Britain and the Italian risorgimento

Abstract

Towards the end of his life, Gladstone recalled the risorgimento as "among the greatest marvels of our time". The evangelical leader, Lord Shaftesbury, had a strong anti-papalist motive for thinking it "the most wonderful, the most honourable and the most unexpected manifestation of courage, virtue and self-control the world has ever seen" . Other contemporaries however, deplored it. Many Catholics continued to believe that the Pope's temporal power as sovereign of Rome was necessary for their spiritual welfare and were appalled to see him dethroned by the armed forces of anticlericalism. Queen Victoria and Disraeli had different but serious doubts about a united Italy, and Lord Acton called the risorgimento a triumph of unscrupulous statesmanship which had tainted a noble idea by resort to illiberal means.