ABSTRACT
The unification of Italy in 1860 brought together a collection of small states sharing a common written language and some aspirations to a common national identity, but little else.1 None of the component parts of the new kingdom of Italy had any consistent tradition of democratic participation. There were wide disparities in levels of economic development and in the scope of political authority. In particular, the leading northern and central areas of Piedmont, Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna differed from one another widely in terms of prevailing political institutions, though all had relatively advanced economies with emerging industries and considerable external trade. Piedmont had had a constitutional monarchy under the kingdom of Savoy since 1848 and a relatively settled institutional structure for some time before then. Lombardy had been fought over by the French and the Habsburgs and had only sporadic recent experience of non-absolutist rule, while the central regions were accustomed to (if not content with) the ineffective authoritarianism prevalent in the Papal States. The South of Italy and the islands of Sardinia and Sicily were much less developed economically and politically, and communications between them and the rest of the country were poor. In the circumstances, the extent to which the political elites could have achieved either a more rapid progress towards liberal democracy or a more balanced and sustainable economic growth is a matter for conjecture. It is clear however that the main concerns of the ruling groups initially were not the development of parliamentary representation but rather the maintenance of internal order and the consolidation of Italy as a European power economically and politically.
