578 Chapter XXIV
sive, and the more aggressive spirits who already dreamed of a united Italy, who
therefore opposed all existing states and authorities in the peninsula, who had no
patience with most of the considerations by which the Directory was affected, and
who might turn against the French themselves without at all turning against the
Revolution. And there was ground for alliance, in a diversity of grievances against
the Directory, between some of the adventurous French generals, the extreme Ital-
ian patriots, and the advanced French democrats who formed an opposition to the
Directory in France itself.
ITALY BEFORE 1796Italy in the eighteenth century was very much a part of European civilization, and
its revolutionary agitation was indigenous, not an import from France. It is neces-
sary, as we turn from an emphasis on French policy to an account of Italy itself, to
begin with such a dogmatic statement, since the derivative character of those Ital-
ian developments has so long been a part of the conventional wisdom. The French
have characteristically seen the Italian giacobini as rather futile imitators of them-
selves.^28 Of the British and Americans, it is hardly too much to say that there has
never been a good book on the subject in the English language.^29 The Italians have
of course always shown more interest, but for generations it was believed that the
normal outcome of Italian history was in a constitutional monarchy under the
House of Savoy; and certain contrary influences associated with Fascism, while
unwilling to attribute much to the French, were hardly more favorable to a histori-
cal appreciation of Italian republicanism. Since Italy became a republic in 1946,
and with the successful assertion of democratic forces against Fascism, there has
been a good deal of corresponding activity in historical circles. No country so
much as Italy, since the Second World War, has produced such a flow of new ma-
terials and new thinking on this period in its own past.
The new studies differ with each other, some preferring to emphasize constitu-
tional and juridical matters,^30 others calling attention to economic development
28 But this older French view is revised by J. Godechot, now the leading French authority on Italy
in the Revolutionary era. There is much of great value on Italy in his Commissaires aux armées sous le
Directoire, 2 vols. (Paris, 1937); for later summaries of his more intensive work see his Grande Nation:
l ’expansionrevolutionnaire de la France 1789–1799, 2 vols. (Paris, 1956).
29 Literally it would be too much to say; we have had, for example, G. B. McClellan, Venice and
Bonaparte (Princeton, 1931) and Constance Giglioli (née Stocker), Naples in 1799: an Account of the
Revolution of 1799 and the Rise and Fall of the Parthenopean Republic (London, 1903). These are well
worth reading, but the same cannot be said of Angus Heriot, The Trench in Italy 1796–99 (London,
1957), which draws on the old French and English memoirs, pays no attention to the recent Italian
studies, and does not even mention many Italian revolutionaries of the period, such as Buonarroti and
many others who have been studied at least since Croce’s work in the 1890’s. The void in English is
well- illustrated by the translation (London, 1828, Philadelphia, 1829) of Carlo Botta’s Storia d ’Italia
dal 1789 al 1814 (Paris, 1824). Botta devoted the first three of four volumes to the years 1789–1799,
but only the parts in which Napoleon figured were thought sufficiently interesting to the English
public to be translated.
30 Notably C. Ghisalberti, Le costituzioni “giacobini” 1796–99 (Varese, 1957); G. Vaccarino, I pa-
triotti “anarchistes” e l ’ idea dell ’unità italiana (Turin, 1955); and the texts and notes published by A.
Aquarone, Le costituzione italiane (Milan, 1958). The work of E. Rota, Le origni del Risorgimento,