Educated in law at the University of Genoa, Mazzini was also well read in literature. Influenced by the revolutionary spirit of the time in Genoa, he joined the Carbonari society in 1830. He was imprisoned for six months at Savona and thereafter exiled to France. He then helped to establish the Young Italy Society, the aim of which was the liberation of Italy. He was again forced to leave and went to Switzerland in 1831. He encouraged an army mutiny in Sardinia for which he was sentenced to death in absentia in 1833. In 1836, he was exiled to England. There he worked as a literary journalist and became close friends with Thomas Carlyle. Over the next decade, Mazzini was active through correspondence with Italian revolutionaries. In the European upheaval of 1848-49, Italy was again a focal point and he returned to Italy and joined the forces of Garibaldi. With the establishment of the Rome Republic in 1849, he was appointed to the government, however, when the French overthrew the Republic in July of 1849, he was again forced to flee to England. Some more attempts to establish the Republic in 1852 and 1854 failed and Mazzini's influence began to wane. He returned to Italy in 1859 and in 1865 was elected to the Turin Italian parliament, but never took his seat. In 1869, he was expelled from Switzerland and arrested at sea on his way to Sicily. When Victor Emmanuel II established the unified Kingdom in 1870, he pardoned Mazzini who retired to Pisa in failing health. Mazzini's collected works were published in 18 volumes in 1891. His many works include Philosophy of Music (1836), Byron and Goethe (1837), On the Duties of Man (1844) and On Nationality (1852). |
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