The Milan Uprising was an episode of the Italian Risorgimento that took place on 6 February 1853 in Milan. It was the first time socialist ideals were associated with Italian patriotism and nationalism. The event had a broad impact on mainstream liberal public opinion in western Europe, moving support away from the Mazzinian movement and from socialist movements for Italian unification, and reinforcing the leadership of Victor Emmanuel II of Savoy and Count Cavour.
After their victory in the First Italian War of Independence the Austrians governed the Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia under emergency powers and military occupation. Members of the bourgeoisie and aristocracy who had opposed Austrian rule were mostly exiled to the neighbouring Kingdom of Sardinia. What remained in the Italian cities under Austrian rule were groups of republican conspirators, inspired, but not led, by Giuseppe Mazzini. In particular, autonomous cells had developed among the working class of Milan. [1] From 1851 the Austrian authorities tightened their grip on these elements, arresting over one hundred militants and executing the Belfiore martyrs. The hostility towards Austria that these measures provoked led Mazzini to believe that the conditions were right in Milan for a new uprising. [1]
The insurrectionary committee established in Milan consisted of Giuseppe Piolti de Bianchi, civilian leader, Eugenio Brizzi, military leader, [1] [2] Fronti, logistics and Vigorelli, treasurer. [3] it:Carlo De Cristoforis and it:Giovanni Battista Carta were both invited to join but neither believed an uprising would succeed and Carta was arrested and imprisoned several months before it took place. [4] [5]
The revolutionaries’ original plan was to take advantage of the grand ball held at Palazzo Marino on January 31st and attended by all the senior officers of the Austrian army. If a way could be found to poison them all, the Austrian garrison in Milan, leaderless, could then be easily overwhelmed. [6] This initial plan was soon abandoned as impractical. Another proposal was to assassinate three leading Milanese aristocrats who were collaborating with the Austrians, so as to provoke a harsh government reaction, which would in turn ignite popular indignation. But this plan too was abandoned. [3] [7]
The leaders of the working class cells assured Brassi that they could mobilise 5,000 men, which turned out to be hopelessly optimistic, and in any case would likely not have been sufficient to overwhelm the well-armed and trained garrison. Mazzini also worked to weaken the resolved of the garrison, many of whom were Hungarians sympathetic to Lajos Kossuth. His main agent in this work was Mattia Gergics, a follower of Kossuth and deserter from the Austrian army living in hiding in Milan. [1]
In the meantime, a consignment of rifles, promised from Genoa and Switzerland, never arrived and the Mazzinians and the republicans in exile outside Italy made it clear that they would not support the insurrection. The conspirators nevertheless decided to go ahead, trusting that the Milanese proletariat would join them. [3]
Mazzini travelled from London in secret to support the insurrection. He managed to persuade the leaders not to proclaim a republic when they rose, in the hope of support from Victor Emmanuel II of Savoy. The insurrectionary committee in turn persuaded Mazzini stay in Locarno in Switzerland until he could be sure the uprising had succeeded. [8] : 99 Meanwhile Austrian government spies were well aware that an insurrection was planned, as was Savoy, which both passed information to the Austrians and arrested a number of the conspirators. [1] [8] : 100 The 6 February was chosen as the date for the uprising because it was the last Sunday of Carnival and the conspirators expected the Austrian soldiers to be off duty in the city’s taverns. [3]
At the appointed time on Sunday 6 February 1853, at 4:45 p.m. only about four hundred craftsmen and workers mustered, armed with knives and daggers. [1] Despite posting a forged message from Kossuth around the city, the conspirators did not persuade the Hungarian troops to mutiny or support the insurrection. [9] [10] In addition the promised help of a city engineer and his road maintenance workers also failed to materialise. They were supposed to help the rebels build barricades and cut the gas pipes to leave the city in darkness. [3]
Barricades went up at the Piazza Cordusio, Porta Tosa, Piazza del Verzaro, Via della Signora, Via dell'Ospedale, Porta Ticinese, Porta Vicentina and the Via Torino. The most sustained action was at Porta Tosa, led by Giuseppe Varisco, Ferri, Biffi, Colla, the comb makers Saporiti and Carlo Galli, the greengrocer Crespi, and the shoemaker Galimberti. [3]
The Gran Guardia at the Royal Palace was stormed: a number of men fought under the command of Ferri, including Camilo and Luigi Piazza brothers, Giuseppe Moiraghi, Modesto Diotti, Antonio Cavallotti, Alessandro Silva, Pietro Varisco, Luigi Brigatti, Giuseppe Forlivesi and Antonio Marozzi. The rebels managed to seize some rifles but could not hold their positions. Driven back, they continued to fight in via Rastrelli, Larga del Pesce (today via Paolo da Cannobbio), piazza Borromeo, San Bernardino alle Monache, Palazzo Litta and Contrada della Lupa. [3] The original plan had been to storm the castle armoury and seize 12,000 guns for distribution bat that was not even attempted, since of the 500 rebels committed to the assault only thirty actually turned up while the armoury was protected by 200 soldiers. [1]
The most violent clashes took place in Corso di Porta Romana (where one soldier was killed); in it:Carrobbio (where the dead included the hatter Opizzi and the stonecutter Rivolta while one insurgent lost his arm); in Porta Ticinese; near the Palazzo Litta (where the brandy maker Antonio Cavallotti led the action, but was arrested); from via San Vincenzino to San Giovanni Sul Muro (where Francesco Segalini, supported by two of his sons, was seriously wounded and died on 2 March of blood loss); in the Piazza Duomo and in Mercanti; Piazza Fontana, in the district of the Borromei; and in Via Orefici. [3]
With so many leaders failing to show up, and a lack of orders, it was very difficult to coordinate the different actions and mobilise others to join the fight. The only people outside the conspiracy who appear to have joined in the fighting were a number of common criminals and other non-political elements who took the opportunity to attack random soldiers and bourgeois passers-by in the street. [1]
The Austrians quickly mustered their defences and brought in reinforcements from outside the city, which was back under their control by seven o’clock in the evening. [1] [3]
The Austrian forces suffered 10 dead and around 50 wounded. Somewhere between forty and sixty civilians were also killed. [1] [7]
Among the insurgents, 895 were arrested, 16 of whom were hanged or shot: [7] [11] [12]
Of the others arrested and tried, 20 were initially sentenced to death by hanging, but this was later commuted to 20 years in prison; 44 were sentenced to 20 years "in irons" or to "forced labor with heavy irons" or 10 years "with light irons" (many of these sentences were later commuted to 2 years in prison). A further 175 were acquitted. The main organisers of the uprising - Brizi, Piolti de’ Bianchi, Assi and Giussani, managed to escape into exile. [1]
Following this bloody failure, Mazzini was subjected to an avalanche of criticism not only from the moderate camp but also from his own followers. He responded by reaffirming his faith in insurrectional and conspiratorial methods. He also announced the birth of the Action Party, a movement to unite all those men still willing to fight to achieve the objectives of Italian unity and independence. [13]
Austria adopted harsh measures following the uprising. On 18 February Marshal Radetsky announced that the property of all residents of Lombardy-Venetia who had fled Austrian rule was to be seized, regardless of the fact that many of them had taken up Sardinian citizenship. This was intended to dampen down support in wealthier and more educated circles in Sardinia for the Mazzinian cause. [11] He also imposed financial sanctions on the city of Milan to pay for pensions for victims of the uprising, and for the care of the wounded. [1]
Sardinia responded to these measures fairly calmly, expelling about 150 radicals itself [11] and setting up a fund for the relief of Lombard exiles whom it did not consider to be persona non grata. [1] It expended considerable diplomatic effort in trying to raise international support against Austria, which was not successful but helped pave the way for Sardinia’s participation in the Crimean War. [14] When the press in Turin became outspoken in its criticism of Austria, Foreign Minister Giuseppe Dabormida tried to limit the damage by offering to circulate official statements condemning the views expressed. [15]
International public opinion did not look kindly on the uprising. The Economist , for example, while affirming its solidarity with oppressed peoples, described the events in Milan as “insignificant”, “doomed to failure” and “discrediting the cause.” [11]
Karl Marx, in an article in the New York Daily Tribune on 7 March 1853, entitled "The Milan Riot", mounted a polemical attack on Mazzini whom he disparagingly called "Theopompus", the "messenger of God", attributing to him the failure of the spontaneous revolutions due to lack of organisation, resulting in the sacrifice of the Milanese insurgents despite their useless heroism. He wrote: "The Milan insurrection is significant as a symptom of the approaching revolutionary crisis on the whole European continent. As the heroic act of some few proletarians the sons of Mammon were dancing, and singing, and feasting amid the blood and tears of their debased and crucified nation proletarians who, armed only with knives, marched to attack the citadel of a garrison and surrounding army of forty thousand of the finest troops in Europe, it is admirable. But as the finale of Mazzini's eternal conspiracy, of his bombastic proclamations and his arrogant capucinades against the French people, it is a very poor result. Let us hope that henceforth there will be an end of révolutions improvisées, as the French call them. Has one ever heard of great improvisators being also great poets? They are the same in politics as in poetry. Revolutions are never made to order. After the terrible experience of '48 and '49, it needs something more than paper summonses from distant leaders to evoke national revolutions.” [3] [16] [17] [18]
In 1900, the city of Milan dedicated the Piazza Sei Febbraio to the memory of the uprising and in 1903, on the fiftieth anniversary of the uprising, a commemorative plaque for those executed was placed on the wall of the castle. A number of streets in the Baggio district were also named after executed insurgents in 1920. [1]
According to Alberto Celletti, the reason for commemorating the Milan Uprising today is that it “involves the unquenchable desire for revolution of the Italians and in particular of the people of Milan, who in those years proved to be among the "warmest" in spirit. This is not an aspect to be underestimated: the insistence of part of the citizens attracted the attention of both Giuseppe Mazzini and the House of Savoy, who saw in Milan a nerve center from which to launch any future attempts. The moral is simple: even failures serve to bear witness to a history of commitment useful to posterity. And this revolt teaches us that that with particular importance.” [6]
In memory of those who fell during the revolt, the municipality of Milan placed a wreath at the plaque commemorating the uprising in 2022. [19]
Milan is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban population and the second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city has 3.22 million residents. The urban area of Milan is the fourth-most-populous in the EU with 6.17 million inhabitants. According to national sources, the population within the wider Milan metropolitan area is estimated between 7.5 million and 8.2 million, making it by far the largest metropolitan area in Italy and one of the largest in the EU. Milan is the economic capital of Italy, one of the economic capitals of Europe and a global financial centre.
Giuseppe Mazzini was an Italian politician, journalist, and activist for the unification of Italy (Risorgimento) and spearhead of the Italian revolutionary movement. His efforts helped bring about the independent and unified Italy in place of the several separate states, many dominated by foreign powers, that existed until the 19th century. An Italian nationalist in the historical radical tradition and a proponent of a republicanism of social-democratic inspiration, Mazzini helped define the modern European movement for popular democracy in a republican state.
Goffredo Mameli was an Italian patriot, poet, writer and a notable figure in the Risorgimento. He is also the author of the lyrics of "Il Canto degli Italiani", the national anthem of Italy.
Young Italy was an Italian political movement founded in 1831 by Giuseppe Mazzini. A few months after leaving Italy, in June 1831, Mazzini wrote a letter to King Charles Albert of Sardinia, in which he asked him to unite Italy and lead the nation. A month later, convinced that his demands did not reach the king, he founded the movement in Marseille. It would then spread out to other nations across Europe. The movement's goal was to create a united Italian republic through promoting a general insurrection in the Italian reactionary states and in the lands occupied by the Austrian Empire. Mazzini's belief was that a popular uprising would create a unified Italy. The slogan that defined the movement's aim was "Union, Strength, and Liberty". The phrase could be found in the tricolor Italian flag, which represented the country's unity.
Tommaso Grossi was an Italian poet and novelist.
"Suona la tromba" or Inno popolare is a secular hymn composed by Giuseppe Verdi in 1848 to a text by the Italian poet and patriot Goffredo Mameli. The work's title comes from the opening line of Mameli's poem. It has sometimes been referred to as "Grido di guerra".
Scapigliatura is the name of an artistic movement that developed in Italy after the Risorgimento period (1815–71). The movement included poets, writers, musicians, painters and sculptors. The term Scapigliatura is the Italian equivalent of the French "bohème" (bohemian), and "Scapigliato" literally means "unkempt" or "dishevelled". Most of these authors have never been translated into English, hence in most cases this entry cannot have and has no detailed references to specific sources from English books and publications. However, a list of sources from Italian academic studies of the subject is included, as is a list of the authors' main works in Italian.
The Five Days of Milan was an insurrection and a major event in the Revolutionary Year of 1848 that started the First Italian War of Independence. On 18 March, a rebellion arose in the city of Milan which in five days of street fighting drove Marshal Radetzky and his Austrian soldiers from the city.
Giuseppe Maria Garibaldi was an Italian general, revolutionary and republican. He contributed to Italian unification (Risorgimento) and the creation of the Kingdom of Italy. He is considered to be one of Italy's "fathers of the fatherland", along with Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, Victor Emmanuel II of Italy and Giuseppe Mazzini. Garibaldi is also known as the "Hero of the Two Worlds" because of his military enterprises in South America and Europe.
Cristina Trivulzio di Belgiojoso was an Italian noblewoman, the princess of Belgiojoso, who played a prominent part in Italy's struggle for independence. She is also notable as a writer and journalist.
Villas and palaces in Milan are used to indicate public and private buildings in Milan of particular artistic and architectural value. The lack of a royal court did not give Milan the prerequisites for a significant development of building construction; nevertheless it contains architectural works from different eras and different styles: from Romanesque to neo-Gothic, from Baroque to eclectic, from Italian twentieth century to rationalism.
Missori is a Milan Metro station on Line 3. The station was opened on 16 December 1990 as part of the extension of the line from Duomo to Porta Romana.
The Milan tramway network is part of the public transport network of Milan, Italy, operated by Azienda Trasporti Milanesi (ATM).
The Zone 1 of Milan, since 2016 officially Municipality 1 of Milan, is one of the 9 administrative divisions of Milan, Italy.
Neoclassical architecture in Milan encompasses the main artistic movement from about 1750 to 1850 in this northern Italian city. From the final years of the reign of Maria Theresa of Austria, through the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy and the European Restoration, Milan was in the forefront of a strong cultural and economic renaissance in which Neoclassicism was the dominant style, creating in Milan some of the most influential works in this style in Italy and across Europe. Notable developments include construction of the Teatro alla Scala, the restyled Royal Palace, and the Brera institutions including the Academy of Fine Arts, the Braidense Library and the Brera Astronomical Observatory. Neoclassicism also led to the development of monumental city gates, new squares and boulevards, as well as public gardens and private mansions. Latterly, two churches, San Tomaso in Terramara and San Carlo al Corso, were completed in Neoclassical style before the period came to an end in the late 1830s.
The Palazzo Brentani is a monumental Neoclassical palace, located on Via Manzoni #6, in the centre of Milan, region of Lombardy, Italy. Both this palace and the adjacent Palazzo Anguissola Antona Traversi have sober academic facades, designed by Luigi Canonica in 1829.
Pietro Domenico Frattini was a supporter of Italian unification and one of the Belfiore martyrs.
Giuseppe Finzi was a patriot and Italian politician.
The Bologna tramway network was an important part of the public transport network of Bologna, Italy. It was established in 1880 and discontinued in 1963.
Giorgio Pallavicino Trivulzio was a Lombard aristocrat who became a long-standing patriot activist-politician. He was consistent in his backing of Italian unification between 1820 and its accomplishment.