ABSTRACT
But why is the unity of the Patria epitomized by the symbol and language of Rome? … If Mazzini, if Garibaldi tried three times to enter Rome, and if Garibaldi gave to his red shirts the tragic, inescapable dilemma, “either Rome or death,” then this means that, for the men of the Italian Risorgimento, Rome had an essential function of the first order to fulfill in the new history of the Italian nation. Thus let us too, pure in spirit and without rancor, raise our thoughts to Rome, one of the world’s few cities of the spirit, because at Rome, among those seven history-laden hills, occurred one of the great spiritual wonders that history records. There an Eastern religion, foreign to us, was transformed into a universal religion that recovered in new form that empire that the consular legions of Rome had driven to the ends of the earth. Now we aspire to make of Rome the city of our spirit, a city purged, cleansed of all the elements that have corrupted and violated her; we aspire to make of Rome the pulsating heart, the active spirit of the imperial Italy of our dreams [prolonged applause].
