282 A Positive Century (1815–1914)
Mancini proved to be on the winning side of history’s trends. Italian po-
liti cal unifi cation was brought about during his (and Mazzini’s) lifetime, in
- He even had the honor of helping to prepare the legislation that
brought the changes into force. On behalf of the new national government,
he was sent back to Naples, now as administrator of justice, where he insti-
tuted a number of liberal reforms. Th ese included placing limitations on the
power of the Catholic Church, as well as the codifi cation of law. He served
briefl y as minister of public instruction in the Italian government and later,
in 1881– 85, as foreign minister.
A number of Italian writers followed the trail that Mancini marked out.
Fiore was one of them. He dedicated the fi rst edition of his treatise on interna-
tional law to Mancini in 1865. Another prominent fi gure in this movement
was Terenzio Mamiani della Rovere, who was a publicist, phi los o pher, and
general man of letters. He also served as a deputy in the Sardinian parlia-
ment, briefl y as minister of public instruction in Sardinia, and then, aft er uni-
fi cation, as an Italian senator. He presented probably the most thoroughgoing
exposition of the nationality thesis in a book published in 1856, Th e Rights of
Nations; or, Th e New Law of Eu ro pe an States Applied to the Aff airs of Italy. Na-
tions, Mamiani enthused, are “a favored creation of God.” Moreover, “it is by
nations that States are ordinarily founded.” A state that is founded on the
basis of nationality will then have what he called “a certain moral unity.”
Like Mazzini and Mancini, Mamiani was the very soul of tolerance and
broad- mindedness. All nations, he averred, “turn their glances towards the
[sun] of truth and justice, but each of them beholds it in a peculiar phase,
and with a distinct ray of it the soul of each is warmed and coloured.” Ever
the idealist, he envisaged that the various nations of the world would live in
natural harmony with one another, and that international law would there-
fore be spontaneously and voluntarily adhered to. What he called “the senti-
ment of rectitude alone” would suffi ce for the enforcement of international
law, and there should be no need for sanctions or coercion. “Nothing... is
fi ner or more glorious for mankind,” he proclaimed, “than that each nation
should remain the judge of itself, and the free legislator of all its own acts
and enterprises.”
It is hardly surprising, then, to fi nd Mamiani as a strong supporter of a
rule of mutual nonintervention by states in the aff airs of one another. He
held this to be “the very fi rst principle and axiom of International Law.” In
