifts of the intelligence. It is true that to prepare them and use them is not automatic; it requires work. But the idea behind the invention, once conceived by another man, is valid for everyone and forever. It becomes known also to enemies, and its benefits spread from tribe to tribe through inhospitable forests for the good of all mankind. However, once the discovery of making a bow, a sling, or a net is complete, the hunter is able once and for all to target his prey without tiring in pursuit of it; the fisherman is able to prey on hundreds of fish at the same time and to be profoundly asleep himself as he does so. True, making a bow or a net is a new kind of work, but it saves a far greater amount of work required earlier. In the end, either the same amount of food is obtained for less effort or more food is obtained for the same effort. Accordingly, new wealth grows in inverse proportion to the effort expended. Wealth can now afford the odd moment of rest, but both wealth and rest are products of acts of intelligence. ([1861] 1956, SE 3: 346–7; see also [1853–4] 1960, SF 3: 407–8) When in Asia man discovered animals suitable for pasture and started breeding them, he learned to take them down to the plains during the winter and up to the cool mountains in the summer. They became for him a source of new and abundant wealth. Ever since then he has had healthy, secure, reasonable food to hand and could look forward serenely to the following day, no longer forced to go out hunting before the daily pangs of hunger first struck. But if the shepherd is better off than the savage, this is only because of the discovery of grazing livestock for pasture. The new wealth was the product of a new act of intelligence, and once again, wealth grew in inverse proportion to the quantity of labor expended.

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It is, therefore, not true that labor is the father of wealth, as Adam Smith believed, and as has often been repeated by those succeeding him. The life of the savage is extremely hard and meager. The source of all progressive wealth is intelligence: intelligence tends, given the same amount of effort, to seek to obtain a greater number of useful things for a given quantity of men or the same quantity of useful things for an ever greater number of men. ([1853–4] 1960, SF 3: 408–9) The Will The will is as much the basis of wealth as intelligence […] Nature offers its goods in vain when the human will precludes their enjoyment as a result of some narrow dominant interest. To enable a few privileged individuals to sell the iron products of Catalonia and Biscay in the colonies at extremely high prices, Spain prevented the opening of iron mines in America. This not only meant a loss of profit for the iron mines, but agricultural production as a whole and the entire industry of these vast regions were deprived of the tools they needed or, rather, had to pay extortionate prices for them. Inestimable riches lay buried in the soil, which for centuries was all too rarely worked by iron […] The oceans that surround America on all sides, and lead directly to all other parts of the world, remained useless and un-navigable for the inhabitants of the Spanish colonies. That government, troubled by fallacious interests, had decided to send just two convoys from Europe per year, limiting the world trade to a fixed term of just forty days per year. Under the terms of the Assiento Treaty,11 it then allowed English traders to send one ship per year, not realizing that the trade brought by that one ship alone would have sufficed to cover the contraband of a thousand. Here is an instance of human will, spurred on by blind interest, proceeding to close the immense ocean that embraces the whole earth. ([1861] 1956, SE 3: 362–4) No one could ever hazard even a remote calculation of all the goods that the will of man deprives to man and that, by a mere change of that will, would suddenly materialize as if out of thin air. More evident still is the influence of interests on the intensity and effectiveness of labor. The poet expressed a splendid truth when he said that Jupiter took half 11 The Assiento Treaty of 1713 between Spain and Britain did indeed grant the English power as Cattaneo suggests, but it also granted them power to introduce a certain number of African slaves into Spanish America each year.

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man’s soul away from him when he made him a slave. It is a fact that land that had previously given plentiful food to a free population became barren when it was tilled by slaves […] All that may be said to be in favor of cultivation by leasehold or sharecropping, principally insofar as regards vines, mulberry trees, olive trees, lemon groves, and everything else that could be described as a crop that keeps well (colture conservanti ) comes back to the will of man. Slaves and day-laborers, even if in possession of like strength and intelligence, will never bring the same vigilance and diligence to bear in looking after plantations, terraces, and supports. On the slopes of Liguria and the Valtellina, on the shores of the Cisalpine lakes, the farmer, when torrential rains wash away his few clods from the slope, carries earth on his shoulders to rebuild his unfortunate plot of land from top to bottom. The foreigner may admire his art, but the basis of that effort and measures resides entirely in a conscious act of the will. For if one changes the ownership title and the lease, but not the farmer, the entire building will disappear and so, too, will the population. Within a short time what was once a large agricultural estate can become pasture land or even run wild. That form of vegetation does not have its roots in the earth, but in man; not in the reasoning of his intelligence, but in the strength of his will. ([1861] 1956, SE 3: 365–6)

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3 Education and Militia

Division of Labor in Universities1 The principle required in Italian faculties is what in economics is known as the division of labor and what in psychology is referred to as analysis. The synthesis will be Italy. Synthesis is neither repetition nor uniformity; rather, it is the simplest expression of utmost variety. The more uniformity is eschewed, the fuller, or rather greater, your work will be, given that in such things there can never be completion or closure. What I seek for engineers in Italy is the subdivision or specialization of their faculties. In this way you will give the country architectural engineers, hydraulic engineers, agronomic engineers, structural engineers, mining engineers, military engineers, naval engineers, geographical engineers, railroad engineers, and men of mechanical genius, who are also grounded in calculus and physics and who, in their careers, are intent on appropriating every new application of such forces for this historic Italian profession. Although these faculties would be specialized, certain branches of teaching could be common to them all, and all would certainly require some mathematical component. But if you intend to confer on someone the relatively arduous title of mathematics graduate, and you want it to have some meaning, you will have to ask a specialist faculty to prepare 1 From a memorandum on how to organize scientific studies, written in 1862 and submitted to the then minister of education, Senator of the Realm Carlo Matteucci (1811–1868). A former professor of physics at the University of Pisa, Matteucci had written for Cattaneo’s review Il Politecnico. Now, Matteucci was consulting Cattaneo about the possibility of reforming university teaching.

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you mathematics teachers for a hundred Italian high schools, for all the other educational levels, for the military and naval academies, for astronomical observatories, for private education, and, lastly, to educate in appropriate manner those rare minds interested in learning for its own sake, who deserve to drink from only the purest of sources. There will thus be no shortage of students, if you have to concentrate pure mathematics in one special faculty in, say, Modena, to be the nerve center of all high-powered mathematicians currently scattered across other faculties. No longer would we see a man of the caliber of Antonio Bordoni2 wasting his talents in explaining elementary geodesy to land surveyors in Pavia. Every branch of science would be organized with its own specialties like the ranks of an army, and to crown the several faculties of applied knowledge, there would be one great faculty of theoretical knowledge! Then you could locate the naval engineering school in the greatest shipbuilding center or, at least, the greatest shipping center. You could put the river engineers in Padua or Bologna, or in both, until either the talents of the professors, the advances in science, or the needs of the nation suggest further specialization. You could put the mining engineers in places where they could not even look up without seeing the evolution of the planet staring out at them from the mountains and valleys. And the architectural engineers, who truly are architects and ministers of beauty, would not have to leaf through volumes to gain a faint idea of Rome’s monuments, but could wander around those venerable ruins and assess them as they really are, contemplating them in the sunlight and moonlight for years to come. Now for the numbers. I suppose there must be a total of around ten of your ‘uniform’ faculties throughout Italy. You, with a hundred professors will have no more than ten branches of science, uniformly repeated in ten different localities. I, with the same number of professors, half of whom would be responsible for those parts of the teaching that are necessary for and common to all courses, while the other half would devote themselves to the specialist branches of each course, will likewise repeat five branches of science ten times in the first half, but in the second half could have as many as fifty different branches. Your analysis will advance ten steps, whereas mine will advance fifty-five. My national 2 Antonio Bordoni (1788–1860) was a graduate of the University of Pavia where he taught mathematics for many years; he was widely regarded as a leading mathematician of his time.

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synthesis will have a strength that is five times yours. The variety of specialist services I can offer the nation will be five times as great. Now apply this calculation to the entire scientific spectrum, and you will have to recognize that, whereas your first idea would feed one hundred to two hundred branches of science, mine, with the same number of people, would give nourishment to five hundred to one thousand! ([1862] 1965, SP 3: 114–16) Literary Education Not only are literary schools a necessary entrance to various elevated professions, such as medicine, jurisprudence, the magistracy, and the priesthood, they also breathe a certain air of elegance onto the entire civil society (consorzio sociale), which is not always evident in other peoples who are perhaps harder working and more industrious, but often uncouth in their principles, and sullen and unlovely in their virtues. However, our age, which is calculating and wise, frequently asks what useful knowledge a young man may truly bring with him when he emerges from a school where the study of eloquence occupies first place. In asking such a question, perhaps insufficient attention is paid to the fact that education of the mind consists not so much in accumulating positive ideas, as in activating and engaging certain faculties given to us in imperfect form by Nature. Music instructs the voice from afar by means of sol-fa exercises, rather than with the immediate repetition of musical motifs. Literary studies, in a not dissimilar way, train the mind to perform its operations with a precision, delicacy, and effectiveness that uneducated intellects will never be able to achieve. Exercises in poetry will form barely one poet from among ten thousand young people, but what they will do is accustom all students to express their thoughts in the most attractive way possible, to pick out from among the many words that the masses believe to be synonyms, the one that completely meets the need of the moment; to store up a host of detailed conventions, to arouse innumerable allusions with but a few words, to wrap an entire sentence in an attractive variety and fullness of sounds whose power even the crudest of men can appreciate without necessarily being able to detect the learning that occasioned it. And when such men express their conviction with the words: ‘Here is a man who has studied,’ they do not mean thereby that he is in possession of some special kind of knowledge, but rather indicate a generally superior understanding, a higher intellectual form. When Alexander rebuked his teacher for not keeping the

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Iliad in his school, and when the Pythagoreans refused to admit those without musical training to their schools of philosophy, they were making the point that the delicacy of such pleasant studies prepares the mind for the precision of more rigorous disciplines and that, without a certain idealistic impetus, man will never reach beyond the limits of the trivial. Literary education, therefore, serves two purposes: it provides a framework of basic knowledge and facilitates development of the mental faculties. Our forefathers were successful primarily in the latter area and almost exclusively through the instrument of Latin letters, so that the schoolboy would reach adolescence strong in the little that he did know, but uninformed as to his own language, the names of so many parts of the world, or even the most basic modern history or natural science, and would find himself embarking on university or civil life with a powerful intellect, but ignorant of even the most rudimentary facts. And the majority, who were not blessed with outstanding minds, conjoined their ignorance of the facts with weak reasoning and scorn for what they did not know. In our own day, by contrast, development of the mental faculties is all too easily forgotten, and the aim is almost exclusively that of acquiring positive knowledge, with the result that, while lofty intellects often lapse into mediocre results, they are at least better suited to the practice of business and the offices of society. Rare, robust, wild plants have given way to a fertile nursery. ([1839] 1965, SP 3: 58–60) Scientific Education Whereas in England, Gladstone would like to abolish the experimental sciences from secondary schools, in the belief that these are harmful to sound classical instruction and the formation of character, [Senator Carlo] Matteucci wisely informs us that classical studies cannot be separated from the more precise sciences, any more than the past can be divided from the present, or Greek and Roman wisdom can be separated from the new learning that, with Galileo and Newton, has been affirming and expanding man’s dominion over the universe. Natural philosophy is now a large part of the power of the state, and England, being the privileged land of observation, should not forget this. Room must be found for it in every school, not just because of its wonderful role in daily discoveries and benefits, but also for the robust and severe method with which it forms the mind in preparation for the conquest of truth.

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The main purpose of any good education is now to train minds for this productive method, so that, if one method of studies or another had to be chosen for high schools, a certain hesitation would be legitimate, but mercifully, ancient art and modern science illuminate and glorify each other. In France a bifurcated secondary education system was adopted after 1850 that gave rise to the parallel baccalauréates in letters and sciences. This system has performed poorly, and the need has now been felt to return to the original path. This should not go unheeded by us. But it is vitally important that the two subjects proceed in such a way that experimental studies do not act as an encumbrance to minds disposed to be fortified by the serene contemplation of ancient beauties. Perhaps, or no perhaps, mathematics and physics presently occupy space that should properly be reserved for aesthetic culture and go into far too much detail, weighing the mind down with individual items of knowledge that it would be better to postpone until a more appropriate occasion and setting. The problem, accordingly, comes down to one of timetabling and curricula, the latter of which ought to be streamlined, and the aim above all should be to impress broad, clear, comprehensive ideas in the minds of students. It should not be a question of teaching those sciences at great length and in detail, but rather of delineating their main outlines and providing, we might say, a sound framework for the intellectual endeavors to which young people at senior school are subsequently called. Accordingly, what matters most in the study of mathematics in high schools is the distribution of subjects and the order in which they are studied, where the part that comes afterwards serves to illustrate and build on what has preceded it. Similarly, at this level physics should not consist of a detailed exposition and experimental demonstration of the facts. A high-school student should see in physics, above all, the frequent application of the knowledge that he has gradually been acquiring in arithmetic, geometry, trigonometry, and algebra; in other words, the first part of high-school physics should be elementary mechanics. On this basis, and without going into too much detail, without repeating the most elaborate experiments, we should confine ourselves to providing information on subjects such as electricity, heat, and light that is undisputed, that is demonstrable by means of but a few very straightforward experiments, and that leaves students with clear precise ideas regarding the natural laws and the links between them. With a grounding such as this, a young man will be able to continue his studies independently and

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complete them in universities or specialized schools. ([1863] 1965, SP 3: 147–9) The Study of the Bible Something completely different was forgotten in the study of theology. What was forgotten was the first duty of he who takes it upon himself to interpret the word of God: namely, study of the sacred language itself. What value can any exegesis have if it is afraid to compare itself against the original? Have all novices learn even just three words of this language. Tell them that ‘Adam’ means ‘man,’ that ‘Cain’ means ‘owner,’ and that Abel means ‘owner of nothing,’ and you will have shown them all Genesis, not in the miserable sense of some petty private crime, but in its native sublimity of an ideal history of mankind, which, from fraternity and equality in the moral and divine order, moves to usurpation, tyranny, and bloodshed. Three words are sufficient to give a sense of the entire book, and the translators have failed to translate them. Now, without such clear illumination and indisputable linguistic testimony, what on earth will become of the chairs in your Bible and Scripture colleges, your schools of theology, of theological speculations and moral theology? It will be but the vain waffle of blind men on the subject of colors, science with no eyes, which will prepare a morality devoid of all principle and a priesthood with no homeland. This is because the Scriptures were not merely the holy writings of a religion; they were the social covenant of a people, its badge of safekeeping held jealously in the ark of its only shrine, like the Phrygians’ palladium or the Romans’ sacred shield, like the oriflamme of medieval France or the tricolor of France or Italy. But the love of blood and country that pervades every page of the Sepher is absent from, and annihilated by, the accumulation of scholastic excrescences and curial falsifications. We who are condemned to live at the foot of the fortresses that our fathers, in a moment’s insanity, conceded to the enemy, will we allow, even in the shadow of the new laws, a denomination in collusion with that enemy to seek with impunity to make of every new priest an enemy of the fatherland? to remove from the priests’ consciences the consciousness of being a people? to make them put down their arms in the moment of mortal trial? No, we must take hold of the book and thrust it in the face of he who fears and flees from it.

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‘Take this book of the law, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant […] Gather unto me all the elders of your tribes, and your officers, that I may speak these words in their ears, and call heaven and earth to record against them.’ (Deuteronomy 31: 26–8, in [1860] 1964, SP 1: 213–14)3 There are many teachings of liberty contained in the Bible, but the people have never been aware of them, because it is a treasure to which the enemies of freedom hold the key. It also contains many precepts of slavery. It is these that are repeated, while the others go unspoken. ([1850] 1957, SG 2: 296–7) Agricultural Training It is now high time that rational instruction in agriculture be established in every province; it would be a false economy to save in this area. Under the direction of scientific bodies, and at the instigation of numerous institutions, education should in every province tackle those practices that are contrary to demonstrated principles and replace them with others that more recent experience reveals to be superior. ([1860] 1965, SP 4: 40) There are two ways of introducing large-scale agrarian reforms: one is through books, the other through action. But books, especially if they derive from our own home-grown practices, rarely teach us things we do not already know, while if they are based on customs from other countries, whether distant or close at hand, their precepts tend to be spoiled in adapting them to the different soils, climates, rotations, and contracts. New experiments, accordingly, bring unexpected expenses and difficulties, without necessarily also bringing the anticipated benefits, and in so doing discourage entrepreneurs and, worse still, make those who are merely cowards look instead to be wise. Among the thousands of things that are said in a text, it is not easy to truly grasp hold of the one that will, perhaps, be the only useful one to put into practice. It is for this reason that the need was felt in our day to institute model farms and experimental farms, the former to instruct young people in what were clearly the best practices, the latter to try out those innovations that the light of science and the example of other countries show 3 The biblical passage cited in the text is in Latin, as follows: Tolite librum istum et ponite eum in latere arcae foederis […] Congregate ad me omnes majores natu per tribus vestras atque doctores; et loquar, audientibus eis, sermons istos; et invocabo contra eos ceolum et terram.

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could, with due adaptation, be introduced to our own ancient customs. To develop agriculture effectively, we need the simultaneous cooperation of books, models, and experiments. ([1847] 1956, SE 3: 52–3) Military Training All schools should prepare young people for the supreme goal of all our thoughts, that is, the defense of our homeland. All schools should have a military component to them. This does not simply mean that each gathering of young people should involve clothing and activities that are more or less military, nor that the superabundance of vitality and energy that runs through the veins of all young people and that unchanneled leads, on the one hand, to dissipation, frivolity, and debilitation, and on the other, to wild brutality, should be directed toward gymnastics and the exercise of arms. But military exercises must be coordinated in such a way that the young men involved feel as though they are citizens and that the citizens standing to the left and right of them are ready to fight as they are. In Switzerland school pupils scattered across the entire country assemble once a year, in one location or another. They find filial lodgings with families, who exchange this kind office willingly; and as their small platoons gather there for two days at a time, they perfect the battalion’s drills before joyfully returning to their native valleys, united in an insoluble brotherhood of arms. The students of Switzerland, gathered in their thousands at Zurich, under the command of the same generals who led their elder brothers and fathers into real battles, divided themselves into two small armies, and with rifles, cannons, and horses, acted out the military engagement between Massena and Suvorov that took place on the same terrain sixty years previously. You see why a people that does not represent even one-tenth of the Italian nation is respected by the most powerful despots and why even the froth and excrement of its armies, spewed out far away from the homeland, are still strong enough to hold back vast swathes of men raised to live and die without war. All scientific and industrial schooling should be coordinated in such a way that the young students, in one branch of learning or the other, receive that part of their instruction which, in its entirety, constitutes the military art. In military colleges, too, teaching necessarily includes arithmetic, geometry, geography, and foreign languages. At least threequarters of the teaching does not involve military specialization directly. Such specialization, which on its own shall constitute but a fraction of

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the teaching even in military establishments, should be introduced to and consolidated in all branches of public education immediately. You have a school of civil engineers at university. Well, then, no one can become a civil engineer without also having taken a course in building defense systems. In the three-year course offered by every high school, you have teachers of mathematics, physics, mechanics (if you have them), and chemistry (if you have them). What branches of these sciences are useful for tactics, strategy, fortification, or artillery? Conical sections, ballistics, manufacture of gunpowder, military geography, and so forth. Well, then, give each teacher his own area of military instruction, and in this way state schools, too, will become military academies, at perhaps one-hundredth of the price. When these young men have been instructed for some time, you will have many who will want to proceed independently. These military students will provide as many officials as are required to captain the rest of the citizens. But to set up such an arrangement and implement it effectively, not merely with theatrical pomp and for show, as with inane pride we are accustomed to say and do, we require men who have military and civic courage, who have an understanding of civic warfare that, for professional soldiers, for whom to wage war is to serve, may appear as complex as squaring the circle. ([1860] 1964, SP 1: 209–11) A state is an army, and an army is a corps of officers. ([1860] 1965, SP 4: 85) War and Civilization In modern warfare between equally matched populations, the peoples who were most studious and industrious were also the most feared […] The most civilized territories are also the richest and most populous and, in a given space, can provide higher numbers of soldiers, keep them in the field for longer, supply them with better arms and battlefields, with copious munitions and means of transport, find more cultured officers to lead them, and be more likely to have generals and admirals with a certain amount of intelligence: in short, they can mobilize all the elements of absolute and relative mass within a smaller area. By contrast, barbarian peoples live as poor and ignorant, spread across vast moorlands; they clash at length on long unbeaten roads and have no idea of, or love for, the inevitable primacy of the faculties of the mind […] In the long, unprecedentedly long, intervals of peace that the pre-

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dominance of trade and fears of credit have imposed on civilized nations, such nations have devoted themselves instead to the study of sciences, topography, chemistry, mechanical engineering, the art of locomotion over land and sea. Science contemplates new discoveries and new applications. When war eventually breaks out, these nations bring the new principles devised by the creativity that they have fostered in their intelligent society, or which have been suggested by the social needs of a more advanced civilization, onto the battlefield in unexpected ways. In the first battle, victory always belongs to the new principle, then to the phalanx, the legion, the artillery, the uniform march, the quick march, the maniple fire, the flying artillery, the relative mass, and, lastly, to that exaltation of the most generous faculties of mind and heart generated by each new development. But victory itself, which arouses wonder and imitation in other peoples, in the course of a long war balances the fates out and brings the very people who had transcended the conditions of equilibrium back within the limits of reason. Thus did Carthage instruct Rome in the naval art; nor was it long before Charles XII had no more to teach Peter the Great; and the principle of the masses and popular exaltation soon brought French power back within those same confines from which the sudden application of this principle had caused it to burst forth so prodigiously […] Thus one war will never be the same as that which preceded it; it defeats all predictions made by the unintelligent, and mankind, beneath the scourge of defeat and military necessity, is forced, willingly or unwillingly, onto the road of progress. Those left behind succumb in every battle […] This is an inescapable necessity that, along with the products of human creativity themselves, ensures the growing and everlasting predominance of intelligence. Victory does not belong to the robust and hard generation that goes to make up the brave squadrons, but to the taciturn youth who pores over maps, compasses in hand, who chooses the fatal intersection of roads that is destined to become a famous battlefield. Thus the scriptural dictum (Ecclesiastes 9: 11) is proved true which states that ‘the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.’ ([1839] 1957, SSG 1: 58–60) Railroads and War The brief campaign in Italy in 1859 proved the decisive influence that railroads can have in war, just as many had predicted it would. An

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enormous mass of enemies from the banks not just of the Adige but also the distant Danube could, in the space of but a few days, venture into the most fertile provinces of Piedmont, threaten the capital, and wound it in its vital communications with Genoa, before the country’s defenders were ready in numbers and arms, and before the allied army had crossed the Alps and the sea. On the other hand, when the invader had reached as far as the railroads could propel him and slowed down, and when the allied forces eventually assembled, but still had difficulty in dislodging the enemy ranks from the positions that they had taken up, it was only by means of a railroad, which at the first stage of study had been delayed and almost abandoned, that the invader was able to effect that swift lateral movement that, in an instant, transferred the battlefield from one bank of the Ticino to the other and upset all the plans and calculations of an enemy that was slow in its thinking and slowed even further by its bulk. We must now do everything in our power to ensure that, in the very likely event of another war, the enemy does not find us unprepared in terms of numbers, nor dispersed around our own hearths. Hence, two words suffice: arms and railroads!4 Arms may prove useful more than once in the course of great many years, but the railroads will be of use every single day of the year, whether in war or in peace. To peoples exhausted by debt and by wars, the railroads are like veins in which new blood flows, like nerves that extend into every limb of the nation, bringing life, strength and speed, industry, credit, and wealth. ([1860] 1965, SP 2: 307–8) The Nation in Arms Arms and railroads! These are the two aspects of our national defense, one of which renders necessary the other. The revolution pitched the massed conscripts against the mediocre armies of ancient despotism: Allons enfants de la patrie! Thus did the tribunes hope to arm freedom, but eventually they realized that they had merely uncovered another source of strength for despotism, for the discipline of the standing army and the interests of a military career soon alienated the children of the people from the popular cause. The three or four large monarchies that can keep half a million conscripts in arms have the dual power of ready defense and sudden attack. But no standing army can ensure safety for smaller states; for 4 Italics in original, here and elsewhere in this chapter.

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them, any army is too small. Kingdoms of five million, ten million, twelve million inhabitants simply cannot supply so many battalions, nor replace them after defeats or victories won at a cost, as can an empire of thirty, forty, sixty million subjects. They cannot defend themselves with fortified lines, for if they have to command large battlefields, they no longer have resources available to hold the countryside. Whence the need to start wars with low expectations, concentrating resources on the capital city, disarming the provinces in order to save weapons, and allowing devastation, plus all the other damage and shame that comes with defeat, to go unpunished prior to battles. All these are things that can be inferred from mathematical demonstration. Experience has proved them to be true and will continue to do so. For if all those empires, which mercifully are jealous of and hostile to one another, were to join hands for just one moment, the peoples enclosed between them would have no hope of salvation. Poland would be torn apart if plans to divide it up were agreed, and Switzerland, too, would be tamed if similar agreements were reached; Germany would be consolidated, the Levant conquered, China cut into pieces, Japan turned into a Russian colony – the entire globe, both land and sea, made into the plaything of three or four Tamburlaines, and the whole chasm of the Middle Ages reopened on an even greater scale. If the states of lesser size, and with them the traditions of liberty, survived the dark ambitions of Charles V, Phillipe II, Louis XIV, and the maleficent omnipresent Congress of Vienna, it would only be because the assembly of giants could not agree on how to go about universal pillage. So, if smaller states wish to imitate the big states, if they wish to restrict their defenses to merely a standing army, they must either resign themselves to the idea of defeat or subject themselves to one or other of the large despotic systems. They have no certainty of an independent honorable existence unless the entire nation is armed, for it is only by keeping all arms-bearing citizens ready for war that, in that fateful day, they will be able to match their enemies for number and overcome dead discipline with the same kind of popular impetus that shook the Colossus of Nebuchadnezzar from its feet of clay. Meanwhile, all states, both small and large, whether out of arrogance, emulation, or necessity, continue to plough thousands of millions into their own standing armies, which is equivalent to the patient work of the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of young men who condemn themselves to the easy life of a soldier. Their riches would suffice to

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make millions of families happy, to heal the scourge of beggary that afflicts many proud nations, to promote the arts and sciences over the universal ignorance of the peoples, and to inaugurate, with the great inventions of the age, a civilization and a humanity that no visionary could ever have imagined. Between the standing army, which lives off diligent prodigality, and the nation in arms, which consistently saves both time and money, there rages the same war as between an industry that is productive and one that gives no return on the capital invested. Hence, in the United States and in Switzerland, where all forces are reserved for the supreme event, where taxes are low, where duties charged at the gates of each city are unheard of, and the name of land tax, which swallows up the entire output of their imprudent neighboring countries, with the result that days of oppression are ill-distinguished from days of freedom in the books of their poor families, is virtually unknown. All this effort in terms of conscriptions and taxes does not strengthen the state’s resources; rather, it consumes them […] Arming the nation contains within it an eminently moral principle, for where it is irresolute and inefficient in respect of ambitious wars of invasion, it is far more powerful in wars of blameless defense. It, therefore, also represents a pledge to justice, to world peace, to the harmony of mankind. ([1860] 1965, SP 4: 65–76) Those for whom the army is a privilege and a kind of mystery, as the alphabet was at the time of Evander,5 affect scorn for the idea of a militia. But not only can it give the largest battalions to smaller states as well as larger states, it can also unleash a courage that multiplies its forces by a hundredfold as a result of the dynamism of its elements and the inflammable nature of the peoples […] But to give officers and intelligent weapons not just to a reduced army and a select navy, but to an entire populous nation, special schools are not sufficient. We repeat, and shall continue to do so: those branches of learning that, even in military and naval colleges, constitute little more than an accessory to a general course of studies should be introduced immediately to all university, academy, high-school, and commercial school curricula. ([1860] 1965, SP 4: 68) 5 In Roman mythology Evander, or Euandros, was a deified hero who brought the Greek Pantheon, laws, and alphabet to Rome sixty years before the Trojan War (ca.1200 BC). In Greek mythology, the war began when Paris eloped with Helen and became the setting for the Illiad and background for the Odyssey; in reality, the war was probably over trade issues in the Dardanelles.

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The army should not aim at making itself a privilege, a profession apart or for mercenaries. It should be like the alphabet, both a duty and a right of every citizen, so that all living forces and all the country’s circumstances of land and sea are efficiently deployed for its defense and its glory. ([1860] 1960, SF 1: 372–3) The First Military Force Is the Will In the early years of the century, throughout the entire Italian peninsula there were over a hundred thousand highly trained soldiers. These had performed exploits of great valor and loyalty on every battlefield from Madrid to Moscow. But this did not prevent Italy from soon lying like a corpse at the feet of its enemy and those who came with its enemy. All glory was unjustly removed from the name of Italy, and even its honor was treacherously called into doubt. We have all, several times, read words written by foreigners, the very memory of which provokes anguish and anger. Our whole future remains in the hands of roughly the same number of soldiers who offered up the three regions of Italy to Napoleonic unity, and those same principles of armament, discipline, and morality that reduced the entire theatrical edifice to such miserable ruin. The Napoleonic model also consisted of two models: a standing army instituted by force through unpopular conscription and an elite incomplete national guard. Imprudent policy instilled the belief that to make soldiers it was necessary to unmake citizens and that the troupier should more or less decently despise the bourgeois or péquin. In turn, the bourgeois who succeeded in becoming enrolled in the national guard allowed himself to be easily persuaded, by the esprit de corps and by privilege, to oppose and despise the majority of the nation, since the law had denied civilians the trust that would have been implied in their being armed. Indeed, even in the happiest constitutional times the majority was deemed unfit to cast its vote in the electoral urns. Famous statesmen were proud to refer to it as the ‘vile multitude,’ before fleeing from its scorn. The method of the standing army has revealed itself to be extremely well suited to the most distant and extravagant enterprises, but in times of peace imposes a huge burden on the peoples while endangering liberties and sometimes even laws. It suppresses a soldier’s affections for home and family and all consciousness of the jus gentium, but for this reason proves inadequate as a suitable method by which to defend one’s

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native soil. Napoleon had at his sovereign disposal all the forces of France and Italy, but found his hands prodigiously empty when it came to defending Paris, which was taken and retaken by foreigners – an event not witnessed for centuries – and which at one stage was deemed unthinkable. It certainly was not so easy to enter Brescia, Genoa, Leghorn, Rome, or Venice in 1849. Were there not millions of men in the vast bosom of France? Were there not millions of strong arms and intrepid hearts? It mattered little. A fallacious system of government and arms predestined them to suffer that indelible disgrace on two occasions in the space of fifteen months. The defense of France had become the task of soldiers, and in terms of military mechanics, it was a war like any other. In the soldiers it was reason that had been suppressed, in the nation the awareness of right and of duty. When the peoples of Europe entered Paris armed and triumphant, it was because the nation had learned to say: ‘Leave the job to those whose job it is.’ These are the most obvious examples, and we would do well never to forget them. Turning now to Italy, the soldiers it granted itself after 1814 did not so defend the governing nation against the effects of public hatred that it did not also have to resort first to a prince, then to another, and then, all of them together, to the Austrian protector who, in the end, did not have sufficient strength even to protect himself. In 1848, within the space of seventy days, Italy, from Palermo to Venice, obtained its freedom. All the governments that had grown in the shadow of the Austrian eagle were transformed or ejected. Even the gates of Mantua and Verona were for several days entrusted to civic arms. In just two weeks, from March 18 to April 2, Radetzky was able to gather the dispersed garrisons of the kingdom and duchies within his fortresses. It was easy for him to do so, because the nation’s regular forces were not ready to shoot on sight, as the peoples had been. Immediately the people had allowed themselves to have whispered in their ears that that spontaneous and sudden force, which had been able to set to flight an entire proud enemy, would no longer be needed – for the enemy was broken, isolated, and shipwrecked by the rebellion of its people. Sensible men were then persuaded, in the name of the Holy Alliance, to turn their back on the widespread armament of the nation in favor of the method of having but a few, well-trained soldiers, [to move] from the spontaneous wave of volunteers to forced conscription, from men who had grown up amid danger to indecisive hierarchies who turned defense of the nation into a secret, and to hate the weapons of

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their people more than the weapons of foreigners. And so, from glorious tactics and strategic hesitations, within a few weeks, we came to disasters, armistices, and treaties. These are the most serious of all, because in the name of the public good faith, they take away from the people the right of legitimate self-defense and make every first reverse lasting and fatal. In 1849, against a victorious enemy and while basking in glory, strength, and gold, another more ill-advised instance of the same mistake occurred, as we fell once again, after a few brief hours, into armistices and treaties. So, amid the sudden defeat of conscripted arms, we saw with astonishment, and many also with scorn, the cities of Genoa, Brescia, and Leghorn persisting in battle regardless. The Venetian Republic, left derelict on the field for the second time, remained intrepid even in the face of hunger and plague, and an army of volunteers, randomly taken from all the peoples of Italy, dragged the name of Rome from the grave and, despite facing the leading soldiers in the world, reconsecrated it to victory. Two cities, with irregular and fortuitous arms, then fought against two huge powers. All the brave men, scattered in those days from Cadore to Palermo, remained to fight, because no one had authority to command them to lay down arms. This in itself was nothing new: the same volunteer principle had already been in operation in Spain when, after central power had fallen into the hands of the soft afrancesados, the popular hydra remained all the more poisonous and untamed: quot capita, tot vitae (as many lives as people). Equally Prussia, the great instructress in arms, had fallen in a day. But when there, too, military fanaticism and factional loyalties had mathematically and arithmetically given up hope, the fatherland was saved by the old burgomasters, the young poets, and the ‘league of virtue.’ These examples all go to show just how false is the principle that places the welfare of the nation anywhere other than in the will of the nation, for the primary strength of man is his will. ([1861] 1965, SP 4: 131–5)

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4 Local Autonomy

The Nation in Arms and Federalism Two states alone, the Swiss and the American federations, have, even in these troubled years (1850s), displayed the art of good government, without being obliged either to have recourse to a standing army or to incur the disproportionate cost that such a measure involves. Not only do these federations rely on the spontaneous, regularly renewed consensus of the masses, they also bring together in the federal authority all that is of common interest, leaving each people free to exercise its own particular rights, to supply itself with men of its own choosing, to develop its own traditional or spontaneous ideas, and to have that rightful pride in its own sovereignty that is as dear to the people as it is to their rulers. In this way the general order does not invade the local order: it does not humiliate, discourage, or irritate it; it does not sow rancor or impose on it the apparatus of dull force; it does not waste capital or bleed families dry. Industry, which is likewise unencumbered, can also feed in less greedy and unintelligent fashion the arms of those that work it, while at the same time testing itself to clear advantage in even the remotest of markets. It remains to be seen to what extent other peoples, who are destined by traditions, opinions, or imperial circumstances to adopt other forms of government, may nonetheless approach this ideal of fraternal law and advanced economy. It remains to be seen how the practice of liberty may be made more genuine and widespread, the consensus of people made more natural and lasting, deliberative activity extended across the entire expanse of states, and the maximum number of thinkers and ambitious men involved therein. ([1860] 1960, SF 1: 383–4)

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Local Patriotism (Le patrie locali) Our cities are not merely the happy seat of the largest number of inhabitants, shops, and workshops, or of the largest depository of provisions. Such would be, for example, Birmingham, Trieste, Malta, or Gibraltar, none of which has any intimate moral link with the populations surrounding them, and all of which could be described as geopolitical cities that stand on the mainland like ships anchored in the sea. Our cities are the ancient centers of all communications in large and populous provinces. All the roads and markets in their respective areas converge on them; they function rather like the heart in a system of veins. They are the terms to which all consumption is directed and from which all industry and capital derive. They are a point of intersection, or rather, a center of gravity; and gravity, as we know, cannot be made to fall on merely any point chosen at random. Men gather there for diverse interests: because they find there the courts, the revenue offices, the conscription committees, the archives, the mortgage ledgers, the military and priestly administrations, the large garrisons and hospitals. It is there that the wealthy dwell with their banks and their administrations; they are the focal points of their estates, the seat of their palaces, the center of their customs, their influence and standing, the meeting point of their relations, the most opportune place for their children to be established and for their youth to study and find employment. In short, they are a center of action for an entire population of two to three hundred thousand inhabitants. It would be easier to bring all of France’s landholding class (la possidenza) to Paris than it would be to persuade fifty noblemen from Brescia to leave their workshop or their roccolo.1 Found a new city, bring it riches, manufactures, banks, or whatever you wish – your new city will be St Petersburg but it will never be Moscow; it will be Constantinople but it will never be Rome; it will never be rooted to the land and its people. Take it away and the body will not appear mutilated, for it will never be more than a splendid appendix, never a precious vital organ. This condition of our cities is the work of centuries and extremely remote events, and its causes go back further than all living memory. 1 Towerlike constructions spread with fine nets in order to catch birds, then widely used in Lombardy. They can still be seen in some areas today (translator’s note).

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Dialects are the witness to the indelible action of these primitive societies, and with the dialects not only does character and mood change from province to province, but also culture, ability, industry, and the entire order of wealth. This means that men cannot easily be uprooted from their natural centers. Anyone who, in Italy, fails to take account of the love of one’s own individual homeland will always be sowing in the sand. ([1836] 1956, SE 1: 116–18) Autonomy for Sardinia An already too-protracted experience has shown that the parliament so far has been able to grant but a few days, indeed virtually only a few hours, to the obscure and unsophisticated affairs of the island of Sardinia, and even then with an attitude that reflects a certain disdain that is impatient, belittling, almost feudal. I fail to see how our new parliament, which has set itself to embrace the immediate and universal improvement of so many different laws and administrations, an undertaking that already far exceeds the limits of what is actually possible, will be able to grant it more studied attention. Now, to confine the discussion to just Sardinia, I would venture to say that, if the parliament were to reserve even but a whole year to the subject, if it resolved to realize immediately all that which, on the island, has the potential to become a source of wealth and of force, it would nonetheless have enough to occupy as many of its members as were willing and able to engage in efficacious work for the whole of that year. And this, I repeat, would not suffice for the task at hand. No: for as long as the parliament wishes to keep hold of all the domestic affairs of all its individual peoples, it will find it easier to obstruct than to act. Administration is not the same as legislation. The parliament has only one way in which to tackle the great regional issues, that is, to prepare measures for implementation, issue ordinances for them to be implemented, and then let others implement them. All that would be required to work wonders in Sardinia would be to remove the obstacles that hinder it and release the land from its barbarian shackles. The remaining worries should be left to the provincial and municipal councils, which should not, however, be merely inert limbs of the constitution; they should be protectors of the people rather than the parliament’s favorites. They should allow the islanders to look after their own assets, their ademprivii, pabarili, stazi, and any of their other ancestral

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mysteries.2 Sardinians should be made responsible for their own fate, so that they may no longer have occasion to complain about anyone but themselves, nor learn to hate Italy as, sadly, they learned to hate Piedmont. Rather than torturing their minds over fruitless quarrels of the past and tired disputes between slaves, let them turn their thoughts to genial visions of a future filled with reason, equality, and liberty, insofar as it may be given to us to hope for such a thing. Where provincial deliberation genuinely requires new bills of legislation, not superfluous ones, as is so often the case, the [provincial and local] magistrates themselves or their commissions should easily be able to invoke them. After all, they are men from the same legislative class; legal inventions and transient functions do not alter a man’s intellect. What is needed, above all, is to have people who are thinking about an issue, thinking about it properly, and who have an ongoing interest in continuing to think about it. In any case, it would be wise counsel for the national parliament to confine itself to approving the magistrates’ proposals, to giving them the seal of constitutional legitimacy, without giving rise to those frivolous arguments and childish amendments that sometimes frustrate an item of legislation with just one word. The best thing would be for the parliament to confine itself to exercising a supreme right of cassation, ordering the wise men of the island to reform their propositions only in those points that truly contradict that desire for harmony, which it is desired to impress on the general course of public interests. ([1862] 1965, SP 4: 339–40) Even if the deputies were to devote every day of the year to remaking from scratch, and in accordance with the needs and aspirations of this century, all the laws and ordinances as currently constituted, and as they inevitably must be in order to guarantee that one faction or another has supreme power, it would still take them more than ten years to accomplish the task. While the new is being thus contemplated, will it be necessary to nail all the peoples of Italy to the cross of the old laws? ([1861] 1965, SP 4: 148)

2 Terms from Sardinian law – ademprivio, common property resources such as pasture, often passed abusively into private hands; pabarile, land left free for pasture after fallow cultivation; stazio, more commonly stazzo or istazzu, a term mostly used in some parts of Sardinia to indicate a country dwelling or property (translator’s note). A point about these ordinances implied by the way Cattaneo retained them in his text is that they are, in his view, abstruse and foreign-sounding, even to nineteenth-century Lombards.

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The Error of Centralization Always prone to hasty abstractions, they [the centralizers] see the world first of all as individuals, then as households (which is already most adventurous), then as communes, that is, as a united concern of perhaps a hundred households, a combination which, in the majority of cases, is virtually domestic and private. They then close their eyes to all other intermediate stages and destinations of human society and arrive in one leap at the concept of the nation, which is the same as to say, of language. They ignore the state [i.e., the political order] and its needs. Accordingly, if one language alone prevails in the British Isles, Pennsylvania, California, Canada, Jamaica, and Australia, the only thing that is required as far as they are concerned is to group together the largest possible number of households and communes. The British parliament therefore does not have to issue legislation; the American congress dreams of having laws to issue; provincial legislation for the brothers of Pennsylvania and the adventurers of California is even more superfluous; icy Canada and sweltering Jamaica should not have their own laws that would correspond to the places and traditions and various mixtures of peoples and their differing consciences; and Australia, from its antipodean position, would have to wait an eternity for every single item of policy, simply because it speaks the same language and should therefore be treated as one nation with them! No: whatever affinity there may be in the thoughts and sentiments that a common language may foster between households and communes, a parliament assembled in London will never be able to meet the needs of America, a parliament assembled in Paris will never be able to meet the needs of Geneva; legislation debated in Naples will never awaken dormant Sicily, nor will a Piedmontese majority ever feel itself sufficiently indebted to spend night and day debating how to transform Sardinia or to make its own policies more palatable in Venice or Milan. Every people may have many interests to treat in common with others, but there are also interests that one alone is in a position to handle, because it alone feels and understands them. In each people there is also an awareness of its own existence, a pride in bearing its own name, and a jealousy for its own ancestral land. This is the source of federal rights, that is, the rights of the peoples, which must have their place alongside the right of the nation and alongside human rights. ([1850] 1957, SSG 2: 330–1)

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The Illusion of the Constituent Assembly The parliament such as it is, and such as it ever could be under such obvious ministerial pressure, is wholly inadequate for the task of overhauling the huge mass of legislation and administration, without gravely offending the interests and habits, the rightful opinions and dignity of the various people of Italy. But in our view, the Piedmontese system would, under a constituent assembly, have the same fatal preponderance as it does in a parliament. And it would still take the work of many years to rebuild the entire legal and administrative edifice! In the meantime, who shall have authority to attend to the most urgent local legislative and administrative needs in a way that is constitutional, legitimate, and valid? (1861, Il Politecnico X, 305) The Servile Status of the Communes The French Revolution was not able to offer a way out from the centuries of tradition or from belief in the omnipotence of the ruling classes. The emissaries of the king simply made way for the emissaries of the nation. In the frenzy of government they forgot about freedom. The people may have controlled the land, but they did not control the communes […] When war brought us all the new French institutions as a precious commodity in 1804 and 1805, we found that, not only in the parts of Italy that were annexed to the empire, but also in the kingdom that continued to bear the name of Italy, all the communes still had mayors appointed by the prefect or podestà appointed by the king. In fact, the communal councils themselves, wherever the communes had more than three thousand inhabitants, were likewise appointed by the king and where fewer, by the prefect. This was the first appointment; thereafter, appointments had to be made upon dual proposals from the councils, but made nonetheless by the prefect or the king. The communes could be grouped or divided at the minister’s whim. The prefect could wall up the city gates if he wanted to reduce the expense of securing them, and for such enlightened purpose the ministry could advance the funds and the city repay them, pursuant to a decree issued on June 23, 1804. In another dazzling demonstration of intelligence, communes situated close to the city walls were pitilessly incorporated into the cities, splitting up families and dispersing thousands of inhabitants. The municipalities reported to the prefect or

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deputy prefect, and executed their orders; if they disobeyed, they risked being suspended or replaced. The only right that the new Italian commune now had was the right of obedience. The commune was the last footnote to and lowest afterthought of the prefecture and vice-prefecture. In other words, the commune was no longer a commune. The entire system was nothing but a fiction. In 1814 neither the podestà nor the councilors appointed by the king lifted a finger to save the kingdom. Some of them welcomed the Austrians and had the bells rung to celebrate. Such was the solidity of bureaucratic institutions. He who sows servility reaps treachery. ([1864] 1965, SP 4: 419–20) The Regions Must Arise The regions must arise to public life, take a strong hand in their own affairs, and relieve central government and state finances of the excessively heavy burden of maintaining the armed forces. All the regions have immense sources of assets, in the form of public lands still unsquandered, their imperfect agriculture, their still isolated commercial activities, their unused or unknown personal capabilities, and their dormant credit. Sardinia itself has immense potential, which the government rashly has challenged, and which, with just a hint of goodwill and common sense, the parliament could transform into public works. But what is needed is for the people to press parliament into action, although they cannot do so until they have decided what route to take. It seems almost as though the people prefer to be aggrieved, to be able to say that they are being governed badly […] But a force that expands indiscreetly may only be restrained by the expansion of another force, by moral strength, by awareness of rights, or by the genius of liberty. Everything good or bad that is done in Italy is ultimately the work of a few hundred men, who have nothing in themselves that others do not also have. Anyone can do what they do. An old Florentine proverb from the days when as a people they were the freest, and therefore also the foremost, in Europe, says: Tanto può altri quant’altro – any one can do what another man does. There are bitter words in several parts of your book,3 words that perhaps you never thought you would have to utter so soon […] But I 3 Sulla prosecuzione della Ferrovia Aretina nei pressi di Perugia fino ad Ancona (Perugia, 1861). ‘Your’ refers to the author of the monograph, the municipal council of Perugia, who had sought the opinion of Cattaneo concerning the railroad system of Perugia.

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would rather hear from you words of determination, springing from well thought-out propositions that show enterprising character. No legitimate government may prevent you from doing what is most convenient for you to do in your own home, if you resolutely set out to do what is necessary in order to achieve what it is that you desire to happen. ([1861] 1965, SP 2: 379–80) It is a dream that many entertain, but a dream nonetheless, that with just a wave of a magic wand one law for the whole of Italy can be devised. No: for many generations to come, in Turin, Parma, Rome, Naples, and Sicily, contracts will be executed and rights acquired that have their roots in ancient and modern laws, all of which may be formally abrogated and believed to be dead and buried by the majority of legislators, but which nonetheless shall inevitably continue to be handed down as an inheritance, not just to families but entire populations. And it is vital that lawyers and judges, wherever they are conscious that they are being called to deal with such laws, understand them from sound, lucidly inferred principles, so that they do not find themselves toiling in the dark. I have had to deal with Sardinia on at least two occasions, and both times I did everything within my power to form a distinct, precise idea in my mind of what vidazzoni, portadie, roadie, cussorgie, furiardorgi, and other similar ancient rights really are.4 But if I had the misfortune, as a result of some blind and unjust principle of indiscrimination, to be catapulted into sitting as judge in some court on the island, I am firmly persuaded that my ignorance would astound the poor souls invoking my wisdom and justice, and I would resign myself straight away to hearing my name cursed in the bosom of those bereft families [...] No: laws do not die sudden deaths, as improvisers [reformers] vainly hope. They live or reign from the depths of sepulchers. ([1862] 1965, SP 3: 119–20) On the Independence of Small Communes Are small communes a bad thing? How can this be? Lombardy, which of all the Italian regions was endowed first and most extensively with roads, 4 Vidazzone, cultivated land, especially for cereal crops; portadie, payment to a baron of half the grain sown by vassals on feudal land; roadia, ancient ordinance providing that peasants work the land free of charge on public holidays for the benefit of common wheat funds; cussorgia, institute deriving from concession granted by authority but subject to regime of civil usage, providing for public land to be used for pasture (for a charge); furiardorgio, ancient ordinance governing rights in respect of providing shelter for animals, e.g., sheep-pens (translator’s note).

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schools, public health doctors, and other forms of communal providence, is also the region that has the largest number of small and very small communes. Some 607, more than a quarter, of its communes have fewer than 500 inhabitants, and another 746, again more than a quarter, have fewer than 1,000. This is already the majority of the 2,242 communes in the region […] How blessed, then, is Sicily, which has neither roads, public health doctors, nor schools! But whereas the Lombard communes number on average only 358 inhabitants, Sicilian communes have a population, 6,881, that is eighteen times higher. And whereas each commune in Lombardy covers a surface area of only eight square kilometers, each Sicilian commune extends over an area of seventy-three square kilometers. This is what tends to be known as a ‘strong’ grouping, but is the Sicilian commune eighteen times stronger and more efficient than the Lombard commune? No sirs, size is not the same thing as life […] Nor, for this reason, would I say that we should immediately rush to the opposite extreme and ‘remake’ Sicily, Tuscany, and all Italy into a multitude of small communes. Such uniformity between the different regions is not at all necessary, as indeed it was not necessary between the open communes of Lombardy, since some of them do not even reach two hundred inhabitants whereas the largest has more than fifty thousand. But if we were forced to choose between violence and violence, it would be preferable to have violence of the kind that multiplies communes and spreads them more widely across provinces. The continual increase in prosperity since 1755 in that perennial battlefield known as Lombardy, between the many foreign invasions to which Sardinia and Sicily appeared to be immune, is principally attributable to this. It is due to this multiplicity of communes, their mutual independence, their greater mastery of their own affairs, and the more liberal use of both reason and will in their affairs. This is their secret, and it is this that it is desired to spread throughout Italy. It is a mistake to think that communal life would become more effective by merging several communes into one, that is, through largescale suppression of these nerve centers of local life. On the shores of the seas and lakes and in many, many other parts of Italy, we see flourishing communes of just a few hundred families devoted to industry, the fine arts, or to long-distance shipping, who are also attempting, with equal devotion, to ennoble the places in which they were born. But if the small commune were to be chained to a plurality of rural villages scattered throughout valleys and woodlands, or peopled

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with wandering farm-laborers, such inspired ferment would be defeated or suppressed. The small commune has the right to perpetuate in its own midst that way of life that is peculiar to it, even if it is not one with which its neighbors happen to agree. And for these, too, this neighboring example of liberty may be of some use. If one commune that is already supplied with roads and water should, through the agency of a will not its own, be conjoined to another, less highly favored by nature and fortune, it will care little to contribute with its own money to works that will not be of direct benefit to it. Ill-matched mergings thus give rise to impotence and discord, so that the only remedy is the counsel given by Abraham to Lot: ‘Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between thee and me, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for we be brethren. Is not the whole land before thee? Separate thyself, I pray thee, from me. If thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left’ (Genesis 13: 8–9). It is better to live as friends in ten houses than live in one with discord. Ten families can easily prepare their broth at one fireplace, but there is something in the human mind and affections that is not satisfied with mere arithmetic and broth. ([1864] 1965, SP 4: 424–6)

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5 The Social Question

The Advent of the Fourth Estate February 24, 1848, was the first day of a new era. For the first time ever, in France a manual worker was called to sit in government. To improve the fate of the working classes was placed among the duties of society and state; and as many citizens as were twenty-one years of age were granted the same right to influence public affairs as anyone else. Hence, this fourth order, which in 1789 was still confused beneath a common mantle with the third estate, began to have a determining weight (principio determinante) in shaping the new institutions. We are all workers if we work to the profit of mankind. If a person argues for the working classes to have greater influence in the legislative order, he is not sowing discord, but performing a duty of justice and benevolence. ([1862] 1965, SP 4: 390–1) The Fifth and Sixth Estates Here we should remind thinkers as well as friends of the poor that, while a large proportion of those who are properly referred to as workers demonstrate that they have acquired such a clear consciousness of both themselves and their rights that they could not, without injustice and temerity, be denied legal expression thereof, the majority of farmers still lies in such neglected, barbarian conditions that we shall soon have to introduce the idea of a fifth estate of society. And far below even the needy and working-class families lie the handicapped, the beggars, and the rejects, who, in truth, are as numerous as the nations themselves are wealthy and proud. These, then, would constitute a sixth estate. ([1862] 1965, SP 4: 393–4) 146

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The Comforts of the Poor In general, it may be said that they [the well-off and the professional classes] are all misguided when, out of lack of benevolence, or pride and curious envy for the comforts of the poor, they expect the life of the masses to be frugal and austere. Such people do not realize that certain needs, which to the narrow-minded may appear artificial, and which emerge during times of abundance, constitute for the worker a margin to which he may gradually retreat in times of disaster, so that the worst may pass before he reaches the painful extremity of hunger or reverts entirely to dependence on his master. But where the poor live on miserable salaries with appalling diets, utterly broken in spirit and abject in their person, multiplying in the hay like rabbits, and plumbing the very depths of need even in times of abundance, every problem soon becomes a famine, and every famine soon becomes hunger and death. Nothing is more absurd than the rich man begrudging the poor man his broth! A peasant in misery makes the land barren and dispossesses the landowner. The poor man should certainly work hard, but also live well. ([1844] 1956, SE 2: 436–7) Universal Suffrage The only form whereby the common right of the entire nation may be exercised over its own destiny, having ruled out all other subterfuges invented by falsifiers of the public vote, is direct universal suffrage. But universal suffrage is not a magic wand that, if waved, can preserve the people from momentary error. France twice betrayed itself this way, in 1848 and in 1849, although ultimately, with limited suffrage it would not have fared much better. However, universal suffrage cannot always in the course of time go wrong, for it is like the lance of Peleus,1 which healed the wounds it itself inflicted. In the long term, the elected body cannot but correspond, at least in some measure, to the body that elected it. The principle of entrusting a society’s destiny to the numerical majority of interested parties may appear risky to some, and a few have dared to call it a new form of barbarism. It is hardly surprising that such misconceptions should be widespread in a society, the form of whose opinions is dictated by the hand of the privileged. The opposite preju1 As the king of the Myrmidons and father of Achilles, Peleus is known in Greek mythology as having taken part in the Calydonian hunt and Argonaut expedition.

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dice – that the people is the source of all virtue and the powerful of all corruption – gained ground at the end of the last century as a result of a contrary influence, fostered by a reading of the works of Rousseau. For this reason, the new declaration of human rights promulgated by the Convention stated that ‘toute institution qui ne suppose le peuple bon et le magistrat corruptible, est vicieuse’ (Article 19).2 This was the opposite of that blessed trust that leads some today into thinking it a crime to cast doubt on the virtue of those who govern. Fichte believed that the powerful were the most corrupt, because they were also the most selfish.3 Here one may ask why selfishness should not equally prevail in the poorer classes, especially as they have not the benefit of an attentive upbringing to correct it. But it might be replied that, when the common history of mankind tends toward the progressive abolition of privileges, whoever has a vested interest in maintaining them and is unable in his thinking to rise above himself, will easily be led into obstructing the people’s progress. He will thus find himself objecting to the most generous and beneficent thoughts, becoming downcast as and when such thoughts are turned into reality, endeavoring to slow down every reform, and promoting a return to the past, behaving as if he lived in enemy territory with that enemy being the people, for whose good he ought rather to be working and suffering. He will have to veil such ill-starred hatred with at least an appearance of reason, accordingly subjecting himself to an internal struggle between mind and conscience, and accustoming himself to see everything in terms only of naked advantage. This leads to disdain for all of life’s ideals, to speaking of them with a pitying smile, and elevating selfishness into a kind of wisdom or religion. Egotism can equally well take root in the poorer classes, but it cannot be joined with the spirit of caste, for, insofar as the poor are interested in 2 It is not clear to what text Cattaneo is referring here. The quotation reported as Article 19 cannot be found either in the Declaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen promulgated by the 1793 Convention or the Declaration des droits et des devoirs de l’homme et du citoyen promulgated by the 1795 Convention. Since the quotation appears in a review essay of several pamphlets published in Berlin by Ferdinand Lassalle (1825–1864), Cattaneo may be citing from one such pamphlet by Lassalle. It is also possible that, since Lassalle took part in the 1848 revolt in France, he himself might have been quoting from some text of that revolt. 3 It is not clear if or where Fichte wrote that. The search, aided by several specialists of German thought of the period, has proved inconclusive. As suggested in the previous footnote, it is likely that Lassalle is the source for the citation in Cattaneo.

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that entire caste, they are also interested, albeit involuntarily, in the broader culture of the nation as a whole, and comply, albeit subconsciously, with the supreme end of mankind, which consists precisely in the greatest extension of reason and of liberty. The aspirations of the poor classes are therefore not the same as those of egotism; they are the cause of all men, the cause of mankind; such individual passions fit together with the noblest humanity. The influence of the fourth estate in society thus promises to propel mankind into a much broader field of culture and morality. ([1862] 1965, SP 4: 391–3) The New Criminal Law In [early] times when the law was dictated in the name of the gods, and written on the tables of human victims, every crime was considered sacrilege (piaculum). This way every punishment was a form of expiation. In the understanding of other nations every crime was an insult, so every penalty was a form of vengeance, and the judges were called rachiburgi, avengers, or custodians of vengeance; which gave rise to reprisals, the barbarian lex talionis, duels, money settlements, guidrigildi or reparations, and guiderdoni or rewards. As the centuries changed, so did ideas. In the process the principle of justice changed, too, no longer taking the form of vengeance for or expiation of the past, but looking instead to the future, and styling itself as necessary defense: punitur, non quia peccatum, sed ne peccetur (punishment is meted out not because sin has been committed, but rather in order that sin should not be committed). Punishment therefore became a measured threat against those unidentified souls who might disturb the future peace […] But the century did not run its course idly or unproductively. The idea of terror no longer prevails in our minds and has given way, instead, to that of reform. Accordingly, the prison in free America has become a school of labor, a cell of silence and repentance. Do you believe that the fullness of this ideal has thus been achieved? No, fellow citizens, let us hope not, it will not rest there; for civilization is a militia, and in our civil ranks, in which a hundred different traditions clash, creating perennial imbalance, this idea is propelled toward ever new developments. The Americans sought to reform the offender, supposing that he had offended as a result of mere malice. Mere malice? Certainly not. At this juncture we may invoke the new science of statistics, which is indefatigable in translating into figures every instance of human society (tutti i casi dell’umanità). Statistics brought together two columns of numbers

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that appear to have no correlation between them. It counted, from among the ranks of the unfortunate souls who are sent to the gallows, all of those who could read and write, and it turned out that these were in the minority. Thus, crime showed itself to be virtually always the companion of ignorance, which also placed the blame not just at the feet of the parents, pray note, but also the magistrates, who sanctioned the fines against the said careless parents and imprudent communities. Statistics also institutes other comparisons. It sets the number of crimes committed annually against the annual price of bread and finds, to our horror, that the two figures rise and fall together. It sets the number of crimes committed against the number of illegitimate births and shows that both the needs of misery and the abuses and prejudices of wealth contribute distantly to the incidence of crime. It seeks facts from medicine, anatomy, and similar sciences and finds such mysteries in the fearful knowledge of evil that would make every judge tremble, who, in punishing a crime, is forced to punish the latest effect brought about by a shadowy series of causes, for which not one of us does not bear at least some semblance of responsibility. ([1852] 1960, SF 2: 19–21)

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6 Literature

History and Poetry The fact that Don Carlos did not perish in the Inquisition’s prisons was revealed by Canon [Juan Antonio] Llorente just a few years after the deaths of Alfieri and Schiller. But how could the poets have guessed that which time itself did not reveal? Poetry cannot make itself into an obsequious, precise daguerreotype likeness of history. A shabby old scrap of paper, uncovered in some second-hand shop or library catacomb, may betray unknown circumstances and demolish the entire edifice from top to bottom. In order to weep with historical precision and guaranteed confidence, audiences in the theatres will have to wait until the end of time, when universal history will be resurrected in the mystical valley. The poet has discharged his duty when the facts as a whole are consistent, not so much with history itself, as with the current idea that the nation has fashioned of certain times, places, and customs. It is sufficient if he infuses his work with great verisimilitude, in accordance with the inaccurate opinions of his day. A generation more learned in history cannot, of course, fail to demand greater faithfulness from its poets, as ignorance or indifference would offend the mind and would at every stage dampen the affections with doubt, criticism, and scorn. As far as art is concerned, however, all such historical material is but a servile substance, intended to receive and sustain a form, like the body, which clothes life and spirit. What matters most is that the emotions are engaged effectively and that the gathered masses are moved deeply. If the poet can give us this, and this only, all his trespasses should still be forgiven.

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Some would prefer that, while it is not always easy or fitting for art to display bare facts, it should at least faithfully represent places, times, customs, and nations. But if this were the case, it would be necessary to paint over every Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene, which our ancients depicted as our people must have imagined them, that is, with the beauty of our race and from the perspective of our country. One would also inevitably have to depict the holy family as the French artists learned to depict Judith and Rebecca following the invasion of Algeria. And it would still remain doubtful as to whether Cleopatra or Bernice should be painted with the Greek profile of their ancestors or with the barbarian contours of the Egyptian sphinx. But the new image, artistically elaborated on the basis of a remote model, would no longer correspond to the image lodged firmly in the minds of the common people. Such nation-centric (nazionario),1 or ethnographic, painting and poetry are another field and a new art – a vast field and a beautiful art, but one which must not, with its laborious teaching, be allowed to disturb unsolicited the spontaneous vein of our affections. A broad difference of character and manners certainly exists between one people and another, between one generation and another; but how can the difference between the love of a Spanish woman and that of a Persian or Russian woman be portrayed clearly and confidently? And even if someone did manage to render these half-tints correctly, how could he, without prefacing his depiction with its own commentary, cause them to be noticed by an audience that cares not for erudition and craves only emotion? Most spectators in an audience in any given country have, out of habit, developed certain ideal types to which they associate the characters presented to them in a variety of guises. Thus, there is the tyrant type or the lover type, the oppressed innocent, or the evil minister. The subtle historical distinctions that divide Tiberius from Philip and Virginius from William Tell are of scant consequence to them. In Germany, no one thinks to question whether the Spanish men and women, whom the young Schiller depicted as best he could from a villa in Franconia, might not actually be German rather than Spanish. And in Italy, it would be ridiculous to suggest remaining unmoved or unaffected at a scene in Alfieri’s Filippo, simply because his Spanish characters, in accordance with the inherited ritual of Italian tragedy, use the tu form as they did in 1 We are grateful to Aaron Thomas for suggestions on how to translate this neologism, which possibly comes closest to what Cattaneo intended by nazionario.

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ancient Greece and Rome, rather than the more formal usted or Vuestra Altesa in Spanish. What is more, a poet writes for his own time, colored by the opinions that are current at that moment. He cannot fail to allow his emotions to appear, and it would be unintelligent for anyone who aims to move souls, not to make use of those areas where the masses are already most excitable. Thus, the path taken by Alfieri and Schiller was predetermined by the inclination of their souls toward the fervent opinions of their time; it was mapped out for Alfieri by Washington’s exploits in 1775, and for Schiller by his triumph in 1783, for every young mind in Europe was inflamed by such events. Their path followed the impetus of the multitudes, who by now were ready to launch themselves into that bloody storm that would subsequently change the face of the earth. Hence Schiller, closer still to the fateful year of 1789, and more idealistic in his hopes, embodied in the marquis of Posa those audacious desires and exaggerated expectations that at that time pulsated in the hearts of the people. But this Posa could not have lived two centuries previously, when the name of humanity resonated with a different meaning, when the progressive course of history had not yet been glimpsed by even the most clear-sighted of thinkers, when each nation was still firmly wrapped up in self-love and in its own affairs, and had not yet provided that tribute of select minds which now, even in countries opposed to each other, unite in sharing a common affection for the universal homeland (patria universale) of intelligence and humanity. Thus, the character Posa could not have been historical. As he himself says (Schiller, Don Carlos III: scene x): The world is yet Unripe for my ideal; and I live A citizen of ages yet to come.

And since Posa’s hands hold virtually all the threads that move the other characters, willingly or unwillingly, the whole work comes to take on an aspect and color that is in contrast with that of the times and of history […] Therefore, whoever is looking for the historical spirit in literary works should ascribe this tragedy to those documents that show how people thought in the eighteenth, rather than the sixteenth, century, for such is the spirit that moves it. But is this a defect in poetry? Are any other masterpieces in this sublime art any different? The poet always draws liberally on the opin-

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ions of his time, on its manners, its fears, and its hopes. Dante, for example, filled all three of the realms of his afterlife with Guelfs and with Ghibellines, with Tuscans and Romagnoles, as if there were no one else in the universe, and disturbs the peace of heaven with the proud vernacular invective of St Peter the fisherman [Paradiso 27: 20–3]: He who usurps on earth, (my place, ay, mine, Which in the presence of the Son of God Is void), the same hath made my cemetery A common sewer of puddle and blood.

Does Ariosto’s Charlemagne bear any relation to that of Suger or Eginard? The opinion of Charlemagne that the people has come to create for itself in the course of seven centuries is not historical but chivalric, comprising all the ideas that the intervening generations in France, England, Italy, and even more so in Spain, have depicted concerning the greatness and valor of those combatants who stood firm against the Muslim tide; it possibly derives from an even older source, from the ancestral traditions of the Bretons and the Welsh. But the true Charlemagne of history was an indefatigable, diligent administrator, a prince with an entirely modern character; indeed, his was the first example of a modern principality. He was not a tournament champion surrounded by paladins and errant damsels, by magicians and fairies. He was Flemish, half-soldier and half-priest, and sat in his fur coat dictating laws and capitularies, and traveled in the company of a numerous gendarmerie to baptize the pastors of Friesland and Thuringia, to build churches and fortified convents, and to place abbots and bishops there in order to instill Christian doctrine in the hard proud minds of the natives. All this is true, and in the truth there is value; hence, we should endeavor to learn all that barbarian times have preserved of the true Charlemagne. But we should not for this reason scorn Ariosto; nor should we disdain Orlando’s follies, simply because it has been discovered that the Roland of history was merely the judge or the tax collector of the Basque border country. ([1842] 1981, SL 1: 29–33) Opera in Music and Drama in Prose Drama was the strangest upheaval in living memory. This ancient art was assailed by the two questions of unity and nationalities. The first is restricted to mere external forms, whereas the latter presupposes that

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the obscure national names of Ezzelino or Cola Montano are closer to the memory of the people than the splendidly un-Italian names of Alexander or Mohammed. But it matters little what poor instrument is chosen to break down the fenceposts that surround the noble field of art. The effect of this argument is such that we are now free lords of time and place, and all we have to deal with is common intelligence and the human heart. Thus Italy, too, is entitled to have both forms of tragedy. The first tragic genre is idealist, that is, tragedy derived from the people itself, who do not read history and know only the heroes of tradition, who associate with a name all that the imagination can muster in terms of valor, crime, misfortune, anger, and love. The way in which such tragedy is expressed is, of course, ambitious, bold, figurative, musical, scornful of vulgar forms; it cries out for verse, and strains indomitably for musical declamation. First it degenerates to the recitative mode, then is distilled into the cantabile of melodrama, then is transformed into sonorous notes, instructing the wind instruments in the human word and the cry of the affections, until in the streets they ask: Ah, perché non posso odiarti? (Ah, why can I not hate thee? Bellini, La sonnambula). The other tragic genre, guided by criticism that scorns idealist exaggeration and stock heroes, brings us back to nature and fact. It rejects the idols of tradition, consulting rigorous history, detailed chronicles, manners, and clothing, looking for consistency and instruction even in the wings of the stage. It looks for page boys alongside Philip who fall sleep on their knees; it abhors the poetic insolence of the tu form, it diligently inlays the verse with the epithet Vostra Altezza Reale, and rejoices when, in one line, it can write Serenissimo Doge, Senatori (Alessandro Manzoni, Il conte di Carmagnola I: ii). And since it was said that history is not the work of individuals, but of the great social crowds to which famous individuals lend their names, so this kind of tragedy brings the multitudes on stage in the form of choruses, such as William Tell’s shepherds or Wallenstein’s mercenaries. Or it adopts the representative system, taking Alfieri’s Perez, giving him a period coiffure, and turning Carlos’s friend into the Marquis of Posa, the deputy of all mankind. This way the philosophical idea replaces the popular idea. Such tragedy comes ever closer to a Quaker-style form of reality. It becomes jealous of the excessive sonority of verse and gradually softens it, like a piano played on a cymbal, stripping it down and weakening it until it eschews verse completely, easing itself neatly into prose. So while idealist tragedy is the mother of all the fury and languor of musical

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opera, historical tragedy is an undulating plain that slopes gradually and attractively into drama in prose. Either returning to the ideal by means of verse or faithfully resaying what the historian can only say in prose: the further the two genres depart from each other, the more compatible they become; intermediate systems start to give way, revealing themselves to be incapable of responding to the insistence of logic. This is why in our day there are two extreme and opposing tendencies: opera in music and drama in prose. ([1839] 1981, SL 1: 69–71) The Prejudices of Romantics [In my youth] many grew heated in repeating to me that it was time to renew poetry completely and bring it all under the medieval tradition, leaving Vincenzo Monti2 old and isolated to go senile amid the customs of Greek myth, for so he wanted it. But I failed to see wherein the muchvaunted superiority of the myths of our literature consisted. I still knew many lines of the Bassvilliana off by heart and held before me that sublime form of torture described as: ‘to travel the world in contemplation of the painful effect of one’s errors,’ the land of the living having become an instrument of pain and reconciliation with the world of the dead. This did not seem especially classical to me, given that Virgil had located torment elsewhere and given it a different form: tum stridor ferri tractaeque catenae (the pains of sounding lashes and of dragging chains; Aeneus VI, 558). Nor did it seem to be wholly Dantean, but rather an almost spontaneous ray of involuntary originality, in an author whose principal aim had been to imitate Dante. And when similarly I heard Alfieri’s tragedy being accused of being too Greek and too Roman, and youth being summoned to the altar of the new gods, the semi-god Schiller and the divine Shakespeare, I was bewildered and recollected several passages from Saule that to me seemed as scriptural as any others, whereas in all Shakespeare I found the supernatural arose only from incantations, from spirits of earth and sea, and from other such relics of the Celtic age: hence, no flame of Christianity arises even amid the ditches and skulls of Hamlet, nor could one surmise what religion its poet adhered to. Neither the character of the friar in Romeo and Juliet, nor that of the legate in King John are introduced with devout intentions. Perhaps in Shakespeare’s day, amid the strict 2 Poet Vincenzo Monti (1754–1828) was chiefly known for his epic Bassvilliana (1793) and for translations of Homer.

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opinions of the Reformers, the theater, as a barely tolerated profanity, did not dare appoint itself as a mouthpiece for such solemnly held beliefs. Similarly, I was never persuaded that the amorous adorations of the troubadours, or Ariosto’s alluring fairies, or the tenacious proposition of vengeance underpinning the three burning realms of the imperialist Dante, could derive from the serene austerity of the Gospel. Thus, all that poetic unity whence the new opinions derived their authority seemed to me to consist in extraneous elements, which, although these were cobbled together in the Middle Ages, nonetheless had their source in more remote, obscure origins. Wherefore, I failed to understand how in the comparison between one ancient and another, the traditions of our forefathers, or rather, our predecessors on GrecoRoman soil, were deserving of such blame. I did not see why we should become slavish imitators of thoughts and of interests that were not our own, affecting a superficial lack of esteem for those generations that had been the making of our cities and countryside, who, even from their graves, had lain the foundations of so rich and humane a life, who had put such sublime words into the mouths of the desolate Philoctetes and the dishonored Dido, and imprinted expressions of such exquisite pain on the faces of Niobe and Laocoon. I did not see why, after so many centuries, we should openly ridicule those arcane fantasies that had comforted and accompanied our fathers on their way to such noble deeds. For, ultimately, it is preferable to imagine the plough as sacred and honored by the victorious hand of consuls and the harmonious teachings of the poets, than as given in scorn to be dragged along by the serfs of the fief. I did not see why we had to cling onto the Middle Ages with such exclusive, fanatical zeal, for while this period did indeed give birth to other civilizations, it was merely a passing phase in the long life of our own. The Middle Ages did not bring us either laws or professions, nor glory of arms or of intellect, but rather the squalid mists of ignorance and debasement.3 Lastly, I could not listen to Schlegel or Mme de Staël without heaping scorn on them, as they advanced their theories regarding the present generation in Italy with contemptuous arrogance, despite the fact that it was represented with ancient grandeur by Volta and Napoleon, and had only just emerged from the bitterest test of courage and bloodshed. 3 As noted in our introduction, this view of the Middle Ages is polemical and not tenable, as scholarship suggests (Berman 1983).

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That is why, while many were heralding these anti-Italian theories as a sudden literary regeneration, and little less than a redemption, I myself saw merely another wave of transitory opinion. Where the contemporary dreams and thirsts after immediate, wide-ranging changes of thinking and situations, sometimes the successor recognizes barely a step taken on the well-beaten road of a nation that, ordained by the most remote, long-lasting, and indestructible of causes, will not change as a result of so brief and so negligible an effort on the part of so few. Now the years have passed, and we are persuaded that the new dowry that this reform handed on to mother Italy was not one of fertility. It did not even bring a new Goldoni,4 capable of churning out sixteen comedies every year or able to depict his own people even more faithfully. Masterpieces were as rare and as precious as they previously had been; the discovery of steam power did not succeed in hurrying up the fruits of the mind. Sad to say, the moral world is like an oiled machine that nonetheless moves noisily, and sometimes it makes noise without actually moving. ([1846] 1981, SL 1: 2–4) The Feebleness of Italian Culture Our language, which was not born as such but which came into the world mature, which soon loudly proclaimed Dante’s song of the three realms, and delighted itself in rhyme with the most abstruse feats of daring achieved by human thought, should have remained faithful to its origins. It should, many centuries ago, have resolutely taken upon itself the office of common spokesman for European learning, while France, England, Scotland, and Germany still lived in the darkness of chivalric ignorance. Why did the tongue of Marco Polo, Columbus, Vespucci, and Galileo, the language that predates English verse and French prose by three centuries, allow itself to be overtaken so quickly by those still infant literatures? Nor was this all, for in the past two generations it has witnessed a new tongue arise and grow to immediate greatness; a tongue that, for eighteen centuries, had appeared to be no more than the dialect of barbarians and to which even the nation that spoke it had not, for a long time, deigned to commit its own thoughts. These three 4 The original Carlo Goldoni (1707–1793) was a dramatist who wrote genuinely witty comedy to replace commedia dell’arte on the Italian stage.

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literatures are now fêted in Europe far ahead of our own, which, were it not for the seductive alliance of song, would already have perished and been consigned to oblivion by those who walk with the times and with the times are enterprising and powerful. Soon, yet other nations will be ready to contest with us the honors of the mind: the new Slavonic peoples in eastern Europe and the revitalized Spanish, who with their endless colonies have filled so much of the new continent. Amid this movement of nations that is spreading over the globe like waters overflowing, we are allowing our literary glory to be humbled, due to a lack of living, fresh nourishment. Hardly do we even ask what the cultivators of knowledge are doing. We still cling to our old dictionaries, as if these were some guarantee of health, when in fact they merely allowed the bare words to become a badge of learning and a cumbersome prolixity to dare present itself as the only valid national expression of our eloquence. The Cyclopean roughness of the scientists, and the baroque art of those embellishers of languages who deem it philistine to dirty one’s hands with real life, diffused in our beautiful land indifference and torpor. They constrain hordes of readers to turn to foreign letters that, whether in their original tongue or through a flood of unappetizing translations, rehashed material, and ill-concealed plagiarisms, saturate the market and usurp those stimuli that are more properly due to the native plant. Yet, amid this great mass of bookish nonsense, we are still lacking decent translations of foreign sources. By a stroke of good fortune we have Homer, indeed the most Homeric Homer in all Europe, but we do not yet have Shakespeare, we have only colorless versions of the Bible, and none whatsoever of the Arabs, Indians, Scandinavians, and other primitive peoples. Anyone who looks at those nations that, through their rich vein of poetry, are leading the way in Europe, sees what looks like spontaneous imaginative creativity that appears to have derived from very remote sources, opened up by means of patient instruction. Such instruction modestly contents itself with laying at the feet of genius the treasures of the imagination, so that genius might derive from them both example and material for the achievement of new feats. We would therefore express the desire that all those who are not manifestly born to trace out their own paths and conceive of new things, all those, in a word, who think it the utmost fortune to enroll in an army of imitators and appear in someone else’s shadow, of whom there are many, that they desist from running such a race, which can never lead to an illustrious goal, and turn their attention to less ambitious, more

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realistic accomplishments. A mastery of style and an ability with verse, if unaccompanied by other gifts, can result only in a travesty of poetry and are consumed in vain in an attempt to produce tragic theater or epic. Such minds should take as their model the pliable metal of our own ‘beautiful tongue,’ rather than forms revealed to them by another location and another heaven (cielo). Those who have more rigorous minds should derive some learning from our own plain native sources; and, with the same veneer that gave value to insipid language texts, bequeath to our starving youth the revelations of astronomy, the science of electricity, of geology, the latest discoveries of war, the secrets of oriental antiquity, or the world history of trades. We do not yet know the varied natural forms of our country, nor even our own dialects and their hidden derivations. We do not yet know what secret links bind our language to the precocious civilizations of Persia and India or the lengthy barbarianism of the ancient North. We have no treatment of many of the literatures of Europe, nor even dictionaries for them. We are utterly impoverished in respect of chronologies, histories of science, and other books that were made for us, our interests, and our minds. Yet, we are forced to swear on the good faith of foreign books, in which ignorance, malice, and national arrogance quibble with every one of our feats, in which the vanity of a Kantist5 insults the rich experimental science born in our midst, in which cleverly meditated plagiarism transformed what was ours into someone else’s achievement. From so long a web of denying recognition, the conclusion is reached that ‘ideas’ in the homeland of Parmenides and Vico are inept. ([1841] 1960, SF 1: 238–41) Meanwhile, the years go by, and other nations, cleverer and more compliant, push themselves forward. The nation that was by far ahead of others is caught up with, then overtaken, then the gap becomes wider and wider. Once Italy truly was their teacher, which no one in Europe denied. Then people began to say Italy and France, then it was England, France, Germany, and Italy, until now, rightly or wrongly, Europe appears to have forgotten our name entirely. ([1842] 1960, SF 1: 244–45) 5 Cattaneo reserved some of his sharpest criticisms for German idealism and followers of Kant for what he regarded as their extreme idealistic or rationalist assumptions, to the point of predicting that the names of Kant, Fichte, and Schelling would soon meet in Germany that same fate that was reserved to the names of Ficino, Pico della Miranda, and St Thomas Aquinas in Italy after Galileo and Vico ([1844] 1960, SF 1: 177).

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Popular Writing From a certain time onward, the claim began to arise of a form of writing described by some as popular, by which they meant a composition of words that not merely was incomprehensible to anyone living fifty miles away, but even so far as the most scholarly were concerned, was extremely demanding. I would much rather translate a page of Plautus than dare guess what daddoli are, or tetta […] a donna guitta, a madre sgargiante, a fanciulla malita, lettere giucche, an impiegato tarpano or favetto, gente trincata, natura improsciuttita, or l’anima che aleggia, e poi s’accascia, e grufola più bestialmente che mai. Good God! And all this cluster of coarse, strange, and bizarre words in one little book, which presents itself nobly like a young maiden, with a clear, pure frontispiece and the elegant title: Faith and Beauty.6 Is this the Italian language, the same one which, five hundred years previously, amid trapdoors and iron cages, was able to sing: Solo e pensoso i più deserti campi ?7 The language that, pure and limpid like crystal, narrated the tales of Fiordiligi and Armida, that was put into verse on the shores of Sorrento and amid the fountains of Vaucluse and voluptuously echoed on the gondolas of the Venetian laguna? The same tongue that was tempered to harsher affections when it sang: La bocca sollevò dal fiero pasto ?8 What barbarian invasion is this, what rebellion of greengrocers’ wives, gossips, or beggars from Fiesole and Camaldoli against the nation’s own language, against our only bond of life and our common name? Certainly, it is a work of darkness and confusion, against which all should speak out if they hold dear this precious inheritance of rich and of poor, of learned and vulgar, our language, the tongue that, more than the useless Alps and the seas that are not ours, marks the boundary and currency of our glorious nation. Must the mud that lies dormant at the bottom of the lake rise up at all 6 Fede e bellezza, by Niccolò Tommaseo, was published in 1840. The terms Cattaneo refers to are all popular Tuscan forms, and might translate as follows: daddoli, simpering, affectation; tetta, roofs; guitto, miserable; sgargiante, elegant, flashy; malito, sick, weakly; giucco, stupid, silly; tarpano, rough, boorish, uncouth; favetto, presumptuous, arrogant; trincato, clever, bright; improsciuttito (rimprosciuttito in the original text), parched, arid; grufolare, to root, wallow. (Translator’s note) 7 Petrarch, Rerum vulgarium fragmenta XXXV, ‘Alone and full of care, I go measuring the most deserted fields.’ 8 Dante, Inferno XXXIII: 1: ‘His jaws uplifting from their fell repast’ (translator’s note).

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stages to cloud those clear waters whence our thought drinks? Why do you scratch about so studiously for these words in the haystacks of the Val d’Elsa, or in the ossuaries of the Accademia della Crusca,9 when they were born in Greece? If they were alive in the time of Dante, why were they not embraced in those immortal pages of beauty and simplicity? Why were they not celebrated by being unanimously adopted by all Italy? Do you not see, in these six hundred years of neglect, their destiny for this century and future centuries, too? If they were born yesterday, leave them where they are today, like a fungus or mold, for our language, thank God, has already been made; it does not need to be invented. ([1840] 1981, SL 1: 122–4) The French Language Clear unadulterated knowledge, with no shadows, no riddles, no thorns, fashioned its most beautiful flower in the French language. This succinct language, in which everything is understood; this language that, despite its apparent poverty, still manages to say everything that needs to be said, while apparently richer tongues trip up in the folds of their long skirts; this language of learning and frivolity, of war and comedy, of princes and little women, weak in verse but warm and poetic in prose: this language was always one of the greatest weapons of French power. ([1842] 1957, SSG 1: 296–7) In fact, as a result of this narrowness, rather than lose out, the French language actually acquired that wonderful lucidity and efficacy that so dazzled and shook other peoples […] Precious, fortunate poverty compared with the inert, importunate riches that overflow from our dictionaries, which seem almost like the masses of Xerxes compared with the lean handful of fighters at Plataea. The language that speaks of everything to everyone is not poor; poor, rather, is the language that trembles beneath the weight of its own treasures. ([1847] 1981, SL 1: 259) Heine One sees a girl in virtually all of Heine’s poems; this is the secret of their irresistible charm. These poems skip gaily along before us, voluptuous, 9 Literally, the Academy of the Chaff. It was founded in Florence in 1582 to maintain the purity of the language. This academy was the first such institution in Europe. It is still in existence today.

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disordered, and lively, like a group of country lasses who, with a bouquet in their bosom and love in their hearts, go singing along the way; on other occasions, behind the plaintive poetic hymn one can sense the languishing virgin, leaning alone on her balcony, or the poor seamstress who, from the garret of an attic, breathes in the impure air of the cities. ([1863] 1981, SL 1: 747) Byron Italy, this is your singer. No small boast With proud Albion do you share. Tongue and cradle alone did it give him; But you festoon him with the sublime charm Of your heaven, your glories, and with the smile Of your women; divine the song. ([n.d. but before 1835] 1981, SL 2: 317)

Translations It is helpful to make the effort to bend this [language] to foreign ideas; it is helpful to work it in advance, so that it is pliable and ductile like gold, which follows all the extensions of the silver thread that it covers and twists itself round it, in all manner of embroidery or brocade. The man who would express his own new thoughts needs to find a language that has already been made supple and tamed by the translators’ industry. A translator has leisure to try out the various ways in which to render an idea, already felicitously expressed in another language, as it waits for him, still and immobile, while he comes and gets it. But whoever wants to express the original thoughts of his own mind does not have such leisure; for the ill-figured, uncertain ideas flee from it like lightning, even as it amuses itself in trying to find the right word or attempt a new sentence. Imitative translations are to literature what sol-fa exercises are to the voice, in extending its range, increasing its flexibility and pitch, and in preparing it to capture the fleeting inspirations it receives on the very wave of the song. ([1839] 1981, SL 1: 96) The Common Enterprise of Humanity We are convinced that Italy must above all seek to remain in unison with the rest of Europe, and not cherish any other national sentiment than that of retaining its noble position in the learned society of Europe and

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the world. The peoples must continue to mirror each other constantly, for the interests of civilization are mutual and common; science is one, art is one, glory is one. The nation of studious men is also one: it is the nation of Homer and Dante, of Galileo and Bacon, of Volta and Linnaeus,10 and all those who follow their immortal examples; it is the nation of the mind, which inhabits all climes and speaks in all tongues. Beneath this lies a multitude divided into a thousand discordant countries, castes, dialects, greedy and bloody factions, who revel in superstitions, selfishness, and ignorance, who even love and defend ignorance itself, as though this were the principle of life and the foundation of manners and society. Intelligence moves above this ocean, disseminating its books, museums, schools, and scholarly associations in all places. Our duty is to devote what few resources we have to this common enterprise of humanity; our duty is to grow in the country where we ourselves live, with the language we speak, the felicitous natural abilities of our race, the power of our minds, and remove what we can from that original roughness that everywhere constitutes the lowest levels of all nations. We must take part in this war between progress and inertia, between thought and ignorance, between nobility and barbarism, between freedom and slavery. Therefore, every true and good idea, from whatever country, from whatever tongue it reaches us, should immediately become our own, as if it had germinated in our very own soil. ([1840] 1960, SF 1: 233–4) The destinies of the nations have become inextricably interlinked, and religions, wars, finances, letters, fashions, public papers, and industrial companies have made of Europe one massive vortex that ‘with restless fury drives the spirits on.’11 There is now no people that contains within itself alone the reason for its own movement or civil life, that can say it is the free lord of its own opinions, nor even of the forms with which such opinions clothe themselves. And pity it if it could, for within a few years it would find itself a puppet or mummy, the plaything of living peoples. ([1839] 1981, SL 1: 103–4)

10 A Swedish botanist, Linnaeus (1707–1778) is generally regarded as the founder of modern systematic botany. His name was originally Karl von Linné. 11 Dante, Inferno V, 33: ‘mena gli spirti colla sua rapina.’

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7 Aspects of World History

The Polygenic Origins of Humanity1 The study of geology reveals two stages of primitive life on the earth. In the first, the heat of the earth’s crust, after a series of countless millennia that mathematical calculation can but vaguely allude to, was already so tempered that the vapors dispersed through the immense atmosphere were able to fall on its surface and settle in its unstable cavities in the form of an oscillating ocean. Whereupon organic life took the place in the world occupied by mere crystalline condensations; a life that was uniform across the entire planet, because it was engendered by the uniform inner heat. In successive ages, the masses of the earth’s crust became stronger, the highest parts of the land masses grew higher, and the depths of the seas grew lower. The internal heat gradually decreased but remained uniform, as did the atmospheric conditions and the chances of life, ever new but ever uniform. Hence, the successive evolution of organisms could continue, from the first embryos of amphibious life to the most sensitive and intelligent appearances of life on earth. The second stage revealed by geology begins from the time when the earth’s crust had so grown that it completely intercepted every active 1 Excerpts from a review of Josiah C. Nott and George R. Gliddon’s highly popular and influential book Types of Mankind (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co. 1854). Cattaneo rejected the racial inferiority thesis advanced by the two authors at a time when Types of Mankind was a best-selling scientific textbook that went through several editions. Generally considered the highwater mark of nineteenth-century American scientific racism, the book stayed in print until the turn of the century. John S. Haller (1970) provides a useful overview of Types of Mankind in the context of the nineteenth-century controversy about the origins of man.

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irradiation of internal heat to the organisms that were henceforth exposed to the action of the sun alone. At this stage, the earth became divided into zones, and the zones themselves necessarily subdivided further, according to altitude, the exposure to the sun, and the currents of air and sea. These then subdivided further still according to the nature of the soils, according to whether they were marshy or saline, or affected by other conditions and altitudes. Thus, we come to the theory of centers. Every human species called to this new life had its own homeland, and in coming into contact with other species near to or far from them, together with them instituted in each region a complex mixture of plants and animals, a particular flora and fauna. Whereas all that which is primordial was uniform, all that which is alive today is more or less varied, according to the individual regions of the planet. Often, for every vegetative or animal species in one region there is a near equivalent in another, which does not replicate the former but replaces and represents it. Thus, the African elephant, with its long drooping ears, is different from the Indian variety. America, in the new geological era, was destined not to have any species of elephant, rhinoceros, giraffe, camel, or horse; not one of its quadrumanous species is common to the old continent. Australia has a fauna that is all its own. It has the kangaroo, which nurses its young in its own pouch; it has the duck-billed platypus, a strange quadruped with the beak of an aquatic bird; it has the cassowary, a kind of bird with no feathers. In the polar snows, the reindeer lives in circumstances of climate and diet similar to those in which the chamois dwells in the Alpine snows. No one can explain how the alpaca, the vicuna, and the llama, all useful animals unknown elsewhere on the planet, came to live on the heights of Peru. Divine omnipotence, first manifest in the variety of successive creations, was thereafter manifest in the variety of simultaneous creations. As we begin to realize that the same inexhaustible variety takes place over all the innumerable planets that illuminated by the countless suns we see shining in the measureless expanses of the universe, it begins to dawn on us just how fertile the creative idea must be. ([1862] 1957, SSG 3: 227–9) What matters most in ethnography is not so much to discover from which geological age the presence of the savage on earth first dates, as to ascertain whether the existence of types [of mankind] commenced in one age in particular or another. Now, how many aboriginal skulls have been unearthed from the graves of Mexico and Peru, and from those

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mysterious burial mounds, which an unknown and now thoroughly extinct people erected in their thousands on the plains that stretch from the Allegheny Mountains to the Rockies; and how many fossils have fortuitously been discovered in the floods, rocks, and caves of Brazil, the Antilles, Florida, Louisiana, and Canada, mixed with the remains of the mastodon, the megalon, and other species now extinct, all of which reveal the geometric proportions of the American type? This proves incontrovertibly that the American type has existed from that age until our own. The crowning glory of all flora and fauna, the crowning glory of life itself, was man. ([1862] 1957, SSG 3: 231) Every human type, however it was propagated, whether by victory, exile, freedom, or slavery, had its own homeland. If history did not know the country of origin of a Negro or white man, of an Arab or Mongol, anatomy, by rummaging through the most ancient graves and in grottoes washed by erratic streams, would be able to tell us whence each people’s ancestors came. The nearest types inclined much more easily toward breeding with each other; the various centers of each group, in the ongoing conflict of war and peace, tended to erase evidence of primitive borders, offering themselves up to the observer as a simple, inconstant, versatile type of form. This is where, to help the observer, the laws of hybridism come in. We often see children born to a dark-haired father and blonde mother who have either very dark or very blonde hair, despite bearing obvious resemblances to both of their parents. Blonde hair and black eyes are seen together in Italy, just as jet black hair and blue eyes are seen together in Ireland. Quite often a son who does not resemble his father is said by old friends to resemble his grandfather. Yet in peoples that have experienced breeding with very dissimilar races, the variety of appearance is extremely pronounced; it is as though each race tends, from time to time, to rise up from the grave and claim the forefathers’ rights over their distant inheritance. But those nations, such as the native Americans or the Australian aboriginals, which for thousands of generations remained absolutely distinct from all other varieties of humanity, held firm to their primitive type. Whence it is said of the native Americans, who extend from Labrador as far as Patagonia, that, as the book [Types of Mankind] notes (p. 439) ‘if you have seen one you have seen them all.’ ([1862] 1957, SSG 3: 231–2) Small, isolated tribes, with their particular dialects, precede the great nations and the great languages. Too weak and powerless to effect migrations far afield, too ignorant indeed to even attempt or conceive of

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them, their existence was linked, out of habit and daily hunger, to the ancient tree trunks of their own native forests, widening the narrow circle of their hunting solely by dint of perpetual warfare. Only in certain areas most favored by nature, such as the Nile Valley, could primitive man find nourishment comfortably without requiring any art, virtually before any discovery and trade, and so multiply and grow into a numerous society, in whose midst the sacred ferment of thought might awaken. Sometimes we have been unwilling to acknowledge that the enlightening advances in economics can be traced back to the origins of mankind. That is why I wish to revise the famous dictum of Agassiz,2 which has it that mankind was created in nations (quoted on p. 111 of the book under review). To my mind, mankind appeared instead, first in small tribes, more or less different in aspect, as can be seen from the oldest of their skulls, which tribes were more or less inclined to join with each other in favorable locations and over the long course of time to form populous nations. ([1862] 1957, SSG 3: 242–3) The Origins of European Civilization The Native Peoples of Europe It is pointless to suppose that, in the centuries when it was most savage, Europe was somehow different from those lands that in our days are still so. The Europeans found America and Australia in the same state as the Asians found Europe. Here, too, there must have been small settlements of peoples before there were great nations, and before the small groups of peoples there must have been the various tribes. Each tribe, which lived in separate valleys and scrubland, surrounded by marshes and crossed by rivers, must have lived a solitary existence in terms of language and customs, in the narrow circle circumscribed for it by enemy tribes. To try and work out to which of the great nations such groupings belonged, those nations that developed in the course of the centuries and the slow preparations of history, is to begin from a false, inverted premise. It is tantamount to estimating from which river a stream derives, when in fact it is the stream that flows down from the mountains and fills up the river. 2 Jean Louis Agassiz (1807–1873) was a Swiss American zoologist and geologist well known in his time for advancing research on nature and especially on fossil fish and for his exposition of glacial movements and deposits.

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So it is high time that we stop asking whether the primitive peoples descended from the Celts, the Illyrians, or the Thracians, years before Eastern civilization penetrated the continent with its colonies and priesthoods, trade, weapons of conquest, and miseries of exile and slavery, and introduced along the seas and rivers of Europe that mysterious linguistic unity that, to our amazement, links us with India and Persia. That language that, with lower and ever more divergent orders of association, became, over time, the races we now refer to as Celtic, Germanic, and Slavonic. If there is a uniform element in Europe, which certainly has its roots in Asia, the ancient mother of our priesthoods, empires, scriptures, and arts, there is also an element of variety, and it is this that constitutes the basis of particular nations, representing that which the indigenous peoples retained of their own, even in aggregating with and conforming to the centers of civilization spread by Asian influence. The various combinations between external unity and native variety developed on European soil; they did not arrive ready-made from Asia. ([1844] 1957, SSG 1: 340–1) From History to Prehistory Astronomers can deduce from the part of a comet’s trajectory that they are able to follow with their naked eye the part of its progress remaining hidden in the immensities of space. The secret laws that the minds of people follow in constructing and deconstructing languages occasion a series of facts that stand in full view of historical times. We know with certainty how the Latin language, which spread throughout all Italy and thence on the one hand as far as the Gauls, Spain, and Portugal, and on the other the lower Danube, in adapting to the attitudes and priorities of such different peoples, was, in the course of time, transformed into five great living languages embracing a whole host of different dialects. We are also aware of how two of the Romance languages, Portuguese and Spanish, have in the past three centuries been transplanted into so much of the American continent that they are now effectively the native tongues of so many cities, where the color of the peoples proves the coexistence or rather the cross-breeding (miscela) of three different races, namely, American, African, and European. The diffusion of the Latin language, first beyond the Mediterranean, then beyond the Atlantic, among peoples of such alien origins, is a luminous fact that history has documented in all its particularities. In this light, the concurrency of languages and diversity of blood between

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the peoples of Italy and India should no longer make for a surprising contrast, as the geographical distance between these two countries, indeed, that between India and the Baltic, is not so much as half the extent over which the Spanish language has now been disseminated on the American continent, from California to Argentina. As this affinity between the living languages spoken in Mexico, Lima, and Montevideo and ancient, remote Sanskrit does not at all prove that the Negroes, Redskins, Creoles, and Mestizos of every kind reached these places in hordes from the valley of the Indus, nor does a similar affinity prove that the inhabitants of the Gauls or Denmark came from the Indus. Moreover, if we look at the terrible history of Haiti, we see that a language can, through the events of history, be transfused among quite a different and, indeed, completely hostile people, without there being any remnant of the unfortunate race that was the vehicle for such transmission. Now, who can look into the mist of forty centuries to say what mass of refugees or slaves, concentrated by fear or force into one country, did not similarly take on there languages, brought first by peoples who, due to the furor of seditions, conquests, or the overwhelming increase of subdued populations, were later entirely lost? […] How many of these bloody memories remain to be investigated throughout Europe? The Russians, whose language three centuries ago had not even reached the foot of the Urals, now have colonies throughout the vast expanses of Siberia, as far as the Eastern Ocean, indeed as far as the far coast of America. Over this expanse, the many peoples – Samoyeds, Finns, Turks, Mongols, Tungusians, Yukaghirs, Chukchis, and many others – speak relatively disparate languages. The network of Russian colonies has been extended in their midst, at the foot of mountains, at river crossings, at sea ports, and inland trading centers, where one and the same language is now repeated across enormous distances. All the native peoples engage in trade with these colonies, so for them to understand each other, they turn increasingly to that language as a means of common interpretation. Their own isolated languages must gradually be lost, as trade extends over greater distances, and the populations become less distinctive and more mixed; for the same reasons, the general commercial language that conjoins them shall also be given greater prevalence. Even if the power of the Russians is dismantled in the course of the centuries, no human force would be able to eradicate these offshoots of a common language transplanted throughout Siberia. These would create a different breed in every territory as they mix with the tongues of the

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native tribes: a Slavonic skeleton fleshed out here by Finnic, there by Mongol, and elsewhere still by Tungusian elements. If the atmospheric and geological conditions there were less adverse, over the long course of the centuries a variety of nations could flourish, whose languages would bear the secret link of structure and the commonality of many roots. This phenomenon, which is taking place before our eyes from the Black Sea to Siberia and up to the Chinese borders, in no dissimilar way is also unfolding under the influence of the Arab tongue, in the most remote parts of Africa (Nigrizia). Now, go back thirty or forty centuries; go back to the rather smaller space that lies between Bengal and the British Isles, that is, India, Persia, and Europe; and the correlation between European tongues and Sanskrit shall be self-explanatory, without any need to resort to notions of common blood. ([1842] 1981, SL 1: 175–6, 178–9) Ancient Influences and Primitive Europe If we see the present as a continuation of the past, due to the unchanging nature of the human race, we can imagine ancient Europe for several centuries lying alongside its Asian mother, in the same conditions in which we subsequently see the two Americas, Siberia, Oceania lying alongside mother Europe; not devoid of inhabitants, nor perhaps without the odd glimmer of native, individual refinement, in the way that Vico and Stellini3 liked to suppose. For, ultimately, that which had happened so much earlier in Asia could not have been totally precluded to human nature in our midst as well. Anyone who looks at a map will see that Europe is no larger in terms of surface area than either of the aforementioned regions that still lie deserted. What our explorers have achieved in those lands over these three centuries is what the Asian adventurers did in our midst many centuries earlier. Then, the Egyptians, Phoenicians, Syrians, Carians, Lycians, and Phrygians were, on the shores of the Mediterranean, what the Portuguese, Spanish, and English colonies have been along the shores of the oceans. 3 Jacopo Stellini da Cividale (1699–1770), priest and philosopher, sought to extend and apply Vico’s and Locke’s ideas in the empirical study of human understanding. His rejection of Hobbes’s Leviathan solution to the problem of human order is what in part made him so attractive to Cattaneo’s way of thinking.

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And just as, at the same time, our sailors were becoming established along the coasts of India, the inland parts of that continent were being subjected to broader global expansion by the Persians, Afghans, Mongols, and Manchurians, so too in ancient Europe it does not appear to have been much different. Besides the coastal colonies of Egypt, Syria, and Asia Minor, the influences of other, more inland peoples, principally those that flourished to the south of the Caspian Sea and that can be grouped together under the name of Indopersian, spread through the passages of the Hellespont and the Bosporus, through the valleys of the Danube and Rhine as far as the Celtic and Scandinavian islands. The maritime colonies, run chiefly by Semitic peoples, were the most civilized. These people came from cities and ports, and they founded cities and ports. They built monuments, which varied according to peoples and times, but which always bore the imprint of primitive simplicity, made with large rocks barely touched by iron or joined by mortar. Their stones and their clay are to be found on the islands and hills of the coastal marshlands and the heights of the lagoons, rather than much further inland, and in the hills around Volterra and Gubbio, which are all the more unusual precisely because they are inland. One could say that these sailors did not want to expose themselves to undue contact with mass barbarism and loved their centers near the waves or surrounded by marshes or cliffs and walls, which an artless enemy was powerless to overcome. These small walled cities, those tower-shaped temples with either vertical or conical walls, are a kind of logbook of those first sailings and the circumscribed range of their terrestrial influence in Argolis, Etruria, Gozo, Sicily, Scandinavia, the Balearics, even as far as Iceland and the Shetlands. Here popular legend, which is wiser even than the wise men, still attributes these mounds to the men who arrived by sea from the south and east, the worshippers of fire and sun. Land migrations were, naturally, less civilized. They barely left tracks of burial mounds and ditches from barbarian encampments. But they did gradually involve the unconnected native tribes with the great priestly and chivalric groupings, as we see in the Celts, the Germans, the Slavs, and the Latvians. It is to them that must be attributed that intimate similarity that conjoins the tongues of all these peoples, and the Latins and Greeks, to the sacred speech of the Magis and the Brahmins. It is for this reason that the names of certain peoples reappear in different lands: the Pelasgians in Thracia, Greece, and Italy; the Venetians on the Euxine Sea, the Adriatic, and Atlantic; the Cimmerians and the Cambrians on the Bosporus and the Elbe; and the Goths, twice on the Tauris and twice on the Vistula. ([1846] 1965, SP 3: 323–5)

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The Finnic Peoples In its inland expanses [Finland] is home to a very ancient people, divided completely from the Swedish and Russians by its language. Instead, language and origins join it on the one hand with the Lapps, the wretched inhabitants of far northern Norway, and on the other with the Estonians and the Ingrians, on whose shores the Russians opened access to the sea for themselves via the great colony of Petersburg. Finnic, too, are the indigenous peoples around the huge lakes of Ladoga and Onega, and on the shores of the White Sea around Archangel, another Russian colony. Indeed, an undeniable genetic kinship extends from there to Permia in the Urals, the first fatherland of the Hungarians, and with the Szeremisz, the Bashkirians, and the Mordvinians, not without some indications of ancient breeding (miscela) with the Turkish tribes of Altay. Given that, before the arrival of the Goths, the Finns held all Scandinavia and perhaps also part of Germany, what their age illustrates throws unequivocal light on the shadowy origins of Europe. ([1854] 1981, SL 1: 451–2) The Three Areas of Migration Thus, a new viewpoint is opened on the long flight of centuries without history, in which both the chain of Finnish, Chudian, or Scythian peoples, and the other chain, the more numerous and powerful stream of Indopersians to which the Greeks, Latins, Celts, Goths, Lithuanians, and Slavs belong, spread westwards from Asia. Whence, if we add the fact that the Semites, who in ancient times went by the name of Phoenicians and in the Middle Ages were known as Arabs, likewise extended from the Persian Gulf to the Atlantic Ocean, we see three areas of migration: the Finnic, the Indopersian, and the Semitic, expanding in parallel fashion, more than filling the expanse between the desert and glacial regions, enveloping and submerging all that was native in Europe prior to these invasions. All other facts of history pale into insignificance beside this great tide of nations, which began before living memory and continued as a result of its constant and inevitable logic (legge). Of which tide our suffering generations represent the last wave. ([1854] 1981, SL 1: 452) Natives and Invaders It is not to be believed that the invaders completely extinguished all traces of the native peoples, for which purpose neither the ferocity of 173

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barbarians nor the arts of more civilized races would have sufficed. To understand what the Indopersian groupings in Europe in those centuries were like, it is sufficient to consider what the Spanish now represent in America, for through the continuity of human nature, history can shed light on history. The Spanish language extends from one ocean to the other. But in Mexico, the native races, the illustrious Aztecs, Zapotecs, and Tarascs prevail in number over the Creole families, and in many places have remained virtually intact in the face of Castilian uniformity, like so many distinct islands in a broad laguna. Identity of manners and language grows over time, and will continue to do so, even if Spanish blood should die out and is lost sight of amid a vast increase in the population. Already in nearby Haiti the Creoles are extinct, and the ancient breed is being erased even among colored people; the African race of the new inhabitants has no traditions, save those handed down to them by the French and the Spanish. All too often the name of the oppressors has been confused with that of the people they oppressed. All too often writers believed that immense populations had been uprooted, where barely a swarm of adventurers had briefly passed. Thus, we see the Gauls wandering from one Umbrian or Etruscan town to another as nomadic pastors. Later on we see the Goths reigning from the Baltic to the Black Sea, then fleeing before the Huns, reducing themselves to a small army, and offering themselves as mercenaries to the emperor. Writers are astonished to find in the same wastelands, only slightly later on [in time], the descendents of the Slavs and Lithuanians, as though these had rained down from heaven. But the Goths must previously have exploited (emunti)4 the Sarmatian pastors, as they then exploited the farmers of Dacia, Italy, Gaul, and Spain. And, for at least two thousand years, the internal secret regions of our continent were subject to that diligent storm of conquests without trace, in which the least uncultured tribes lost their identity as they bred with the uncultured natives. If, in spite of this, certain ancient languages such as Cantabrian have survived with no Asian graft, and if others such as Gothic and Cambrian retained mere traces thereof, the original differences of many others were considerably obscured and were ultimately reduced to weak varieties of dialect, which time, commerce, and culture are increasingly erasing […] From this it becomes clear why the European nations, however much 4 Literally, milked.

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they claim to have languages and cultures of Asian origin, still appear different on European soil from how they looked in their most ancient fatherland. And, if there should appear to be a common Indopersian element in each of these great combinations, this does not mean that each one has not retained many other elements of quite different provenance. For example, the many remarkable similarities between the Greek and Gothic languages do not detract from their multiple diversity, in terms of both radical substance and sonorous form, or mean that the two peoples were not as different as it is possible to be, in terms of character and intellect – the Greeks being most open, the Goths closed and unproductive. But researchers who cared only to note what is similar and common completely omitted to find out what distinctive native elements each national grouping had retained. And, in explaining common elements (corrispondenze) by recourse to the principle of migration, they forgot the principle of indigenousness which could have provided the best explanation for the differences between them. ([1846] 1965, SP 3: 325–6, 328) The Three Sources of European Civilization There are therefore at least three great origins to our histories: (1) the maritime colonies, set up above all by the Semitic peoples and their neighbors, as indicated by their monuments; (2) the land migrations, above all by Indopersian tribes, as shown in particular by the common affinity of all the great European languages; and (3) the native populations, Vico’s barbarians, remembered both in the persistent isolation of certain languages such as that of the Basques, the Caucasians, and the Samoyeds and in the indelible peculiarities that can be detected even in the most similar languages and the most closely related dialects […] If things are not seen at every stage in this threefold light, texts and monuments become more perplexing the more they abound. ([1846] 1965, SP 3: 328) The Presumed Flood of Peoples A majority of recent authors, especially Germans, claim that the nations of Europe derive as one group from Asia and, more specifically, from the valley of the Indus. They delight to imagine how these peoples, ranked in tribes, poured like a river from Kashmir into a silent empty Europe, some via the Urals, some via the Caucasus, others via the Hellespont:

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first the Gaels, then the Cambrians, the Thracians, the Hellenes, the Goths, and the Slavs. They claim that those who were first to arrive took first place in the islands of the Atlantic and that those who followed them, who were stronger than their precursors and weaker than those who came after them, were always in pursuit and would always be pursued. The Cambrians, who as far as the Gaels were concerned were terrifying, fled before the Germans, who themselves made way for Slavs, who in turn were expelled as if by magic from the wastelands of the Volga by the fearsome Finns, Turks, and Mongols. This procession of peoples gathered pace furiously in the fifth century; and, consequently, historians, who after fifteen centuries still repeat the rumors first spread by terrified masses, constructed that magnificent epic that is the great migration of peoples which German texts in particular are so full of […] Throughout history too often the peoples, that is, the oppressed working multitudes, are taken for the military castes that impose their rule and name on them. The former nearly always remain linked to their native territory; the latter expand rapidly with victory and disappear just as rapidly with defeat. However, writers who are superficial and who merely latch onto names, always see in the expeditions of a caste or an army some radical transfusion of races and go seeking them from place to place, like the waves of the sea. ([1842] 1981, SL 1: 166–7, 170) Languages and Dialects According to this principle, the living languages of Europe are not the divergent emanations of a common primitive language tending toward plurality and dissolution. Rather, they are the product of a common language grafted onto wild plants, that is, onto the native tongues, which tend toward association and unity. If, at one time, in the different parts of Italy and the islands, Phoenician, Greek, Oscan, Umbrian, Etruscan, Celtic, Carnic, and goodness knows what other curious languages were spoken, as is still the case in Caucasia, the superimposition of a common tongue brought all our peoples so much closer together that they now understand each other with relative ease. Time, which has changed discordant languages into the dialects of a single tongue, now increasingly erodes even the differences between such dialects, and the construction of roads and general education further promote the unification of peoples. It is not that a mother tongue somehow generates many daughters; rather, that several wholly different languages become assimilated to just one, coming to bear an affinity with it and each other and, as

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the process continues or is repeated on more than one occasion, eventually become its dialects, before issuing together into this one common sea. This, in brief, is the linguistic history of Italy, France, and the British Isles. Thus the theory put forward by Arndt5 and his compatriots is neither scientific nor true, who hold that a single indigenous language dominated in primitive Europe, be it Celtic or Scythian; Grotefend’s6 theory is no more scientific either, which asserts that the ancient Greek tongue was divided into several different languages so unlike each other that ‘it is hardly surprising that they seemed to be both Greeks and barbarians’ (ut non mirandum sit quod tandem Graecis barbarae viderentur). Time extends the range of languages and reduces their number accordingly. It blurs the differences between them to the extent that it expands and unites their civil societies, transforming tribes into peoples, and peoples into nations. Meanwhile, dialects remain the sole trace of that ancient Europe that has no history and has left no monuments. It is useful, therefore, to collect such rusty relics with the utmost devotion and care. The pronunciation and accents of all dialects should be studied, and the items their lexicons have in common with the national language should be duly noted, as should those areas where they depart from each other. Having reduced each dialect to its essentials, the results should then be compared with each other. Similarities between more than one dialect will thus indicate the first groupings to be formed among the incipient civilization, whereas their differences shall represent the original and unique elements retained by each race. It is only from such glossaries that light may be gathered to shed on the origins of the ancient tongues of these regions. ([1842] 1981, SL 1: 199–201) Living Languages Languages that once were dominant are now being erased from the memories of men, along with the power of the peoples who spoke them; while obscure mixtures of words, suddenly propelled by victory, are 5 Ernst Moritz Arndt (1769–1860), historian, author, and journalist, was a prominent opponent of Napoleon’s rule in Germany and one of the first formulators of modern German nationalism on the basis of language and culture. 6 Georg Friederich Grotefend (1775–1853) was a German archaeologist and philologist who deciphered Persian cuneiform inscriptions.

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becoming illustrious languages of new nations. Sometimes two languages merge and, while one imposes its vocabulary on the other, the latter survives secretly with the most intimate, jealously guarded part of its fabric, which the scholar gradually uncovers from these relics with astonishment. Sometimes two peoples, which are enemies as a result of ancient offenses exacerbated by apparent linguistic diversity, discover that they are actually descended from the same parents and have been divided only by the variety of their individual misfortunes. Sometimes two neighboring peoples, who are conjoined in the same body of nations, are revealed to originate from races that have long been hostile, signs of which are perpetuated unnoticed in the domestic dialect. Sometimes a word departs from one country, and after centuries have passed, returns there in the company of foreigners; sometimes, in some secluded valley, fragments of a language are preserved, which out in the plains had been unable to stand against commerce and conquest. Often a torn parchment manuscript or papyrus roll found in a grave or in a prayer book, having been stored there by a fugitive family, has something to say regarding the existence of a people, a question that would in vain have been asked of history. ([1842] 1981, SL 1: 155) An identity of or similarity between languages proves that some major historical event brought about a certain correlation between two peoples, not that the races themselves are identical. ([1842] 1981, SL 1: 175) It is a common mistake to confuse ethnography with linguistics and races with tongues. This, when applied to the field of politics, can lead to great error and most serious difficulties. ([1861] 1981, SL 1: 663) Roman Unity The most ancient peoples of Europe, the Etruscans, the Greeks, the Ligurians, and the Celts, before they were conquered, or at least before they were joined to other peoples in thralldom, each formed its own domain, albeit divided into several different branches. There was a class of leading citizens (the optimates), the people, and a class of servants; these social orders were born of violence, but subsequently merged over time. There was one body of laws, rites, and traditions, all of which were appropriate to the nation concerned, although deriving from different places and through various obscure routes. The ratio legis was taken entirely from within each nation. Although civilization had spread from people to people, few of them were aware of the foreign origins of their

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institutions, and in cases of public emergency they never went back to their distant primitive sources for instruction. Then came the Roman conquest, amid which all these scattered groups of peoples dissolved like lumps of salt in the vast ocean. Roman legislation continually evolved, first transforming the prerogatives of the nobles into civil law, then the prerogatives of Roman citizens into uniform subjecthood (sudditanza). Thus, in the provinces, the optimates, having lost their military and priestly dominance, became mere landowners, vested at most with representative municipal powers. They changed clothes, habits, and ceremonies and transformed themselves into vain echoes of the Roman senate. The servant class was dissolved, to be replaced by the paid slaves who had fortuitously been gathered from every people in the world, who were strangers to the land, strangers to their owners, strangers to each other, a shapeless mass without affections or opinions. The people remained leaderless and, being no longer confined to itself for reasons of political unity, began to cross the threshold of the narrow municipal circle and expand over the vast spaces of the Roman Empire, forming random groupings around the battlefields known as colonies, at the intersections of the great military routes, or near to the bridges of those great rivers that separate the barbarian nations with their swamps and reunite civilized nations via shipping. To make themselves understood in the marketplace, on the highways, and in the colonies, people endeavored, amid such a variety of languages, to communicate with Roman words, which they misheard, mispronounced, and combined ungrammatically into the simplest, easiest order. They forgot their patristic rites, no longer knowing how to perform them in such new places and amid such new people; nor were there any more inflexible aristocrats to impress their forefathers’ customs on the rising generations and continue, by dint of stubborn example. There followed a confusion of names, traditions, and rites, giving rise to an uneven, uncertain set of beliefs, the various constituent parts of which were incompatible with each other, seemed absurd even to those who practiced them, and inspired neither trust nor reverence in others. The more cultured among them hurried to seek out a creed, one of the philosophical sects that promised open truths, or arcane mysteries promising revelation of concealed truths. Such open and hidden doctrines also tended toward unity, because, in redeeming the people from blind practices, they called them back to the realm of the intellect and reason, whose ultimate end is one, that is, truth.

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Thus, in Europe, four great unities made their mark: the power of the imperial authorities, the laws of Roman legislation, belief in the Christian faith, and a common language, in the shape of popular flexible Latin. In vain men racked their brains to set up denominations and divisions. In vain the Goth and Frankish captains assumed the title of king and divided up the provinces. They put their names on coins, but did not dare erase the imperial crest; they spoke Gothic in the hulls and the fields, but did not bother to write it down; even of their ancient customs they wrote in Latin. Writing and the Latin language appeared to be inseparable. The Goths procured for themselves the translation of the odd holy book, but the Franks declared themselves Christians some four hundred years previously, when they received their first texts in their unadorned, insipid, uncertain dialect. The barbarians introduced the law of private vengeance in the south, and taught people to drink from the skulls of their enemies, but still professed the religion of forgiveness. They were profoundly imbued with the notion of a supreme and most sovereign law and authority that would rule, as from the heights of the heavens or the bowels of the earth, over their imperfect nationality. The priesthood, which was the repository of the one language and faith, also became the involuntary mouthpiece for a common justice, translated the Pandects into canon law, and kept alive the tradition of imperial unity. For all these reasons the new nations of Europe were not able to become so many separate bodies with their own national existence, as had been the case among the primitive peoples. The entire population of Europe had become a mass, in which various elements were mixing everywhere to an almost uniform degree. Everywhere one encountered Christians and Jews, lay and clergy, written Latin and Gothic verbal denominations, civil texts and barbarian sagas, law and violence, municipal institutions and conquest; an indelible record of domestic, agrarian, mercantile, and artisan practices; and, above all, the idea of a common and supreme imperial Roman rule. ([1836] 1956, SE 1: 330–3) The Breakup of Roman Civilization After the year 200 AD the art of government in Rome was reduced to little more than taking away money from the defenseless in order to satisfy the armed. The great senatorial dynasties were dying out; the Roman plebeians were submerged by several million mercenaries, who had come from the Rhine, the Nile, the Tagus, and the Euphrates. A

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financial calculation was all Caracalla required to grant the status of citizen to the whole of the Empire and to reveal to an astonished world that the citizenry was no more. It had disappeared along with its language and religion, leaving a mass of peoples and things under the name it previously bore. Enticed by this fiscal policy, the emperors of the third century no longer had regard for the roads and ports that had lent such unusual vitality to the nations. The burdened provinces did not have the force to supply them. Commerce was stranded, merchandise lay useless in the fields of one province, while in another the inhabitants were starving to death. The poor perished, and the rich grew poor; greedy usurers and magistrates despoiled thousands of households and, to insure quick returns,7 they flooded the agricultural estates (latifundia) with crowds of slaves. Ploughed fields became uncultivated pasture land; the remaining independent farmers, who had served as a source of renewal for the nation in happier times, were now barely able to find refuge in the recesses of the high mountains, which could not be worked by means of slave labor. Famine, plagues, fires kindled by barbarians and looting by criminal gangs rapidly depleted the population. Meanwhile, in the cities the exaction of taxes became more and more burdensome and, alongside such misery, the fear of the famished armies grew, as did the bitterness and desperation of the tax authorities themselves. The municipal magistrates had to answer for their own insolvent citizens; they were armed with all the tax authorities’ rights, but lived in deserted lands and dilapidated housing; the people feigned poverty to avoid having to pay higher taxes. So the authorities imposed such taxes on them by forcible means: they seized the magistrates’ goods, then their wives, and then launched claims against their heirs; one colleague had to pay for another, and any who fled to other cities were sought out and brought back. Some became soldiers, a possibility that was subsequently outlawed by the tax authorities. In but a few generations, those magnificent seigneuries, which had sung the praises of Rome with tasteful moderation in the theaters and municipal halls, became nothing but a herd of penniless tax collectors. In the countryside, meanwhile, every fruit-bearing tree, every branch of a vine, was numbered and taxed: the tax due on any plant that 7 Literally, ‘for ease of accounting’ (per semplicità d’azienda). The expression may be an ironic understatement on Cattaneo’s part about domination of any kind and not just slavery, bearing in mind that he was writing while Lombardy was under Austrian rule.

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perished then reverted to its survivors, with the result that the farmer, in order to avoid having to pay duties, would eradicate entire fruit groves and vineyards; and the law, which pursued the shadow of fugitive agriculture, punished the death of a plant with death. If the suffering families dispersed, the hand of the law brought them back into captivity; every peasant was registered as a slave in his own fief, and a new form of slavery arose, which in eastern Europe was perhaps even older, and has still not died out there completely, even today. Those in charge of public land, which extended over entire provinces, offered it in vain to the first occupier, dragged barbarian prisoners there from the border who, confined to some unknown profession in their homelands, went about vexing the remaining true farmers and thieving from them. Even the city trades were dying out on a daily basis. At the start of the fourth century Constantine found it necessary to lay down that each man should preserve his trade by handing it on to his children. No one was allowed to alter this statute, and no one was free to choose the profession they wanted; as the descendent of the ancient nobles was assigned to municipal service, and the peasant to the fief, the tradesmen were seconded to their fathers’ workshops and the sailors to their fathers’ ships. All were precluded from joining the army, and the man who was born to be a soldier had it branded on his arm. While the people were divided up into rigid castes, the petty punishments, the harsh penalties, the uses and abuses, brought them all into a general state of servitude. These, then, were the unhappy citizens whom modern historians persist in calling Romans, to amuse themselves by calling them vanquished. In that case, who was the victor? ([1844] 1957, SSG 1: 365–7) The Revolt of the Mercenaries Primacy thus passed to those peoples who, alone among the defenseless masses, had the privilege of arms – that is, the barbarian mercenaries. Since the time of Augustus, imperial diffidence had been seeking them out on the northern frontiers of Europe. [Emperor] Probus8 then began to conscript the Franks in regular fashion as from around the year 280 AD, surrounding the borders with Vandals, Gepidae, and Bastarnae. Since the depopulated empire, now cultivated by slaves and devoured by 8 Roman emperor (276–82 AD). A commander under Valerian and successor of M. Claudius Tacitus, Probus did much to restore order in the empire before his troops mutinied and killed him in 282.

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the greed of a few families, could no longer keep its armies in paid employ, the idea was conceived of paying the barbarians in kind, by opening the borders to them and allowing them to live in the provinces as they wanted. The Goths, who since the end of the third century had penetrated into Dacia, when the Huns began to annoy them sought refuge on the other, safer bank of the Danube. These fugitives, to whom the historians’ imagination granted the name of Rome’s conquerors, were confronted by Valens in Maesia and Thracia. Their leader Alaric was the prefect of imperial arms in Illyria, when finally the Byzantine ministers seized the opportunity to direct him and his armies to unarmed Italy in around 400 AD. It was then that the universal rebellion of mercenaries took place, which was rather grandly entitled the great transmigration of peoples, but which in actual fact was no more than the quartering of foreign military hordes in the western provinces, although in such small numbers that barely a trace of them remains within the frontiers. ([1837] 1981, SL 1: 231–2) The magistrates’ unwanted interference in trade, the arbitrary increase in the price of products, the vastness of taxation, the greed and baseness of the barbarian mercenaries, the abandonment of public works, rivers, roads, ports, the arrogance of the nobles in municipalities, the slavery of the countryside, the ignorance of the cities, the scorn for the ancient magistracy, for the senate, for the people, for letters, for Greek and Roman traditions, in the space of just a few generations destroyed public fortune and universal civilization. The Goths and the other stipendiaries and federates, fleeing before the Huns, broke forth into the unarmed and desolate provinces, not as victors as the majority of historians generally refers to them, but rather as worms invading a rotting corpse. This is how the barbarianism of the Middle Ages was born. Most writers now follow the trend in apportioning both the blame and glory for this state of affairs to the barbarians. Their invasions, however, were merely a symptom and change. The same barbarianism reached Constantinople without the barbarians. Many writers from beyond the Alps attributed this decline to goodness knows what physical degeneration in the peoples of the south, occasioning reform by means of a crossroads of races. Such writers are intelligent enough only to write the history of animals and dogs. ([1836] 1956, SE 1: 210–11) Historians love to repeat the grandiose title [of universal transmigration], because they only look at the fragments of the barbarian nations

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that rose up so tumultuously, rather than the great masses who remained unmoved in their native homelands. ([1841] 1957, SSG 1: 203–4) Feudal Society The Normans to the north, the Arabs to the south, and the Magyars to the east, all went forth shedding blood and setting fire to the rest of Europe at their leisure, so much was it true that ‘the blood of the great Gothic victors had infused new vitality into the feminized southern race.’ Every political tie was dissolved. After the Diet of Kiersy everyone made his own law, a law so reasonable that some nations called it the Faustrecht, the law of the fist. Every judge, every captain became hereditary lord of his own district. In the space of a century Europe was broken down into as many different principalities as there were fortified households, and it began to be woven by the lords of the households into the fabric of feudal society. At that time everyone wanted to keep his own slaves on his own land, so the white slave trade was transformed into feudal slavery. The writers of romances attributed the abolition of mercenary slavery to some sudden awakening of a spirit of humanity, which, however, did not properly speaking exist in any nation of the world at that time. Besides, the slave trade continued sporadically throughout Europe for a considerable while thereafter. ([1836] 1956, SE 1: 212) There were no public authorities in Europe after Charlemagne. Patchy monarchs were destroyed, and the central monarch was unable to rule from so great a distance in such wild times without the advantage of roads, commerce, money, and a standing army. Every captain, every landowner ruled in the place where he lived. Sismondi9 has shown that France, for several centuries, had no legislators or laws. Thereafter, for reasons of safety, they confederated into feudal clusters, thus creating a system without realizing it. But this system was haphazard and improvised. The borders of each nation were porous. Parts of France were united with England, others with Aragon, others with the Papal States, others still with Germany; the remainder were shared among the kings, dukes, and counts of France, Burgundy, Brittany, Toulouse, Provence, and Flanders. The same was true elsewhere. Amid such anarchy, they each followed their own traditions. In place 9 Jean Charles Leonard Sismonde de Sismondi (1773–1842), Swiss historian whose major work, in sixteen volumes, is on the history of the Italian republics in the Middle Ages.

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of justice, the customs of the strong and the associations of the weak prevailed; whence there were two main sources of law: customs and statutes. The lords of the various castles, a shapeless army scattered across the whole national territory, instituted feudal law, while the priesthood promulgated canon law, successfully adapting Roman principles to the needs of the faith and the hierarchy. In the cities, the merchants and artisans formulated municipal law, and the sailors, who by now could reach more ports and more nations in the space of a year, elevated their commercial practices into maritime law. Every guild established a code of practice that, once written down, became precept and law. Every monastic order had its own distinct rules, name, and habit, since it was necessary to restrict their ever-increasing number in pragmatic fashion. Chivalric orders, with their array of institutes, privileges, and standards, attracted needy young men who were denied the part of their paternal land that was rightfully theirs under the feudal system. All of Europe found itself arrayed into mercantile, artisan, maritime, chivalric, monastic, and university orders (corporazioni). But the rules, laws, and privileges did not all combine harmoniously with each other. In the Middle Ages one man professed to live under Roman law, while another professed to live under Longobard law. One could see barons engaged in an argument to be decided by means of a duel in the church square, while inside the church building an excommunication order was being read out against the combatants. Close to a port where sailors could find safe haven, men could be found gathering up the spoils of previous shipwrecks, being authorized by law to do so. In one place a baron in his own district would be without equal, while in another, butchers and cobblers, grouped into guilds with their own weapons and banners, would negotiate freely with barons and kings. The kingdoms of the Middle Ages were haphazard, improvised muddles. The various social strata coexisted in perpetual conflict, sometimes open and armed, other times shrouded in contracts and legislation. ([1836] 1956, SE 1: 334–5) Relics of Ancient Civilization Our cities were rather dazed bodies than dead corpses. All prayers and holy texts were written in the language that the Romans had bequeathed to Europe; our people, with their Celtic pronunciation, mangled the Latin words, but could make themselves understood by the neighboring masses in that dialect; so, from people to people there prevailed a

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language common to all, and the languages of the Italian peninsula were no longer as disparate as Etruscan, Latin, and Greek had been. There were houses and churches, and remnants and instances of roads, bridges, and walls; viticulture extended now as far as the Alps, the olive tree had taken root on the coasts, the chestnut tree appeared to be native to our mountains, and irrigation could scarcely fall into complete oblivion. Mercantile families, in the cities and in their mountain and marshland refuges, did not lose their traditions, and even in the Middle Ages could reach the banks of the Rhine via the Alpine routes in order to carry on their obscure traffic, lending their minds and their labor to the building of churches and castles which, to the people who lived there, seemed as if they had materialized as the result of some magic incantation. ([1844] 1957, SSG 1: 372) Classes and Nations in the Middle Ages Neither language nor nation distinguished masters from servants in the Middle Ages, nor vanquished from victors; one and the same destiny weighed on the natives of both Rhine and Seine, on the continental Saxon and the island-dwelling Anglo-Saxon, on the Walloon-speaking people and the Flemish-speaking people. All nations were slaves, the Slavs as much as the Germans, the Germans as much as the GalloRomans; the prerogatives of rule and freedom were the privilege of an association of prelates and knights. It mattered little whether Charlemagne and William dictated their laws in Latin, Danish, or French. It was a question of class, not a question of nationality. ([1845] 1957, SSG 2: 84) The Origins of Communes Every dwelling surrounded itself with walls, every household erected its own tower. Europe became a forest of fortresses. Bishop Ansperto rebuilt the walls of Milan at the end of the ninth century. Just a few years later Bishop Ariberto laid waste to the territory of Lodi. When his feudal knights denied him their obedience, he armed the people of the city and fought the first popular battle at Campo Malo. Conrad the Salian, jealous of such unusual arms, imprisoned him, but he escaped, shut the city gates in his face, and endured a first assault. From his vast province, he summoned all men able to bear arms and, to give some semblance of order and stability to that which was the first of all modern infantries, laid an altar on top of a chariot and a standard above the altar. That

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army of devoted soldiers, who, pikes in hand, gathered around the carroccio10 thus consecrated, constituted the first rudiment of modern society. After a commoner was killed, a baron offered to pay the penalty for the murder himself, in accordance with the price that the blood of a dead man demanded in the scales of feudal justice. But the people took up arms in fear and killed all the lords they encountered en route, finding their own leader in Lanzone, who led them to dismantle the towers of the feudal households, amid the gardens of the large city. Ariberto, astonished and saddened that the use of arms had so raised the spirits of the people, confronted them; his captains armed the slaves of the district against the city, and in so doing, without noticing, prepared them, too, for the condition of arms-bearing and freedom. Inexperienced in laying siege, in their barbarian ineptitude they constructed a wooden redoubt, which they placed before each of the city gates, stationing themselves for three years and waiting for penury to tame the rebellious; but Lanzone fled to Germany to invoke the aid of the law from the emperor; which served to make evident that truth so often witnessed in history, that the natural interests of the principalities and peoples are unanimously opposed to feudal license. The people were irritated by Ariberto’s non-paternal hostility and appealed to different successive reasons. They wanted the prelatic families, who elected the bishop from among their number, to give account for the sacred articles that they possessed as a result of inheritance or simony; they called the wives of the beneficiaries concubines, they tore them from the altars and expelled them from the city. Murder and arson spread from house to house. Arialdo Alciato and the Cotta brothers shed blood in the name of the Church, and Hildebrand from Rome urged them to fight. Countess Matilda, the wealthy heiress of the Tuscan Longobards, became an ardent enemy of the feudal order. Her vast donations to the Benedictines in the Po Valley became sanctuaries for fugitive slaves who, once the remnants of the Etruscan and Roman embankments were restored, transformed them into prosperous possessions.

10 A carroccio was a war chariot drawn by oxen used by the medieval Italian republics. It was a rectangular platform on which the standard of the city and an altar were erected. In battle, it served both as a rallying point and as the palladium of the city. First employed by the Milanese in 1038, it played a great part in the fight against the Emperor Barbarossa. It was afterward adopted by other cities and appeared on a Florentine battlefield in 1228.

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The feudal inheritance having thus been dissipated, the population having grown in wealth, and the Church’s land having been redeemed from the nobles, the great transformation began of slaves into free peasants that was to expand throughout Europe for eight centuries. The first wave of this movement began from Italy shortly after the year 1000 AD. In that century the cities of Italy returned to being the station of a people in arms. The use of arms revives the sense of honor, suffocated by Byzantine and Longobard oppression. Honor gives birth to every virtue; men feel they can achieve their dreams and have the courage to dream them. Minds aspire to all that is beautiful and grand. Venice, with the riches of its trade, founds St Mark’s; the Milanese native Anselmo Baggio, then bishop of Lucca and future pope, builds the cathedral in the space of ten years. Pisa also founds its own cathedral even more gloriously, with the spoils of the Arabs that it carried off from Palermo. All this takes place a generation prior to the Crusades, which were therefore not the cause of the European Renaissance, as the majority of slavish imitators continues to argue, but rather one of its swiftest effects and the first instance of an expanding power. The true basis of this Renaissance lies rather in the legitimate possession of a popular militia. ([1844] 1957, SSG 1: 377) Communal Wars A period of intense warfare then followed. In a castle on Lake Lugano, some inhabitants of Como had killed two of the Carcano brothers of Milan; the widows and relatives came to Piazza Duomo to show the people the bloody clothes of the dead men and to beg them for vengeance. Bishop Giordano emerged from the cathedral to pronounce a ban on celebration of the sacred rites until such time as the people had washed away the blood of the murdered men. The armed multitude attacked Como; the inhabitants, abandoning the city at this sudden furor, took refuge on the cliff at Baratello, then, seeing the flames that had been kindled by vengeance, repented of their weakness, rushed down to strike their enemies amid the confusion of their victory, setting them to flight. On their return, the humiliated warriors swore on the altar that they would not lay down arms until Como had been destroyed. Meanwhile, Como armed all its mountain dwellers from the borders of the Vallese to those of the Tyrol; the Milanese brought with them a league of twelve

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cities; armed ships fought on the lakes, Genoese workmen built siege towers and other war machinery typical of the Roman militia that had lain forgotten in the brutishness of the Gothic era. The inhabitants of Como, in extreme conditions, saved their women and children by putting them on board ships, then locked themselves away in the castle of Vico; eventually, after ten years of war they conceded victory and erected tents of exile around their own landed country. One would think that these ferocious cities were heading toward destruction, but amid such battles the peoples, in fact, grew; amid the ransacking an unusual prosperity developed and, from the preceding centuries to this century, a passage occurred similar to that from the putrefaction of the grave to the ferment of life. ([1844] 1957, SSG 1: 379–80) What was the price of so much bloodshed? The price was passing from the era of Otto, who reigned slightly before the barbarous year of 1000 AD, to the era of Charles V and the golden splendors of the Cinquecento, to the days of Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci, Machiavelli and Ariosto, Raphael and Michelangelo, to the victory of free trade over feudal duties and gangs of barons, to the victory of free agriculture over nomadic pasture and the slavery of the fief, to the greatest of Italian achievements, the foundation of the new experimental science which, from the Tuscan schools of Leonardo and Galileo, is now spreading its beneficent and glorious influence over both the earth’s hemispheres, along with the magical inventions of Italian music. These were, therefore, not merely sterile uprisings, nor vain furies on the part of those who suffered labor pains and progress for five-and-a-half centuries. These were agitations were fatally necessary, bloody, and lugubrious perhaps to those who suffered them, but salutary in later centuries for Italy and the world and like the long fierce tempest through which man, from the mists of barbarism, reached the sunlight of civilization and liberal intelligence (libera intelligenza). ([1863] 1957, SSG 3: 313–14) Firearms Quality and Quantity The first change in warfare brought about by the use of gunpowder was the predominance of quantity over quality. Victory for the ancient warrior depended on the strength of the arm that inflicted the blows, and the steadiness and skill of he who fended them off […] But how effective

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can a piece of iron be, irrespective of the arm that wields it, compared with the blind expansive force with which a packet of gunpowder, lit by a spark, propels a ball from a cannon? Accordingly, it was no longer necessary to seek out muscular arms strengthened by maneuvers; all that was needed was the courage to hold down a position and the ability to execute, with order and agility, a mechanical operation requiring no force whatsoever. As the blows thus meted out were irresistible and unavoidable, victory accordingly belonged to whoever could launch the greatest number of such attacks at the enemy. In other words, victory belongs to the greater quantity of firearms. Ancient weapons were fearsome only in the hands of the valorous; massed ranks were merely a hindrance, able only to slow armies down or encourage troops to desert; only the bravest warriors could therefore be admitted, that is, only the select few. In modern armies, however, it is not so much the strength of the soldiers that is important as their number. Whoever does not enjoy an absolute majority must seek, by intelligence, to procure for himself a relative majority, ordering his troops in such a way that they may effectively launch maximum fire and subject themselves to minimum fire. It is in this that the power of such developments resides, whereby ranks of soldiers become so many geometrical lines that derive their nature (proprietà) from the position that they hold. Even the ancients had discovered the principle of focusing a quantity of force against a specific point on the enemy front to overcome it and, thence, with increasingly unequal force, to press home the victory position by position over the entire army. They, therefore, grouped the strongest soldiers in a wedge formation in order to break down the enemy’s line in the center or to attack one of its flanks with a reinforced line of soldiers. The moderns, translating the same principle into a different form, concentrated greater fire onto the points indicated to them by art. The ancients’ wedge finds its equivalent in our battery, which breaks down opposition ranks, and their parallel formation finds its counterpart in our oblique formation, which brings the center of the line against the enemy’s flank, and pours an irresistible torrent of fire against it to the front and the side. ([1839] 1957, SSG 1: 39–40) Feudalism and Democracy The rumbling, fire, smoke, and death launched by cannons from ambushes located at enormous distances initially made them appear merely 190

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cowardly devices, contrary to the laws of warfare and honor. Chivalry and chivalric literature always boast of the courage of human arms and scorn the weapons that put the weak on the same footing as the strong. Feudalism no longer found shelter within its armor made of iron, nor behind the merlons and trapdoors of its castles. The popular militia, now armed with this magic powder, and funded by the city merchants and the princes’ secretaries, gradually liberated Europe and, through this, the territories divided by the Middle Ages were joined into powerful national masses, led by calculating governments that, out of an irresistible instinct of self-interest, gradually abolished the castles and jurisdictions of private citizens, suppressed their privileges, dismantled their associations, and brought the causes of both weak and strong into line with the civil laws of the ancient Roman people. ([1839] 1957, SSG 1: 56–7) National States National authority sought to free itself from a constant obstacle that made the handling of its affairs slow, cumbersome, painstaking, and litigious. Hundreds of statutes gave way to uniform national codes. Hundreds of undisciplined sporadic feudal gangs gave way to armies animated by a single will. Hundreds of guilds turned into a civil society, open to the vital impulses of free competition. Hundreds of dialects were grouped into national languages. The use of Latin, which disguised nationality beneath an identical uniform, began to die out. Literature arose from the ancients’ graves to become a mirror for the passions and ideas for the living. The cultivation of language gave rise to a national spirit, which exists in inverse proportion to the use of dialects, and in direct proportion to the use of a common tongue; whence the strong national identity of France and England, and the relatively weaker national identities of other countries. The growth of such languages, which also better determined the natural borders of nations, became an encouragement to universal peace. Thus, by way of example, the diffusion of French in the Languedoc and Gascony removed all traces of war from the borders between France and Spain. National power, with its uniform perpetual tendencies, balanced out destinies and restored the work of civil justice, which had not been seen since its inception under the Roman regime. In some countries, popular explosions precipitated events in the space of a day that ordinary power would quietly have taken a century to produce. It is a curious phenomenon that the French Civil Code, undertaken by the tribunes, was completed and promulgated in the name of an absolute prince, without any 191

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deviation either from his own principles or from those of ancient Roman legislation. So much did popular and absolute power concur in the dissolution of privileges and the adaptation of public utility. The effect was to make all members of the state equal before the law and equal in terms of the civil rights that they enjoy. ([1836] 1956, SE 1: 336–7) The Decadence of Mercantile Cities in the Middle Ages In the Middle Ages, when feudal obstacles enveloped the continent, transportation took place along the waters of central Europe. A large mercantile zone extended from the Mediterranean along the Rhone or the Po and the Alpine lakes and the Rhine as far as Cologne, where it divided via Flanders to reach England, and via the Hanseatic to reach the Baltic. The cities that this trade served enjoyed the same vast transit that today is enjoyed by the great capital cities at the heart of the great customs areas. These were formed gradually, as each state, passing from the feudal to the mercantile principle, sought to take possession of its own trade as of its own territory and, with more or less care, undertook the dual task of clearing away the domestic obstacles that it had inherited from feudalism, and transferring them to the border; a sign of integrated national sovereignty. Reflection did not give birth to understanding; opinions proposed by the mercantile instinct prevailed; every state had to keep everything for itself and exclude foreign interests. Italian, Hanseatic, and Swabian cities, excluded from foreign markets and with no market of their own, thus remained without food, like plants that grow but little in the shadow of higher and leafier plants. Those municipalities that through some common bond, could raise their standard over the seas or, by virtue of their proximity, could form a territory in those days considered substantial, such as the Venetians, Swiss, Flemish, and Dutch cities, were the ones that lasted longest. But the large states were increasingly overstepping their boundaries: the three British kingdoms were united into one; France took possession of all its coastline; the new markets became ever larger and more closed and now included also remote conquests and colonies, thus taking away from the smaller states all trade of Asian and colonial goods. Maritime power ceased to be a municipal privilege, but was measured by the extent of a nation’s coastline and the number of its ports. Just as the size of the territory placed limits on the scope of domestic trade, so the extent and configuration of the coast, that is, of maritime power, placed

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limits on the scope of international trade in times of war and, consequently, also during the brief intervals of peace. Beneath this weight of geographical mass, intelligence and industry were constrained to languish and succumb. The twilight of Venice, Holland, and Portugal was hastened or slowed by other moral causes, but in the face of the growing critical mass of France and England, the process was irreparable and irresistible. Faced with ten million men placed around them engaged in free living trade, the states that shared their manufactures among only two or three million could not help but fall into decline. The only way to support such ancient industries would have been the general liberalization of trade, so that both great and small states would become part of a common market, for the manufactures themselves could not feel what difference the diversity of political regime made until their progress was halted on the borders between them. The smaller states being thus oppressed, the victorious states increasingly expanded both production and markets […] The same radical imbalance whereby the industry of three million men was overcome one century ago by the labor of ten shall presently subject the industry of ten, twenty, or forty to that of one hundred or two hundred or four hundred. And, again for the same reasons: the principles of the division of labor, competition, and productive innovation, all of which are the effects of the increased areas of production and distribution and the cause, in turn, of the surplus of capital. ([1843] 1956, SE 2: 402–4) The French and Spanish in Lombardy Italy was replete with force and talents. It was far superior to other nations in all that which constituted art in the area of warfare over land and sea. But everything was unstable and arbitrary; each prince had his own designs; no captain at the head of a band of soldiers lived without hope of securing his own principality, whether by art or by force. A network of inextricable politics entangled the hands and feet of the nation, which was barbarously despoiled and bloodied by its inept enemies. The Sforza State11 was a group of municipalities with no common 11 After the Sforza family which ruled the duchy of Milan from 1450 to about 1535. Milan, following a long contest between France and Spain, passed to Spain in 1559.

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bond of consent. Even the best of minds thought only of their own cities and not of others or of the state. The fateful difficulty continually resurfaced in a government that, having no roots in traditions and opinions, inspired no confidence in its subjects; it preferred to have them more divided than united, more defenseless and worthless than aggressive and determined. It always put utmost trust in military strongholds and bought men. And the Swiss, who had been bought by Ludovico il Moro, sold him to his enemies at Novara. In the course of a few years one by one the cities were sacked and defiled. In some thirty years, Lodi was taken a total of fifteen times; it was sacked by the Swiss and the Spanish and was the scene of a battle waged between the Spanish and the Venetians. The families fled half-naked to Crema. During the League of Cambrai, the citizens of Crema, despairing of the fortunes of Venice, accepted French rule, only to be subsequently disarmed and plundered, with all men between the ages of fifteen and sixty being expelled from the city. Citizens and peasants valiantly took back Crema from the French; besieged by the Swiss once more, they surprised them, and cut them into pieces at Ombriano. But the war had devastated the countryside and squandered capital, and within such a small territory the plague accounted for some sixteen thousand people. Women and children and men, too, fled from all parts back to Lodi; it is hard to say in which of the two cities life was harder. The lengthiest torture of all was in Milan, where, after the plague had destroyed around fifty thousand inhabitants, the Spanish went on the rampage, robbing, killing, extorting money by imprisonment and torture, taking women under pledge, forcing them to carry earth to build fortifications, stripping bare anyone they happened to meet on the streets, climbing up to their windows and stabbing anyone who raised their voice in protest or who opposed them. The nations that wreaked such havoc on a people that had done them no harm, indeed, who by virtue of their arts, letters, and discovery of a new world had honored and benefited them, do not, it is true, today have to answer for such excesses, remote as they are in time and buried among the memories of the past. But they should at least be ashamed to slander the victims and praise the authors of such wrongdoings. ([1844] 1957, SSG 1: 401–2)

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8 The Risorgimento

Lombard Reforms in the Eighteenth Century It is a fact unknown in Europe, but true nonetheless. While France in vain was inebriated with new currents of thought and proclaiming to the rest of the continent the start of new era, which it was subsequently unable to bring about save through the bloodiest of revolutions, lowly Milan was embarking on the fourth stage in its progress, its government having been entrusted to an assembly of magistrates, who also happened to form a school of philosophers. Pompeo Neri, Rinaldo Carli, Cesare Beccaria, and Pietro Verri are not names equally well known to Europe, but they are all equally sacred in the memory of Milanese citizens. Philosophy had acted as lawmaker among the Roman jurisconsults, but this was the first occasion on which it had administrated communal finances, food, and other offices, and on this occasion it showed itself to be profoundly deserving of the noble trust thus displayed in it. All the reforms embraced by Turgot in his visions of public welfare, which were thwarted by the ignorance of the populace and the wiles of the privileged, are recorded in the books of our laws, in the decrees of our governors, and in the reality of our public and private prosperity. A land registry was drawn up of all properties, in accordance with a principle that few nations hitherto have grasped […] By its very nature, the land registry wiped out all those immunities whereby, under the Spanish regime, a third of the properties was exempt from taxation as a result of being owned by the clergy, which increased the burden on other properties to intolerable levels. The registry became the basis of the communal regime, whereby our communes became like so many minor states that, under the magis-

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trates’ tutelage, decreed public works and levied taxes on themselves in order to fund them. The costly tax in kind involving labor, livestock, and material, which had struck fear into the hearts of the peasantry and served as an instrument of oppression and corruption, was now a thing of the past. A marvelous extension of the road network was drawn up, in accordance with a principle of maintenance that encouraged the builders to work as well and as simply as possible. But this is not the place to list all the reforms introduced by those philosophers: territorial divisions, redemption of royal duties, and abolition of the agencies charged with their collection, tutelage of ecclesiastical goods, monetary reforms, and so forth. From the 1750s onward there was a vast division and subdivision of estates; the number of landowners and wealthy classes rose in proportion to the growth in income that such properties generated. The bonds of primogeniture began to be relinquished, which had combined, within the same family, the nonchalant opulence of the firstborn with the poverty, humiliation, and forced careers of younger children and female offspring. The statutes of mortmain were abolished, and the endless properties governed by them were made available once more for free trading; communal pasture lands were sold; the administrations of municipalities were reformed; public education was entrusted to safe hands moved by the spirit of the age and of good government; trade restrictions were abolished, as were restrictions on the trading of corn and virtually all price restrictions on commestibles, as well as regulations hindering the exercise of professions. The sudden appearance of English and French merchandise shook us out of the lethargy engendered by Spanish protectionism and revitalized our industry. Roads were opened, barriers and tolls removed, and the distance between cities reduced to just three or four hours, when previously such a journey would have required the strength of an ox and been measured in terms of days. Feudal magistrates’ courts were abolished, in which justice was traded on behalf of private individuals; the senate, too, was abolished, on which memories of unjust cruel torture continued to weigh; the sanctuary that thieves enjoyed on sacred land and behind the colonnades of princely palaces was abolished; murderers were no longer seen in churches; anatomical research sections led to the disappearance of poisoned waters; torture that had punished the innocents for crimes perpetrated by unknown offenders was abolished; whips, burning tongs, horrific wheels all disappeared, as did the Inquisition; laborious correctional institutes were established to replace stinking cellars and evil prisons.

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From as early as 1766, six years before the prison of Ghent was opened, the principle of prisoner segregation had been introduced, whereby one day in solitary confinement was worth two in ordinary gaol; at which point it was discovered that the solitary cell was not an instrument of mild correction, as had hitherto been thought, but rather a powerful form of punishment to be applied in the case of the most serious of crimes – and able to inspire greater terror than death itself. Was it any surprise that such wise thoughts should have been conceived in a country where Cesare Beccaria not merely was a writer who gave public instruction in social science, but also sat in positions of authority on the Council of State? The fearful and solitary ramparts where the executed were buried became leafy promenades; the stench was taken away from the streets; the abhorrent practice of burying the dead in churches ceased; beggars were taken away from church entrances, along with the cripples displaying their ulcers or infirmities; bare feet and ragged clothes gradually disappeared from view. Theaters opened where families, grown unsociable over seven generations, learned to acquaint themselves with each other and enjoy the amenities of civil life, music, and poetry. Musical genius respected, and aspired to, the judgment of our people; one carnival alone in one of our smaller theaters produced Bellini’s Sonnambula and Donizetti’s Anna Bolena for the delight of Europe. Tolerance of all religions reigned, and hospitality was extended to foreigners who displayed ability and entrepreneurship. Living sciences were introduced to dead universities; academies of fine arts were founded; architecture flourished once more; decoration resumed its Greek elegance; astronomical observatories were erected; a basic charter for the nation was drawn up; new libraries were opened; mothers took away from cooks and stablemen the responsibility of educating their children in the first years of their lives. Soave1 reformed all elementary school textbooks; Parini,2 Mascheroni,3 and Arici4 reintroduced literary elegance, directing it to lofty scientific and moral ends; Beccaria taught political economy; that constellation of splendid 1 Francesco Soave (1743–1806) was a member of a priestly society and educator. 2 Giuseppe Parini (1729–1799) was a poet who possessed marked ability for teaching, which became the work of the greater part of his life; he took holy orders in 1754. 3 Lorenzo Mascheroni (1750–1800) was a leading mathematician and geometer of his time who proved, in 1797, that all Euclidian constructions can be made with compasses alone, so a straight edge is not needed. 4 Cesare Arici (1782–1836) was a poet, sometimes better known as a leading Greek and Latin scholar.

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names gradually arose in the arts and sciences – Volta,5 Piazzi,6 Oriani,7 Appiani,8 and all the others who perpetuated it until our own day. The pupils of ‘so learned a band’ (Dante, Inferno IV, 102) dispersed throughout the provinces, diffusing in their classrooms that all-embracing happy movement of things and ideas that so delights the imagination. ([1844] 1957, SSG 1: 415–18) Napoleon and Italy Napoleon aroused in Italy the old warlike spirit. Young men, lawyers, and engineers, in the space of a few months, became captains, colonels, and generals. Soldiers such as Massena9 came through the ranks of the new armies as if by magic. Natural talent was developed in the best school the world had ever witnessed. Most of those brave fellows died for their chief in Germany, Spain, and Russia. They were all faithful to him, and after his fall they did not abandon his stepson [General Eugène Beauharnais] until they had first been deserted by him. The greatest and more durable benefit conferred by Napoleon on his native race was the revival of Italy as a rallying point and a watchword for the whole nation. He bestowed upon the Italians the inestimable, the ever-enduring gift of a national banner. It was at first the banner of his small Cisalpine Republic, then of a larger Italian one, then of his Kingdom of Italy, which yet amounted to only a third part of the peninsula; but after his fall it became the visible emblem of the Italian unity for which many generous young men boldly marched to death in the field and on the scaffold (italics in the original).

5 Count Alessandro Volta (1745–1827) was a physicist; the volt is named after him. 6 Giuseppe Piazzi (1746–1826) was a Theatine monk and astronomer, who in 1801 discovered the first asteroid and named it Ceres. 7 Barnabus Oriani (1752–1832) was a Barnabite priest, astronomer, and director of the Observatory of Brera in Milan. His calculation of the orbit of Uranus and a table of elements for that planet won him a prominent place among the astronomers of his time. He was a friend of Piazzi, and for many years worked with him in his astronomical labors. 8 Andrea Appiani (1754–1817) was a neoclassical painter active in Milan and a court painter of Napoleon I; his frescoes included work in Milanese churches and palaces, and his style anticipated the romantic approach. 9 André Massena (1758–1817) became marshal of France under Napoleon I, who made him Duke of Rivoli.

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It seems strange that Napoleon, when he had all continental Italy under his way, and well knew how glorious it would have been to raise her to full independence, should have suddenly stopped in his career and acted in open contradiction to himself. He annexed to, and depressed into mere French prefectures, not only Turin, Genoa, and Parma, but also Florence, the sanctuary of Italian literature, and Rome, the sacred land of Italian history. Perhaps he understood better than anyone the nature of his own countrymen, and having removed from Italy the Papal Throne, the incurable source of anarchy and weakness, he feared to call into existence a national life to arise that he could not hope to keep for any period of time, however short. ([1859] 1965, SP 2: 499–50010) Austria has always looked for ways to dishonor us, to humiliate us in our own eyes and in those of others. It is true that France did fight against us and was always ready to take advantage of our blood to secure her own conquests. But France also schooled us in warfare and called us to share in her glory, generously reserving a place of honor to our poor barefoot volunteers, so that the world has seen the Italian people meeting such challenges. ([1860] 1965, SP 4: 56) Italian National Sentiment Napoleon, in giving name, arms, and standard to the Italian kingdom, and giving hope, with the birth of his son, for a king who would unite all in Rome, appeased more than roused our national spirit, as such honors and expectations mitigated the unpleasant reality of French rule. However, if the military and magistrates took pleasure in his theatrical accoutrement, in the more sober minds of the people this period would always remain the ‘years of the French,’ as indeed it was. It is also true, however, that such memories were neither humiliating nor bitter. That which truly bothered the population was not the French presence as such, which did not engage their awareness directly. What did bother them was the disproportionate representation of the militia on foreign expeditions, the financial burden, and the continental restrictions that denied households many domestic objects to which they had 10 The above paragraphs were taken from a letter that Cattaneo wrote to the editor of the Times of London, published on January 24, 1859. They are reproduced here from the original English.

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become accustomed, the suspicion instilled daily by the priests and nobles that religion had been ambushed, and that the pope’s residence in any city outside of Rome was a greater calamity for mankind than war or the plague. Napoleon, not satisfied with the blessing of victory, had pleaded for absolutions and anointings and, having got the ambitious prelates back on their feet, now sought to tame them, not by liberty of thought but by brute force. And he did not dare to respond to their excommunications by throwing open biblical texts in their faces and by desecrating them in the eyes of the people. Then came the Holy Alliance, adorned with flattery and promises; and it was not before long that peoples woke up in a bed of thorns. Like a parliament of owls came forth the powdered lineage, which during the war had hidden in the confessionals of Sicily and Sardinia, bent now on occupying the thrones of the peninsula. With them came a masquerade of cavaliers of every order and prelates and friars of every persuasion; they began to lord it over the peoples and to train them in every form of deception and cowardice. The pope was brought back, and soon the shortsighted provinces witnessed a spectacle of imprisonments and tortures, of cut-throats and bloodbaths, and of justice and reason in shreds, to which the only brake applied was the knife of vengeance. Indeed, it would have been very easy for the oppressed to shake off that warless breed. But every time they attempted to do so, before they had a chance to form themselves into a government, and before they could rouse the forgetful peoples to common defense, they found themselves confronted by the imperial armies. Amid foreign force and prelatic ambushes, the most widespread uprisings led only to disorder and flight. Those who had aspired to die in a glorious field of battle ended up on the gallows; and the blood that was shed without battle, rather than giving honor to the country, placed a stain of dishonor upon our name. Hatred, meanwhile, which previously had been divided among individual tyrants, now found itself naturally concentrated on the one power that afforded those tyrants protection. Milan and Palermo, Romagna and Calabria had never, in previous centuries, given thought to a common welfare, as the pope, that perpetual invoker of foreigners, had always sent a different tyrant to each people for them to oppose or endure. Now, however, Austria alone seemed to have been delegated by the rest of Europe to dishonor and make unhappy the entire nation of

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Italy. So the peoples of Italy did not achieve their fraternal love until after they had first been united in fraternal hatred. This advantage they owe to the enemy. It was then that they recalled Napoleon with regret, the arms he had given Italy in vain, and the glorious standard of his kingdom. Even the Ligurians, the Subalpines, and Tuscans, who had not worn those colors in war, adopted them as a sign of unity; even the Carbonari from deepest Calabria, who had hated and fought against it, this time accepted it, transforming the black of their mystical tricolor into white […] National consciousness is like the ‘I’ of the ideologists, which only becomes aware of itself when in conflict with the other. It is developed first of all in those who have most need of liberty, for their studies, for business, and for travel and, therefore, most often find themselves in conflict with the interests of foreigners, their ignorance, arrogance, and eternal implacable suspicion. Such consciousness was then gradually awakened even in the magistrates, who were watched and selected with the utmost care, in order that they should be instruments of obedience; in the priests, despite their being tamed by episcopal pride, to translate even the Gospel into a doctrine of slavery; in the peasantry, despite their being kept by the avaricious jealous landlords in a state as close as possible to that of livestock; and lastly, even in the courtiers themselves, to whom riches and nobility did not appear to ensure dignity of life, but rather only priority in sinking into degradation. This change of heart was slow but constant, universal, and irreparable by any of the police’s ruses that, by contrast, after a time began to accelerate, as some velocities do, at geometrical ratios, whereas the moral force of the government declined perceptibly, like the speed of war projectiles. Ultimately, every tradition of love and respect was extinguished; and the armies, who were supposed to defend the state against foreign enemies, turned against the homeland like a suicide’s dagger. Meanwhile, the hatred the Austrian government directed against Italian nationalism became more bitter and more petty. They objected even to the name of Italy, seeking its dissimulation in books and deletion from maps. This way they succeeded in engraving it even more deeply in our minds, putting it on our lips, and seeing it daubed by nocturnal hands upon the city walls. An indomitable aversion brought the collection of Italian communities ever closer together, like platinum dust which is bound together beneath the hammer’s blows. ([1850] 1957, SSG 2: 130–2, 133–4)

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The Five Days11 Mazzinian Propaganda Thus released from every loyalty (rito), the young and free proponents [of Mazzini] immersed themselves, so to speak, in the popular current. They made of everything a moral weapon to comfort the multitude, aware of its affections, but unaware of its force. They translated the mystery of unity into the vernacular for the dismembered provinces. They employed clandestine and public newspapers, songs, cheers for Pope Pius IX, the stone of Balilla,12 the chains of Pisa.13 They used the funereal clothes of the churches and the gay clothes of festive wakes; they arranged roses and camelias, umbrellas and lanterns in the tricolor; they restored the Calabrese hat and the velvet jerkin: the banner of the nation and its one hundred cities. It was a new language, one that spoke to all the peoples of Italy more nobly, more clearly than any other language that had spoken to them in the previous five centuries. They kindled the December flames from peak to peak across the Apennines; they assembled the mountain dwellers of Tuscany in the ditch of Ferruccio; they tamed the reactionary wishes of the pope with the fierce applause of the inhabitants of Trastevere. They revealed the people to the people, Italy to Italy; they threw down the gauntlet of a defenseless and fearless nation in the face of an armed barbarian; they urged the people, who had been silent for thirty years, to say with one voice: ‘It is time’ to uproot the granite of the roads by means of Herculean hands; to extinguish, with the guns it had torn away from the enemy, the fire of his sixty cannons; to remove all sense and courage from the generals in the space

11 This refers to the five days (March 18–22, 1848) of intense street fighting in Milan between the rebelling Milanese population and Austrian troops under Marshal Radetzky. The Five Days of Milan marked the beginning of the 1848 revolutions in northern Italy and resulted in the Austrian withdrawal from the city. 12 Balilla was the nickname of Giovanni Battista Perasso who, in 1746, during the Austrian occupation of Genoa, incited a riot against the Austrian soldiers by throwing the first stone at an artillery piece. This led to a citywide riot that drove the Austrians out of the city. 13 Massive chains that were used to close off access to Pisa’s arbour in the Middle Ages. When the Genoese defeated the Pisans, they took away the chains to Genoa and gave half of them to Florence, their ally. Many centuries later the two cities returned the chains to Pisa as a sign of friendship. The massive chains, or what was left of them, now hang on the walls of the striking indoor cemetery next to the Duomo of Pisa.

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of but a few hours. The people was able to do it; they wanted to do it, but without them they could not have done it. Because of them, it is now certain that Italy both knows how to and can do it. ([1850] 1957, SSG 2: 164–5] Documents Pertaining to the Five Days Herein is contained not merely the subject of an historical account, but almost a vast epic poem. Illustrious demonstrations of valor and piety, shameful demonstrations of cruelty and treachery: on the one hand, the call to arms and the cry of victory; on the other, the groan of imprisonment and desperation: Some, weapons in hand, extending mercy to their enemies; others, escaping from the battle, slaughtering helpless women as they wander through solitary gardens or dragging them screaming and bloodied to the infamous castle; the castle – that cave of Polyphemus where vengeance sat in cowardly judgment, insulting the mutilated corpses [and] where stubborn dissimulation accumulated a massive pyre to destroy what remained of the defeat and cruelty; the ringing of two hundred bells, in response to the roar of sixty cannons; the torrential rain, extinguishing the night-fires of the soldiers; the moon, appearing from among the clouds to upset, by its dark eclipse, the barbarians’ fantasies; the fear of poison, which kept the ravenous Croatians’ bread stuck firmly to their hands; long rows of burned-out houses through which thickly arrayed battalions open secret escape routes; the sunlight shining on the bright pinnacles of the Duomo, hailing the victorious tricolor; flying balloons, scattering the word of the combatants among the rural masses. There is even that vein of humor that, in the great poets, unites Hector with Thersites, Farfarello with Ugolino, Hamlet with Falstaff. ‘Baron Torresani is half dead here,’ writes Countess Spaur from the castle. Count Bolza, having survived so much loathing, is saved by the ridiculous ugliness of his petrified face. Who can fail to smile at the thought of Count O’Donnell in a tricolor cockade on the balcony of Monforte? Who can fail to smile at the regal messenger dressed up as Giovannino? Or the parley between Commissar Bossi in his uniform and sword and Radetzky, sitting upon the ruined bridge at Marignano? As in Dante and Shakespeare, all here speak just as nature made them: irascible archdukes and generous laborers, marshals and podestà, soldiers and women, cowards and heroes. It is a poem written by everyone, for everyone. ([1850] 1957, SSG 2: 128–9)

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The Three Refusals Around noon on the third day [March 20, 1848], the citizens escorted a parliamentary deputy to the council: it was one of the Ottochan Croatian majors, I believe the same Sigismund Ettingshausen who subsequently negotiated the surrender at Peschiera.14 Dignified in his person and wrapped in his cloak as though in the act of sitting for a portrait, he said that Generalissimo Radetzky was sending him to gauge the mood of the magistrates in the city. Upon hearing this, we ushered him into the room where the municipality was meeting with its new ‘collaborators.’ After a quarter of an hour, [podetà Count Gabrio] Casati invited us to take part in the meeting; and, having explained how the generalissimo, in giving into a kind of humanity, had charged the major with the duty that he had mentioned, he added that the municipality was proposing a fifteen-day armistice, which interval there seemed to be occasion for, so that the marshal might report to Vienna on the new state of affairs and obtain the right to grant suitable concessions. Casati, therefore, on the understanding that the generalissimo should deliver all soldiers to the barracks and undertaking, for his part, to urge the citizens to desist from fighting, required to know if the council of war was willing to intercede to such effect with those parties engaged in the fighting. Having gauged at a glance the minds of my colleagues, I turned to Count Casati and gave him to understand that I felt it was no longer possible to withdraw the fighting forces from the barricades. Casati replied that this could perhaps be achieved one step at a time. Whereupon I asked him how, if this were indeed possible, we could be certain that the first night we were asleep in our beds we would not all be taken by surprise and hanged. The major took offense at the very remark; abruptly interrupting me, he said: ‘Sir, does military honor count for nothing in your eyes?’ ‘Sir,’ I replied, do you believe that military honor will safeguard us from the police and from state [imperial] judgment? Who can say that hostilities that are suspended may not also, from one moment to the next, be resumed through the deeds of one soldier or citizen? Having tasted the first fruits of victory, it 14 Peschiera, Verona, Mantua, and Legnano were then known as the Quadrilateral CityFortresses, protecting the Austrian lines of communication to Vienna.

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is unlikely that the citizens will resign themselves to suffer the presence of foreign soldiers any longer. This is already the third day that the peal of our bells has summoned the surrounding area to arms; the roar of your cannons can doubtless be heard even within the Swiss and Piedmontese borders. Surely our friends are on their way to help us as we speak; surrounded as we are in the center of the city we have no news for certain, yet from high up on the bell-towers we detect unusual movements. In any case, what is certain is that the sound of the bell will reach from one tower to another, as far as the borders of the kingdom. If, having given our word on the armistice, we were then to see your troops take advantage and start firing on our friends outside, we would not be able to remain passive witnesses without them calling us cowards, nor could we go out to help them without your calling us traitors. Major, it must be one thing or the other: either the fighting must continue over the entire country, or the fire must be extinguished everywhere simultaneously, by separating the two enemy elements in all places. If your marshal truly is moved by a sense of humanity, there is only one course of action that is open to him: to leave the Italian soldiers within the kingdom, who make up a considerable part of his army, and lead all the others outside of its confines. The Italian soldiers, the gendarmes, and the civic guards, are more than ample for the task of maintaining order until further instructions arrive from Vienna.

The parliamentary deputy made a movement as if to indicate disdain: ‘How so, sir?’ he said. ‘Are you asking a marshal at the head of both cavalry and artillery to retreat before the people?’ ‘It had seemed to me,’ I replied, that you were not speaking to me of military operations, but rather of measures whereby to bring about peace and reconciliation, which are also commended to your marshal by the true interests of his government. If last week he saw fit to send out the Italian grenadiers, this week he may equally see fit to send out the Hungarian grenadiers and recall the Italians. It is merely a question of changing the guard, which may even become convenient as a result of significant and unforeseen events; for the most recent news from Vienna is such that the military authority has the right, the duty even, to reform measures previously implemented. Those ministers who had ordered the troops to shoot and bomb regardless of sex or age have now fallen. How could the orders they issued be binding upon the subsequent repository of high military authority? For sure, if he does not suspend

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execution until their successors have made pronouncement, we shall have to conclude that he has no thought whatever for the gravest responsibilities he is so assuming.

The major repeated once more, with considerable gravitas, that it was nonetheless a ‘retreat.’ ‘Call it so, then, if you must; so much the better if, with the pretext of a change in principle, you have opportunity to secure a retreat that is honorable. Within a few hours, the cry to arms and the peal of the bells shall have roused the people from here to the Alps. They can cut off mountain gorges, which in this season cannot be passed without their help, and can take all possibility of retreat and aid away from you. Whereas, by separating the two nationalities that already have become irreconcilable, your generalissimo will be able to boast of having entered the new European order, and of having complied with noble reasons of state, and in the meantime will also have saved his enemy.’ During this disagreement, the somber face of podestà Casati indicated to me profound anxiety and censure. Still blindly persuaded that it would be sufficient to buy time for Carlo Alberto to come to our aid, when in fact Carlo Alberto only moved once he was absolutely certain of our victory, he complained that we, who previously were opposed to the battle, were now so unwilling to put a halt to it. His collaborators demonstrated that they, too, were all of the same conviction. But I saw that I had the support of my colleagues and of the many young people who had gradually entered the room, all anxious and in trepidation at the prospect that obstacles would be placed in the way of a victorious combat and the police given time to regroup and plot some kind of treachery against us. At that moment a priest from the church of San Bartolomeo entered the room to warn us that the Austrians there and then had slaughtered the Lenten preacher, and committed other atrocities. The major, who had been boasting of his people’s humanity and goodwill, appeared somewhat perturbed and turned to question the priest. Meanwhile, those present huddled in groups, animatedly discussing the question of the armistice. Upon seeing this, Casati asked the major if he would withdraw to the next room, so the citizens could deliberate their response together. The major, sitting in the council of war’s room, looked on in astonishment at the young people entering and leaving in crowds who, in seeing him there, broke forth unanimously into the most disdainful disapproval of any armistice.

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After a quarter of an hour, Casati had the parliamentary deputy brought in and announced: ‘Sir, we have been unable to reach an agreement. Please, therefore, report to His Excellency on the one hand the sentiments of the municipality, on the other that of the combatants, that he might make his resolutions accordingly.’ The astonishment that this declaration, to the effect that the municipality was apparently separating its cause from ours, provoked in all present was quite painful to behold. The major then took his leave. He went down beneath the portico and waited for them to blindfold him. But they did not do so, there not appearing to be anything in the city worth taking the trouble to hide from him. Visibly upset by what he had witnessed, he shook the hand of one of the citizens who had accompanied him and said to him in his foreign accent: ‘Farewell, good and courageous people.’ This was, perhaps, the first time in an entire generation that a foreigner had uttered a word of justice on behalf of our people! The refusal to put down arms was soon published, but with no hint of the sad disagreement among us. This spontaneous reserve thus saved Casati from the diffidence and scorn of the people […] The resident consuls of foreign powers had been interceding since the start of the conflict, both out of duty toward their own people and out of love for humanity; to this end they engaged in correspondence with Radetzky and Wallmoden, which has already been published. Now, while in the afternoon of the fourth day [March 21, 1848] we were planning an assault on the ramparts with [Gerolamo] Borgazzi,15 the municipality requested that we concur with them regarding the answer to be given to the consuls, who were coming to receive it at three o’clock. Unlike the previous day, an armistice not of two weeks but of three days was proposed; one city gate would be opened to allow provisions to be brought in and foreigners but also citizens to leave, but the ceasefire would not be extended to the surrounding countryside. Casati, in giving his consent, asked the collaborator Giuseppe Durini to repeat for our benefit a sophisticated argument that he had already used with the municipals, proving that the armistice would have been of greater profit to us than to the enemy, despite the fact that it was they who were seeking it! The collaborators and their followers showed that they were all fully persuaded, except for Achille Mauri, who nonetheless was already acting as their secretary. 15 Gerolamo Borgazzi (1822–1898) at the time was a young aristocrat and leader of the insurrectionists in the Brianza area.

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Invited by my colleagues to express their opinion, I observed that, after another day of victory, it would be even harder to call the citizens back from the battle and that it would be inopportune to give the enemy time to turn all its forces back to the countryside. Indeed, letters intercepted subsequently revealed to us that, if the enemy were humbling itself in petitioning us for the ceasefire, this was only because it required three days to get twelve thousand huge bombs, which had been unloaded in Piacenza, to Milan. I then pointed out that such an interval, as well as affording our enemy leisure to butcher our helpers, would also have slowed the victorious momentum of the citizens, who would then perhaps have been frightened by the spectacle of their friends being slaughtered. I pointed out that example engendered contagion, and that on the first day the foreigners, women, and fearful would abandon the city, on the second day the prudent, and on the third day even the courageous. It was in our interests to retain the foreigners in our midst, as they constituted a deterrent to arson and plundering; it was inconceivable that the presence of the French flag, flapping besides our own, would not impose some kind of restraint on excesses. Then Count Borromeo urged us to be mindful that we were short of munitions and had food for only twenty-four hours. After the events narrated above, it was no boast on my part to reply that the enemy, having provided us with munitions hitherto, would certainly continue to do so thereafter. As for the food, which was meant only to last for twentyfour hours, I replied that I had wasted enough time with statistics to be able to guarantee that it was impossible to make such a precise calculation. ‘Moreover,’ I said to him, ‘twenty-four hours’ food and twenty-four hours’ fasting will be much more than sufficient. The enemy on the ramparts cannot stand; it is too long a line (some twelve kilometers [nearly eight miles]), and they must already be finding it hard to distribute provisions; indeed, the Croatians and Germans are already reduced to living off what they steal. This evening, if the plans now completed prove successful, this line along the ramparts will be broken, and if the enemy delays its retreat, it shall no longer find any roads open. And even if we are short of bread, far better to die of hunger than by the gallows.’ Count Casati, Count Durini, and Count Borromeo, who were advocating the armistice amid such excitement, had effectively played into our hands, since young people crowded around the exit could be heard shouting in derision against any such arrangement. After going out to calm them, I asked Casati to put an end to a discussion that by this stage was idle, since it was obviously impossible to cause the young people to

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lay down the arms they had so eagerly taken up. After a few moments, the foreign powers’ consuls arrived, resplendent in their uniforms, and heard the armistice rejected by the mouth of the valiant podestà. Once again, we conceded an unwarranted advantage to our adversaries, in that we were not working out of partial ambition, but rather on behalf of the feelings of the citizens. I shook the hands of the English and French representatives, without adding any allusion to the disagreements between us. It is beyond dispute, however, that in his letter to the consuls, which they subsequently made public, Casati attributed the refusal of the armistice to the courage of the people. Immediately after those gentlemen had left, there appeared in the midst of the beleaguered city Count Enrico Martini, then King Carlo Alberto’s envoy to us even as, several weeks later, he was to become our envoy to Carlo Alberto. Such haste to accept offices in opposition to each other put us in mind of the poet Tommaso Sgricci16 who, when performing tragedies, posed on the right-hand side of the stage as he took the part of Jason, before moving to the left to play the role of Medea. Martini had to tell us that, if we were willing to devote our country to his king, Carlo Alberto’s army would soon come to our rescue; it was, therefore, necessary for us to set up an interim government immediately, capable of addressing a valid statement to him. So once again, the council of war was invited by Count Casati and his collaborators to express its views. Clearly, the municipality’s policy was giving us almost as much to do as fighting Marshal Radetzky. Speaking on behalf of my colleagues, I said that the country belonged to the people, that it was up to them to dispose of it as they saw fit, that no one had the right to give it to anyone without their vote. This was not the moment to call them to take a vote of this kind. Intent on defending themselves and their families, they could not, in that moment, desist from fighting in order to give themselves over to political deliberations. Differences of opinion, if not serious disagreements, were also likely to arise in this respect. Sirs, this is not the day for politics; if in our view the declaration of the republic two days ago was hasty, it would be no less hasty to proclaim a 16 Tommaso Sgricci (1789–1836) was a Romantic poet with a special talent for improvising verses and even short tragedies. He toured, from 1813 on, Italy, France and England with his performances in theatre. Byron saw him improvising in Milan in October 1816 and may have used him as a model for Beppo.

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principality today. Since God has granted us freedom, let us endeavor to maintain it at least for a few days. Do you find it so unpleasant to be masters of your own fate, for once in your lives? Why not usher in this new era with respect for all rights and opinions and respect for the noble illusions of youth, at least for as long as they are fighting on your side? When we have finished with the enemy, when the cause has been won, then we shall see. Then we will be able, as in other free countries, to decide ourselves into how many parts we want to divide ourselves up.

Those servile men then reverted to attempting to remind me of our lack of ammunition and the general insufficiency of our forces. ‘That merely goes to show,’ I said, ‘that it was not necessary to spur the people on with such urgency to engage in an uprising for which no preparations had been made. The council of war saw this insufficiency so clearly that right from the outset it spoke always of Italy. It is necessary to have all Italy and perhaps even this, in the current state of confusion in which its forces find themselves, may not be sufficient for the task at hand. Now if we start to give ourselves to Piedmont, we will not be able to have the other Italian states with us. It will be like in the old days of the Longobard kings and the dukes of Milan, who made the rest of the peninsula suspicious and hostile.’ They then replied that Italy, as it then was, could not bring us supplies either quickly enough or in sufficient abundance, that King Carlo Alberto was nearer, that we needed to put ourselves in his hands if we did not want to bear the burden of facing war alone. I replied: ’If you want to come to terms with Carlo Alberto, this is not the moment; you would be like the poor man at the door of the usurer. And nothing would be more imprudent than to give yourselves over without having first come to terms. Why would you want to trust a prince who has already betrayed you once and who, in this very moment, is leaving you to fend for yourself under machine-gun fire? Are you truly happy that you gave yourselves to Austria in 1814?’ Everyone interrupted me with the utmost vehemence, pointing out that the house of Austria was foreign. Yes, it is foreign, but you did not want to take note of this then, as you do not want to take note of many other things now. Sirs, the reigning houses are all foreign. They do not want to belong to any nation; they pursue their own interests independently, always ready to conspire with foreigners against their own peoples. I firmly believe that we must summon all Italy to arms

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and wage a national war. If then Carlo Alberto is the only one who comes to our aid, he alone will have the admiration and gratitude of the peoples, and no one will be able to prevent the country becoming his. In any case, it is useless your giving it to him, for if he proves victorious, the country will be his anyway, while if he does not, it can never be his, not even if you had it to give him a hundred times over.

The argument grew more heated: I shall leave to each of the interlocutors the trouble of recalling which side they took, as seeing the extent to which the servile faction was pushing in order to gain an advantage, if it was able, I retired to a corner on one side with [Enrico] Cernuschi,17 to draw up an immediate appeal to all Italy and provide Carlo Alberto with allies, in order to restrain him if possible and protect our freedom. I could not do any more than that, obscure citizen that I was, and led by chance so far away from the paths by which my strengths more usually enabled me to serve my country. ‘The city of Milan, to complete its victory and expel the common enemy of Italy beyond the Alps forever, hereby seeks to enlist the help of all Italian peoples and princes, and especially that of the neighbouring and belligerent Piedmont.’ While we were printing these few brief lines, shortly to be distributed by means of flying balloons, we also had some manuscript copies distributed and, in the space of a few moments, submitted them to the municipality with the signatures of perhaps two hundred citizens. Casati was rather confused. For the moment he did not give himself over to Martini, who urged him to declare immediately a provisional government that would swear allegiance to Carlo Alberto. Meanwhile, Count Giulini, who had presently sided with the municipality’s collaborators, had composed a servile and feeble invitation to Carlo Alberto to have mercy on Milan and save it from that nation that on other occasions had destroyed it. As I walked through the antechamber where he was now reading his text aloud to a group gathered there, I asked him precisely what destruction he was talking about: ‘What do you mean, Sir? How can the Austrians now destroy a city in which they can barely resist for another hour?’ ‘One can always have fear,’ he replied. 17 Born in Milan in 1821, Enrico Cernuschi was such a fiery supporter of Italian independence from Austrian rule that he was forced to flee to Paris in 1850. There he channeled his energy toward more lucrative pursuits. The Cernuschi Museum in Paris is named after him.

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‘There is no place for such sentiment here,’ I said. ‘No one else in this city is afraid.’ He put his petition meekly back in his pocket. Shortly afterwards, Martini came into our room, complaining of the hesitancy and weakness of Casati and Borromeo. For this reason he urged me to form an interim government that would formally make the anticipated and desired pledge to Carlo Alberto. ‘Do you realize,’ he said to me, ‘that an occasion to offer such service to a king does not present itself every day?’ I replied that offering service to kings was above my station and that I felt it was necessary to extend the invitation to the nation as a whole, this being the first time in many centuries that all the peoples of Italy were moving toward the same purpose with one sentiment. If this then did not prove successful, and Carlo Alberto remained our sole ally and occupied the country with his army, he would, of course, be its leader. In this case, if he alone were victorious, the citizens, in acquiring their independence, could perhaps console themselves for their loss of liberty, and he could perhaps rely on their gratitude and resignation; but he could not at this stage exact the price of a service that he himself had not yet given us. ([1848] 1967, SSG 4: 374–9, 386–95) The Defeat of Radetzky After all calculations, on March 18, there were, according to Radetzky’s indications, between foreigners and Italians, more than a hundred thousand soldiers in Italy. He, with his customary ostentation, wrote as much that same evening to the municipals of Milan: ‘Having at my disposal a well-trained army of 100,000 men and 200 cannons.’ This army held the three great battlefields of Mantua, Verona, and Venice, around which last alone there were seventy-two points supplied with artillery and ships. It also held, to the south of the Po, the forts of Comacchio, Ferrara, Brescello, and Piacenza; and to the north, Pizzighettone, Anfo, Peschiera, Legnago, Caorle, Osopo, and Palmanova; plus the castles, which too were suitable for purposes of defending themselves against the population of Milan, Pavia, Bergamo, Brescia, Reggio, Modena, Rubiera, and many others. The army had not grown complacent or been deluded by thoughts of a ceasefire, but was suspicious, watchful, and arrogant; fired by the declamations of generals, whose hopes for omnipotence and treasure were based only on blood: fired too by the obvious anger of the peoples, who burned to avenge the bloody excesses of Milan, Parma, Padua, and Pavia.

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All this formidable apparatus, within a hundred or so hours, was defeated as in a massive battle. Indeed, of the fortresses mentioned only Peschiera, Legnago, and Ferrara remained intact; custody of Mantua and Verona was shared between the civic guards and rebel soldiers; Venice, Palmanova, and the others, not to mention the artilleries, powder kegs, armories, arsenals, and ships, were all lost. At the end of the five days, of those hundred thousand armed slaves, barely even one-third remained loyal to Austria. And this one-third had been removed from its quarters, set to flight without shelter or food, over three hundred miles of broken and closed roads, with no news and in some cases no officers, carrying with them both wounded and women, ravaged and afflicted by looting and cruelty, no longer daring to rest in houses, but outside in the mud and ditches, clothes and shoes soaked with rain, broken by hunger, lack of sleep, the cold, their wounds, the terrors of the night: humbled by the sudden impotence of their generals and sovereign, and by a sudden, almost superstitious fear of the people, who pursued them to the sound of the bells and the name of God. It almost seemed in those days that, to be a man and to be able to fight, it was necessary to renounce the uniform and rank of soldier. The vanity of brute force has never been shown so clearly to the world since the ancient defeat of Persian arms and the flight of Barbarossa. ([1850] 1957, SSG 2: 184–6) The Tricolor The Italian tricolor, which heralded a new life for Italy and symbolized and brought together all its population, was originally the standard given by Bonaparte to the Cisalpine Republic. An imitation of the French tricolor, virtually a copy of another flag, and harbinger for Italy of a revolution that was daughter to another, this banner rallied the army that would take on the name of Italy and would lead it out into battle. It was the first symbol to represent our nation to the world since the fall of Rome. Alien for some time to Venice and Piedmont; initially unpopular with the armies and armed masses of Liguria, Romagna, Tuscany, Abruzzo, and Calabria; defeated in 1814 by the efforts of those who saw (and detested) the revolutionary element that it contained or who cared not for the nation; it then became, for thirty-four years, a reminder for dispersed veterans, exiled poets, and young conspirators, the subject of inquisition and corpus delicti before the courts of all the princes of Italy;

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and only by virtue of opposition, only by virtue of those same hatreds that single-mindedly persecuted it throughout the peninsula, with bullets, axes, and nooses, only in this way did it turn from being a worn-out banner of an army that was no more to become the new banner of a nation, the eternal bulwark of a thinking, fighting brotherhood, imposing itself in 1848 on all the princes of Italy, thanks to the actions of all the peoples of Italy. The scene of its first appearance was also the scene of its first resurrection. On March 21 in Milan, a city in battle and surrounded by a circle of iron and fire, the first call went out, along with flying balloons, ‘to all the peoples and princes of Italy’ to join in a military federation. In the night of March 23, the messenger from Milan, which had already been free for a day, reached Turin and from the balcony of the royal palace, and at the king’s invitation, greeted the people with a tricolor scarf. Under that banner the nation had been victorious. The manifesto of war appeared on March 24. The ninety thousand men, who had sprinkled that sacred flag with the last drops of their blood in battle, had not died in vain. If only their survivors, scattered throughout all of Europe, had had a sense of their victory! ([1860] 1957, SSG 2: 3–4) 1848 In those glorious days of March and April 1848, for the first and only time all the peoples of Italy, stirred by the cry of a city at war, arose as a result of one and the same spirit to fight against one and the same enemy. Compelled as if by an invisible superhuman power, even the princes commended their proud insignia to the banner of the nation, which until that day they had persecuted to the death. Such unanimity among peoples was unprecedented. Even in the hands of Napoleon himself, the Italian tricolor had not reached the shores of Sicily or Sardinia, nor had it led the battalions of Piedmont, Genoa, Tuscany, Naples, or Rome. Indeed, all the princes beforehand, and many of the peoples of their own volition thereafter, had raised their banners in opposition. For, if we look at previous centuries, the brotherhood of the Italian communities appears even more nebulous, indeed, barely extant. The Lombard League of Pontida not only did not embrace Tuscany or Apulia or the islands, but on the battlefield of Legnano itself represented little more than a noble civil war. For one side alleged the rights of the empire, which deemed itself to be still both holy and Roman,

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while the other camp did not deny these but merely sought to confine them within certain boundaries. And in that ongoing discord between the high priest and the foreigner who was anointed and crowned leader over his army, anyone who said the geopolitical policy pursued by Pope Hildebrand was Italian and pro-citizen would then be forced also to say that Dante’s imperial doctrine was no less Italian or pro-citizen. If we consider even more remote centuries, the Latin League against the Roman Republic was equally an instance of civil war, as was the Carthaginian war; for then, Capua and Syracuse stood against Rome, and at Cannes Hannibal’s army was made up of Cisalpines, even as Cisalpine was the spear that pierced the Roman consul on Lake Trasimeno. If we look closely, the name of Italy had at that stage barely reached the Rubicon, and even in those places it had reached, it rather denoted the land than its inhabitants and did not as yet designate a people of one tongue, but rather Etruscans, Latins, Greeks, and many others, all ignorant of each other in terms of language and understanding. The mother of the nation, of unified Italy, was Rome, and that which came from her now clearly returns to her. Such national unity was not possible for as long as popular opinion was in favor of the pontiff having temporal as well as spiritual authority. For the popes, indeed, Italy was but a province of the Christian orb; in their eyes, there was no other people than the Catholic people, and even they were enfeoffed to the consistories of their cardinals and the councils of their bishops, a mere skeleton of the body of Christ, with no brain and no voice. For the popes, no land was alien and no people barbarian, provided that, black or white, clothed or naked, they bowed in obedience to the holy foot. Nor did the Franks, or the Saxons, the Angevins, the Aragonese, the Bourbons, the Savoy, the Lorrainois, or the Castilians ever appear foreign to them. It was not deemed a crime for Julius II to have called, from Cambrai, all of Europe to lay waste to our fatherland. And up to our own days, Pope Chiaromonti [Pius VII], who betrayed Italy into the hands of that unholy alliance of Britons, Teutons, and Russians, maintained the appearance of holiness. With such fateful turmoil coursing through its veins, Italy carried on fifteen centuries of feverish and frantic life, feeling itself to be a nation, by deed and by right, but still not able to bring its remote members together into a single movement, almost as though they were suffering on different gallows. The day finally came when the word of the pope, too inadequate for the fullness of the times, no longer had authority to hold the peoples

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captive, and as the bloody patronage of kings also began to give way, all of whom were wobbling in the vast popular landslide, he was forced to resign himself to the will of providence and the jus gentium. And the nation, having been oppressed and tortured for so many years, awoke one day to find itself no longer beneath the angry foot of a prelate, but welcomed and almost comforted between paternal arms. She forgave and forgot; unfortunately, she forgot everything, and in her war allowed her hand to be held by those who had reigned and raged in the shadow of foreigners and were affecting no such sudden and generous desire to expel them. But this was the first time that Italy, through the universal vow of its population, had unfurled its banner. It was a moment prepared by the events of three thousand years, in which a nation was forged from twenty different peoples. Was there any other episode in the history books that could compare with this? It met the test of iron and fire, which test was genuine and strong; all that was false and spurious was separated, like dross being burned off from metal. Every trade was worn down, every being reconstituted in its nature. One king after another became king again. And, eventually, the senile hand of the papacy returned to its ancient vice and turned the foreigner’s knife against the breast of the nation. ([1850] 1965, SP 2: 467–9) Pius IX Pius IX was created by others, a fable invented to teach the people a truth; Pius IX was a poem. Even the former republic of England, whence derived everything that is healthy in its present constitution, and the Dutch and American republics, and the thinking Republic of Geneva, had flourished over the dreadful bed of thorns that is scriptural controversy. Some felt it was possible that Pius IX was a kind of Junius Brutus, who disappointed the suspicious Tarquins of the consistory with his long-standing meekness. There were even some who saw in him the pope, not just of the Italian people alone, but of a number of faithful that was eight times larger, who deemed it truly just, not that he should make himself captain of one nation against another, but rather that he should order every nation to remain content within the boundaries of the earth that had been assigned to it. For Italy, in evangelical law, was certainly not the land of the heathen Canaanites that it should be given to the foreign sons of God; but rather it was the land of the elect tribes,

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and nor could any other of those tribes claim a divine right to come and loot it, to reduce it to misery and turn it into an object of scorn. And wretched and scorned indeed it was, without profit to the peoples themselves in whose name it was so oppressed, since these, too, were equally unhappy and rebellious. It would have been much greater glory to the pope if he had arisen in God’s name to judge that unjust wisdom of state that was a common calamity of so many nations, and if he had reasserted their rights from the hands of their oppressors, rather than take his seat, as the last and weakest of rulers, over a bloody threshold. But the Italian Risorgimento was inaugurated in this name; it was not the right, nor the idea; it was a man, no, the mere name of a man, and could have been solemnly denied at any time. And so it was that this Risorgimento passed, almost like a plough that leaves the soil profoundly overturned; not the heralding of a new era, but rather the preparation of and prelude to such an era. It was a name of war, and war was waged. ([1850] 1957, SSG 2: 295)

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9 Human Sciences 1

Experimental Science and Metaphysical Science If we review the general history of science to our own day, we see a marvelous agreement prevailing in all areas of study regarding external nature, whereas in all forms of study regarding inner man a curious discord persists. Geology looks to chemistry for enlightenment in respect of rock transformations; to geometry, to explore their constituents, down to the very edges of their crystals; to physics, to deduce the depth of the earth’s surface from its progressive heat; to astronomy, to infer from the universal order of things the primitive state of that burning mass whose dross became our land and sea; and to natural history, to revive from organic remains the vision of worlds buried several times over. Science has repeatedly and uniformly grasped the concept of oxygen in Priestley’s gasholder, in Lavoisier’s still, in Beccaria’s electric shocks, and in the silent currents of Volta’s battery. Such disagreements as may happen to arise between followers of the experimental school derive from their competitive spirit (privata emulazione) and have no foundation in pure intellectual judgment; hence, Davy, in his bid to eclipse Lavoisier, remains powerless and isolated when he assigns to hydrogen the primacy among elements, making it the basis for all nomenclature. In quite contrary fashion, schools of metaphysics not only disdain what belongs to the realm of what they call the empirical or causal 1 It may be worth recalling that the chapter titles are Salvemini’s. He titled this chapter ‘sociologia,’ which at the time had a much broader meaning than it does now. It was the equivalent to ‘human sciences,’ the title we are giving it.

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sciences, as if these were mud, but even within the sanctuary of metaphysics itself, ontology looks upon psychology with scorn. These disciplines inspire in those who cultivate them such fierce pride that any mind, as soon as it begins to emerge with some force, inaugurates its theories by destroying those of others and by laying again that which it decrees to be the cornerstone of the entire edifice, with the result that the history of these sciences is but a series of confutations, a heap of ruins. Anyone who amid such darkness seeks a superior order of proofs and persuasions, having first made his way through a forest of contradictory authorities, is eventually confronted by some sinister doubt that strikes at the very foundations of reason and is repugnant to the vow of human nature, desirous as this is of being comforted by the light of some certainty. Shall we say, then, that the realm of thought has no laws? Shall we say that the only subject in the entire universe that reason cannot treat is the laws of reason itself? Rather, mindful of that not so distant age in which the natural sciences, too, were losing themselves on erroneous paths and spouting nonsense on subjects such as the celestial harmonies, the sphere of fire, and the abhorrence of vacuums, we should investigate what sudden reforms brought these sciences to such a degree of confidence and productiveness, to see whether such renewal may not also be invoked in the human sciences, too. ([1844] 1960, SF 1: 143–4) The Role of Philosophy In order that the novelty and fecundity that constitute the prestige and strength of other sciences be found also in philosophy, there is no need for the latter to throw itself into strange flights through realms of fancy. It will be sufficient if it conducts itself as those other sciences have done to their fame and glory. It will suffice for it to seek novelty in those things that are new and fecundity in those things that are fertile. Let it, therefore, embrace – and embrace quickly – what the other sciences have discovered, and every day continue to discover, regarding man and the universe. Let it swiftly bring together these new ideas in its treatises, so that man’s place in time, space, and the order of things may clearly emerge. Astrology and geology have unexpectedly pushed back the frontiers of space and time to ineffable distances. Accordingly, man must rid himself of that ancient vainglory whereby he deems himself to constitute the very heart of creation and to represent the supreme object and sole concern of all the powers of nature, and come to realize that the only thing in him that is worthy of the greatness and majesty of the universe is the intelligence that he deploys in making himself its explorer. 219

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Next, philosophy should seek out whatever is able to illuminate the secrets of the human conscience, specifically by studying all human deeds at all times and in all places, in all forms and circumstances of barbary and civilization, in the ways of good and the ways of evil, without which study such secrets would remain inaccessible. Philosophy should begin with the facts and proceed from there to discover their causes; as reason requires, it should proceed from what is known and certain to what is unknown and uncertain […] In the history of all sciences, all paths should be pursued whereby the intellect attains to the truth. The purpose of this should be to understand all the potentialities of the mind in action, even as it should be to predispose all particular methods into one universal method and, lastly, to ascertain whether any of these may ever be of use to philosophy in the course of its own investigations. Philosophy, in the reciprocal relations between all sciences, and the concordance of their findings regarding man and the world, should seek out new grounds for certainty that ought, also, to be more consistent with received wisdom. All that is true in the other sciences must also be true in philosophy. One thing cannot in the same world, at the same time, and with the same intellects, be both true and not true, simply because it happens to be written on a different page in the book. In thus coming into line with the other sciences, philosophy should seek to gain for itself a new authority with scientists, who currently hold it in low esteem; it should seek to gain for itself a new authority with the people in the universe of knowledge and the doctrine that orders it. It should counter discord, which is the eternal destiny of theologies and those sciences that meddle with them, with humanity, which is the privilege of experimental sciences, and it should remember with confidence that, before certain sciences, the pride of the powerful must fall and their jealousy be disarmed, for wealth may be clearly derived from these sciences during times of peace and forced during times of war. This way an indissoluble connection and friendship with such sciences shall act as a shield to philosophy, too. ([1857] 1960, SF 1: 354–5, 355–6) Every science is a vast realm of thought. The individual sciences or, shall we say, the individual realms of thought, distinct in respect of their points of departure and independent with regard to their theories, must demonstrate their own veracity before ultimately converging on the same point where they merge into one common, harmonious synthesis, which we may call thought par excellence, the thought of mankind. ([1839–44] 1960, SF 1: 247)

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Then will philosophy be the common link between all varieties of science, the lens that, in focusing all the various rays of light, illuminates simultaneously both man and the universe. ([1844] 1960, SF 1: 170) Philosophy is a science of summary, of connection, of synthesis; it may, indeed, develop theories that are already mature, but it cannot find a place for sciences that have yet to be born. ([1839–44] 1960, SF 1: 252) Man in History and Metaphysics Man as far as the metaphysical schools of philosophy are concerned is not the man of the woods as opposed to the man of the city; nor the Spartan rather than the Sybarite, or the Tuscan rather than the Hottentot. Metaphysics does not seek by which degrees man from the indolence of the Epicurean, who sits in the shadow of learned gardens while the nation around him falls, may proceed to the vehemence of a band of sectarians, who hasten to live or die in the footsteps of some prophet. It does not enquire as to the opposing fates of glory and misfortune whereby an illustrious people may become a race of shameless cowards or [whereby] such a race, from the depths of its cowardice, may suddenly unleash a generation of heroes. On some remote shore of our globe the cannibal still survives, contending with the animals for the flesh of his peers, while the European thinker delights himself with idylls of the most refined beneficence. These two beings stand at opposite extremes of humanity; between one and the other lies an innumerable series of national varieties and historical transformations. However, in the weak and dubious light of metaphysics, and the narrow field of psychological consciousness, there appears to be no difference between these two opposites: metaphysics finds the same quantity and quality of man in both thinker and savage. Aristotle can construct the same number of categories in both one and the other; Plato postulates that the same host of ideas that lie vigilant in the thinker reside also in the savage; Kant should be able to distil the same pure reason from both, since for him the facts of history are mere appearances of a uniform subjectivity; our revived Spinozians could locate the essence of being in the cannibal’s consciousness and make of this the center of the universe to the point, almost, of confusing it with the divinity. Here, between the theory and reality of mankind, an immeasurable abyss is opened. The metaphysical schools have not taken for themselves a field that was broad enough to accommodate all knowledge or display the entire range of human ideas. Here, then, is a vast and new subject for study: the historical develop221

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ment of universal thought: to narrate how, as a result of what factors and by what processes mankind, which in one hemisphere of the globe is still lost in darkness, could, in the other, weave around itself such a broad tapestry of laws, customs, sciences, and arts, and become so enveloped in its creation that it is no longer able to disentangle itself and return to its native savagery. Whoever, along with Descartes, chooses to confine himself to the solitude of individual consciousness will never be able to gain an understanding of the numerous transformations to which man is subject. If he does not contemplate himself in others, that is, in history, he will believe that the banquets of the cannibal, the superstitions of the Negro, the furies of the Hun, and the decadence of the late empire are impossible. He will never be able a priori to imagine the worlds of fables, music, and politics, the enchanting combination of words, the constructions of astronomic calculus, the inventions of the imagination, and all those irresistible judgments that, as they emerge from the heart of society, carry along with them the reason and will of every man living in such a place at such a time and provide him with what is, to all intents and purposes, a second rational faculty. We cannot grasp the human spirit, investigate its essence, or even know it, save insofar as it is made manifest in its actions and elaborations. If we assume it to be as the tradition of many centuries, that is, our own upbringing, has made it within us, we run the risk of mutilating its positive attributes, of confusing what is essential in it with what is variable and accidental. It is, therefore, necessary to study it in as many and as varied contexts as possible. When we have contemplated this ideological polyhedron from as many angles as possible, those features that are common to them all shall indicate to us its fundamental unchanging character, while the others shall indicate the changed field of its perfectibility. Now, these features are scattered throughout histories, laws, customs, and languages; and from this terrain, which is entirely historical and experimental, the entire knowledge of man must arise, which instead is vainly sought, eyes closed, in the individual consciousness. ([1839] 1960, SF 1: 100–3) Sensation in Associated Minds All schools of thought that contemplate the sensation of a solitary individual engage in an act of analysis. They fail to look at the whole picture: in the individual, and entirety of his actions, they effectively

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replicate an experiment that is no less abstract or hypothetical than that attempted in the single senses of Condillac’s statue. It is a fact of nature that the newborn baby is gathered to its mother’s breast. Right from the first signs of life, the maternal instinct is associated with the instincts of the infant; it insinuates itself between that confused agitation of the senses, which cannot immediately be formed into a clear and distinct sensation, for this presupposes another sensation from which the former would require to be distinguished. Of these sensations it is, above all, the one that recurs most frequently that emerges as clear and distinct. Of all the new encounters with the atmosphere and foreign bodies to which a newborn baby is subjected, the maternal presence provides possibly the only sensation that is not disagreeable and, perhaps as a result of this continual contrast with other disagreeable sensations, is the first of them to be clearly discerned and to affirm itself fully. Nor are all of the other sensations entirely casual, when there is already a mind and a will at work that are seeking to deflect the most painful of them and garner the most pleasant […] This collection of initial sensations is already the work of several associated beings. Besides the instincts of the infant and its mother, there are the affections and customs of the family and, hence, of the social institutions. Above all there is the human voice, which, in diligently accompanying the individual sensations associates them with a sound that becomes an indelible and distinctive sign, the final realization of clear and distinct perception. Sensation in human beings is, therefore, not an unmediated encounter between the subject and various objects; it is not a pure fact; right from its very beginnings, it is a social act. In the man born blind who reads words with his finger, or in the deaf and dumb man who reads words from the lips of the person who utters them, an artificial sensation, one that is by definition a late, social invention, supplies what is lacking in the natural sensation. ([1859–60] 1960, SF 1: 446–8) Ideas as Products of Associated Minds It is curious that writers have always preferred to investigate the origin of ideas in man as an individual, rather than in man as a social being. Indeed, they nearly always had recourse to the mind of the infant, supposing it to be solitary and defenseless in the face of the outside world, and imagining that it would have to construct every idea on its

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own, as though humanity had to begin afresh from its savage origins in every individual. This was the source of the first major controversy as to whether ideas originate in the senses or in the interior faculties. ([1852] 1960, SF 2: 13–14) Those who, such as Condillac, seek to argue that ideas derive from the senses alone are also forced to argue that all of one man’s ideas must be found in every other man in receipt of the same sensations. But, instead, different men faced with the same objects are seen to display the most diverse ideas, while those who, such as Plato and Descartes, see ideas as originating entirely in the intellect are at a loss to explain why a blind man has no conception of colour or why a dumb man has no concept of melody or harmony. According to this latter theory, the existence of the senses would be superfluous; every link between the intellect and the world would be removed. It is, therefore, necessary to recognize that ideas are formed by both senses and intellect. The term ‘intellect’ here comprises not just the faculty of reflection, but also that of the imagination as stimulated and inspired by the affections. If we were to stop at this point we would have to conclude that each individual, simply by the agency of his own senses and intellect, could acquire for himself all the ideas that he himself has. But this is not the case. If we were to list our ideas of whatever order, both in our private lives and in the arts and sciences, we would have to acknowledge that no man ever, in the course of his life, with his own senses and intellect could obtain for himself all the ideas of which he is, or has been, in possession. ([1857–8] 1960, SF 2: 286) Before he [the infant] is able, amid the impulses of his instincts and the turmoil of his imperfect and confused sensations, to raise himself above the level of organic life and discern some flash of clear perception, every act of his mind finds itself already linked to those of the minds around him. The first words he imitates are syllables lovingly uttered by maternal affection, but at the same time part of a language that has already been constructed. In repeating these phrases, which for the child contain the sense of an entire proposition, and in learning the first names of the things he sees and touches and, gradually, the other forms that accompany any form of rudimentary thought, the child never proceeds unaccompanied, but follows in the footsteps of a sure, adult guide. Nor is this woman, who gradually reveals the secrets of life to the child, an isolated being. She, too, was born into a family, a tribe, and perhaps an illustrious people, and each of their languages bears witness to re-

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mote origins, civil and religious institutions of which she herself is unaware, but which, too, have left their imprint on her speech and her mind. When a mother whispers one of our numbers in a child’s ear, she, without realizing, is furnishing him with one of the tenets of the decimal scale. Now this marvelous artifice is, to this very day, inaccessible to those tribes that Gaetano Osculati2 visited on his travels to the Rio Napo in 1848, who, after thousands of years of uncivilized living, have not yet reached the point of being able to fashion a word capable of expressing the number four […] Each idea of a child is, therefore, not the product of a solitary mind, but rather of several associated minds. ([1852] 1960, SF 2: 15–16) The majority of our ideas does not derive from our individual senses and our individual intellect, but from the senses and intellects of men linked to each other both by tradition and the sharing of common knowledge and errors […] An idea is a perception of types of thing derived from sensations by virtue of reflection. In the most exalted ideas, the work of the imagination is also involved, which combines them and expands them beyond the limits of experience. Those ideas to which an individual, in the brief time and space afforded him, can never attain by himself are acquired via the work of several associated minds. In short, all ideas, whether true or false, are products of the intellect, determined by the senses of both the individual and society. ([1857–8] 1960, SF 2: 286–7) Thought is the most social act of man. ([1859–60] 1960, SF 1: 453) Eighteenth-Century Rationalism and Nineteenth-Century Historicity This opposition between the philosophies of the two centuries, which a celebrated poet described as being ‘armed one against the other,’3 of what does it properly consist? If in the sixteenth century, the first in the modern era, individual reason had dared to engage in popular discussion of the mysteries of religion and, in the seventeenth century, in discussion of propositions advanced by the various schools of philosophy, in the eighteenth century such critical reflection was rather directed toward all civil institutions. The contrast between the lives and thoughts of men, accordingly, be2 Gaetano Osculati (1808–1884) continues to be cited for his ethnographical accounts of the Zaparo Indians who lived in the Ecuadorian Amazon. 3 ‘L’un contro l’altro armato’: Alessandro Manzoni, Cinque maggio, line 50.

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came more pronounced. Living in a network of social relationships, these men, inspired by geometricians and honed by mercantile calculation, dared to ask whether, in what way, and to what extent, each institution was profitable to each individual’s participating in civil society (la civile aggregazione). Everything was, therefore, evaluated by means of an individual judgment and according to individual interests. Society was viewed as a contract between individuals; and revision of this contract was sought in the shape of a return to primitive egalitarianism, that is, the restoration of the natural state of humanity. The predilections of the various schools of philosophy, and the inexplicable excellence of ancient arts and letters, led thinkers to postulate a primitive world that had been educated in the ways of languages, arts, sciences, and law by a series of beneficent geniuses, whose work was gradually obscured by the efforts of superstition and violence, culminating in the darkness of the Middle Ages – but that could, by the work of other geniuses, be swiftly, even suddenly, returned to its former glory. There were even those who, to an artificial civilization cluttered with the remains of every age and rife with injustice and corruption, preferred the simple pure life that men must have lived in the earth’s primitive forests prior to execution of the social contract. The chief effort of human thought in the eighteenth century, then, was directed toward criticism, at the level of the individual person, of the institutions in force at the time, with the intention of restoring the dominion of natural logic and personal independence. In this century, it is almost as though the direction of human thought has been reversed. It was found that the benefit of each individual derived from the social concern as a whole and that, furthermore, this this could never be achieved in solitude or dissociation. The most complicated institutions appeared to be the necessary effects of civil society and the various forms of its existence. It was understood that certain customs were a stepping stone to and a preparation for attaining other, improved customs that people could not achieve otherwise. In this way, certain transient ordinances were accounted for and justified that, in the face of the most immediate logic, appeared to be both absurd and barbarian. Meanwhile, it was acknowledged that beneath the splendor of the ancients’ liberty had lain both the oppression and slavery of peoples; and, amid the painful ruins of those marvelous civilizations, events leading to the emancipation of the oppressed were also recognized. The comforting doctrine of progress developed from the bosom of history; mankind was seen to have raised itself from the savagery of uncivilized life through war, slavery, devastations, tyrannies, torments, and tortures,

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until welfare, justice, equity, beauty, truth, peace, and love were gradually brought about. Thus, the inexorable criticism that had been leveled by our forefathers in the direct interest of the individual eventually began to slow, and in its place a more favorable, perhaps excessively favorable, interpretation of all the gradual and successive transactions (transazioni scalari e successive) of civil society was advanced; the common sense of the peoples was vindicated, which had approved that which was respectively most opportune in different times and places; and the most celebrated laws appeared to be the fruit of a gradual maturing of interests and opinions, rather than the liberating decrees coming from the minds of some legislators. For that reason the most common trend in historical thought during this century has been a general explanation of the successive civil forms, in that these have gradually promoted the spontaneous development of the individual and his well-being, in the development and wellbeing of all of society. ([1839] 1960, SF 1: 96–8) Historical Studies The ancients, among whom only the most powerful families were allowed the luxury of being able to study, saw history as their instructress in civil life and as dispenser of counsel and example amid the storms to be navigated by the ship of state (la cosa pubblica). However, they cultivated only the history of the peoples most like themselves, and best suited to furnishing them with a model that they could imitate. They cared little for the deeds of other peoples, as though these were separate from their customs and useless for the purposes of their own ambitions. But we have grown up amid the confusing ruins of so many civilizations, where sciences originating in the Orient have been woven into the ancient Europeans’ municipality, family, and property, and where the architecture of the Greeks decorates the temples in which we chant psalms of worship composed by a king of Israel rendered in the tongue of the Romans; now that we have acquired the right to allow even those of the most obscure fortunes to study, we no longer look to history so much for illumination in the art of governing our country, as for abstract and scientific comprehension of those complex realities in which we live and for what predictions, however imprecise, this can reverberate on the general course of our future. Under these extended terms of its remit, the discovery of so many vicissitudes and customs has given rise in history to the sciences of

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particular times, languages, and monuments, all of which have shed unexpected light on the origins of the nations. Taking in hand the national books of the Israelites, Persians, and Indians, we may now speak of those peoples with much more intimate understanding than even their contemporaries were able to speak of their greatness. Moreover, this great wealth of historical testimonies, accumulated from all quarters, soon gave rise to the idea of collecting and ordering them in a more confined space, so as to control their extent and proportion by intellectual means. Alongside this material labor a more in-depth form of study arose, which was that of identifying historical similarities whereby certain events, appearing to be replicated in all manner of peoples and times, seemed to Vico to be constant generalities, capable of providing a stable understanding of human affairs. Closer investigation of dissimilarities later revealed his claim – that nations were based on a similar order of events – to be unfounded and demonstrated that a subsequent action always presupposes and comprises the consequences of previous actions, thus embracing an ever-changing number of different elements, whence it proves never to be the solitary effect of the time and people that produced it, nor the uniform development of a spontaneous principle, but rather the aggregate result of innumerable reactions, accumulated over the universal course of time. From that moment onward, universal histories were no longer permitted to be mere nomenclatures assembled for the purpose of prompting the memory, nor torn-out pages to be stitched hurriedly back together at the whim of some history or another. Rather, they were forced to become interlinked sequences of cause and effect and elaborations of ideas for which the historical facts were but the raw materials and original occasion. Every school of philosophy, every civil party and religious denomination, therefore, scrutinized the combination of remote events in order to trace in them the effect of those principles that, it was claimed, were most profitable for or deleterious to all of mankind and, thence, to indicate in the histories of all peoples those unchanging proofs of its own preferred theories. Amid such conflicting opinions, studies of universal history daily became more complex and profound, because every advance brought to light some hitherto unobserved connection, until eventually the exploits of nations were understood to have been woven on an immense loom of the most remote preparations, whence the wisest people in universal history were those who embraced the widest possible variety of schools and of theories and who, with scrupulous fairness, could appreciate the opinions of other times and other countries. That is why, despite the fact

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that the most resplendent rays of this historical science have come from our own country, we must nonetheless beware of what people (straniero) surrounding us are doing and watch carefully over the various aspects that theories of history are coming to assume in our neighbors, under the influence of great social interests that are in more marked opposition to each other in those countries than they are in Italy. While, on the one hand, we may have overtaken such countries several generations ago in terms of certain stages in civilization to which they have not yet attained, on the other, we have not yet set foot on certain roads that they are traveling most expeditiously. ([1840] 1957, SSG 1: 125–7) False Accounts of Civilization Natural Environment and Civil Development The theory that infers a people’s moral state from the country in which it established itself, as opposed to the interconnected pattern of traditions handed down or subsequently imported, appears to be without foundation. For, if this were so, the civil development of every people would be as ancient as its occupation of the territory in which it resides. For example, wherever natural ports or easy passage are found, as in Ireland, Denmark, Sardinia, the Antilles, California, or Oceania, men would have become distinguished sailors right from the earliest ages of the world. Equally, the Roman civilization would not have perished; the cruelty of the Huns would not have inspired the Venetians to think what a safe and magnificent dwelling place they could erect on the isolated ridges of the lagunas, nor would the Swiss plateau have had to wait until the times of Dante to be redeemed from the servitude of both fief and armament. If it were true that freedom resides in the mountains and obedience in the plains, all the mountain ranges across the globe would have given birth to republics, and similarly, the plains of both old and new England would have been absolute monarchies. If it were true that the vast expanses of uninterrupted moorlands inspire the idea of infinity, the tribes of the Orinoco, who are extremely unintelligent and virtually atheist, would have had as their fate, before the priestly castes of Asia, Cousin’s4 manifestation of unity; and in all regions where cliffs and gulfs 4 Victor Cousin (1792–1867) was a French philosopher and minister of education under Louis Philippe. As will be recalled from our introduction, Cattaneo was sharply critical of Cousin’s eclectic philosophy that sought to bring unity where there were deep differences by insisting that all conflicting doctrines held part of the truth ready for the intuitive eye to discern.

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indent the coastline, the one, the multiple, and the relation between them would have been brought together in fertile conflict. For thousands of years the British people did not realize that it would be so easy to rule the waves from its islands and allowed a vast treasure of industrial resources to lie idle in their mines, until such time as a series of historical events prepared a state of affairs whereby not only were minds stimulated to make new discoveries, but the nation, too, was encouraged to receive them with effective alacrity. The course of histories, therefore, rather than taking its form directly from the natural qualities of the countries concerned, as Herder had argued, in fact proceeds in quite the opposite direction to that proposed by such theories. The union between the culture of the peoples and the features of the lands that they inhabit represents the final stage in history, and the glorious end of every progressive civilization. Constant change necessarily encourages the development of the intellect, so that it does not slow down or grow sleepy in presiding over the ancients’ legacy. Although natural obstacles may stubbornly hinder human efforts, only a mature civilization can realize all the potential offered by the land, seas, or climate, and counsel the most appropriate forms of agriculture, industry, and commerce, as well as the best way of rendering life both profitable and attractive. No people has developed, through whatever excellence of its nature, the ability to achieve high culture solely through organic growth. Nor, meanwhile, is there any people of whom it may be said that they are truly incapable of making some contribution to learning, nor any people whose history is predestined by the physical conditions of its country, although the latter may place significant obstacles in the path of civilization; nor, equally, is there a people that does not have something that is distinctive and indigenous to it, whether in terms of primitive character or ancestral tradition, or that does not give signs of itself in some hereditary detail of its own form of speech, or that, lastly, has not managed to dominate the foreign elements that clash with its civilization to the point of containing them within a perfectly closed system. The historical combinations arising from the encounter between outside influences and native traditions bring about as many different series as there are peoples, and each of them must supply its own special contribution to the world of learning. ([1846] 1965, SP 3: 341–3) Experience consistently teaches us that man begins to fashion his own destiny with the work of his mind, which is a mixture of fact and of fantasy, and that progress consists in gradually adapting the thoughts of

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the peoples to reality and in reconciling idealistic preconceptions to the opportunities actually furnished by nature, which tend to be noticed rather too late. ([1860] 1956, SE 3: 324) Chosen Races More widely accepted, including in our days, is the theory that argues that scientific genius is a distinctive of certain races. It is clear that each people tends to congratulate itself in thinking this. It is a form of what Vico described as ‘the arrogance of the nations.’ This natural and ancient hypothesis of chosen peoples has gained fresh force from the two new sciences that have arisen from the application of botany and zoology to geography. In the same way that a distinct flora and fauna are assigned to each region of the globe and as certain species, indigenous to one region represent other species of the same genus denied to that region and bestowed upon another, so too, as a complement to such great variety of creation, a more audacious theory attributes a species of mankind to each different region ab origine. Certain varieties, or mixtures of several varieties, emerge as being more physically or intellectually capable and better suited to forceful expansion over the earth by waging destruction and breeding with each other, thereby obliterating the other primitive races. Thus, those races become established that alone can be designated with the name of thinking species, or Homo sapiens. My subject here is neither to accept this hypothesis nor refute it. Accordingly, it is beyond my remit to say how such odious inferences, as appear inescapably to arise under this hypothesis to the detriment of weaker races, could be avoided, to the comfort of the consciences of every type of conqueror and oppressor. The conclusions that the perpetrators of African slavery drew from the discovery of a constant difference between blacks and whites, in terms of facial angle, are well known; whence they could argue that that race was incapable of any kind of thought, predestined to vegetate in perpetual infancy, and requiring the protection of its enemies. You see, gentlemen, that if the hypothesis were proved correct, the iniquity of the consequences would not exonerate us from the duty of accepting unpalatable truths. I would rather avoid this subject in our discussion altogether. Instead, I would prefer to point out that, while this theory enables the issue of the primitive intellectual disparity between peoples to be resolved with relative ease, it nonetheless leaves unanswered the question of how a noble

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and wise progeny, which for many centuries has given display of glorious learning, may suddenly fall back into the most profound ignorance. Nor would this theory explain how the Greek race, which previously had been so rich in every kind of intellectual fruit, for more than a thousand years did little more than provide shade to the land of Constantine, as if it were no more than a barren tree. It was not the sword of the Turks that cut down the intellectual life of Greece in the fifteenth century; it had been growing barren for more than a thousand years already. Nor was it, as several people have supposed, theological controversies that, in preoccupying people’s minds, shut them off from all other forms of thought; as you are aware, the new life of Western thought was already stirring amid the theological disputes at the Sorbonne in those very centuries. And today, we see five hundred million men, one-half of all mankind, belonging to intelligent nations brought up in traditions of learning significantly earlier than our own, who are languishing as if intellectually petrified, like sediments of fossils bearing witness to a life that is no more. Unfortunately, by virtue of causes that undoubtedly reside in the domain of psychology, a people whose thought illuminated the world over several generations may, nonetheless, arrive at a generation that ceases to think, that all but buries the faculties that were so fruitful in its fathers, that even loses the awareness of possessing such faculties, repudiating every new thought, every new deployment of its faculties, as though these were grounds for censure. Amid the rivalries of progress, science must not forget this painful theory of decadence and regression, which is also a reality, which occurs, and which may bring about not just the lengthy degradation of the peoples concerned, but even, on some occasions, their extinction. Is it then the case that an entire posterity is born without that intellectual endowment that so distinguished its fathers? And if it does have the same natural capabilities and fails to avail itself thereof, what principle is it that so suddenly comes to be lacking in them? What is this principle that infuses the spirit of life into the minds of the nations and then suddenly abandons them to the torpor of death? Conversely, the theory of racial disparity can no more explain how peoples that for so long were barbarian, such as the Scandinavians, Germans, Slavs, and Magyars, could suddenly resolve to pursue the new life of thought and, through the agency of dead and foreign languages, initiate themselves in the ways of those sciences that their fathers had so despised, while southern Europe, which too had become barbarian, was not able to transmit to them a scientific impulse that it no longer had. ([1859–60] 1960, SF 1: 410–12)

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Why did [the Teutonic family], during the first five or six thousand years of Egyptian civilization, sleep such a long unproductive slumber? Why was it necessary for the Latin language, a language conceived by peoples of smaller brains, to come from the south in order to instruct them for several centuries, until the Germanic language was so exercised and renewed that to its own nation it seemed worthy of offering instruction in thought? As for individuals, so also for peoples, the mind on its own is not sufficient; to natural abilities, a higher influence must also be added. The evolution of ideas must be illuminated with the light of psychology, ideology, and ethics. It is true that these northern progenies, in the most recent generations, have achieved unanticipated intellectual exploits; but this merely goes to show that no part of mankind should be despaired of, however deeply rooted it may be in primordial ignorance. In response to the Negroes’ detractors, we would point to the late but marvelous flowerings of the Briton and Teutonic civilizations. The sudden success of certain nations often depends on the concomitant weakness of others, who as a result of internal disorder find themselves at a given moment unable to match their material expansion. The Gauls, to their misfortune, reached Rome when Camillus was there; the Cimbrians arrived at the foot of the Alps when Marius was there; and Ariovistus encountered Caesar on the other side of the Rhine. Meanwhile, Genseric in Rome found a coward who opened the gates of the city to him, and hundreds of Spaniards ran unchallenged through America, a continent that knew neither horses, gunpowder, nor iron. In America the Europeans destroyed the native tribes, wiped out the free, and multiplied the number of slaves. Many are the ways in which a race may expand over the earth; it is not always by means of courage and intelligence. One of the most effective, for example, is by humble submission to oppressors. The Russians destroyed the woodlands of the Caucasus in order to be able to destroy more easily and eradicate from this region one of the best and most valorous races of all mankind. Germany, under Barbarossa, derived the strength to combat free Italy from its dominion of men, or Leibeigenschaft, from the slavery of peoples […] For our purposes, it is unimportant if the Negro appears, in his various forms, to be closer to some kinds of animal than to a god. We place man on the top rung of a ladder, which begins with organic monads and ascends to the savage, that is, the speaking creature. This to us already seems like huge progress. And with the most animal-like savage there

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begins another scale, leading upward this time to the heroes of reason and humanity. Every nation that has produced one of these heroes is worthy of our admiration; but all the others are for us equally sacrosanct – we recognize no hegemonies over human beings. ([1862] 1957, SSG 3: 244–5, 246) Natural Conditions and Intellectual Progress Primitive communications must have been easier and more immediate in the valleys of the great rivers, and in the most temperate regions, for these offer an uninterrupted sequence of fertile locations where plants and animals could find nourishment in the soil and waters, where the tribes could find life less uncertain and arduous, where they could multiply and protect themselves in greater numbers [and] bring together the fragments of their native traditions amid the languages of communication prevailing in such places, and even appropriate them for their own purposes, by means of new inflections, compounds, and metaphors to express increasingly high levels of analysis and attempt the first abstractions of number, time, space, and form. Powers of observation were no longer constrained by the inexorable needs brought about by perpetual hunger. Acts of attention grew more and more liberal; the field of attention grew ever wider. Peoples could also move from place to place more easily, gleaning a greater number of local discoveries. This vastly increased the quality of life and expansion of societies. The work of society began once more, but it was no longer that of the solitary tribe, rather the tradition of a people in far improved living conditions. People began to have more time. This is what the Latins called otium or leisure, otium studio, leisure for study, or as Cicero described it, rest and thought. The largest aggregations of peoples took place in the East, along the great rivers, where, right from the outset, the flora and fauna embraced certain key elements of agriculture and livestock farming. Such was, for example, the low valley flooded so regularly by the Nile; such were the rivers of Mesopotamia, the two rivers of Bactria, the two rivers of India, the two rivers of China. In the desert zones, the great aggregations of peoples took place on the vast plateaus of Ethiopia, Peru, and Mexico, for in such places the altitude, amid the snowy peaks, mitigated the heat caused by their latitude. The least favored land of all was Australia, for nature denied it great rivers and fertile plateaus, bestowing on it, rather, an equally thankless flora and fauna. The work of nature thus failing, so too, did the work of

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society. The life of the mind was impossible. Hence, if we admit the theory of the common origin of nations, and the incontrovertible principle of the common nature of the intellect, even in these miserable excuses for men it is nonetheless easy to explain how they never managed to grasp the basic principles of agriculture, sheep farming, navigation, and metallurgy, how they failed to display even the constructive instinct of the beaver, and how very probably they are destined to perish amid the corpselike inertia of a mind that was stillborn. ([1859–60] 1960, SF 1: 469–71) Foreign Interference Foreign interference was a necessary auxiliary to incipient indigenous civilizations. Those who thought that it could be replaced by the forces of reason of each people in isolation were wrong, as were those who placed the causes of thought in thought alone. History bears out Romagnosi’s theory that one and the same flame of civilization, kindled as a result of unknown conflicting events in Asia, was subsequently brought from people to people, attaching itself to them in differing degrees of intensity, according to the natural abilities and directions that their forefathers had prepared for them. Many races perished while still barbarian, without ever having experienced this sacred fire; and even today, we see native tribes of North America who perish untouched by civilization, having been placed in excessively harsh contact with the Europeans, who themselves no longer possess or no longer care to possess the divine art of grafting a progressive culture onto barbarian manners. Even among the same peoples, the same institutions do not necessarily produce the same result at different times, nor do they necessarily bear the same fruit. Civil law, which initially was abhorred by the Rhenish peoples as an intolerable yoke, was the most effective incentive in the insurrection led by Arminius, and it has become in our time one of their prerogatives, a boast of their superior civilization compared with the Baltic provinces, which were held back by the ancestral customs of Saxons and Slavs. The Muslims burned the Library of Alexandria and almost immediately opened fifty new libraries in Spain. The Muslims, having declared that all believers were equal, led numerous crowds in India into the condition of slavery, hitherto unknown in that country. In similar fashion, the Europeans, professing a faith that proclaims the brotherhood of all men, in the Middle Ages flooded the fiefs of their

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countries with slaves and in the modern era did the same in the plantations of America. Nations, therefore, do not move through complete, logical, continuous systems; their customs are fragments of discrete origin, lumped rather than ordered together. In China and other parts of Asia, the civil orders, having derived originally from conflict between the native powers, corresponded more intimately to the nature of the peoples and were rooted in their minds for a longer period of time. With us, the theories, languages, and institutions, having arrived gradually from different parts of the world and almost in fragments, combined variously with each other and took shape in part from the principles that they found had already developed among the native peoples, albeit with varying degrees of maturity. One could almost say that the same institutions that in those countries had lain in such deep-set strata, in our nations were thrown together as an erratic, haphazard deposit. Thus, the foreign and ill-composed nature of the origins of our histories might perhaps be the deep vein whence their freedom and variety derives. ([1846] 1965, SP 3: 333–5) Intellect and Will in Social Life Interests and Ideas We do not believe that the mind is the immediate servant of the information appearing before it; for, if it were, how would it be possible to account for the opposing convictions that continually rage within every state and society, despite the sharing of identical information? If this hypothesis were true, a change in information ought to lead to a change in ideas and in systems. But equally, if the system in a country remains the same, how can all the facts of its ideas be overturned like some change of theatrical scenery? This leads to a vicious circle, whereby a new system presupposes new ideas, new ideas presuppose new facts, and new facts presuppose a new system once again. It is not as a result of different information that Pitt and Fox air their irreconcilable differences of opinion each day in parliament; it is not due to a discrepancy of facts that the manufacturer demands free entry for cereal crops, while the farmer demands they be kept out. The price of bread is a fact of life for them both; and if one approves of high prices while the other approves of low prices, this is not an intellectual judgment, but rather the suggestion of their interests and the instinct of their wills. The truth of the matter is that men choose to allow their minds to

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dwell on those facts that are favorable to their own inclinations and would rather the opposing facts did not exist, or that other men either were not aware of them, or did not believe them. Popular readers choose, from all newspapers, the one that most cultivates and flatters their own opinions and interests. This is why the mere reading or possession of a book is considered by French courts to be a declaration of partiality and a predisposition toward partisan excesses. Equally, it is clear that in England, despite its ancient freedom of expression, opinions are rather more limited and uniform than in countries where restrictions on the press constrain the multitude’s knowledge to a limited and uniform set of information. From that we can see how much power the will exerts in the forming of opinions, and how great a distance separates the implicit or explicit apprehension of the facts’ existence and the conviction of the intellect, which, it is claimed, is infallible and immediate. We would say, rather, that it is in this that the field of moral liberty resides, the liberty that is exercised in the instant when man resolves to resolve. Conflict and Compromise Thus, it is not the case that a people ‘goes over to new ideas as a result of the need to avoid contradictions’;5 rather, for any shift in the balance to occur, it is sufficient that power should pass to the party whose interests are in line with the new ideas or, at least, that has more to hope than to fear from them. All legislative reforms may be considered to be a compromise between prevailing interests. Now, the notion of compromise precludes the notion of system; indeed, it entails conflict between systems, systems that are unable to destroy each other and constrained to endure each other. Such compromises, when they are expressed in law, become standards and limits against which the daily acts of living together (convivenza) are measured; thus, minds are always torn between the consequences of the rival principles jointly responsible for the said compromise. Whence there are continual limitations and contradictions in the multitudes’ judgment; there is an eternal divorce between absolute logic and civil prudence, between moderation and intolerance; politics is understandably suspicious of pure science; and the course of legislative progress is as tortuous as that of a river, itself a compromise between the movement of the water and the immobility of the land. 5 No source for to this quotation is found in the text.

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Therefore, every civil society contains within itself inevitable, inexorable criticism directed by single systems of ideas toward each other and encapsulated in their respective utopias, which are, in fact, geometrical constructions derived from one or other proposition to whose interests other geometries and propositions stand clearly opposed. Some see, in the luxuries of the rich, the bread of the poor; others call it an insult to misery and an incentive to corruption and advise society to save itself through sumptuary laws. Some seek to turn everything into trade (industria) and banking, to mobilize property into smaller portions of land so that, at the end of each month, the entire state territory may be gambled on the stock market; others deplore the ground that is lost in the access to, and the hedges that surround, every tiny property owned by the people and seek, rather, to incorporate every scattered holding into one single estate worth millions, which would be inalienable, and held by a few hundred families, to give property that social, almost priestlike, function required for the foundations of society to hold firm against the popular landslide. Others, again in the name of society and morality, seek to abolish private property altogether and, hence, also inheritance and the family itself, turning all of those numbered among the ranks of mankind into co-owners of the globe. One seeks only interest and labor; the other sees only souls without bodies – only minds, duties, rights, morality, and contemplation. The State and Revolutions Amid the many demands that civilization divides and multiplies day in, day out, the state emerges as one immense interaction (transazione), within which are property and trade, the legitimate portion and the available portion, luxury and savings, that which is useful and that which is beautiful. Each conquers or defends every day, with imperious and universal urgency, that share of space that the other competing systems permit it to have. The supreme formula of good government and civilization is that none of these demands should be allowed to dominate the others, and none of them should be completely denied. That modified satisfaction of the largest number of needs or entitlements was expressed by Gian Domenico Romagnosi, with his customary wisdom, in the following definition: ‘the value of society, diffused throughout the widest possible number of its inhabitants.’ All those changes to which we grant the grand title of ‘revolutions’ are thus none other than the disputed admission of one more social ele-

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ment, for which ground may be conceded only by means of a generalized pressure, and after prolonged fluctuation by all the competing powers; all the more so because the new element appears with the apparatus of a whole system and an entire change of scene, with the threat of a general subversion, and only gradually is brought back within the limits of its stable and effective power. For he who conquers, does so in vain, if he does not also possess the power to retain what he has conquered. That is why, when the balance appears to have been reestablished, and the party acquiring power assumes the new attitude of owner and sometimes allows himself to pour scorn on all the principles that led him to victory, it seems incredible that to arrive at so partial an innovation the entire commonweal (consorzio civile) should have to suffer so much pain and so much anguish. The Succession of Systems One compromise opens the way for another; the principles that compete in the heart of civil society become ever more numerous and complex; none of them is completely abolished, but preserves hidden within it that entire expansionist force that would lead it to take over society once more and reduce it to a system, should the reactions of the other systems be found wanting. Every day we see principles in the nations that appeared to have been destroyed once and for all by the opposition of the times, gathering force step by step, and displaying their capacity for stubborn survival. With every act of legislation, the pressure of all interests is renewed, and the balance of all powers is renewed to a greater or lesser degree. Any subsequent compromise between rival systems can never be said to involve the absolute destruction of one system, nor the absolute establishment of another, for renewal only falls upon a part of society; that is what Romagnosi meant when he said that progress occurs by means almost of interconnected sequences. Innovations that do not adapt to what came before prove unsuccessful, which is why it is not true to say that there is no rational continuity in the succession of systems. This entire theory, as we understand it, should be seen in reverse. The logical, absolute progress of abstract intelligence must not be allowed to be confused with the prudent, combined progress of civil intelligence. In fact, it is the conflict between different rational principles, and the inconstant changing of majorities, that can often make legislative deliberations appear almost irrational.

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As the principle of justice and progress is to be found in the tempering of interests, so the principle of evil is to be found in their predominance; when such predominance is stabilized and forms itself into a system, the principle of progress is repressed, and society gravitates toward decadence. ([1844] 1960, SF 1: 159–64) The Partisan Spirit As the movements of the will are determined originally by ideas, and as the ideas of all men go to make up a system, so the will of the individual is free to operate only within the confines of a given system. A man is free to choose between the ideas he possesses, but cannot choose between ideas that he does not possess. His will, however free it may be in principle, cannot escape from that order of ideas that he has received from his family, his schooling, his country, the random incidents of his life, and the inclination of his mind. It is like the flight of a bird, which can turn to the east or the west, but which cannot exceed certain limits in terms of height or speed […] Whoever brings an idea to the people inspires a desire within them and prepares them, sooner or later, to perform certain actions. This is why despots are suspicious of new ideas, and proponents of freedom so cultivate them. By contrast, man brings the decrees of his will to bear in the midst of conflicting ideas, embracing those that are consonant with the interests of his person, family, and class, and repressing those that oppose them. This is what gives birth to the partisan spirit, whereby man rejects an idea not for what it contains in and of itself, but for what it is relative to the interests of a certain order of persons. That is why it sometimes occurs that one man rejects an idea for the same reason that another man embraces it. What is good for one is bad for another. The consequences of such forms of reasoning are contradictory, because the premises behind them are contradictory, too. ([1857] 1960, SF 2: 275–6) The Force of Tradition In every nation there are certain ancient and indigenous forms of good manners or license, of honor or degradation, of respect or pride, of disagreement or unanimity; there are ways of setting up families, sharing inheritances, negotiating the labor of the poor, attracting the subventions of the rich, entrusting the judgment of the country to hands that are industrious or to hands that, for reasons of ancient necessity, must be 240

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kept slothful. There are those who pin all their hopes on schools and those whose trust is more in trade and the road system, while an extensive tribe of historians points to religion as the only bond capable of reconciling all differences. But although taught with the same alphabet and pulled by the same locomotive, although they kneel at the same altar, the industrious Fleming is not the unskilled Pole, the artless Irishman is not the ingenious Tuscan, and the garrulous Frenchman is not the taciturn Corsican. It is idle to complain that uniform civilization colors us all the same; this is similarity of garment, not of person; each of these men lives in the thoughts of his fathers more than in the thoughts of this century. Yet all are capable of receiving a felicitous graft that can release in them those ways of being that their fathers did not possess. Did the arts of Greece not put down lasting roots in austere Rome? At the same time, did the ideal of the Greek peoples not become fossilized in the mummies of Byzantine art? Did the inhabitants of the Marches and Apulia not perhaps forget ‘the shield, the name, and the toga?’6 Certainly, it is not impossible that one day an order of thought and institution might be found that could release all the shackles of the Indian castes, which are bound as tightly today as they were three thousand years ago; that could, without violence, quench the pyres of the widows and bring the murderous7 chariot of Jagannath to a standstill; that could find such an agreement between land ownership and agriculture that would not condemn naturally fertile lands in Ireland, in Sardinia, in India, to eternal squalor. Unfortunately, there is no people that, as a result of a distant legacy handed down by its forefathers, does not have some such pyre or chariot of its own, something that is contrary to the truth, some resistance to what is right, some secret ineptitude or weakness that exercises its influence more on its own destiny than does the age in which it lives. ([1847] 1965, SP 3: 344–5) Thoughts Come from Facts, before Facts Come from Thoughts Savage children merely replicate the savage life of their parents; posterity is unable to release itself from the traditions of the past. Now, progress consists precisely in the changing of tradition. Native trees do 6 The source of this citation remains unclear. 7 Contrary to what Cattaneo and common belief seem to suggest, the festival rite in Orissa, India, of mounting a god’s image on a huge cart and dragging it through the main street does not require pilgrims to hurl themselves under the cartwheels.

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not, without grafting and through mere force of time, produce leaves and fruit that do not come from the same root. The first reason for the progressive transformation of a society, that is, of a tradition, is fortuitous contact with another society or tradition. Thus, somehow forced into relations with each other, the two opinions tend to take on a form that is compatible and lose the native simplicity of their original concepts. The Cabailo, taken into Muslim society, does not become wholly Arab, but his mental apparatus is no longer so impoverished as that of his father in Numidia. As soon as a tribe, in superimposing itself on a mass of slaves, believers, and gregarious soldiers, emerges from its ancient necessities, its traditions are disturbed, for tradition means to live and think as one’s forefathers did. New habits, once they have become established in families, become the custom and rule, and are not subject to further instances of change until such time as new circumstances expose them to contact with other principles. If marriage and the army do not confuse the two races into one, the conditions for their coexistence will be dictated by the interests of power, not by judgment of impartial and mathematical equity, but by a partisan, unilateral, iniquitous new decree. If the lower caste had been successful, the conditions would have been equally unjust, but in the opposite sense. Thus, authority, which holds sway in respect of historical compromise, is servile to partisan interests; it is neither pure nor consistent. Intellectual judgment in human society takes its form from the various propositions advanced by the will; they are, as Romagnosi used to say, ‘judgments mixed with affections.’ In the perpetual jousting of national desires, those that, in attacking or defending, come eventually to prevail find themselves faced with a series of questions, which it is the duty of reason to resolve, not on the basis of abstract models so much as in the concrete sense of the passions; thus, it is the passions that must be regarded as the true source of the conclusions from which venal, adulatory reason draws. History, then, is the offspring of other histories: before facts come from thoughts, thoughts come from facts; facts inspire thoughts in reason, which is suddenly aroused from the slumber of tradition. Unchanging reason cannot be the supreme cause of these changes. Reason is to history what mathematics is to commerce. ([1846] 1965, SP 3: 336–7)

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References

Cattaneo’s Writings Cattaneo, Carlo. n.d. [but before 1835] 1981. ‘[Un ritratto del Byron].’ SL 2: 317. – [n.d.] 1981. ‘Frammento di novella poetica.’ SL 2: 63–4. – [1833] 1956. ‘Notiziario sulla questione delle tariffe daziarie negli Stati Uniti d’America desunta da documenti ufficiali.’ SE 1: 11–55. – [1833] 1964. ‘Alte notizie interessanti sull’India.’ SP 1: 7–9. – [1833] 1964. ‘Sul commercio dell’uva passa dell’isole joniche cola Gran Bretagna.’ SP 1: 46–9. – [1836] 1956. ‘Ricerche sul progetto di una strada di ferro da Milano a Venezia.’ SE 1: 112–77. – [1836] 1956. ‘Ricerche economiche sulle Interdizioni imposte dalla legge civile agli Israeliti.’ SE 1: 178–342. – [1837] 1956. ‘Alcune richerche sul progetto di un Monte delle Sete.’ SE 2: 7–82. – [1837] 1981. ‘Del nesso fra la lingua valaca e l’italiana.’ SL 1: 220–48. – [1839] 1957. ‘Della milizia antica e moderna.’ SSG 1: 34–63. – [1839] 1960. ‘Su la ‘Scienza Nuova’ di Vico.’ SF 1: 95–142. – [1939] 1965. ‘Dell’istruzione ginnasiale in Lombardia.’ SP 3: 58–65. – [1839] 1981. ‘Il Lorenzino.’ SL 1: 69–75. – [1839] 1981. ‘Il Romanzero del Cid.’ SL 1: 76–100. – [1839] 1981. ‘Vita di Dante e di Cesare Balbo.’ SL 1: 101–19. – [1840] 1957. ‘Dell’evo antico.’ SSG 1: 125–87. – [1839–44] 1960. ‘Frammenti di sette Prefazioni.’ SF 1: 228–66. – [1840] 1981. ‘Fede e Bellezza di Nicolò Tommasèo.’ SL 1: 120–135. – [1841] 1957. ‘Della Sardegna antica e moderna.’ SSG 1: 188–254.

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252

Index

Index

aboriginal, 167, See also native Acadia, 82 action (political), 11, 14, 16, 22, 29, 36, 73, 79, 88, 90, 124, 126, 137–8, 142, 166, 205, 214; Cattaneo’s program for, 31, 60; types of: barricade, 61, 204; censorship, 5, 15, 21, 47, 57, 59; coup, 62; demonstration, 59, 61; election, 33, 46–7, 67–9, 72, 74–5, 147, 187, 216; participation, 10, 226; plebiscite, 62; propaganda, 42, 48, 57, 72, 202–3; protest, 35, 65, 194; rebellion, 80, 134, 161, 183; revolt, 3, 13, 19, 60– 1, 63, 72, 148, 182–4; revolution, 7, 10, 12–13, 19–20, 24, 27, 37, 57–8, 62–3, 87, 89, 139, 141, 238–9; riot, 202; uprising (insurrection), 13, 20, 30, 57–8, 62–3, 65, 81, 189, 200; vote, 46, 62, 67, 133, 147–9, 209. See also movement; suffrage; war administration: public, 35, 42, 57, 69, 72 Afghanistan, 85, 172 Africa, 82, 171 agriculture,17, 19, 23, 26–7, 40, 53, 55–6, 59, 67, 92, 126–7, 142, 180–2.

See also farming; soil Alexander (III of Macedon), 122, 155 Alfieri Vittorio, 151–3 Algeria, 85, 152 Allegheny Mountains, 167 alliance of church and state, 8 Alps, 17, 130, 161, 183, 186, 211, 233 America. See United States American (U.S.), 7, 12, 48, 54, 140, 167; democracy, 18; federation, 136; plantations, 236; prisons, 149– 50; race, 169; republic, 80, 216; scientific racism, 25, 165; style of government, 68, 88; views of Italy, 50; way of associating, 86 American Civil War, 20, 87 analytical method: Cattaneo’s, 4 anatomy, 167 ancients, 7, 26, 35, 79–80, 83, 88, 130, 152, 178, 190–1, 227, 230; and liberty, 226 Annali universali di statistica, 21, 32, 54 anthropology, 55 Antilles, 82, 167, 229 antiquity: classical, 24, 26; oriental, 160 Aragon, 184, 215 archeology, 55, 177, 188

253

Index

See also military; peace; soldier; war Arndt, Ernst M., 177 art, 27, 59, 67, 80, 82, 85, 89, 93, 132, 136, 151–2, 164, 169, 174, 194, 198, 224, 241; ancient, 124, 226; baroque, 159; fine, 144, 197; liberal tradition in, 45; masterpieces, 153; military, 127; naval, 129; preceded by discovery, 168 artifacts, political and otherwise, 22–3, 26 artisans, 34, 180, 185 artist, 18, 152, 159 Ascoli, Graziadio, 33, 56 Asia, 29, 79, 84, 93, 169, 171–2, 235–6; migrations from, 173; priestly castes of, 229 association, 22, 36, 41, 43, 61, 86–8, 169, 185–6, 191; freedom of, 37; principle of, 65; scholarly, 164; science of, 29; and (political) unity, 176; unexpected benefits of, 55 astronomy, 92, 160, 169, 198, 218 atheists, 229 Atlantic, 172–3, 176 Augustine, Saint, 16 Augustus, 182 Australia, 80, 140, 166–7, 234 Austria, 19–20, 56, 60–7, 92, 134, 199, 210; army, 57–8, 88–90; bureaucratic, 142; censors, 15, 21; federation, 59; against Italian unity, 89; nationalist crisis in, 65; regime, 57, 60–3, 201; rule, 181. See also Habsburg authority, 60, 68, 72, 81, 90, 135, 141, 143, 180, 197; central, 18; contradictory, 219; episcopal, 83; federal, 136; military, 205; national, 191;

architecture, 55, 121, 197, 227 Archivio triennale delle cose d’Italia, 63–4 Arctic, 82 Argentina, 170 Ariosto, Ludovico 154, 189 aristocracy, 9, 12, 16, 19, 31, 56–7, 59, 61–2, 67, 69, 71, 82–4, 89, 130, 134, 141–2, 147, 154, 156–7, 162–4, 180, 184–9, 191, 193, 198–201, 203–14; inflexibility of, 179. See also nobility Aristotle, 81, 221 arming the nation, principle of, 132. See also nation in arms arms, 61, 84, 128, 199, 201; brotherhood of, 127, 214; call to, 203, 205–6, 210, 213; glory of, 157; government and, 134; people in, 66, 70, 131, 187–8; putting down, 125, 135, 188, 207, 209. See also nation in arms army, 20, 58, 62, 82, 85, 127, 142, 157, 174, 176, 183, 205, 209, 242; and capital, 83; confined to homeland, 60; conscripted, 130, 135; famished, 181; from feudal gangs to, 191; and flag (banner, standard), 57, 60, 185–7, 192, 199, 213–14; modern, 190; and modern society, 187; national, 13; and nationalist issues, 88–90; new, 198; of occupation, 19, 212; regionally recruited, 30; remodelling of, 92; and the sense of honor, 188; Salvemini discharged from, 46; of smaller states, 131; standing, 19, 42, 70–1, 92, 130–3, 136, 184; — Cattaneo’s contrast with nation in arms and, 71; state is an, 128; uniform and nationality, 191; vanguard of science, 93; volunteer, 61, 135.

254

Index

Bosporus, 172 botany, 164, 231 Bourbon monarchy, 71, 215 Brambilla, Giuseppe, 75 Brazil, 167 bread: price of, and crime rate, 236 breeding: among different types of people, 167–9, 173; with each other, 23 Brenier, Anatole, 65 Brittany, 184 bureaucracy: government, 57–8, 71, 73, 142; as minor dictatorships, 69; massive, 68; national, 42; need to combat, 43; requires an armed organization, 71; unaccountable and irresponsible, 69 Burgundy, 184 Burkhardt, Jacob, 26 business, 15, 123, 201 Byron, George Gordon, 163, 209 Byzantine, 27, 183, 188, 241

of the past, 79; of the pope, 7, 215; of the prefect, 42; public, 184; spiritual, 215; tax, 181 autonomy, 28, 30, 36, 42, 72; democratic value of, 35. See also local autonomy Bacon, Roger, 164 Baltic provinces, 235 banking, 55, 60, 137, 226, 238 bankruptcy, national, 86 barbarian, 9, 16, 138, 149, 152, 161, 172, 187, 189, 200, 202, 215, 226, 232; conditions, 146; conquest of China, 27; dialects, 158; ferocity of, 174; manners, 235; mercenaries, 182–3; nations, 179–80, 183; peoples, 128; races, 17; times, 154 Barbarossa, 187, 213 Beauharnais, Eugene, 198 Beccaria, Cesare, 195, 197 Belgium, 61; Ghent, prison in, 197 Bellini, Vincenzo, 155, 197 Benedictines, 187 Bengal, 21, 38, 171 Berlin, 18, 148 Bertani, Agostino, 65 Bible, 16, 27, 159, 200; Abel, meaning owner of nothing, 125; Abraham, 145; Adam, meaning man, 125; Cain, meaning owner, 125; Canaanites, 217; Ecclesiastes, 129; Genesis, 145; Gospel, 201; Lot, 145; Mary Magdalene, 152; psalms, 227; study of, 125–6; Virgin Mary, 152 Birmingham, 137 Black Sea, 171, 174 Bobbio, Norberto, 3, 8, 14, 33–4, 37, 45, 52 Bonaparte. See Napoleaon Bonaparte

calculus, 120, 222 California, 80, 140, 170, 229 Cameroni, Abate Carlo, 57 Canada, 21, 80, 86, 140 canals, 21, 23, 27, 59, 86 Cannes, 215 canton, 3, 61, 74 capitalism, 15, 83, 132, 136–7, 193–4 Caracciolo, Domenico, 10 Carli, Rinaldi, 195 Carlo Alberto, 57, 61–3, 90, 206, 209–12 Carthage, 129, 215 Casati, Gabrio, 61, 207–9, 211–12 caste, 48–9, 70, 164, 182; Brahmin, 85, 172; bureaucratic, 69; Indian,

255

Index

infant, 223–4, 231–2; and the laws of hybridism, 167; newborn, 223; savage, 241 China, 26–7, 79–80, 131, 171, 234, 236 Church (Roman Catholic), 31, 185–8; bishop, 154, 186–8, 215; canon, 151; canon law, 180; cardinal, 215; clergy, 57, 73, 83, 180, 195; friar, 200; institutions, 10, 137; monk, 198; orders, 185, 187; papacy, 7, 26; priest, 82, 122, 125, 137, 154, 171, 180, 185, 198, 200–1, 206, 215; saint, 16, 23, 154, 160. See also pope, and named individuals Cicero, 234 Cinquecento, 189 Cisalpine Republic, 109, 213, 215 citizen (civis), 12, 22, 37, 66, 71, 149, 153, 179, 194–5, 204–7, 211–12, 215; affections (feelings) of the, 70, 209; army service and the, 70, 127, 133, 208; free, 23; informed, 4; leading (optimate), 178; local, 56; referring to the local middle class and liberal professions, 56–7; leaders, 61; pride, 83; private, 191; soldiers, 72; status of, 181; working class, 146 city, 13, 27, 30, 37, 47, 75, 81, 83, 85, 87, 91–2, 131–2, 136, 157, 169, 172, 181–3, 187–9, 192; Cattaneo’s essays on, 32; from commune into, 141; geopolitical, 137; impure air of, 163; looting of, 58, 194; as people in arms, 135, 188; trades dying out in, 182; into municipality, 93 civic guards, 205, 213 civil (public) society, 5, 8, 10, 23, 31,

241; military, 91, 176; system, 84. See also social classes Castro, Giovanni de, 74 Cattaneo, Carlo: birth, bourgeois origins, 53; career (see also work, Cattaneo’s), 44; correspondence, 4, 14–15, 19, 25, 32 , 56–7, 64–7, 73–5; curious about everything, 55; to be deported, 60; health problems, 47, 54, 75; interest in, 3–4; and liberalism, 3–52; misperceptions about, 6; determinedly practical, 55; publications, 54–6, 181, 243–52 (and throughout); self-assessment, 56; universal scholar, 3; vast learning, vigorous originality, and splendid style of, 54 Caucasia, 175–6 Cavaignac, 71 Cavour, Camillo Benso di, 16, 20, 29, 66, 72 Celtic, 156, 169–70, 185 ceremony, 47, 179 Cernuschi, Enrico, 61, 211 Ceylon, 84 Chabod, Federico, 47 change, 14, 35, 42, 85, 92, 149, 153, 158, 176 179, 183, 203, 206; of heart and mind, 20, 201; mood, 138; positive, 34; problematics of, 8, 23, 28; in production, 41; of regime, 23; called revolution, 238; of thinking, 148; and tradition, 230, 236, 241–2; in warfare, 189 Charlemagne, 27, 154, 186 Charles V, 131, 189 Charles XII, 129 chemistry, 3, 55, 67, 87, 92–3, 129 children, 46, 84, 93, 130, 137, 182, 189, 194, 197, 225; female, 196;

256

Index

commonweal, 239 commune(s), 22, 28, 188; autonomous, 30–1, 35, 42, 195–6; incorporated into cities, 141; land registry as basis of, 195; medieval, 12; mutual independence of, 144; primitive, 234; small, 143, 145; servile status of, 141–2 communications, 8, 40, 130, 137, 204, 234 community, 13, 68, 84, 150, 201, 214; ethos, 28; of nations, 80; of speech, 12 compass, 84, 93, 129, 197 competition, 69, 191, 193, 238 compromise, 31, 73, 85, 237–8 Comte, Auguste, 15 Condillac, 223–4 conflict, 58, 61, 70, 86, 167, 201, 207; jurisdictional, 42; social strata in perpetual, 185; between West and East inevitable, 79 Confucius, 27 Congress of Vienna, 16, 131 Constant, Benjamin, 10 Constantine, 182, 232 Constantinople, 137, 183 constitution, 9, 12, 21, 18, 31, 138, 216; legitimacy conferred by, 139, 141 contemplation, 124, 156, 228, 238; and discovery, 129 context, 6, 21, 27, 165, 222; importance of for Cattaneo, 22; comparative, 17 continents, 22, 80, 82, 85, 140, 166–7, 171, 234–5 convivenza civile, 22, 84, 237. See also coexistence Corsica, 12, 241

57, 122, 165, 177, 191–2, 197, 225, 227, 235, 239; democratic conception of, 34; development of, and natural environment, 229–31; local, 68, 144; participation in, 226. See also institution; society civility, 45, 72 civilization, 7, 220, 226–7, 238; ancient, 185–6, 226; Briton, 233; comparative understanding of, Cattaneo’s emphasis on, 23; Egyptian, 233; Eurasian, 24; European, 16, 81, 168–75, 233; false accounts of, 229–31; history of world, 40; indigenous, 235; from Latin root for citizen, civis , 22; Latin, 27, 180; and liberty, 21; mature, 230; a militia, 149; progress of (see also incivilimento), 11, 17, 21, 230; Roman, 229; spread of, from people to people, 178; the term, Cattaneo’s use of, 25; Teutonic, 233; theories of, 39, 235; uniform, 241; universal, 183; Western, 24; as an organic whole, 40 civis: Latin root of civilization, 22 Claudius Tacitus, 182 clericalism: Cattaneo’s aversion to, 57 climate, 166, 230 coexistence (convivenza), 80, 84, 169, 242 colonialism, 24 colony, 7, 80–3, 86–8, 131, 159, 171, 173, 175, 179, 192; military, 91 Columbia University, 37 Columbus, Christopher, 189 commerce, 21, 28–9, 174, 178, 181, 184, 230, 242 common good, 143 common market, of small states, 193

257

Index

democracy, 11, 15, 19, 21, 30, 34–5, 39, 62; American, 13, 17–18; in Christendom, 13; civility, liberty, and, 45; constitutional, 12; despised in Italy, 3, 31; egalitarian, 12; and feudalism, 190–1; French egalitarian, 12; imperfect forms of, 31; not an inevitable outcome, 24; liberal, 13, 37; in the making, 31; participatory, 44; potentials of, 24, 26; public life of, 5, 12; republican, 13; and revolution, 13, 63; theory of, 17; understood as political independence, 12; for Salvemini, 37–8; the word, used in Italy (1796–9), 12 demography, 55 Denmark, 81, 170, 229 Descartes, René, 23, 222, 224 dialect(s), 138, 158, 164, 175, 185; hidden derivations of, 160; domestic, 178; of the Franks, 180; and languages, 176–7; and national spirit, 191; of the Romance languages, 168; of small, isolated tribes, 167; varieties of, 169, 174 dialectology, 55 Diet of Kiersy, 184 disasters, 20, 135, 147 discord: due to ill-matched mergings, 145; between pope and emperor, 215; religious, 81 discourse: public, 12 discoveries, 6, 7, 24, 29, 32–3, 39, 123, 129, 154, 158, 160, 167–8, 178, 190, 194, 197–8; local, 234 diversity: of blood, 169; cultural, 16, 21; linguistic, 175, 178; of political regime, 193 domestic: affairs, 138, 140; dialects, 178; difficulties, 74; issues, 138;

countryside, 53, 91, 93, 131, 157, 181, 183, 194 Cousin, Victor, 16, 229 credibility, 62 credit, 129–30, 142 crime, 93, 155, 215; arson, 187, 208; corruption, 71, 148, 196, 226, 238; extortion, 194; incidence and literacy, 150; looting, 58, 84, 194, 196; murder, 187, 194; pillage, 131; private, 125; and punishment, 149–50, 196–7; ransacking, 189; as sacrilege (piaculum), 149 crisis, 42, 53, 66, 75; nationalist, 65 Crispi, Francesco, 69 Croce, Benedetto, 8 Crusades, 91, 93, 188 culture: aesthetic, 124; constitutional, 11; Cattaneo’s advocacy for diversity of, 16; of inquiry, 33; Italian, 5, 29, 44, 158–60; and morality, 16, 149; of a nation, 67, 149; and the organization of society, 55; positivist, 41; progressive, 235; rebirth of, 16; scientific, 55 currency, 55, 161 customs, 31, 86, 137, 152, 168, 180, 222, 226–7, 235; from other countries; 126; family, 223; forefathers’, 179; sources of, 185 customs duties, 55 cyclic immutability vs adaptation, 23 Dante Alighieri, 8, 53, 154, 156, 159, 161, 203, 215, 229 Danube River, 130, 169, 172, 183 Darwin, Charles, 41 De Marco, Antonio De Viti, 47 De Sanctis, Francesco, 29 decimal scale, 225

258

Index

56, 58, 60, 65; Holy Roman, 214; Napoleonic, 53; Ottoman, 91–2; Roman, 180, 182–3; Russian, 80 employment, 72, 137. See also labor; work Encyclopedists, 3 engineers, 23, 120–1, 128, 198 England, 196, 229, 237; accounting for the astonishing success of, 24, 84, 160, 184, 191, 193; colonies of, 80, 171; constitution of, 216; experimental science to be removed from secondary schools in, 123; industrializing, 8; liberal ideas and practices in, 10; within large mercantile zone, 192; and Muslims, 154; national identity strong in, 191; railroads, streaked by, 88; republic of, 216; royal grants in, 60 Enlightenment, 7; and civilization, 24; Italian, 9–10; practical, 67; rationalism of, 15; Scottish, 26; and selfinterest, 29 environment: natural, and progress, 234–5 Epicurean, 221 equality, 89, 139; before the law, 192; in Cattaneo’s general theory of politics, 29; of conditions, 13, 18; focus of democratic theory, 17; in the moral and divine order, 125; political 12, 44 equity, 227 estate, 137, 238; agricultural, 181; division and subdivision of, 196; fourth, 146, 149; fifth, and sixth, 146. See also social classes Ethiopia, 234 ethnography, 166; not to be confused with linguistics, 178

news, 21; obstacles, 192; practices, 140, 180; trade, 192 Donizetti, Gaetano, 197 duels, 149, 185 Dutch: cities, 192; republic, 216. See also Holland economics, 3–4, 9–10, 15–16, 19, 23, 30, 34–5, 45, 54–6, 59, 68, 70, 168; agricultural, 53; Cattaneo on, 32; public, 59 economists, 35, 39–40, 47, 56, 111; political, 3 economy: advanced, 136; false, 126; political, 16–17, 22, 28, 197; public, 4, 44 Ecuador, 225 education, 31, 36, 55–6, 176, 196–7; in agriculture, rational, 124; for Cattaneo a major theme, 44; and French centralization, 87; as liberating force and agency for democracy, 16–17; literary, 122–3; and the militia, 121–35; political, of ordinary people, 30; and property qualifications, 10; regional, 30; scientific, 123–4; as topic contemplated by intellectuals, 10; unification of peoples promoted by, 175; and wars of liberation, 11. See also institution, educational; school egalitarianism, 12; primitive, 226 Egypt, 152 Einaudi, Luigi, 46 Elbe, 172 electricity and magnetism, 39 empire, 27, 59, 131, 136, 200; Austrian, 57–8, 89, 92; British, 80–3; Charles V’s, 88; Chinese, 79; French, 87; Greek, 91; Habsburg,

259

Index

(Italian), 34; republicans, 37; the Right, 37; Socialist Party (Italian), 34, 46; socialists, 30, 34, 58 faith, 25, 28, 36, 57, 61–2, 66, 85, 87–8, 135, 160–1, 180, 185 family, 58, 93, 133, 136, 143, 196, 227, 238, 240, 242; Afghan, 84; and the amenities of civil life, 197; Cattaneo’s, 53; Creole, 174; culture, 223; defending the, 209; father, 35, 44, 53, 87, 127, 147, 157, 163, 167, 182, 241; finances, 53; grandfather, 167; holy, 152; and kinship groups, 22; maternal affections, 224; mercantile, 186; mother, 67, 82, 84, 86, 155, 158, 167, 169, 171, 176, 197, 215, 223, 225; parents, 150, 167, 178, 241; peasant, 182; poor, 132; prelatic, 187; ruling, 83; suffering of, 182; Teutonic, 233; working class, 146. See also children farmers, 83, 146, 174, 182, 234–5; independent, 181; tenant, 53. See also estate farming, 26, 53; cereal, 143, 236; experimental, 126; livestock, 196, 201, 234; model, 126; plantations, 236; sheep, 235; vineyards, 182; viticulture, 186 farm-laborers, 145 Fascism, 4–6, 8, 37–8, 45, 47–8, 50 fatherland, 59, 125, 135, 173, 175, 215 Faustrecht, 184 federalism, 17, 36, 66–9, 71; absolute, 34; American, 136; Balkan, 58; for Cattaneo, 29–30, 35, 39–40, 43, 65; idea of, 70; imperial, 59; Italian, 58–9; military, 214; moderate, 34–5; Swiss, 136; regional, 30; theory, 21. See also liberty

Etruria, 172 Euclidean constructions, 197 Europe: advances of, 25–6; ambitions of, ancient, 171–2, 177; ancient Asian influences on, 169, 171–2; barbarous (savage), 27, 79, 168; civilization of, 16, 24–5, 168–9, 175, 206; compared with Asia, 28, 79; central, 192; cities of, 13, 91; crisis in, 42; democracy in, 11; eastern, 159, 182; frontiers of, 182; history of, 26; ideas from, 80; Indopersian groupings in, 174; languages of, 175–6; learning in, 158; liberalism in, 17; liberals in, 24; liberated, 191; liberty in, 80; literatures of, 160; nations of, 84, 174–5, 180; nation states of, 19; origins of, 39, 173; peoples of, 25, 134, 168–9, 178; politics of, 81; primitive, 171–2, 177; progress of, 24; society of, 163; southern, 232; southwest, 57; states of, 44; synonymous with civilization, 28; tongues of, 171; wars in, 39, 58 exchange mechanisms, 9 experience, 6, 18–20, 23, 33, 41, 53, 64, 66–7, 79, 82, 126, 131, 138, 167, 230; limits of, 225; tradition and, 21; unexpected, 45 explorers, 80, 82, 158, 171, 189 factions/parties (political), 37, 86, 139, 164, 211; democrats, 11–12, 30, 37, 44, 62–3, 65, 72; federates, 183; Giolittian group, 31, 49; Jacobins, 10, 12; the Left, 37, 209; liberals, 11, 19–20, 24, 27, 37, 72; Marxist, 34; moderates, 57, 61–4, 73; patriots, 11, 72; Radical Party (Italian), 34; Republican Party

260

Index

124; history of, 177; identity of, 191; medieval, 88, 125; municipal order in, 88; revolt in, 148; schooled Italians in warfare, 199; under Napoleon, 198 freedom, 7–8, 20, 28, 45, 58, 69, 79, 84–90, 132, 134, 141, 164, 167, 187, 210–11, 229, 236; above all things, 73; administrative, 59; arming despotism rather than, 93; of association, 37; of conscience, 37; economic, 59; enemies of, 126; of expression, 237; individual, 144; before the police, 59; political, 57, 59; of the press, 37, 60, 237; proponents of, 240; to strike, 37. See also liberty French, 7–8, 11–13, 70, 85, 89, 92, 174, 186, 191, 193; artists, 18, 152; chemistry, 87; colonies, 80; continental restrictions by, 199; courts, 237; institutions, 141; deeply uninformed as to Italian affairs, 63; in Italy, 199; language, 158, 162, 186; legislators, 10; merchandise, 196; people, 87; philosophes, 10, 18; power, 129, 162; prefectures, 199; prose, 158; rule, 194; statists, 18; tricolor, 125, 213; unity, 87 French Civil Code, 191 French Revolution, 7, 12–13, 141 future, 11, 23, 61, 63–4, 66, 81, 133, 149, 162, 188, 227; preparation for, 59; right to decide one’s own, 62; vision of, 139

Ferrari, Guiseppe, 67 feudalism, 91, 93, 138, 184–9, 196; and democracy, 190–1; households during, 187; payment to a baron by vassals (portadie), 143; privileges of, 57 Fichte, Johann G., 148, 160 fief, 157, 182, 189, 229 finances, 32, 59–60, 64, 82, 164, 199; communal, 195; family, 53; state, 31, 142 First World War, 6, 31, 36–8, 42. See also Great War fiscal policy, 181 Five Days, 62–5, 202–13 Flanders, 184, 192 Florence, 9–10, 32, 45–9, 75, 87, 142, 162, 187, 202; medieval, 46; sanctuary of Italian literature, 199 food, 192, 195, 208, 213. See also human condition forefathers, 79, 87, 123, 157, 169; rights of, 167 foreign, 7, 30, 85, 89, 139, 159–60, 235–6; abuses, 69; ideas, 163; interference, 68; invasion, 144; languages, 90, 127; markets, 192; occupation, 21; origins, 178; policy, 26, 31, 47, 49, 71; rule, 5, 10, 23, 65 foreigners, 89, 133–5, 178, 197, 205, 207, 215; pope perpetual invoker of, 200 Fortunato, Giustino, 34–5 Foscolo, Ugo, 57 Fox, Charles, 236 France, 7, 10, 16–17, 19, 47, 58, 66, 81, 84, 146–7, 154, 158, 160, 184, 192–3; Convention, 87, 148; defense of, 134; education system,

Galileo, 9, 123, 158, 160, 164, 189 gardens, 28, 61, 187, 203 Garibaldi, Giuseppe, 20, 69, 71–4 Gascony, 191

261

Index

tional, 10; decentralization of, 35; decree, 227, 240; elite, 72; federal, 68; finances, 59, 164, 195, 199; first member from fourth estate, 146; foreign policy, 30, 47, 49, 71; free, 13; good, 4, 29, 64, 136, 196, 238; in-dependence, 86; and industry, 24; in modern Italy, 4; legitimate, 143; local, 68; majority, 190, 239; loaded meanings of free, 12; misconceptions about, 147; ordinance, 143, 226; penal reform, 10; representative, 9, 12–13; revenue offices, 137; self-, 8–9, 18, 22, 28, 30, 44; and state, 21–2; system of, 18, 35, 71, 134; unstable, 85. See also institution, government Gramsci, Antonio, 6–8 Great Britain: and the United States, 85. See also England Great War, 42, 46. See also First World War Greece, 79–80, 153, 162, 172, 232 Greek, 123, 125, 147, 152, 156, 159, 173, 185, 197, 203, 241; empire, 91; language, 172, 175–7, 186; Pantheon, 132; traditions, 183 Guiana, 82 guilds, 185 Guizot, François, 10, 25

Gaul, 174 Gazzetta di Milano, 75 Geneva, 140, 216–17 genius, 27, 29, 33, 79–80, 82, 120, 142, 159, 226; musical, 197; systematic, of Bonaparte, 87 geography, 49, 55, 93, 127–8, 231 geology, 55, 160, 165–8 geometry, 226, 238 geopolitics, 137 German, 25, 27, 92, 148, 172, 175–6, 186, 208, 230; cities, 192; idealism, 8, 160; language, 152; nationalism, modern, on the basis of language and culture, 177; nationalists, 58; sociologist, 15; texts, Cattaneo translator of, 54; tricolor, 89 Germany, 9, 11, 27, 173, 177 Ghisleri, Arangelo, 32 Gibbon, Edward, 9 Gibraltar, 82, 137 Gladstone, William Ewart, 123 Gliddon, George R., 25, 165 globalization. See interdependence; nations, inextricably interlinked glottologists, 56 glory, 82–3, 88, 133, 135, 157, 159, 164, 199 Gobetti, Piero, 37, 44–5, 47, 49 Gobineau, Joseph Arthur, 25 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 53 goods, 55, 181; colonial, 192; ecclesiastical, 196; movable and immovable, 9 Goths, 172–6, 180, 183–4, 189 government, 11, 31, 58–60, 62, 80, 86–8, 90–1, 93, 141, 191, 194, 200– 1, 205, 209, 211–12; absolutist, 12, 19, 21; bureaucracy, 71; central, 18, 30, 44, 68–9, 71, 142; constitu-

habits, 10, 85, 141, 152, 168, 179 Habsburg empire, 56, 58, 60, 65; censorship, 5; rule, 19. See also Austria Haiti, 170 Hannibal, 215 Hanseatic cities, 192 Harvard University, 48

262

Index

tions, 10; Cattaneo’s concept of, 39–40; civil and political, 55; conjectural, 26; of countries, 23; dialects as sources of, 138, 177; diplomatic, 48; economic, 35; European, 19, 26; final stage in, 230; human, 16, 25; of humanity, 27; of ideas, 56; of incivilimento, 25; intellectual, 8; as instructress in civil life, 227; Italian, 4, 32, 36, 48, 63–4, 184; of liberalism, 17; linguistic, 177; man in, 221; of mankind, 125, 148; medieval, 46, 48; model, 19; modern, 4, 45, 48, 123; natural, 218; the offspring of other histories, 241; of philosophy, 4; of political thought, 14, 45; and poetry, 151–3; political, 55; progressive course of, 153; of science, 55, 218–19; and society, 34, 40; theories of, 15, 39, 229; theory of politics and, Cattaneo’s, 15; of trades, 160; universal, 151, 228; of world civilization, 40, 165–96; writers on, 7, 26 Hobbes, Thomas, 171 Holland, 84; twilight of, 193 Holy Alliance, 134, 200 Holy Roman Empire, 214. See also Charlemagne homeland, 125, 138, 160, 166–7, 201; defense of one’s, 127; love for, 58, 138; as sanctuary, 60; universal (patria universale), 153 Homo sapiens, 231 Honduras, 82 Hottentots, 221 households, 140, 184, 187 human condition, 19; aspects of the: beggars, 146, 161, 197; bondage, 10; cannibalism, 221–2; captivity,

health/medical, 47–8, 54, 159; blindness, 125, 223–4; crippled, 197; deafness, 223; handicapped, 146; hygiene, 30; medical officers, 73; plague, 135, 181, 194, 200; public health doctors, 144; sleep, lack of, 213 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 8, 18 hegemonies, 234 Heine, Heinrich, 162–3 Hellenes, 176 Hellespont, 172, 175 Herder, Johann Gottfried von, 27, 230 heritage, national, 8, 38 heterogeneity, 28–9; and civilization, 28; denotes the level of potential progress in a society, 27; a focus of federalist theory, 17. See also diversity highways, 179. See also roads Hildebrand (Pope Gregory VII), 187, 215 historian, 7–8, 16, 29, 31, 38, 48, 56, 63, 176, 182–4, 193, 241; German, 26, 177; imagination of the, 183; intellectual, 4, 9; Italian, 4, 33, 35, 40, 44, 47; trained by Salvemini, 32 historical, 12, 25, 32, 38–9, 45–6, 50, 152, 154, 156, 203, 230, 241; criticism, 43; similarities, 228; speculation, Cattaneo’s, 33; spirit, 153 historicity, 225–7 histories, 160, 165, 222, 230; origins of, 236; universal, 228 historiography, 43; non-Gramscian revisionist, 6 history, 3, 22, 44, 154–5, 226, 235, 242; books, 216; of Catholic institu-

263

Index

historical, 39, 43; history of, 56; importance of, 16; of infinity, 229; liberal, 7–8, 10–11; Locke’s, 171; of a militia, 132; modern, 7; of the nation 71–2, 151; new, 73, 80–1; origins of, 223–4; of the people, 136; philosophical, 155; political, 40, 43, 46, 56–60; positive, 122; as products of associated minds, 223– 5; of progress, 26; range of human, 221; role of, for Cattaneo, 15, 121; spontaneous, 136; of a standing army, 70; of the state, 19; systems of, 33, 238; translator of, 163; of the unity of humanity, 7, 26; Vico’s, 23, 171. See also moral concepts/ issues; philosophical concepts/ issues; psychological concepts/ issues ideal, 8, 32, 125, 136, 148–9; democratic, 37 idealist, 15–16, 45; tragedy, 155 identity, 174, 178; national, 191 ideologues, 15 ideology, 233 ignorance, 90, 123, 132, 143, 151, 157–8, 160, 164, 201, 232–3; of the cities, 183; and crime, 150; of the populace, 195 imagination, 11, 37, 152, 155, 159, 171, 175, 196, 198, 224–5; historians’, 183; inventions of the, 222 improvisers, 143. See also reform incivilimento, 11, 14, 24–5 independence: freedom (liberty) and 16, 45, 73; liberation and, 11–12, 19, 57; national, 11, 20; particularist, 89; personal, 226; political, 12, 68; and political union, 72; of small communes, 143–5; of a state, 23

182; death, 3, 27, 42, 50, 56, 63, 74, 86, 91, 147, 197, 232; economic well-being, 16; famine, 147, 181; hunger, 135, 147, 168, 208, 213, 234; savagery, 79, 166, 168, 224, 226, 233; servitude, 182; sex, 205; solitude, 226; suffering, 47, 80, 148, 173, 182, 215; vanquished, 41, 58, 182. See also breeding; slavery human rights, 140; declaration of, 148 human sciences (sociologia), 38, 44, 218–42; Cattaneo’s concern for, 39 humanities, Cattaneo teacher of the, 53 humanity, 79, 81, 89, 91, 132, 149, 153, 184, 204, 234; common enterprise of, 5, 25, 163–4; history of, 27; laws of, 18; love for, 207; national varieties of, 221; natural state of, 226; polygenic origins of, 40, 165–8; progress of, 24–6; savage origins of, 224; science of, 23; sense of, 205; spread of, 40; unity of, 7, 26; varieties, 167. See also civilization Humboldt, Alexander von, 25 Huns, 174, 222, 229 hydraulics, 55 Iceland, 172 idea(s), 9, 67, 69, 74, 143, 180, 183, 191, 198, 217, 228, 236–7, 240; and belief, 26; Cattaneo’s, 3–4, 6, 14, 20, 35, 38–45, 54– 6, 60, 68, 73; changes in, 149, 236; creative, 166; of defeat, 131; democratic, 13; divergent, 90; from Europe, 80; evolution of, 233; of federalism, 68, 70–2; of the fifth estate, 146; force of, 22; formed by both senses and intellect, 224; of freedom, 46;

264

Index

origins of, 178–9; liberal, 37; local, 23, 30, 36, 72; municipal, 180; new, 27, 146; public, 57; quality of, 87; representative, 18, 37; of self-rule, 19; social, 24 institution, educational: academy, 46, 126, 131, 162; institute, 59, 66, 185; seminary, 9; university, 9, 32, 37, 46, 48–9, 53–4, 70, 82–3, 88, 120–1, 123, 125, 128, 132, 185, 197 institution, government: assembly of magistrates, 195; Chamber of Deputies, 68, 75, 139; congress, 69, 75, 140; constituent assembly, 64, 141; parliament, 33, 36, 38, 43, 59, 64, 67–9, 75, 82, 138–42, 200, 236 intellect, 35, 56, 123; common nature of, 235; development of, 230; glory of, 157; individual, 225; man’s, 139; the term, 224; and will in social life, 236–40 intellectual, 37; bourgeoisie, 72; degeneration of the upper classes, 41; disparity between peoples, 231; endeavors of young people, 124; endowment, 32; exploits, 233; faulty, constructs, 17; French, 10, 25; Italian, 15, 34–5; judgment, 236, 242; life, 232; life, Cattaneo’s, 13–17, 43, 54; means, 228; and moral uprising, 8; multiculturalism, 16; opinion-making movement, 47; progress, 59, 234–5; public, 3, 45–8; tradition in which Cattaneo grew up, 10; uprising, 81 intelligence, 74, 82, 87, 90, 128, 141, 153–4, 190, 233, 239; constrained, 193; and learning, 80; liberal, 189; power of, 164; predominance of, 129. See also genius

Index of Prohibited Books (papal), 9 India, 160, 169, 234, 241; British rule in, 83–4; Russia in, 84–5; slavery introduced by Muslims in, 235 Indians, 159, 225 indigenous: language, 177; peoples, 169, 173. See also aboriginal; native indigenousness: principle of, 175 individual, 37, 42, 67, 93, 140, 149, 223–4, 233, 240; citizen, 70; consciousness, 222; equality (political), 12, 44; freedom, 44; improvement, 25; initiative, 28, 35; liberation, 11; liberties, 18; modern, 8; rights, 8; sovereignty, 18 Indus, 170, 175 Industrial Revolution, 24 industry, 24, 28, 35, 59, 91, 93, 130, 138, 163, 230; British, 82–3, 87; and capital, 132, 137, 193; cities as foundations of, 137; constrained, 193; French, 87; Italian, 144, 196; productive, 132, 193; revival (revitalization) of, 19, 196; and schooling, 127; and trade liberalization, 193; unencumbered, 136 inertia, 28, 164 information, 124, 236–7 inheritance (legacy), 8, 22, 83, 87, 91, 143, 152, 161, 167, 240; feudal, 187–8, 192 innovation, 79, 126, 193, 239 Inquisition: Roman, 9; Spanish, 196 instinct , 191–2, 223–4, 235–6 institution(s), 9, 16, 19, 21–6, 29, 33, 44, 56, 79, 91–2, 141, 148, 162, 225–6, 235–6, 241; administrative, 35, 42–3, 59, 137, 196; bureaucratic, 43, 142; democratic, 37; and education policy, 126; foreign

265

Index

nation of, 200–1; old regime in, 57; peoples of, 135, 139, 141, 170, 201–2; replaces force with talent, 193; schooling system in, 46; unarmed, 183; unification of, 6–7, 16, 44; union of, 42; united, 22; upper, 65. See also regions Italy, geographical: Aosta, 47; Apennines, 202; Apulia, 45–7, 214, 241; Bergamo, 1, 53, 212; Bologna, 9, 121; Brescia, 134– 5, 137, 212; Brianza, 53; Calabria, 36, 200–1; Cambrai, 194, 215; Comacchio, 212; Como, 188; Crema, 194; Emilia, uprising in, 58–9; Ferrara, 212; Genoa, 21, 130, 134–6, 202; Leghorn, 135; Legnano, 212; Liguria, 178, 213; Lodi, 29, 33; Lombard Plain, 23; LombardyVenetia, 19, 64–5; Lugano, 57; Mantua, 212; Marche, uprisings in the, 58; Naples, 9, 12, 17, 30, 140; Novara, 194; Padua, 9, 212; Palermo, 134–5, 188, 200; Parma, 66, 143, 199, 212; Pavia, 9, 53– 4, 121; Peschiera, 204, 212–13; Piacenza, 208, 212; Pisa, 9, 188, 202–3; Reggio, 212; Rieti, 58; Romagna, 213; San Marino, 9; Solferino, 66; Sorrento, 10, 48, 161; Trieste, 137; Turin, 143; Tuscany, 12, 189, 213; Val Brembana, 53; Val d’Elsa, 162; Veneto, 36; Verona, 66, 134, 204, 212

interdependence, 22 interest(s), 58, 137, 227, 236–7, 239– 40; of civilization, 164; common, 36, 69, 90, 136; corporate, 31; foreign, 187; individual, 226; national, 31; popular, 55; public, 19, 67, 175, 139; vested, 148 international affairs, 44, 79–93 Ireland, 86, 167, 229, 241 irrigation networks, 23, 186 Italian, 5, 7, 12, 16, 20, 32, 31–7, 49–50, 56, 61–2, 64, 66, 72, 171–2, 194–5, 202, 204, 208–9, 212, 241; artists, 189; cities, 188, 192; culture, feebleness of, 158–62; democracy, 13, 39; economists, 3, 8, 35, 39, 47; educators, 46; explorers, 80, 82, 158, 189; fatherland, 59; federation, 65; foreign policy, 47; intellectuals, 8, 15, 189; language, 158, 160–2, 186; liberalism, 6; literary critics, 29; mathematician, 197; medieval republics, 187; music, 189; nationalist sentiment, 199–201; novelists, 57; operas, 154–6; poets, 29, 53, 57, 154, 189, 197, 225; playwrights, 155, 197; state, 35; unity, 89, 198; universities, 9, 48, 53–4, 180; women professors, 9 Italian-Swiss Committee, 32 Italy, 11–13, 19, 21, 26, 29, 31, 39, 42, 47, 229, 233; Carbonari, 201; carbonarismo, 57; federal principles of, 21, 36; federal reform in, 64; history of, 63–4; independence of, 199; Kingdom of, 58, 66, 69, 198–9; Liberal, 6; liberation of, 6–7, 32, 57, 60–5, 69; medieval, 184, 187; modern, 4, 35; Napoleon and, 198–9;

Jamaica, 140 Japan, 23, 79, 80, 131 Jews, 43, 59, 88, 180; laws to deny rights to, 54 judgment, 44, 63, 71, 84, 203–4, 222,

266

Index

138–9; grants, royal, 60; marsh, 91, 168, 172, 196; migrations, 165; moor, 128, 229; nomadic pasture, 4, 189; ordinance, 143; pasture, 138–9, 143, 181, 196; and its people, 137; plantation, 236; and primogeniture, 83; public, 142, 182; registry, 195; right to own, 54; surveyor, 121; tax, 132; tenure, 17; uncultivated, 181; wasteland, 174, 176; woodland, 91, 144, 233 language(s), 20, 58, 85–8, 123, 159, 164, 222, 226, 228, 234, 236; Alaric, 183; ancient Cantabrian, 174; of Asian origin, 175; bear witness, 224; Cam-brian, 174; commercial, 170; com-mon, 22, 27, 140, 170, 176, 178, 186; Creole, 170; Danish, 186; and dialects, 176–7; dead and foreign, agency of, 232; and diversity of blood, concurrences of, 169; Eng-lish, 4, 140, 163; of Europe, 176; and faith, 180–1; Finnic, 171; Finnish, 173, 186; foreign, 90, 127; fragments, 178; French, 158, 162, 186; Germanic, 152, 233; Gothic, 174; great, 167; Greek, 172, 175–7, 186; and identity, 174; indigenous, 176; Italian, 158, 160–2, 186; and literature, 3; living, 176–8; Mongol, 171; and national identity, 190–1; of new nations, 178; and origins of European civilization, 168–75; principle of aggregation of, 22; primitive, 176; Russian, 170; sacred, 125; Sanskrit, 24; Slavonic, 171; Spanish, 159, 169–71, 174; transfer, 170; variety of, 179; vocabulary, 178. See also dialect; Latin; tongue; word Languedoc, 191

237, 240, 242; individual, 226; intellectual, 218, 236; of the people, 197; political, 43 Julius II, Pope, 215 Junius Brutus, 216 justice, 30, 42, 86, 89, 93, 132, 143, 146, 149, 180, 184–5, 187, 191, 196, 200, 207, 227, 240 Kahan, Alan, 6–7 Kant, Emmanuel, 23, 160, 221 Kashmir, 175 King’s College (London), 47 kinship, 22, 173. See also family knowledge, 10, 22–3, 34, 150, 159–60, 162, 220, 222, 237; applied, 121, 124; basic, 123; diffusion of, 21; is power (Cattaneo), 67; modernity of Cattaneo’s, 44; of the past, 64; positive, 123; shared, 225; systems, 25–6; theoretical, one great faculty of, 121; theory of, 5, 14; useful, 10–11, 15, 122 L’Unità, 33–5, 46–7, 49–51 La Piana, George, 48, 50 La Voce, 46, 51 labor, 186, 189, 193, 196, 238; business and, 15; circles, 47; division of, in universities, 120–2; slave, 181. See also work laborers, 34, 145, 203 Labrador, 167 Lambertenghi, Gilberto Porro, 75 land, 82–4, 87, 92, 123, 129, 131, 133, 140–1, 145, 159, 171, 185, 193, 216, 230, 237–8; barren, 147; Church, 188; cultivated, 143; desert zones, 234; deserted, 181; fertile, 80; feudal, 143; free, after cultivation,

267

Index

legitimacy, 10, 66, 124, 135, 139, 141, 143 leisure (otium), 163, 184, 208, 234 Leonardo da Vinci, 189 Leopardi, Giacomo, 29 Levant, 131 liberalism, 4, 8, 12, 15, 31, 47, 72; Catholic, 7; comparative, 6–7; constitutionalist, 31; and democracy, 3, 13, 37; English, 10; federalist, 31; French, 16; Italian, moderate, 34; and national independence, 11, 19–20; practices of, 18; regional, 11; as revolutionary, 181; theory of, 17; tradition of, 31, 44–5; transnational movement of, 13, 77; varieties of, 3–52 liberation, 12; from domination by foreigners, 11; human, 4, 22; of Italy, 6–7, 32, 57, 69; national, 16, 19, 60–5, 69; wars of, 11 liberty, 13, 16–17, 19–22, 27, 29, 33, 45, 59, 66, 71, 79–81, 83, 89, 91–3, 126, 131, 226; and civilization, 21; moral, 237; as national independence, 11; practice of, 136. See also freedom Liberty Fund colloquia, 4 linguistics, 22, 55, 91, 125, 169, 177; not to be confused with ethnography, 178 Linnaeus, 164 List, Friedrich, 111 literacy: and crime, 150 literary criticism, 29, 55, 57 literature, 4, 44, 55, 151–64, 199, 203; agencies of, 13; chivalric, 191; and language, 3 Llorente, Canon (Juan Antonio), 151 local, the, 19, 23, 30, 34–6, 42, 44,

Lasalle, Ferdinand, 148 Latin, 27, 123, 126, 169, 185, 191, 197, 233; grammar, 53; and writing, apparently inseparable, 180 Lavoisier, Antoine Laurent, 218 law(s), 128, 222, 226–7, 237, 239; Austrian, 56; canon, 180; civil, 86, 179, 191, 235; courts of, 137, 184, 196; criminal, 86, 149–50; death of, not sudden, 143; degree, received by Cattaneo, 54; due process of, 9; equal standing under the, 54; evangelical, 217; family, 68; federal, 29, 185; of the fist (Faustrecht), 184; fraternal, 136; Greek, 132; of honor, 191; for the whole of Italy, 143; lex talionis, 149; local, 141; Longobard, 210; maritime, 185; martial, 86; municipal, 185; national, 42; natural, of the people, 23; provincial, 140; public, 70; ratio legis, 178; Roman, 180; sources of, 185; sumptuary, 238; of primitive vengeance, 180; of warfare, 191. See also rule of law lawyer, 56, 143, 198 leaders (political and military), 16, 20, 29, 66, 122, 187, 215, 235; American, 153; Austrian, 56, 59, 155, 202–13; British, 236; French, 27, 71, 154, 186, 195, 198; Italian, 10, 37, 46–7, 61–2, 69, 71–4, 194, 203, 207–12; Roman, 233 learning, 20, 54–6, 74, 80, 122–3, 127, 132, 162, 230, 232; and unexpected associations, 55; for its own sake, 121; new theories of, 55 legality, 40, 60, 63, 139, 141 legislation, 28, 128–41, 179–80, 185, 192. See also law legislator, 10, 22, 143, 184, 195, 227

268

Index

223; of thought, 61; white, 167; will, primary strength of, 135 Manchester Guardian, 47 mankind, 79, 89, 93, 129, 132, 146, 155, 200, 228; created in nations (Agassiz), 168; end of, 149; evolution of, 26; history of, 125, 148; species of, 231; types of, 25, 165, 166–7; unity of, 40 manufactures, 193. See also goods Manzoni, Alessandro, 53, 225 Mario, Alberto, 57 Mario, Jessie White, 74 maritime, 88, 172, 175, 185, 192 Marius, 233 market, 136, 159, 179, 192–3, 238 Martinati, Antonio, 73 Martini, Enrico Count, 209, 211–12 Marx, Karl, 24, 30, 34 Maryland, 87 Mascheroni, Lorenzo, 197 mass communications. See newspapers masses, 31, 34, 80, 82, 88, 122, 147, 151, 153; consensus of the, 136; defenseless, 182; national, 191; principle of the, 129; rural, 73. See also peoples mathematics, 93, 120–1, 124, 128, 165, 197, 225–6, 238, 242 Mauri, Achille, 207 Mazzini, Giuseppe, 3, 5, 8, 11–13, 20, 44, 48, 62, 202–3; Cattaneo regarding, 57, 63 Mediterranean Sea, 82, 87, 169, 171, 192 memory, 54, 133, 154–5, 195, 228; living, 137, 173 mercantilism, 180, 185–6, 192 mercenary, 133, 155, 174, 180, 184; revolt, 182–3

56–7, 65, 68–9, 72–3, 136, 144, 234; importance of, for democracy, 15. See also commune; municipality local autonomy, 33, 35–7, 136–43; institutions of, 23, 30, 42, 44, 72; reconciled with national unification, 16, 18–19 location, importance of, 234 locomotives, 55 Lombardy, 7, 12, 17, 19–20, 23, 27, 35, 53, 56–62; assets of, 143–4; Cattaneo’s attachment to, 15, 60–3; communes, 143; democrats, exiled, 63; French and Spanish in, 193–4; liberal, democratic movement of ideas in, 13; rebellion, 63; revolt, 58, 60; secessionist tendencies of, 15 London, 47, 62, 66, 140, 199 Longobard, 185, 188, 210 Lorraine, 88, 215 Louis XIV, 87, 131 Louis Philippe, 71, 229 love, 28, 125, 128, 138, 152–3, 155, 163–4, 201, 207 Lovett, Clara, Cattaneo’s biographer, 4 Ludovico il Moro, 194 Luzzato, Gino, 35 Machiavelli, Nicolo, 8, 189 Magellan, Ferdinand, 80, 82 man, 12, 33, 68, 71, 83, 88, 121–4, 142, 163, 182, 185, 189; Adam means, 125; of action, 61, 73; both thinker and savage, 221; cultured, 53; dead, 187; of December 2, 65; inner, 55; of letters, 38; member of all nations, 93; Negro, 167; origins of, 165, 167–8; poor, 147, 210; rich, 147; science of, 8; as social being,

269

Index

routes, 179; service, volunteer principle for, 135; squadrons, 129; troops, 61, 90, 182, 190, 202, 205; uniform, 90, 191, 203, 209; veteran, 213; victory, 41, 62, 129, 131, 135, 167, 176, 188–90, 200, 203–4, 206, 208, 211, 214, 239; wedge formation, 190. See also arms; army; soldier; war militia: civilization is a, 149; and education, 44, 120–35; feudal, 191; on foreign expeditions, 199; idea of, 132; true basis of the Renaissance, 188; Roman, 189 Mill, John Stuart, 3, 8, 10, 13, 24, 26 mind, 11, 16, 20, 45, 79, 81, 151, 158–9, 163, 224–5, 230, 232–3, 235–6, 238; in action, 220; associated vs solitary, 223–5; Cattaneo’s, 14, 32, 40, 58, 78; and conscience, struggle between, 148; faculties of, 129; of the infant, 223; nation of the, 164; Salvemini’s, 5; not satisfied, 145; and theorizing, 219; young, 153 mindset: rationalist, positivist, 57 miscela (cross-breeding), 169, 173 mixing: of human elements everywhere, 180 model, 35, 56, 126, 152, 160, 209, 227, 242; Cattaneo as, 33; history, 19; Napoleonic, 133 modern, 8, 38, 45, 143, 154, 164, 177, 184, 190, 225, 236; history, 4, 6, 48, 123, 182; Italy, 4, 35; science, 124; society, 13, 187 modernity: paths to, 24 Mohammed, 155 monetary: policy, 31; reform, 196 Monti, Vincenzo, 53, 156

merchants, 185, 191 Mesopotamia, 234 metaphysics, 27, 219, 221 Metternich, Clemens, Fürst von, 56 Mexico, 26, 166, 174, 234 Michelangelo, 189 Middle Ages, 7, 48, 91, 131, 157, 173, 185, 192–3, 203, 235; barbarians in, 183; classes and nations in, 186–8; darkness of, 226 migration, 167, 172–6 Milan, 25, 32, 38, 53–4, 60–4, 73–5, 140, 186, 188, 200, 208–12; assembly of magistrates, 195; battle for, 61–2; duchy of, 193; intellectuals, 10; and the plague, 194; school of philosophers, 195; streetfighting, 202; uprising of 1848, 30 military: academy, 121; administration, 137; ancient warriors, 189–90; armament, 130, 133–4, 229; armistice, 61, 64, 66, 72, 135, 204–9; armor, 191; artillery, 128–9, 202, 205, 212; authority, 205; cannon, 190; castes, 176; cavalry, 205; ceasefire, 207–8, 212; combatants, 154, 185, 203, 207; conquest, 24, 41, 65, 81, 84–5, 88–91, 93, 169, 178–80, 231, 239; conscription, 70, 133–5, 137, 182; defeat, 19, 71–4, 129, 131, 135, 176, 203, 213–15; firearms, quantity vs quality of, 189–9; generals, 58, 63, 127–8, 198, 202, 212–13; gunpowder, 128, 189; infantries, modern, 186; invasion, 85, 132, 144, 152, 161, 173; oblique formation, 190; officers, 47, 70, 126, 128, 132, 213; oppression, 60; phalanx, 129; quartering of foreign, 183; ranks, massed, 71;

270

Index

movement, 5, 11, 28, 57, 69, 86, 130, 164, 198, 215; centralist, 72; democratic, 13; liberation, 45, 188; of nations, 159; political, 37, 47; to political party, 47; social, 37; transnational liberal, 7 multiculturalism, 16. See also breeding; diversity; heterogeneity municipality, 138, 141, 179–80, 185, 192, 196, 227; Sforza State, 193 Muratori, Ludovico Antonio, 12 Museo del Risorgimento (in Milan), 32 museum, 32, 211 music, 28, 122, 154–6, 189, 197, 202, 222–4 Musio, 67 Muslims, 91, 154, 225, 242; introduced slavery into India, 235 Mussolini, Benito, 45, 47–9 mystery, 10, 71, 132, 179; ancestral, 138; of unity, 202 mythology: Greek, 132, 147, 156, 159, 203, 209; Roman, 157, 202

monument, 75, 121, 172, 175, 228 moral concepts/issues: aggression, 65; beliefs, 179; brotherhood, 81, 127, 214; chivalry, 185, 191; conscience, 37, 66, 83, 148, 220, 231; consequences, 54, 228, 231, 237, 240; cowardice, 200, 203, 221; courage, 128, 132, 157, 188, 190, 202, 209, 233; cruelty, 203, 213, 229; decadence, 41, 192, 232, 240; degradation, 54, 201; desperation, 181, 203; dignity, 74, 84, 141, 201; duty, 42, 55, 73, 125, 132–4, 146, 151, 164, 182, 189, 196, 204–5, 207, 238; ethics, 233; evil, 220, 240; forgiveness, 180; greed, 183; heroism, 63, 132, 203, 234; honor, 67, 92, 133, 188, 191, 199, 201, 204; hospitality, 197; injustice, 226; intent, 120, 209, 222; intolerance, 237; loyalty (rito), 59, 61, 72, 75, 133, 202; malice, 149, 160; mercy, 84, 203, 211; merit, 82, 84; obedience, 92, 142, 186, 201, 215; piety, 28, 203; reverence, 179; rewards (guiderdoni), 149; selfishness, as a kind of wisdom or religion, 148; sin, 8, 149; tolerance, 81, 197; treachery, 63, 142, 203, 206; vengeance, 58, 66, 90, 149, 157, 180, 188, 200, 203; valor, 87, 133, 154–5, 203; virtue, 83, 90, 135, 148, 188, 192, 194, 214. See also crime; punishment morality, 70, 85, 133, 238; culture and, 149; devoid of principle, 125 mortgage ledgers, 137 Mosca, Gaetano, 34 mountains, 17, 130, 161, 167, 173–4, 183, 186, 211, 233

Napoleon Bonaparte, 53, 87, 133–4, 141, 157, 177, 198–201, 213–14 Napoleon III, 65 nation in arms, 40, 42, 68, 70–2, 130–3; and federalism, 136 nation-centric (nazionario), 152 national states, 19, 191–2 nationalism, 11, 25, 177, 201 nationalist, 37; aspirations, 58; arguments, 47; crisis, 65; issues, 88–90; tendencies, 11; writers, 17 nationality, 58–60, 83, 88, 154, 180, 186, 191, 206 nation(s), 19–20, 28, 42, 67–73, 80–93, 121, 127, 129–36, 141,

271

Index

newspapers, 33–5, 46–7, 49–51, 64, 67, 75, 199, 202, 237 Nigrizia, 171. See also Africa Nile, 168, 180 nobility, 42, 56, 82, 84, 164, 179, 182–3, 188, 200–1. See also aristocracy nomenclature, 228 North America, 85, 166–7, 235 Norway, 173 Notizie naturali e civili: Cattaneo’s introduction to, may be considered his best work, 56 Nott, Josiah C., 25, 165 Nullification Controversy, 18

146–53, 157–60, 167–75, 178–86, 191, 193–5, 213–17, 230, 232–4, 240; ancient, 80; arrogance (conceit) of, 231; aspirations of, 58; barbarian, 179–80, 183; based on a similar order of events, 228; civilized, 129, 179; community of, 80; free, 60; glorious, 161; great, 122, 167–8; inextricably interlinked destinies of, 164; should choose governors from among own people, 64; have own army and flag, 59–60; lowly, 83; of the mind, 164; movement of, 159; Muslim, 84; new, 178, 180; origins of, 228; peoples into, 177; preceded by tribes, 167, 177; re-awakening of, 92; rising, 11; in slavery, 186; of soldiers, 91; subject, 71; success of, 233; uprising of, 89; will of, 135. See also peoples; race; tribe native, 125, 127, 154, 170–1, 184, 186, 188, 198; Americans, 167; and invaders, 173–5; peoples of Europe, 168–9; soil, 80, 134, 159–60; tongue, 81, 169, 176. See also aboriginal nature, 3, 5–6, 14, 16, 23–7, 61, 87, 122, 132, 145, 155, 166, 198–9, 203, 216, 230–1; human, 25, 83, 92, 171, 174, 219 navigation, 67, 235 nazionario. See nation-centric Negri, Cristoforo, 66 Neri, Pompeo, 51, 195 neutrality, 91–2 New England, 80, 87 New York City, 37 New Zealand, 80 Newfoundland, 82

Oceania, 171, 229 oceans, 80–2, 164–5, 170–6, 179 Ojetti, Ugo, 32 opera, 154–6 opinion, 5, 38, 47, 59, 67, 85, 136, 141–2, 151, 153–4, 158, 164, 179, 194, 208, 215, 227, 236, 242; conflicting (differences of), 46, 209, 228; derived from authority, 157; freedom of, 237; mercantile, 192; dominated by the privileged, 83, 147. See also public: opinion oppression, 11, 18, 30, 35, 60, 71, 81, 89–90, 92, 132, 188, 196, 200, 216–17, 231 optimates, 178 order, 124–5, 138, 142, 146, 169, 179, 182, 185–7, 190, 200, 205–6; civil, 236; holy, 197; human, problem of, 171; local, 136; new, 73; old, 16, 73; political, 10, 17–18, 20, 140; public, 31, 47; and reason, 87; social, 178 Oriani, Barnabus, 198 Orient, 23, 26–7, 79–81, 84, 91–2,

272

Index

covenant of, 135; and federalism, 26, 58; free, 23, 80, 89, 136, 142; histories of all, 228; illustrious, 224; imprisoned, 66; indigenous, 173; institutions of, 26; Jews and other, 54; liberty of all, 93; living, 5, 164; migration of, 176; mixtures of, 80, 140, 167; into nations, 177; native, 170, 173– 4, 236; nature of, 23, 132, 236; neighboring, 178; oppressed, 90, 92, 174, 226, 233; primitive, 158, 169, 180; rebellion of, 134; rights of, 135, 140; in slavery, 89, 226, 233; as source of all virtue, 148; spirit of, 187; transmigration of, 183; tribes into, 177; unanimity among, 214; unification of all, 176;warfaring, 85; well-being of, 23 peoples (by name): American, 80, 86; ancient, 173, 178; Angevin, 215; Arab, 81, 85, 91, 93, 159, 167; Asian, 81, 176; barbarian, 128; Bashkirian, 173; Basque, 154, 175; Bokhara, 85; Breton, 88, 134; British, 83, 85–6, 230; Briton, 215; Cambrian, 172, 176; Castilian, 174, 215; Catholic, 215; Celtic, 169–70, 172–8; Chinese, 27–8, 79; Chudian, 173; Chukchi, 170; Cimbrian, 233; Cimmerian, 172; Croatian, 203; Danish, 86; Dutch, 192, 217; Estonian, 173; Egyptian, 171, 233; Etruscan, 174, 176, 178, 215; European, 25, 134, 168–9, 178; Finnic, 170, 173, 176; Flemish, 88, 124, 186, 192, 241; Frankish, 180, 182, 215; French, 71, 87, 241; Gaelic, 176; Gallo-Roman, 186; of Gaul, 233; German, 92, 172, 176,

131, 160, 169, 171, 174–5, 192; sciences originating in, 227 Osculati, Gaetano, 225 Otto, era of, 189 Ottomans, 91–3 Oxford University, 9, 48 Paine, Thomas, 12 Pandects, 180 pantheism, 84 Paoli, Pasquale, 12 Papal States, 9, 64, 88, 184, 199 Pareto, Vilfredo, 8 Parini, Giuseppe, 197 Paris, 17, 47, 63–4, 71, 134, 137, 140, 211 Parmenides, 160 Parthenon Republic, 10 partisan spirit, 240 Passerin d’Entreves, Alessandro, 47 Patagonia, 167 patriotism, 28; local, 19, 137–8 peace, 28, 66, 70, 75, 82, 130, 149, 154, 167, 192, 205, 220; characteristics of long intervals of, 128–9; individual, 227; international, 93, 132, 191; standing army a burden in times of, 133; use of a common tongue promotes universal, 191 Peleus, 147 Pennsylvania, 140 people(s), 18, 79, 91, 122, 128–33, 138, 162, 168, 172, 179, 182, 189, 210, 216–17, 230–2, 238; largest aggregations of, 234; arising, 20, 36; in arms, 188; awakening, 81, 200; cause of, 90; color of, 169, 174; common, 152; common language of, 27; common sense of, 227; communication between, 40;

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Index

commonweal, 239; complementarity, 22; creed, 179; death, a closed epistemic system, 27; destiny, 230; doctrine, 179; eclecticism, Cattaneo’s criticisms of, 16; empiricism, 8; ethics, 233; fame, 219; fate, 229; idealism, 8, 160; logic, 33, 156, 173, 226, 236; materialism, 15; ontology, 219; positivity, 15, 21, 33; premises, 21, 168, 240; rationalism, 225–7; realism, cynical, 8; reality, 155, 231; reason, 28, 33, 81, 85, 87, 92–3, 129, 133–4, 139, 144, 148–9, 200, 222, 225, 242; reasoning, contradictory forms of, 240; sensation, as social act, 223; skepticism, 8. See also experience; knowledge philosophy, 5, 10, 18–19, 21, 55, 81, 195–6, 219, 225, 228; Cattaneo teacher of, 64; common link between all varieties of science, 221; history of, 23; political, 40; Socratic, 27 physics, 55, 67, 120, 124, 128, 218 Piazzi, Giuseppe, 198 Pico della Miranda, 160 Piedmont, 7, 57, 62, 66–8, 72–3, 130, 139–41, 205, 210–11, 213–14; army, 19, 61, 70; aspirations of, 11; representative regime of, 65 pilgrims, 241 Pitt, William, 236 Pius IX, Pope, 12, 201, 215–17 Plato, 23, 81, 221, 224 Po River, 29, 187, 212 poetry, 28, 122, 159–60, 162, 197, 216; epic, 203; and history, 151–3; renewal of, 156 poets, 53, 122, 135, 153, 157, 159, 163, 189, 225; duty of, 151; exiled,

232; Gothic, 172, 175; Greek, 172, 175, 178, 227, 241; Habsburg, 58, 60, 92; Hungarian, 173; Irish, 241; of India, 84, 170; of Italy, 30, 33, 67, 87, 135, 139, 141, 170, 172, 199, 201–2, 211–12, 214, 216; Japanese, 79; Jewish, 54; Lapp, 173; Latin, 172; Latvian, 172; Ligurian, 178; Lithuanian, 173; Magyar, 184, 232; Manchurian, 172; Mexican, 26; Mongol, 81, 170, 176; Muslim, 85; Pelasgian, 172; Persian, 228; Phoenician, 171; Rhenish, 235; Roman, 43, 180–1, 191; Russian, 84, 170, 233; Samoyed, 170; Saxon, 27, 89, 186, 215; Scandinavian, 159, 232; Scythian, 159, 232; Semitic, 172–3, 175; Slavonic, 159, 172, 176, 232; Spanish, 159, 233; Swiss, 91; Tungisian, 170; Turkish, 80, 91–3, 170, 176, 232; Walloon, 186; Welsh, 154; Yukaghir, 170 Perasso, Giovanni (Balilla), 202 Persia, 85, 92, 160, 169, 171 Persian Gulf, 82, 173 Peru, 26, 66, 170, 234 Petrarch, 161 Phillipe II, 131 Philoctetes, 157 philologist, 177 philosophers, 21; English, 3, 8, 10, 13, 15, 18, 24, 26, 164, 171; French, 23, 221–2, 224, 229; German, 8, 18, 23, 160, 221; Greek 22–3, 27, 81, 221; Italian, 3, 14, 39, 45, 171, 195, 197; Milan school of, 195; Scottish, 26 philosophical concepts/issues: abstractions, 29, 140, 234; assumptions, 160; beauty, 227; cause and effect, 228; common good, 143;

274

Index

power, 5, 14, 19–20, 70, 85–6, 88–9, 92, 122–3, 129–30, 162, 170, 180, 188, 200, 237; absolute, 192; abuse of, 62, 69; balance of, 239; central, 87, 96, 135; foreign, 207; interests, 242; knowledge is, 67; limits on, 215; maritime, 192; municipal, 179; national, 83, 191; native, 236; of the peoples, 177; political, 11, 72; seafaring, 84; as source of all corruption, 148; supreme, 139; temporal, 7, 15 powerful, 86, 127, 132, 159, 173; states, 27 prayers, 178, 185 prefecture, 42, 71, 88, 141–2, 183, 199 prehistory, 7, 26; from history to, 169–71 prejudices, 7, 86, 150; of the Romantics, 156–8 Prezzolini, Giuseppe, 37 price, 83, 128, 150, 183, 187, 189, 212, 236 Priestley, Joseph, 218 primogeniture, 196. See also children; family principality, 154, 184, 187, 193, 210 prison, 47, 50, 182, 196–7; reform, 10, 55, 149 privilege, 11, 57, 82, 132–3, 147–8, 185, 195 profession, 67, 70, 120, 122, 133, 157, 182; liberal, access to, 54 professional, 23, 29, 38, 40, 42, 54, 56, 128, 143, 147, 157, 165, 177, 197–8, 218 progeny, 232. See also children; family progress: doctrine of, 226; human (civilization), 6–7, 11, 13, 16–17, 21, 24–6, 59, 164, 193, 230, 232–5,

213; great, 203; Italian, 29, 57, 156, 197, 209; Romantic, 209 Poland, 22, 91, 131, 241 police, 204, 206; arbitrary rulings of the, 60; freedom before the, 59 Politecnico, Il, 33, 43, 55–7, 67, 120; Cattaneo’s greatest achievement, 55; new, 73, 141 political economy: as a guide for action, 16 political principle: put into practice, 60 political systems, types of: absolutism, 13, 19, 87–8, 191–2; anarchy, 37, 184, 199; centralist, 68, 140–2; constitutional democracy, 12; constitutional monarchy, 12; democratic, 12–13; despotic, 56–7, 131, 240; federalist, 39, 66–9, 71, 136; monarchy, 9, 184, 229; participatory democracy, 44; representative, 9, 12, 13; republic, 9–10, 62, 109, 135, 187, 213, 215, 217; socialist, 15, 30, 34, 37, 58; theocracy, 9; totalitarian, 5; tyranny, 13, 200, 226 politics, 15–16, 29, 34, 65, 79–93, 222; network of inextricable, 193. See also international affairs Polynesia, 80 Pontida, 214 pope(s), 7, 9, 12, 15, 64, 88, 184, 188, 199–200, 215–17 population (popolo), 58, 72, 144, 174, 180–1, 188, 199; arms-bearing, 70; majority of the, 34; moral link with the, 137. See also peoples ports, 30, 181, 229 Portugal, twilight of, 193 Posa, Marquis of, 155 poverty, 74, 162, 196; feigned, 181

275

Index

192; welfare, 195; works, 36, 142, 183, 196 publicity, 82 punishment: by deportation, 60; by excommunication, 185, 200; by execution, 206; by exile, 4, 63, 87, 167, 169, 189, 213; as form of expiation, 149; by imprisonment, 194, 203; as form of vengeance, 149; as reparations (guidrigildi), 149; as reprisals, 149; by solitary confinement, 197; by torture, 194, 196, 226

239–41; intellectual, 234–5; legislative, 237; of the people, 148; technological, 15 property, 227, 238; private, 9–10, 18, 196; collective, 4, 138–9 prophet, 221 prosperity, 10, 13, 33, 67, 72, 83, 92–3, 187, 189, 195; increase in, since 1755, 144 protectionism, 4, 196 Provence, 184 province, 36, 43, 61, 69, 88, 126, 137–9, 144, 179–83, 186, 198, 215, 235; disarming the, 131; dismembered, 202; fertile, 130 Prussia, 135 psychological concepts/issues: affections, 58–60, 70, 133, 145, 151–3, 223–4; agency, 16, 145, 224; ambition, 72, 82, 209, 227; cognition, problem of, 16; color, conception of, 224; hope, 6, 45, 58, 68, 73, 86, 88, 91, 131, 237, 241; egotism, 148– 9; emotions, 63, 151–3; fantasy, 157, 203, 230; perception, 58, 223–5. See also mind; will public: acceptance, 21; affairs, 56, 146; authorities, 184; discourse, 12; economics, 59; economy, 4, 44; education, 55, 128, 196–7; emergency, 179; good faith, 135; hatred, 134; health doctors, 144; holidays, 143; intellectual, 3, 45–8; interest, 19, 67, 75, 139; land, 142– 3, 182; law, and morality, 70; library, 73–4; life, 5, 8, 28, 31, 34, 142; order, 31, 47; opinion, 20, 67, 83, 147, 215; philosophy, 5; prosperity (fortune), 183, 185; realm, 44; science, 21–2; sector, 18; utility,

Quadrilateral City-Fortresses, 204 Quaker, 155 race(s), 11, 25, 40, 58, 80, 86, 89, 91– 3, 152, 159, 164, 170–3, 177, 198, 234, 242; African, 174; American, 169; barbarian, 17; blacks and whites, differences between, 231; British, 83–5; Celtic, 169; chosen, 231; crossroads of, 183; Gothic, 27; Greek, 232; human, unchanging nature of, 171; Negro, 167, 233; primitive, 231; not to be confused with tongues, 178; radical transfusion of, 176; white, 165 racial inferiority: thesis of, rejected by Cattaneo, 165 racism: scientific, American, 25, 165 Radetzky, Marshal, 61–2, 66, 90, 134, 202–4, 207, 209, 212–13 railroads, 31–2, 55, 59, 72, 88, 93, 120, 142; Gotthard, 74; and war, 129–30 Raphael, 189 reading, 13, 29, 133, 148, 150, 155, 223, 237 reflection, 18, 19, 21, 30, 34, 75, 192, 224; critical, 225; theoretical, 39

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Index

national, 140, 217; new, 41; of the people, 136, 140; property, 9–10, 54; of workers, 37, 146 Risorgimento, 11, 13, 16, 19–20, 30, 32, 35, 40, 63, 195–217; democratic current in, 3 rites, 178–9, 188 rivers, 29, 168, 170, 172, 175–6, 180, 186–7, 192, 212, 215, 233; importance of, 234 Rivoli, Duke of, 198 roads, 30, 59, 61, 128–9, 137, 143–5, 176, 181, 183–4, 196, 202, 208, 213, 229, 241 Robespierre, Maximilien, 12 Romagnosi, Gian Domenico (major influence on Cattaneo’s intellectual life), 29, 43, 54, 75, 235, 238–9 Roman, 9, 43, 85, 152, 156, 161, 180– 83, 191, 195, 207, 217, 229, 232–4; provinces, 181; republic, 64, 215; tongue, 227; words, 179 Romanticism, 12, 25, 57, 156–8, 198, 209 Rome, 46–7, 50–2, 64–5, 87, 129, 132, 134–5, 137, 143, 180, 183, 199–200, 213, 215, 233, 241 Rosa, Gabriele, 74 Rosmini, Enrico, 74 Rubicon, 215 rule of law, 10, 12 rural, 31, 53, 92; masses, 73; villages, 144 Russia, 57, 80, 84, 131, 152, 198; Archangel, 173; army, 85; language of, 170; Peter the Great, 129; Petersburg, 137, 173

reform, 8, 9, 28, 31, 93, 139, 143, 148, 157–8, 183, 195–8, 205, 237; agrarian, 126; Cattaneo’s research into legal, 55; educational, 196–7; electoral, 10; federal, 64; internal, in each state, 65; monetary, 196; prison, 10, 55, 149; of the state, 30 refugees, 170 regionalism, 11–12, 30, 36, 43, 56, 72, 138 regions (Italian), 11, 13, 36, 43, 45, 64, 68, 133, 142–3, 148; autonomous, 30–1, 72; Cattaneo’s views on uniformity of, 144; federation of, 30; north, the, 30–1, 34, 72, 143–4, 202; poorer, 35; south, the, 30–1, 34–5, 49, 71–2, 212; wealthiest, 35, 65 religion(s), 8, 15, 18, 57, 59, 87, 92, 125, 148, 156, 164, 181, 200, 228; of Asia, 81; Buddhism, 27, 93; Christianity (see also Church), 13, 54, 85, 154, 180, 215; mysteries of, 225; sectarians, 221; theocratic, 93; tolerance of, 197 Renaissance, 188 renovatio mundi, 16 Resistance, the, 4 Restelli, Francesco, 64 Rhine River, 91, 172, 180, 186, 233 Richelieu, Cardinal, 88 rights (diritto), 73, 92, 136, 139, 143, 204–5, 210, 238; of authorities, 181; awareness of own, 58, 134, 142, 146; of citizens, 133; civil, 192; of communes, 41–2, 142, 145, 147, 215; divine, 217; electoral, 83, 209; equal, 68; federal, 140; forefathers, 167; human, 140, 148; imperial, 214; inalienable, 62; individual, 8;

sailors, 185, 229 Salvemini, Gaetano, 4–6; about his

277

Index

progress, 15; Tuscan schools of, 189. See also human sciences scientists, 168; British, 41, 218; French, 218; Italian, 9, 123, 157–8, 160, 163–4, 189, 198 Scipios, 85 seas, 172–4 Second World War, 8, 14, 32, 39, 42, 45, 48–50 secularization, 10 seigneuries, 181 self-esteem. See moral concepts/ issues: honor self-interest: irresistible instinct, 191 self-rule, 16, 19. See also federalism; freedom; liberty senses, the, 223–5 service, national, 71 Sforza State, 193 Sgricci, Tommaso, 209 Shakespeare, William, 156, 159, 203 Siberia, 170–1 Sicily, 7, 10, 12, 36, 68–9, 72, 140, 143–4, 172, 200; push for separatism, 35 simony, 187 Sismondi, Simonde de, 184 skew bridges, 55 slave trade, white, 184 slavery, 18, 24, 68, 84, 139, 164, 167, 169–70, 186, 226, 232–6, 242; African, 231; armed, 71, 90, 187, 213; conquest of, 89; doctrine of, 126, 201; feudal, 184, 189; fugitive, 187; paid, 179, 181, 184; and peasants, 182–3, 188; people in, 89, 93 Soave, Francesco, 197 social classes, 24, 34, 185; bourgeoisie, 26, 53, 72; commoners, 187; fifth

anthology of Cattaneo’s work, 43–5; conception of history and society, 40; correspondence, 50–1; discovery of Cattaneo, 29–38; in exile, 4; first version of his Introduction to Cattaneo’s writings, 32–3, 43; historian and political activist, 4; in ill health, 48; life and work of, 45–8; on medieval history, 48; on modern and contemporary history, 48–9; political journalist, 47; in the United States, 4, 47–8; views on the (Italian) state, 31–2; writings, various, 50 Sardinia, 66, 68–9, 143–4, 200, 214; 229, 241; assets, 138, 142; autonomy for, 138–9; constitution of, 128; domestic affairs of, 138; problem of dencentralization, 36; transformation of, 140 Savoy, House of, 16, 57, 62, 66, 215 Schiller, Johann Christoph Friedrich, 151–3, 156 Schlegel, Friedrich von, 157 scholar, 3–4, 13, 32, 41, 178, 197 school, 36, 54, 59, 64, 70, 121–4, 127–8, 240–1; curricula, 132; and discovery, 123; metaphysical, 221 science, 3, 56, 67, 83, 87, 92–3, 129, 165–8, 198, 224, 226–7, 231, 235; achievements and benefits of, 25; experimental, 218– 20; foundations of, greatest Italian achievement, 189; historical, 229; history of, 219– 20; of humanity, 8, 23, 38, 218–42; inquiry, logic of, 33; living, 197; metaphysical, 218–19; of politics, 16; practical applications of, 55; public, 21; pure, 237; social, 197; of statistics, 149–50; and technological

278

Index

territory (land), 194; trained, 133– 4; upkeep of, 70 solidarity, international, 93–4 Sorbonne, 232 sovereignty, 11, 18, 20, 134, 213; local, 65, 136; national, 192 Spain, 6–7, 57, 85, 154, 169, 174, 191, 193, 198; constitution of, 21; libraries in, 235; regionalist tradition, 21; volunteer principle in, 135 Spanish, 88, 152–3, 192–6; federal state, 21; language, 159, 169–71, 174 Spartan, 221 Spaur, Countess, 203 species, 25, 166–7, 231 Spencer, Herbert, 41 Spinoza, Benedict de, 221 spirit, 55, 71, 147–8, 151, 198; of the age, 24, 196; to fight, 214; historical, 153; human, essence of, 222; of humanity, awakening of, 184; national, 191, 199; partisan, 240 spontaneity, 40, 134, 136, 152, 156, 159; principle of, 228 state, the, 8, 136, 236; big, 131; Cattaneo’s use of the term, 28; duties of, 146; to each its own, 58; equality of, 58; nation, 19; and the question of arms, 130–2; and revolutions, 238–9; smaller, 131, 193; and trade, 192–3 statecraft, 11 statistics, 55; and crime, 149–50 steam power, 157 Stellini, Jacopo, 171 stock market, 238 Strambio, Gaetano, 56, 75 succession, systems of, 239–40

estate (farmers), 146; fourth estate (working class), 146; landowners, 137, 147, 179; latifundisti, 30; legislative, 139; middle, 57; peasants, 72, 92, 143, 147, 182, 188, 194, 196; plebeians, 180; poor, the, 143, 146–9, 163, 181, 210, 238, 240; proletariat, 31; rich, the, 147, 181, 238; ruling, 34, 71; servant, 178–9; sixth estate (the handicapped, beggars, and the rejects), 146; upper, moral degeneration of, 41; working, 31, 35–6, 146, 189. See also caste; estate social contract, 226 social question, 44, 146–50 society, 7, 21, 22, 26–9, 34, 222, 225, 236, 238–42; British, 8; civil, 23; as a contract between individuals, 226; democratic, 15; development of, 227; duties of, 146; ecclesiastical domination of, 8; expansion of, 234; feudal, 184–5; modern, 187; Muslim, 241–2; open, constitution of, 5, 14; priestly, 197; progressive transformation of, 241. See also civil society sociologists, 15, 56 Socrates, 27 soil, 23, 80, 126, 134, 157, 164, 166, 169, 175, 217 soldier(s), 20, 42, 128, 131, 135, 154, 181–2, 187, 190, 193, 204, 212, 242; affections of, 133; of Arab caliphs, 91; in Austrian army, 90; career, 70; citizen, 72; foreign, 205; Italian, 134, 205; Lombard, 58; make and unmake citizens, 133; nation of, 91; Polish, 89; rebel, 213; recruitment of, 62; and securing (own)

279

Index

theology, 27, 93, 125, 220 theories, 224, 228–31, 236, 239; of civilization, 39, 235; of the common origin of nations, 235; democratic, 17; of federalism, 39; of history, 229; of knowledge, 14; of learning, 55; of natural selection, 41; of politics, 15, 29, 34; of racial disparity, 232; revolutionary, 37; of the ruling class, 34 thinker, 136, 226; European, 221. See also intellectual Thomas Aquinas, 23, 160 thought, 7, 58–9, 79, 81–2, 86, 153, 158, 162, 168, 194–5, 206, 220, 232–5; and action, union of, 10; antiquated, 42; Cattaneo’s, 4, 20, 40–2, 44, 55; economic, 4; from facts, not facts from thoughts, 240–1; federalist, 36; German, 148; historical, 45, 221–2, 227; and ignorance, 164; Italian, 8, 45; liberal, 6, 8; liberty of, 200; literature and, 13; man of, 61; political, 5–6, 8, 14, 17, 45; as a principle of public economy, 4; rudimentary, 224; scientific, 67; social, 6–7, 45; the most social act of man, 225; system of, 70; Western, 232 Thuringia, 154 Tiberius, 152 Ticino (Canton), 3, 74, 130 Times, The (London), 199 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 10–11, 13, 17–19, 25–6 Tommaseo, Niccolo, 161 tongue(s), 61, 158–62, 164, 172, 215; ancient, 177; Arab, 170; mother, 176; native, 91, 169, 170– 1, 176; not to be confused with

suffrage: direct universal, 30–1, 37, 75, 147–9 Swabian cities, 192 Swiss, 4, 192, 194; citizen soldiers, 72; commons, 4; federal government, 68, 136; historian, 184; liberty, 91; neutrality, 90– 1 Switzerland, 17, 19, 61, 66, 70, 90, 127, 131–2, 205, 229 synthesis, 120, 122, 220 Syracuse, 215 system(s), 41, 127, 141–2, 156, 240; caste, 84; change in, 236, 239; competing, 238; continuity, 236, 239; defensive, 128; despotic, 131; educational, 46, 49, 124; epistemic, 27; federal, 21, 42, 71; feudal, 57, 184; of government, 9, 18, 29, 35, 68, 134, of ideas, 33, 73; of knowledge, 25–6; logical, continuous, 236; of national bureaucracy, 42; notion of, 237; organic, 40; philosophical, 17; political, 22, 68; of public administration, 57; representative, 9, 155; of rule, 18; school, 4, 6, 49; of West and East, 79 talent, natural, 86, 121, 193, 198, 209 tariffs, 55 taxes, 93, 132, 154, 181, 196 teacher(s), 46, 50, 73, 121, 128, 160; Alexander’s, 122; Cattaneo as, 29; Cattaneo’s, 54 technology, 15, 21, 41 telegraph, 21, 71 terror, 149, 197 Terzaghi, Giulio, 61 Teutons, 215 theater, 157, 160, 181, 197

280

Index

truth, 20, 23, 33, 63, 75, 93, 123, 146, 154, 179, 187, 216, 227, 231, 236, 241; claims, 16 Turgot, 195 Turkey, 85, 92–3, 172 Tyrol, 188

races, 178; own, 60; use of a common, 191 torture, 196 Toulouse, 184 trade, 38, 79, 81, 91, 93, 129, 132, 168, 170, 238; corn, 196; domestic, 192; free, 20, 80, 189, 196; interference in, 183; international, 193; practices, 192; raisin, 21; restrictions, 196; unionists, 37; white slave, 184; world, 81 trades, 160, 182 tradition(s), 5, 28, 41–2, 58, 81, 88–9, 136, 140–1, 155, 178–80, 184, 186, 194, 222, 225, 232, 234, ancestral, 230; different, 16, 174; epistemological, 14; federalist-liberal, 33; force of, 240–1; Greek, 183; imported, 229; intellectual, 10; liberal, 33, 45; of liberty, 131; of love and respect, 201; medieval, 156; political, 44; regionalist, 21; religious, 85; Roman, 183; socialist, 44 transformation, 3, 24, 34, 222 translation, 54, 125, 163 transmigration, 183 transportation, 128, 192 Trastevere, 202 travel, 82, 154, 156, 201, 225 Treves, Editore, 39 tribe(s), 126, 159, 173–5, 182, 215, 224–5, 229, 242; into peoples, 177; native, 171–2, 235; small, isolated, 167–8; solitary, 234 tricolor, 203; French, 213; German, 89; Italian, symbolic meaning and effect of, 20–3, 213–14 Trivulzi, 74 Trojan War, 132 trust, 59, 123, 148, 179, 194–5

Umberto, King, 31 unanimity, 214, 240 United Kingdom, 137, 215. See also England; Great Britain United States, 4, 47, 69, 85–6, 149–50; anti-Fascist propaganda in, 48; democracy in, 13, 18–19; opened Japan, 80; railroad in, 88; taxes low in, 132; vision provided by, 19. See also American unity, 31, 79, 87, 90; of humanity, 7, 126; Hungarian, 89; Indian, 198; Italian, 89; linguistic, 169; manifestations of, 229; of mankind, 40; moral, 73; Napoleonic, 133; national, 30, 65, 68, 72, 215; political, 17, 42; Roman, 178 universal, 3, 19, 21, 54, 75, 138: civilization, 183; history, 44, 51; homeland, 153; ignorance, 132; institutions, 25; liberty, 89; peace, 191; pillage, 131; rebellion, 183; republic, 28; scholar, 3; trade routes, 82; transmigration, 183 universe, 24, 123, 154, 166, 221 university. See institution, educational Urals, 173, 175 urban, 28, 53 usurers, 181, 210 utopia, 9–11, 238 Valerian, 182 Vandals, 182

281

Index

states, 130–1; disturbs trade and industry, 93 warfare, 42, 67, 85, 186, 191, 193, 199; changes in, 189; modern, 128; perpetual, 168 Washington, George, 153 Weber, Max, 15 Welland Canal, 21 White Sea, 173 will, 71, 81, 216; agency of, 145; as military force, 135; of the ruling class, 70; in social life, 236–40 William (the Conqueror), 186 women, 48, 92, 152, 162–3, 189, 194, 224; concubines, 187; professors, 9; ravaged, 213; slaughter of, 203; widows, 188, 241; wives, 181, 187 Woodcock, Anna Pyne, 75 word(s): constitution, 12; democracy, 12; first, of infant, 224; of God, 125; Latin, 185; meaning of, origins, 125; origins of, Cattaneo’s interest in, 22; Roman, 179 work, 80–1, 120, 131, 136, 142–3, 147–8, 151, 155, 226, 234; Cattaneo’s, 4, 6, 9, 16–19, 23, 39, 41, 44–5, 53–76 working class, 35, 146; faith in unification, 35–6; Genoese, 189; northern, 31 workshops, 182 writers, 85, 223; English, 10, 25, 156, 159, 163, 165, 203, 209; French, 10–11, 13, 17–19, 25–6, 47, 148, 223–4; German, 24, 53, 148, 151–3, 156–7, 162–3, 204; Italian, 6–8, 12, 15–16, 24, 33, 46–8, 53, 56–7, 151–4, 156, 159–61, 171, 189, 197, 203, 209, 215, 228–9, 231; medi-

Vaucluse, 161 Venetian Republic, 62, 135, 161 Venice, 9, 82, 91, 134, 188, 140, 213, 229; tricolor alien to, 213; twilight of, 192–3; uprisings in, 62 Venturi, Franco, 9 Verri, Pietro, 195 Vespucci, Amerigo, 158, 189 Vico, Giambattista, 8, 15, 16, 23, 160, 171, 228, 231 Victor Emmanuel II, 65 Vienna, 13, 16, 60, 91, 204–5; banking, 60; Ottoman attack on, 91; revolt in, 60 village, 25, 93, 144 violence, 41, 58, 60, 62, 144, 178, 180, 226, 241 Vittorio Emanuele I, 57 Volta, Alessandro Count, 157, 163, 198 volunteer, 46, 61–2, 134–5, 199 Wallenstein, Albrecht Wenzel Eusebius von, 155 Wallmoden, Ludwig Georg Ginborn, 207 war, 35, 66–7, 69–70, 82, 86, 89, 91, 93, 127, 162, 167, 187, 191, 220, 226; of attrition, 85; against Austria, 57–65; Carthaginian, 215; civil, 20, 87, 214– 15; and civilization, 128–9; communal, 188–9; council of, 61; of defense, 132; discoveries of, 160; of invasion, 132; of liberation, 11, 60–5; Napoleonic, 134, 141; national, 211; and national destiny, 164; as necessary means for progress, 41; private, 92; between progress and inertia, 164; railroads and, 129–30; and smaller

282

Index

eval, 26; on religion, 57; Roman, 161, 234 writing, 180; anticlerical, 7, 57; and crime rate, 150; cuneiform, Persian, 177; and Latin as inseparable, 180; popular, 161–2

youth (young people), 39, 53, 61, 89–90, 122, 124, 126, 129, 135, 137, 152–3, 156, 160–1, 198, 202, 206–8, 210, 213; in the army, 47, 82, 127–8, 131, 185, 209 Zanichelli, Editore, 38 zoology, 231

Xerxes, 162

283