ABSTRACT
There were Italians who did not accept the lessons of 1848–49 as conclusive, who continued to hope in Liberal Catholicism, to share Mazzini's faith in the prospects of a general Italian insurrection, or even to trust in the Grand Duke of Tuscany. However, for those who could bring themselves to see it, the most encouraging aspect of the Italian situation after 1849 was the position of the Kingdom of Sardinia. The essential facts were that she had retained her constitution and therefore a measure of representative government, civil and religious liberty, and a general climate of intellectual freedom, allowing for the discussion of the economic and political ideas which had been shaping Western Europe from the 1850s. Equally important was the fact that the Sardinian dynasty remained independent of Austria, though this was not necessarily due to the King's national feeling. Moreover its army, though defeated in the recent war, relied on the only service nobility in the peninsula with convincing martial traditions.
