Stamped covers to Malta from pre-unification Italian states

Abstract

The united Italy we know today was, in the first half of the 19th century, little more than the wishful thinking of a patriotic elite. What is now known as Italy was a fragmented conglomeration of separate states, some under foreign domination, others more or less autonomous, some on friendly relations with their geographical neighbours, other on the most hostile terms. Some were kingdoms, some were former republics, all were disjointed. Italy was a political assemblage separated by a common language. It was only through the visionary action of the patriots and political thinkers that a united, free and democratic Italy took shape over the 19th century in the long, painful and gory process known as the Risorgimento. The foreign dominations were defeated, the local petty monarchies and dukedoms overthrown, and a united Italy coalesced more or less adequately under the Savoia dynasty. The moral courage and leadership of Giuseppe Mazzini, the diplomatic genius of Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour and the heroic military interventions of Giuseppe Garibaldi eventually saw a political impossibility turn into a historical reality: the unification of Italy, complete with the wrenching of the Papal States from the control of Pope Pius IX, the Papa-Re, in 1870. [extract]