Independence Day History

Source of map

Tomorrow, Thursday, March 17, is Independence Day in Italy and the country will celebrate the 150th anniversary since the unification of Italy in 1861 under King Victor Emanuel I. The unification was late, of course, England and France had had national identities for centuries. Further the unification of Italy in 1861 was also partial in that the Pope held political control of Rome and the nearby Papal States in the central Italy. There was a “hole” in the middle of the newly independent country.

The Veneto (in yellow, including Venice) and Rome and the Papal States were added by 1870. In 1871 the capital of the country was moved to Rome from ... well, from Florence. The movement toward independence had been spearheaded by northern Italians who wanted to establish the new capital in Rome but in 1861 Rome was not part of unified Italy. For 10 years Florence served as the seat of the new Italian government.

In the 1850s the northern Italian leaders were concerned about a charismatic leader named Garibaldi and the trouble he might cause for them with France. They convinced him to leave Genoa in the north and sail south with 1,000 men to see what kind of trouble he could cause in the south. Garibaldi first conquered Sicily and then moved up the peninsula to the outskirts of Rome and handed over the territories he had conquered to the new King. Though he didn’t have such a mission, he doubled the size of the Italy. As a result of his heroic efforts there is a Piazza Garibaldi in every Italian city, town, and hamlet.

Via Lambertesca, near
the Uffizi museum

Tomorrow’s celebration is odd, however. This will be the first time in 150 years that Italy has celebrated its day of independence. Florence is decorated in red, white, and green, the colors of the Italian flag, for the first time in our experience.

This brings something to mind regarding loyalties. In Italy, one’s first loyalty is to the family. Shops and restaurants are operated by families and there are no chains, no Wal-Marts, no Denny’s, no Olive Gardens, no national businesses. The next layer of loyalty is to the city; Italians refer to this kind of loyalty as campanilismo. A campanile is a bell tower and campanilismo is “bell towerism” or loyalty to those who recognize, see, and hear the town’s bell tower. Past that everything else is an abstraction, including loyalty to the country.

A very old giglio

The problems of the current Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, have pressed Italians to think about enlarging their loyalties. In the demonstrations last week people were asked to carry the Italian tricolor and, for the most part, they did. It was a different kind of protest with only one large protest instead many unrelated protests all happening simultaneously in the same place.

A new giglio

Even this year’s initial Independence Day celebration is seen, however, through a Florentine lens. The photo shows the Florentine civic symbol, the giglio or the Florentine lily, which is built into the city walls in the 1300s. The civic symbol is everywhere in Florence (and in our kitchen in Syracuse, too.) The poster for the Florentine celebration of the national holiday on the night before March 17 speaks with an unmistakeable local accent. A gentle form of campanilismo.

There may be nothing more fundamental than family and food in this country. The final evidence of national awareness and national feeling is shown in the cake we saw in a bakery. 

Buon Compleanno a te, ...

Viva Italia! Buon Compleanno, Italia!

And Happy Saint Patrick’s Day to those outside Italy.