ABSTRACT
After 1861 Venetia and the Rome region remained outside the new Kingdom of Italy, each occupied or protected by a major European Power. The republicans were furious. In their view Victor Emanuel had thrown away the first needlessly at Villafranca, and Cavour had deliberately prevented Garibaldi from taking the second. But by this time no one seriously believed that the two would not be annexed sooner or later, probably sooner. Indeed, by January 1861 Cavour was still trying to bribe Cardinal Antonelli, the Papal Secretary of State, to let Italy have Rome in return for a payment of three million lire p.a. to the Pope and the Curia, and 15 million to Antonelli personally (Mack Smith, 1985: 246). This improbable scheme was bound to fail, particularly when thousands of monks and friars were being evicted from their monasteries all over central and southern Italy. But the Papal hold on Rome was obviously precarious. The Pope had few troops of his own, and even though the French garrison remained in the city, Napoleon III was manifestly reluctant to use it. Garibaldi's followers were spoiling for another invasion, and Cavour himself declared that the capital city of the new Italy should be Rome. As for Venetia, in 1865 an Italian government offered to buy it from the Austrians for 100 million lire, but the Austrians refused (Coppa, 1992: 122).
