"Delle speranze d''Italia" by conte Cesare Balbo is a political treatise written in the mid-19th century. It argues for a moderate, practical path to Italian nationhood: rejecting both reactionary conservatism and revolutionary maximalism, and favoring a confederation of the existing states to secure independence—especially from Austrian dominance—while acknowledging the moral influence of the papacy. The work engages current debates sparked by Vincenzo Gioberti and seeks to ground hope in realistic institutions, historical
precedent, and steady reform. The opening of the treatise sets its purpose through two dedications to Gioberti, praising his stimulus while declaring a distinct, moderate course against the “extremes” and the “despairing.” Balbo asserts that Italy’s political order is unsound chiefly because it lacks full national independence, a defect that distorts all other institutions and even weakens the papacy’s spiritual authority when its temporal power appears dependent. He then surveys potential arrangements: he rejects a unitary kingdom of Italy as impractical and divisive (not least because of the papal question), dismisses a neo‑Ghibelline “Austrian Italy” as both impossible and harmful, and rebuffs a patchwork of small republics as regressive and unviable. In contrast, he endorses a confederation of existing states, citing Italian precedents from the Etruscans to the Lombard League and Lorenzo de’ Medici, while cautioning against over‑specifying details like a papal presidency; he closes this opening by naming the chief immediate obstacle to any confederation: Austria’s entrenched dominance within the peninsula. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
Venezia: Tip. repubblicana di Teresa Gattei, 1848.
Credits
Barbara Magni and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library)
