Indolence and Regeneration: Tropes and Tensions of Risorgimento Patriotism

Abstract

IN THE LAST HALF CENTURY, the historiography of the Italian Risorgimento, operating within a conventional understanding of political thought, has usually emphasized the differences between the more conservative liberals or moderates, who until 1848 favored a confederation of states under the leadership of one of the established rulers, and the democrats, who favored instead the creation of a unitary or federal state under a republican constitution.' The focus on the political currents of the Risorgimento has overshadowed, as a recent study has pointed out.? the fact that patriots of different stripes shared common sentiments and cultural conceptions about that obscure object of desire, the nation, starting with the common use