Mazzini

Despite Mazzini was a ‘shining star’ of the 19th-century global republicanism, and his name became soon a benchmark for a generation of revolutionaries, his Europeanism has long been overlooked by historiography. The Genoese patriot certainly represented the leader of the Risorgimento, but he also gave a vital contribution to the development of liberal thought in the Old Continent. Perhaps before and much more than other thinkers, in fact, he spent a significant part of his intellectual and political activities trying to re-imagine the European order on the basis of new principles of equality, peace, and self-determination. To him, modern liberties, which were forging during the ongoing revolutions, would converge towards a cosmopolitan alliance of people against the Congress of Vienna system. European unification was therefore interpreted as a logical continuation of the ongoing national struggles for independence