ABSTRACT
History provides few examples of the single-minded determination with which the victorious allies of the anti-French coalition applied their policy after Napoleon's defeat. Venice went to Austria because the empire had given up the Austrian Netherlands, a strategic liability, to the Kingdom of Holland. The Venetian hinterland, geographically linked to Austria, made the empire more powerful. Combined European and Italian elements thus characterized the Restoration. Depending on the area, renewed territorial division, intensified Austrian domination, and the return of embittered or resigned dynasties created either an oppressive or a languid atmosphere. Politically, the moderate liberals who ran the review hoped to link up with reform elements in the Tuscan government and to do battle with the official culture of Restoration Italy. A world-class poet also worked in Restoration Italy: Giacomo Leopardi, the hunchback son of a virulent reactionary, fit the European mold of a melancholy and suicidal romantic.
