Giuseppe Mazzini

Giuseppe Mazzini (1805 to 1872) was an Italian politician, lawyer, journalist and philosopher who worked for the unification of Italy and was a leader of the Italian revolutionary movement. Born in Genoa, he joined the Carbonari, founded the Young Italy movement in 1831 around a vision of a republican nation of free and equal citizens, and spent long years in exile in France, Switzerland and England. He led the Roman Republic of 1849 and kept organizing uprisings that mostly failed. A proponent of republicanism of social-democratic inspiration, he is known as the Prophet of Italian Nationalism, and his thought shaped Italian and European republican movements, the Constitution of Italy and the idea of Europe. Critics note that his reliance on secret groups and insurrections led to repeated failures and repression.