ABSTRACT
The eighteenth-century European Enlightenment used ideas as "intellectual weapons" to alter the existing religious, political, and social situation. In Italy during the 1920s and 1930s, the Fascists encouraged interpretation of the Italian Enlightenment as a purely native movement foreshadowing the Risorgimento—the movement for Italian unification. Between 1700 and 1789, European influences found quick acceptance in Italy, despite the resistance of an older culture, and transformed the static situation of the previous century into a dynamic one. European developments produced a long peace in Italy. Following the War of Austrian Succession, the rivals for control of Italy—France and Austria—became allies. In the North, fertile lands, irrigation networks, and landowner interest eased the sharecroppers' lot, but in the South an adverse climate, absentee landlords, isolation, and the lack of public works crushed the sharecroppers. Italy approached the end of the eighteenth century in a severe economic and moral crisis characterized by widespread discontent.
