ABSTRACT
The question of the ‘origins’ of the Risorgimento is a contested one, with left-wing historians focusing on the impact of the French Revolution, especially from 1796, and conservatives stressing 1815 as the real starting point. In this book we differ from both lines, arguing that it is useful to begin the political story in 1748, when the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle brought to an end the War of the Austrian Succession and inaugurated nearly fifty years of peace in Italy. It is not a new interpretation — indeed it was first proposed in the nineteenth century by the Risorgimento poet Giosué Carducci (1835–1907). It is based on the priority of the international dimension, and insists on the importance of Enlightenment reformism as a preparation for the Risorgimento (though not necessarily for Italian nationalism), and the changes that would take place over the following century and a half.
