In his apartment, high up in the Quirinal Palace, Pope Pius IX paced nervously up and down. He feared that his escape would not succeed. A few days earlier, thousands of Romans had besieged the Quirinal, demanding an end to the Pope’s reign. The aristocracy, so fond of gathering around him in all their pomp and grandeur, had already fled in fear for their lives. Even the cardinals have fled, blaming the Pope for their misfortune. He was defended only by a small detachment of Swiss Guards.
Members of the Roman Civil Guard have already climbed onto the roofs of neighbouring houses and fired their rifles at the Quirinal. One of the Pope’s secretaries looked curiously out of the window, a bullet hit him in the chest and he was dead. The Pope had reigned in Rome for more than a thousand years, and now the revolutionary storm that has already swept across Europe is too strong to wipe out the Pope’s temporal kingdom on earth.
The Pope fell quickly. Elected in 1846 and celebrated as the first man of the Papal States, today, 24 November 1848, he was preparing to flee. There was a knock, Count Filippani entered and dragged the Pope into the next room. With his help, the Pope took off his white robe and slipped on his red shoes, praying silently: “God have mercy on me, in His goodness, a sinner.” He quickly put on his black clerical robes, which reached to the floor, and his black shoes, tying a loose cap on his head. “I am like a country priest,” he said, looking in the mirror.
In the meantime, Filippani lit a candle and got a key that unlocked the door to the secret passage leading out of the palace. They both entered it and then went down the stairs to the door leading out of the palace into the courtyard. A carriage was already waiting there, and the Pope quickly got in, covering his nose with a handkerchief as if he had a cold. Filippani came up to him and loudly ordered the coachman: “Come home with me.”
As the carriage approached the guard at the large gate, Filippani leaned out and waved amiably to the guards, preventing them from seeing who else was in the carriage. The guards gave him a friendly nod. The carriage moved away from the Quirinal and changed direction, continuing on to the church on the other side of Rome, where the Bavarian Ambassador to the Holy See was waiting for them in another carriage. The Pope climbed into the Bavarian carriage, which then drove towards the city gates.
The Pope began to think about what lies ahead in his life. He no longer believed that he would ever return to Rome. Few people knew where he was going. Some were sure he was going to France, others to Spain, but the Bavarian ambassador had another destination in mind.
Pope of hope?
No one expected that the unremarkable Giovanni Mastai Ferretti, elected Pope by the Cardinals in 1846, would become one of the most important Popes in modern Italian history. At first hailed as a hero, he was soon hailed as a traitor and his head was demanded. These were revolutionary times, when the old social order was being overtaken by industrialisation, revolutionary change was the order of the day, and doubts were growing about the social order as laid down by God.
Pius IX watched this with fear, because he did not understand the forces that were changing the world. The revolutionary movement that swept Europe in 1948 meant the end of aristocratic regimes and the absolute power of rulers. And nowhere were these changes more dramatic than in the Papal States. Even Pius IX’s predecessor, Pope Gregory XVI, fiercely resisted the building of railways in his country and forbade his subjects to attend scientific congresses.
The city of Rome itself was a model of backwardness, with one half of it made up of abandoned fields, ancient ruins, aqueducts and churches. Every heavy downpour left the streets under water and the city unsafe to move around. There were no stoves in the humble and gloomy houses, so the inhabitants cooked outside their front doors. What surprised the visitor most, however, was the large number of churches and priests. Rome, a city of 170,000 inhabitants, had as many as 400 churches. As the cardinals drove through the streets in their luxurious carriages, passing piles of stinking rubbish, they met beggars everywhere and turned up their noses at the city’s stench.
Popes have ruled their country for more than a thousand years, and its size has waxed and waned. At the time of Gregory XVI, the Papal States bordered the Austrian Kingdom of Lombardy-Veneto to the north and the Kingdom of Naples, the two Sicilies, to the south. Although it covered only 14% of the territory of what is now Italy, its central position on the Apennine peninsula was important. Other territories were occupied by more or less independent principalities and duchies from Piedmont, Parma and Tuscany to Modena.
More and more nationalists were convinced that Italy should be united into a single country. Thus, already in the time of Pope Gregory XVI, individual revolts were already taking place, first in Bologna and then in other cities, everywhere the population demanded an end to papal rule. The revolt was only put down by Austrian troops who came to the Pope’s aid. Pius IX could not have reigned for six months without Austrian help, even in far-away London, they were convinced. For Austrian Chancellor Metternich, however, the papacy was a guarantee of stability.
It was at such a time that Giovanni Mastai Ferretti, a fifty-something bishop in a small town and inexperienced in the intrigues of the Roman Curia, was elected Pope. The French and Austrian governments were pleased with his choice, but the people of Rome were uncertain. The Roman Curia was also pleased, confident that it would be able to control the ignoramus.
The first independent step taken by this ignoramus was to pardon hundreds of political prisoners who were in papal jails, while those who had fled abroad for political reasons were allowed to return. This triggered a wave of demands for new reforms. People shouted Viva il Papa through the streets of Rome, demanding that the foreign mercenary troops be disbanded and replaced by a city militia. They demanded the removal of the prelates who had always presided over the public administration, freedom of the press, and here and there were cries for a united Italy. The conservatives became wary, suspecting a conspiracy and convinced that someone from outside was directing these demands.
They were not entirely wrong. Giuseppe Mazzini, a great advocate of the unity of Italy and the rule of the people, sent instructions from London to his supporters in Italy. Mazzini had been giving headaches to popes and rulers for years. Exiled from Genoa, he set up a secret organisation, Young Italy, to unite all Italy under a republican government.
Pius IX was a vacillating reformist, torn between his desire to please people who wanted reform and those who claimed that his task was to preserve the power of the Church. But his first encyclical, Qui plubirus, showed that he would not be deterred from his conservative positions. Nevertheless, the Pope decided to set up a Consultative Council. From each province, he chose one of three candidates to be a member of this body. The task of the Consultative Council would be to advise the Pope on matters of public interest and governance.
The streets of Rome were once again full of people welcoming the Pope’s decision. As soon as it was acknowledged, albeit tacitly, that matters of public character and governance were no longer decided by the will of God, the danger of the clergy’s power collapsing loomed. It was then that Pius IX faced opposition from his closest collaborators. His Secretary of State, Cardinal Gizzi, issued a proclamation in June 1947 in which he said: “His Holiness Pope Pius IX is determined to pursue improvements in all branches of public administration wherever necessary. But he is equally determined to do so in a wise, thoughtful way and within the limits set by the very nature of his sovereignty as head of the Catholic Church.”
Shortly afterwards, Cardinal Gizzi met the French ambassador to the Holy See and told him that he was almost out of control and hinted that Austrian troops might have to be called in to restore order. Pius IX felt as if he were trapped. When he celebrated Mass in a church, the French ambassador wrote: “The Pope seems to be suffering. Those who have not seen him for some time would have noticed that he has aged ten years. His hair has turned grey.” According to some reports, he was also having epileptic seizures.
The situation has become increasingly chaotic. Protesters in the streets of Rome threateningly repeated their demands for freedom of speech, a representative elected government and the removal of the clergy from power. Fearing bloodshed, the Pope promised a delegation of Roman aristocrats a civil guard made up of the upper classes. This was also to fulfil the Pope’s demand that foreign mercenary troops be replaced by native armed men.
The Pope’s secretary, Gizzi, was stunned. If the Pope armed the people, he told him bluntly, he would regret it. For the day will come when the people will drive him out of Rome with the same guns with which he now arms himself for his own safety. “Mr Cardinal,” replied the Pope in surprise, “I am not afraid of my own people.” The Cardinal did not give in, “Do not rely too much on your good heart. People are very fickle.” With this last warning, Cardinal Gizzi resigned as papal secretary.
While foreign observers in Rome were divided on what was actually going on, they were unanimous in their belief that one man was attracting particular attention among the demonstrators marching through the streets of Rome. Angelo Brunetti, popularly known as Ciceruacchio, was 45 years old when Pius IX became Pope. He was the son of a poor blacksmith, but very industrious and enterprising. He transported wine from the surrounding hills to Rome, soon earned enough to buy his own horse and cart and continued to bring wine and vegetables to the city. Soon he had more horses and more carts.
Each of the fourteen Roman districts, called “rioni”, had its own “capopopolo”, a leader chosen not by a formal process but by nightly conversations in taverns over a glass of wine. He had to be generous, have good judgement and be able to mediate in local disputes. “Ciceruacchio” had these qualities and became, in fact, the capopopolo of all Rome. He did not speak Italian, but the Roman dialect of Romanesco. He was brave, but in the presence of the nobility he had a feeling of inferiority. He knew nothing of the outside world. But he became one of Garibaldi’s close collaborators. Even Florence Nightingale, who visited Rome at the time, wrote of him: ‘He can hardly read and write, he is no genius, but he has common sense and can wrap all the inhabitants of Rome round his finger. The princes invite him in and flatter him, but he refuses to come.”
After the December floods that engulfed Rome, Pope Pius IX for the first time allowed a certain number of the Jewish population to move from the Roman ghetto to safer parts of the city. The Roman ghetto was squeezed into a few narrow and dirty streets, and the eight gates leading into it were locked every night by the city guards. In the spring, Ciceruacchio organised a picnic in the town field, attended by several thousand townspeople and, for the first time, some Jews. In the days that followed, more and more Jews dared to leave the ghetto and walk along the Tiber, and while the inhabitants looked at them in amazement, there were no riots.
Prince Metternich had no objection to allowing the Jews a little more freedom, but he was convinced that the Pope was losing control of his country. And Metternich was not about to let that happen. In the early hours of 17 July 1847, a contingent of the Austrian army crossed the border river Po and entered the old town of Ferrara in full battle gear and with bayonets mounted.
The Austrians had been garrisoned in Ferrara for several decades under an agreement with the Holy See, but the reinforcement of the garrison caused a storm of discontent in the Papal States. Even the Pope protested, but Metternich did not inform him of his action. The whole Papal States were flooded with pamphlets and the words “Death to Austria! and Long Live the Pope! and Viva L’Italia! The last one in particular alarmed many. For decades a movement had been growing demanding the departure of foreigners from Italy and the unification of all the Italian provinces into one, and this movement was supported by would-be revolutionaries, now spread over various European countries from London to Sicily. “Italy,” said Metternich, “is a geographical term without political meaning.” And more quietly, he remarked that the revolution had stuck to the person of Pius IX as to a flag.
First duty is the church
Many celebrities, however, have simply sided with the Pope and protested against the Austrian occupation of Ferrara. “Death to the Jesuits, down with obscurantism and long live Pope Pius IX!” the crowd replied. The Pope was pleased with such praise, but his satisfaction was gnawed by the worm of suspicion. “I know where people want to take us. I will satisfy them as much as my conscience allows me, but if things go over the line, as I suspect they will, they can cut me into a hundred little pieces. But with God’s help I will not take a careless step.”
For Pius IX it was clear; his first duty is to the Church. He must do nothing to weaken it. Although he was aware of the consequences of giving in to the demands of the citizens, there was much he was in no position to deny them. In October, barely more than a year after his election, he announced that Rome needed a city council elected by the upper classes. Metternich accompanied this by saying: “The Pope was brought up in a family infected by the liberal ideas brought to the Apennine peninsula by Napoleon. If things go that way, he will expel himself from Rome. And then what will happen?” He had no answer to that.
Pius IX had another problem. These were the Jesuits, whom everyone thought had too much influence with the Pope and were meddling in politics to achieve their reactionary aims. November also saw the first meeting of the Consultative Council, which had been called into being by the Pope to meet, at least in part, the demands of the people for a secular administration. The Pope was convinced that the members of the Council would only advise him and that he would continue to take all decisions himself. He placed Cardinal Giacomo Antonelli at the head of the Council. He was not a priest, was not ordained and could not celebrate Mass. He was not an aristocrat, but from a peasant family, nor did he adhere to a religious way of life, since he had a son. But he played an important role in the papacy of Pius IX.
1848 proved to be a fateful year for Europe, a year of revolutionary violence, bloody wars of independence and the loss of many a monarch. On 9 January 1848, a manifesto appeared on the walls of Palermo, the first spark of the conflagration that was to engulf Europe: “Sicilians! Protests, pleas and peaceful demonstrations proved useless, King Ferdinand II showed his contempt for them. We will not hesitate to take action to achieve our legitimate rights. To arms, sons of Sicily, to arms!”
The uprising began on 12 January and the conspirators began to distribute what few weapons they had. People soon filled the streets, although there were only a few hundred against the five regiments of Ferdinand II’s army and the police and fortified strongholds across the country. But the Bourbon King’s army was not used to guerrilla warfare in narrow streets and began to retreat. The insurgents immediately set up a provisional government and the chants of Viva L’Italia! were interspersed with shouts of Viva Pio IX!
The revolt spread to other parts of Sicily. Ferdinand II, who was enthroned in Naples, was frightened and quickly announced that he would give the people a constitution. The whole of the Apennine Peninsula was in uproar. If Ferdinand II, who ruled over the most backward and repressive country in Italy, had come to terms with a constitution, how could other rulers in Italy deny it to their subjects? A few weeks later, the Grand Duke of Tuscany in Florence and the King of Sardinia in Turin came to terms with the constitution of their country. The pressure on the Pope to do the same was thus increased.
Thousands of people gathered outside the Papal Palace to hear what the Pope had to say. The Pope appeared on the balcony accompanied by his Minister of War and the Commander of the Civil Guard. Silence fell among the crowd. “I ask God to bless you. May this heavenly blessing be for everyone and for all Italy.” At the name Italy, the crowd began to shout enthusiastically, although the Pope was referring only to those living on the peninsula and did not wish to make any political statements.
On 22 February, mass demonstrations erupt in Paris against King Louis Philippe. The people, unhappy with the constitutional monarchy, rising prices and poverty, were so violent that the King fled the country and a provisional government took power. Panic broke out in Vienna, people started taking money from banks, crowds demonstrated and demanded freedom of the press and a constitution, Metternich fled to England in disguise, and the King had to promise the demonstrators a constitution.
Against his convictions, Pius IX was now forced to promise the people a constitution and took the fateful step of appointing Cardinal Giacomo Antonelli as his new Secretary of State, the fourth in two years. Pius knew that the Constitution and the rights attached to it would be contrary to Church doctrine. As the Romans celebrated in the streets, riots broke out in the kingdom of Lombardy and Veneto, which was part of the Austrian Empire. An enraged mob drove the Austrian soldiers out of Venice and proclaimed a Venetian Republic. It was even worse in Milan, when rebels clashed with 14,000 Austrian troops led by the old General Radetzky. The Austrian empire began to falter.
All of Italy has risen. With unanimous support for driving the Austrians out of Italy, Charles Albert, King of Sardinia, who also ruled north-western Italy from Turin, saw this as an opportunity to expand his empire, as he had the strongest army on the peninsula and a long border with Lombardy, which was occupied by the Austrians. The time had come to fulfil Italy’s destiny, he told his generals, ordering them to march into Lombardy.
When the Romans heard that someone was fighting the Austrians in the north, they asked for volunteers to help the Sardinian king. Pius IX refused to agree, but as threatening crowds began to gather outside his palace again, he relented. Expecting a new attack on Milan by a powerful Austrian army, the leader of the rebel forces sent a request for help to Pius IX. “The aspiration for Italian independence, blessed by Your Holiness, is triumphing in our city. In Your name, Blessed Father, we are preparing for battle. Your name is on our banners and barricades.”
While some priests were seized by patriotic fever, the Jesuits overwhelmingly identified with Austrian politics. In some places, mobs had already driven the Jesuits out of some towns, and finally the Pope summoned a Jesuit general to his side and told him that he could no longer protect them. Their presence in Rome will only cause more disorder. In defence of this position, the Pope pointed out that Metternich was in exile, the Austrian army was retreating from the north of Italy, the Austrian Emperor Ferdinand was a weakling and France, the second largest Catholic country, had become a republic.
Spilled blood
On 27 April, the Pope summoned the cardinals to advise him. He asked them only one question: should the Papal States go to war with Austria? The answer was unanimous: no. Then the Pope asked them a second question: how to prevent the devastating consequences of not joining the side that now dominates Italy. The answer was simple: Deus providebit (God will provide).
The Pope’s ministers were alarmed. War is an evil, but in this case a lesser evil, they were convinced. If the Pope wants to preserve the Papal States, he must join the war against Austria. Pius IX felt he was trapped. Why Cardinal Antonelli was in solidarity with the ministers who wanted to go to war this way is a mystery. At the meeting of the cardinals with the Pope, he showed no signs of opposing the advice the cardinals had given the Pope.
In the end, everyone found out about the Pope’s decision when it was published as his official position in a newspaper. Even those who suspected that he would disappoint the supporters of Italian independence were stunned. The Pope began his letter by attacking those enemies of the Catholic faith who spread rumours that he wanted to drive the Austrians out of the country. Those who think that he is going to join other rulers in Italy in a war against the Austrians are acting totally contrary to his advice.
This was a decisive turning point in the papacy of Pius IX, as it clearly demonstrated the incompatibility of his role as universal religious leader and ruler of the Papal States. It also put an end to the myth of the liberal, patriotic Pius IX. In Sicily, the Bourbon regime was resisted with the Pope’s name on its lips. Sardinian soldiers fighting in Lombardy invoked the Pope. That was now over. Now the Pope has become the defender of the existing reactionary regimes.
The man who led the wavering Pope through the transformation from Italian national hero to traitor was the master of the “double game”, Cardinal Antonelli. He was supposed to be the irreplaceable adviser of the bewildered Pope, but since he did not know in which direction events would develop, he thought it wise to be on good terms as long as possible, even with the Liberal ministers.
The people of Rome could hardly believe their ears when the Pope’s document was read out to them. Members of the aristocracy and the upper classes immediately called a meeting and demanded that the Pope form a government with no priests, and that this government would be free to decide whether the Papal States would go to war with Austria. Armed members of the Civil Guard – Ciceruachio was at their head – appeared in the streets and went in pursuit of the reactionary cardinals. Rumours spread that the Civil Guard would remove the Pope from the Quirinal and imprison him in the Lateran Basilica, where he would fulfil his duties as Bishop of Rome and leave the administration of the Papal States to others.
With the proclamations that followed, Pius IX sought to repair the damage he had done, but in vain. Although he had agreed to the new constitution, the Pope’s army – against his wishes – had already begun to fight the Austrians in the north. The Pope admitted to foreign diplomats that he was losing control of his country. But he was not the only one. Large demonstrations in Vienna forced the Austrian Emperor to make new concessions, such as universal suffrage for men and a unicameral parliament, but even this did not help and the Emperor fled to Innsbruck.
In the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, too, everything went wrong. Sicilian rebels appointed a provisional government to end the Bourbons’ rule, to which King Ferdinand responded with a general repression and the declaration of a state of emergency. In Paris, too, blood flowed in the streets. Workers set up barricades and the Archbishop, who tried to calm them down, was shot in the head. In the end, there were more than five thousand dead in Paris, fifteen thousand arrested and thousands sent to the new colony of Algeria.
One October afternoon in the Jewish ghetto, Angelo Moscati had an argument with a passer-by. In a fit of rage, he pulled out a knife and slashed his opponent on the head. A Civil Guard patrol tried to separate the two, but Moscati cut another member of the patrol. This would not have been unusual, as knife fights were the order of the day in Rome, but Moscati was Jewish and his opponent Christian. The Romans boiled over and soon a mob, armed with knives and clubs, burst into the ghetto and began smashing shops and windows, with the Catholic clergy encouraging them by shouting Burn the Jews!
The Jews of Rome had much to thank Pius IX for. He allowed them to live outside the ghetto, they could become members of the Civil Guard, and he broke down the ghetto gates. But centuries of demonisation of the Jews have not changed the opinion of the people of Rome that the Jews are Christ-killers, and in the opinion of many, the Pope has now become their queen. This was another burden on the shoulders of a weak Pope.
To make sure he was in the clear, he was informed that a much greater danger was looming. On the border of the Principality of Tuscany, not far from Bologna, and thus almost to the borders of the Papal States, the revolutionary leader Giuseppe Garibaldi arrived with a crowd of armed supporters. Fearing that he would incite unrest in the Papal States, the Pope ordered the army to keep him in Tuscany and not to allow him to cross the border.
On 15 November 1848 – a day that will remain in everyone’s memory – a large crowd gathered in the square in front of the palace of Prime Minister Rossi. Rossi was to read a government message to the assembled deputies. He spent the morning at home. He was not popular, the clergy did not like this professional diplomat and the Church banned some of his books. He had been receiving death threats for several weeks. At noon, he said goodbye to his frightened wife and went to see the Pope. The Pope said to him, “For God’s sake, my dear Count, take care. You have many enemies who are capable of the most terrible crimes.” Rossi calmly replied, “Your Holiness, they are too timid, and I am not afraid of them.”
He said goodbye to the Pope, and as he was getting into the carriage, an unknown priest grabbed him by the sleeve and said to him, “Don’t get into this carriage. If you leave, you are dead.” Rossi freed himself from his hand and drove away. When he reached the square, there were shouts of “Cut his throat! Kill him!” As Rossi got out of the carriage, a man approached him, pulled out a knife and cut his throat. The killer quickly disappeared into the crowd and Rossi collapsed in a pool of blood. When the deputies heard what had happened, they quickly fled to their own side, while the crowd marched through the streets, arrived in front of Rossi’s house and shouted, “Blessed be the man who stabbed Rossi!”. They waved the Italian tricolour.
Panic reigned in the city. A Civil Guard officer went to his chief and asked him what to do. “Be careful,” he replied, so he went home, gathered his belongings and fled to Naples. Meanwhile, the representatives of the crowd, which refused to disperse the next day, sent their list of demands to the Pope, demanding the formation of a democratic government and support for the programme of national independence. The Pope replied wearily: “Go home! The Vicar of Christ on earth will not bow to intimidation.”
An angry crowd tried to burn down the gates of the Quirinal, and individual shots were heard. The streets of Rome became dangerous. The Pope could no longer count on a civil guard, and his army was camped in the country’s northern provinces. If he wants to keep his head on his neck, he will have to flee.
Exile
As soon as the carriage carrying the fugitive Pope had travelled ten miles, it stopped and the Pope had to change to another larger carriage, which was already carrying the Bavarian Ambassador’s wife and her son. They travelled all night and arrived in the morning in the small fishing village of Mola di Gaetta, which was already in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Two men were waiting for the Pope. One was the Secretary of the Spanish Embassy, the other Cardinal Antonelli, who gave him a passport in which he was listed as a member of the Spanish Embassy. The fast messenger travelled to Naples that night with a letter for King Ferdinand. Around midnight, a ship arrived from Civitavecchia and docked. In the morning, the French Ambassador to the Holy See, Harcourt, stepped off and brought the Pope two boxes of his personal belongings. The Pope’s exile had begun.
The very next day, the royal couple Ferdinand and his wife Maria Theresa arrived in Gaeta and knelt before the Pope, who received them in front of the modest inn where he was staying. Tears began to stream down the Pope’s cheeks, and King Ferdinand saw that he could already claim the title of the Pope’s saviour. Although Ferdinand was related to most European royal houses, his cultural horizon extended no further than Naples. The intellectual movements of the time passed him by completely. While his more enlightened royal relatives in Turin saw the unification of Italy as an opportunity to increase their authority, Ferdinand saw it only as a threat. No one knew how long Pius IX would stay in Gaeta or where he would go. Not even the Pope knew.
Gaeta could not accommodate all the soldiers, diplomats, cardinals and other important people who soon flocked to the fortress city. Built at the foot of a high cliff, it had no vegetation except for a few orange trees. The only suitable street led to the double thorn gates, which were locked at night. The military barracks and warehouses were located on one side of the street, the modest and occasional royal residence and other homes were on the other side.
News circulated in Rome that Austrian troops were gathering on the borders of the Papal States to march on Rome and help the Pope return to the Eternal City. The Pope has heated up the atmosphere by declaring that the people who are now ruling in Rome, the people whom he himself appointed to their posts after Rossi’s murder, have no legitimacy whatsoever. The cautious people in Rome consulted among themselves and suggested sending a delegation to Gaeta to try to persuade the Pope to return to Rome. The radical tendency demanded an end to the papacy and the proclamation of a republic.
With the Pope in exile, Rome was in a state of lawlessness, so the deputies decided to elect a three-member Provisional Council to rule until the Pope returned. Ciceruacchio organised demonstrations in support of the new government and made speeches to enthuse the crowds. “Among the shouts of Long Live the Provisional Government! and Long Live Italy!” there were other shouts, at which some people wrinkled their foreheads and shook their heads in alarm. “Down with the rich! Down with the priests!” the crowd shouted and began to sing the marcella.
Finally, Giuseppe Garibaldi, a veteran of the War of Independence, arrived in Rome on a white horse with a small entourage, and the crowd shouted “Long live the Republican General!”. Many Romans breathed a sigh of relief when Garibaldi, whom they called “the foreign adventurer”, left the city after a week. No wonder, since the well-being of many depended on the presence of the Pope.
In other parts of the Papal States, too, the mood was mixed. Moderates were unhappy about the radical measures in Rome, where a constituent assembly was about to be convened, and horrified that the Pope had taken refuge with the reactionary King of Naples. The political situation in Europe was also unclear. Sicily was still boiling, King Charles Albert of Sardinia had gone into hiding after being defeated by the Austrians, France was no longer a monarchy but a republic. In Austria, after Metternich went into exile, Felix Schwarzenberg took over, and the ill-mannered Austrian Emperor was replaced by Franz Joseph, who ruled almost indefinitely.
At the beginning of 1849, life in Gaeta was as usual. The foreign ambassadors, crowded into inadequate rooms and far from the luxuries of life in Rome, ate together, gambled and performed. In February, the long-awaited new Austrian ambassador, Count Moritz Esterhazy, arrived in Gaeta. “I was greeted like a messiah. They put all their hopes in us, in Austria”, he reported to Vienna.
Meanwhile, the first mass elections for a Constituent Assembly have already been held in the Papal States, effectively removing the Pope from power, leaving him with only his spiritual authority, and declaring a republic. The Italian trumpets were waved and Guiseppe Garibaldi was present at the proclamation of the Republic.
A week later, Pius IX summoned Esterhazy to his side and asked him to let the Austrian army intervene in the Papal States. Esterhazy was in a quandary. There was already no peace in the Austrian possessions in northern Italy, and now Austria was to invade Rome. It was really too much to bear. He would propose to Vienna that its troops should occupy only the northern part of the Papal States and a strip of territory on the Adriatic Sea, while the French should disembark at Civitavecchia and take Rome and its surroundings.
Three days later, the Pope summoned the 19 cardinals who had joined him in exile and all the foreign ambassadors, and denounced the proclamation of the Republic as “an act of injustice, ingratitude, stupidity and impiety”. Four days later, 7000 Austrian troops crossed the Po River and headed for Ferrara.
The news of the Austrian invasion shocked Rome and the clergy soon felt the consequences. They were forbidden to wear the black tri-colour headdress and all ecclesiastical institutions had to take an inventory of their property. Anyone who failed to do so found themselves in prison. Church bells that were not used were turned into cannons, and the Church’s control over schools and universities was ended. The most symbolic measure was the release of all prisoners condemned by the Inquisition. In the palace of the Inquisition, not far from St Peter’s Cathedral, all those who blasphemed, practised witchcraft, slandered the Catholic faith or, as in the case of the two nuns, fell in love, were imprisoned and chained.
The Church’s country estates became state property, as did the Vatican Palace and the Quirinal, and censorship was abolished. Those priests who publicly defended the Pope were playing with their lives. Outside Rome, an archbishop refused to confer the sacrament on those who voted for the Constituent Assembly, so he was arrested and accused of counter-revolution. All these measures were strongly condemned in Gaeta.
“The Roman Republic rules by violence, intimidation and fraud. The Constituent Assembly elections are a farce”, Cardinal Antonelli told anyone who would listen. But all the ambassadors in Gaeta thought the same: “The Pope is weak and can be influenced. At the right moment, he can be made to do things that no one would expect him to do.”
If there was anyone who embodied the hatred of the Church, it was Giuseppe Mazzini. From the safety of London, he had been involved in almost every uprising on the Apennine peninsula since 1831. But he was admired by many abroad. “He has a genial intellect, is modest in his manners, is genteel and has remarkable oratorical powers”, wrote Lloyd Garrison, leader of the American anti-slavery movement. When this prophet of the unification of all the Italian provinces into a single state arrived in Rome on 5 March, he was welcomed as a saviour. “Viva Mazzini!” the people shouted in the streets.
“I’m very nervous,” Mazzini admitted the next day. “The intentions are good, but until I arrived we had done nothing to prepare for war. We have no weapons and almost all European countries are against us.” There was very bad news from the north of the peninsula. Charles Albert, King of Sardinia, had again clashed with the Austrians, had been defeated and captured, and had abdicated his throne in favour of his son, Victor Emmanuel II. Embittered, he went to France and died there before the war was over.
Republic at risk
The future of the Roman Republic looked bleak. The Assembly quickly elected a triumvirate with unlimited powers to prepare the Republic for war. Mazzini played the most important role. Although he was regarded by everyone as a dreamer, in practical matters he proved to be a great realist. He knew that the only solution lay in France, which was also a republic that had always opposed the Austrian drive to penetrate the peninsula.
French President Louis Napoleon was quick to decide. He personally thought that papal political power was a relic of the Middle Ages. France also had no territorial claims in Italy, nor any particular economic interests in the Papal States. But he would not allow the Austrians to reap all the glory. So thirteen infantry brigades, 12,000 men in all, with horses and artillery, set off in ships for the port of Civitavecchia.
The Expeditionary Corps was led by General Oudinot, with the mission to try to take Rome, but not to approach the Adriatic coast. “The Mediterranean is French and the Adriatic is Austrian”, General Oudinot was instructed. A small part of the territory of the Papal States in the south was to be occupied by the King of Naples with the help of Spanish troops. France, Austria and Spain were thus to take part in the suppression of the Roman Republic. The first of several ships set sail for Citavecchia with French troops on 21 April 1849. They had no idea of the disaster that awaited them.
In Rome, the news was received with concern and Mazzini called on all patriots in Italy to come to Rome’s aid. The Austrians had already invaded Tuscany, Ferdinand King of Naples was infiltrating from the south, and at the end of April 1849 hundreds of Spanish troops landed in the south of the Papal States.
On 24 April, 1200 French soldiers with artillery disembarked from the first steamer at Civitavecchia. Other French ships followed. The townspeople did not greet them with shouts of joy, as they did not know what the French were up to. They were convinced that they could reinstate the Pope if he advocated liberal reforms. The French general Oudinot himself was convinced: “The Italians will not fight. I have ordered dinner to be prepared for me at the Hotel de Minevre and I will be there to eat it.”
Of all the measures Mazzini took to defend the Republic, the most important was the one he took to call Garibaldi and his legion of soldiers to his aid. On the twenty-seventh of April Garibaldi arrived in the Eternal City with 1500 legionaries. The sight of the bearded, sunburnt faces was unforgettable. Some of them had long spears, a belt on their backs and long knives stuck in their belts instead of sabres like the regular army. A British sculptor living in Rome was convinced that a group of bandits had come to the city, not a military unit.
The hero himself rode a white horse, his blue eyes were said to have a magnetic influence, his chestnut hair hung uncombed over his shoulders. He had a thick moustache and a sparse reddish beard. He was dressed in a red jacket, a small felt cap on his head and a sabre in his hand. Riding with Garibaldi was Andrea Aguyar, the son of black slaves, who had been born a slave in South America and had joined Garibaldi there. He was dressed in a poncho, with a South American gaucho’s hair at his waist.
On 30 April, Oudinot ordered his troops to take Rome. He was not intimidated by the high medieval walls, so he did not take climbing ladders or heavy cannons. He wanted to invade Rome through the Porta Petruso, but this gate had been walled up decades before, but this change had not yet been entered on the French war maps. While the French were deliberating how to proceed, the defenders of the city shelled their exposed troops with cannon and musketry. Even when they tried to penetrate the city through Porto Cavalleggeri and Porto Angelico, the attackers were shelled and repulsed.
The Battle of Rome started in the morning, by 5 pm it was over and General Oudinet was counting his dead and wounded on his way back to Civitavechhia. Garibaldi counted 300 captured French soldiers. Women played an important role in the defence of Rome. Christina Belgiojoso organised 20 military hospitals and recruited women from the upper classes. When the Battle of Rome was fought, women stood on the barricades and fired muskets alongside the men.
But Mazzini knew that if France did not change its policy and support the Republic, the story was over. So he ordered, as a gesture of goodwill, that all the captured Frenchmen be released, because there could be no hatred between two republics. When the French President heard of the defeat of his troops in front of Rome, he felt sick and fell unconscious.
In Gaeta, Cardinal Antonelli pinned all his hopes on Austria and complained to Vienna why the Austrian soldiers were advancing so slowly. But in the meantime they had already advanced towards Bologna and, after eight days of bombardment, had taken it. Meanwhile, the new French envoy, Ferdinand de Lesseps, was on his way to the Papal States to prevent the French army from doing what the Austrian army had done by bombarding Bologna. The French were to negotiate with the Romans with the help of the diplomat Lesseps. The problem was therefore to be solved peacefully if possible, otherwise by force.
Meanwhile, life in Rome went on, the shops were open, the gates of the cities were closed and Rome could only be left with the permission of the military commander. These days, Ciceruacchio and his followers were on the streets of the city, tearing the papal crests from the doors of ecclesiastical establishments.
While Lesseps was arguing unsuccessfully with Mazzini, in Gaeta the Austrian Ambassador handed the Pope the keys of Bologna. Pope Pius IX was visibly moved. But the French government did not want to wait any longer. Although Lesseps seemed to have reached an agreement with Mazzini on the peaceful occupation of Rome, military logic prevailed and General Oudinet was ordered to take Rome by force.
On 2 June, the French army took battle positions and Mazzini wrote in anger to Garibaldi: “I am going mad. In these decisive moments I hoped to find a man to whom I could entrust the fate of the country. Instead, I found belligerence, opposition and individualism.”
The French preparations for the attack drove the Romans to despair. Hadn’t the French already been defeated, hadn’t Garibaldi already twice driven the army of King Ferdinand of Naples into flight. But the Austrians took Bologna, Ferrara and Perugia. Mazzini called on all Republican forces to defend the Republic. Garibaldi and his legionaries returned to Rome from the south of the country. For Mazzini, his arrival was a mixed blessing, for Garibaldi told him frankly: “I can only be of service to the Republic in two ways. Either as a dictator with unlimited powers or as a common soldier.”
Mazzini, of course, did not want to appoint him dictator, which would have been a political disaster, but he had to acknowledge his military genius. In the end, Garibaldi had only to give in, but his relations with Mazzini remained strained.
The fall of Rome
General Oudinot had at his disposal 30,000 soldiers tested in the colonial war in Algeria, while the defenders had only 18,000 men, gathered from all winds. On 3 June, a French brigade blew up part of the Roman walls and stormed the city. Garibaldi led his legionnaires into battle on his white horse, even though he had been wounded in the abdomen a month earlier. That night, after an 18-hour battle, columns of stretcher-bearers with dead and wounded soldiers snaked through the streets of Rome. Silence reigned everywhere and passers-by had tears in their eyes.
On the bridge over the Tiber, in the shadow of the Angelic Castle, Garibaldi’s confessor, Friar Ugo Bassi, prayed with the gathered people. With heavy losses, they managed to hold off the French attack, but the enemy dug in just a few hundred metres from the wall, preparing to attack again. In Gaeta, Antonelli tried to persuade the Pope to compromise and find a peaceful way for his return to the Eternal City. But Pius IX was adamant: “Even if they tear me to pieces, I will never give them the constitution again.”
Mazzini issued a proclamation in Rome calling on all Romans to join the army or help build defensive positions. The palaces of the aristocracy were turned into emergency housing for those Romans whose homes had been destroyed by French bombs. But the wounded and the dead were increasing, and the defeat of the Republic was imminent. Rome was bombarded mercilessly by hundreds of French guns every day. The ring around Rome was getting tighter and tighter.
On 19 June, Ancona surrendered to the Austrians, who immediately handed over the local administration to a Monsignor, who was immediately sent there by Pius IX. On 21 June, the French broke through the ruined part of the city walls and began to dig into the city. Mazzini asked Garibaldi to attack them, but Garibaldi was not used to being ordered around by someone who did not know military tactics, so he did not do so.
However, as the military situation was untenable, Garibaldi suggested that the Republican government should leave Rome and continue the fight from the surrounding hills. Mazzini refused, French troops made a decisive attack into the city at the end of June, and man-to-man fighting ensued. Garibaldi led one last desperate attack to hold off the enemy, but bomb fragments hit his black companion Andrea Aguyar in the left side of the head. He died in one of the overcrowded hospitals.
There were many dead and wounded on both sides, so a ceasefire was declared to allow each side to pick up its wounded and dead.
The Republican Assembly met at the Capitol. Mazzini and Garibaldi explained to those present the difficult situation in which Rome found itself and both proposed that the government and the army should leave the city and continue the fight from the surrounding hills. Some of the deputies began to cry. The motion was not carried. The next day, dubious official notices were pasted on the walls of the houses, saying that the Romans would not surrender, but they would not fight any more either. Mazzini resigned, along with the rest of the triumvirate. How many Romans died defending their city has never been officially announced. It may have been a thousand, but it is likely to have been several hundred more.
On 2 July, the French entered the city and encountered a dramatic scene. A funeral procession was passing by with one of the fallen Republican leaders. Women and men standing on the pavements knelt and crossed themselves, women wept. Surviving Republican soldiers in their torn and bloody uniforms followed the coffin, some on crutches, many with bandaged wounds. Garibaldi and some others were offered a boat by the American consul to take them to safety from Civitacechia. Garibaldi refused. He gathered the remaining Republican soldiers in St Peter’s Square, raised his hands and told the crowd: “To those who follow me, I can only promise want, hunger, thirst and the dangers of war.”
They all raised their guns and shouted, “We are following you! You are Italy! Long live Garibaldi!” Nobody knew where they were going, probably not even their leader. Four thousand men followed him, 37 of them carrying meagre luggage, with Ciceruacchio and his two sons showing them the way out of the city. With Garibaldi was his South American wife Anita, who had joined him from the safety of Nice in besieged Rome.
Ten thousand Republican soldiers stayed in the city and armed themselves. As there was no official surrender, they stayed in the barracks. The next day, when the French troops entered Rome, a French messenger arrived in Gaeta and handed over the keys of Rome to Pius IX. Meanwhile, the French Governor of Rome issued a curfew decree, the civil guard was disbanded and those who resisted the new authorities too vociferously were shot. Mazzini remained in the city, but knew he would have to leave. He sailed to Marseille on an American passport and then made his way to London, where he continued his life in exile.
After all France has done for the Pope, he could be more grateful. But Pius IX was always complaining. How could France have been so stupid as to let Garibaldi escape? Why did they allow Mazzini to wander around the city and finally escape? Why is there only a French flag flying in Rome? The French were also grumbling. They advised the Pope, for the sake of peace in the country, to announce that he would respect constitutional rights. But France, as a republic, cannot support autocratic rule, even if it is papal.
But the Pope has remained stubbornly silent on the matter. He only said to the cardinals, “Do you want me to forget my dignity? Should it look as if I had bowed to French pressure?” He appointed a commission of three conservative cardinals – the Romans called them the “Red Triumvirate” – to rule Rome until his arrival. They immediately annulled most of the Republican decrees.
Escape into the unknown
Meanwhile, in the Apennine mountains, Garibaldi and his men seemed to be coming to an end. He abandoned the thought of his base north of Rome and decided to head for Venice, the only part of Italy still fighting the Austrians. Many of his fighters had already left him, so he headed north with 300 of his most loyal comrades. When he reached the coast, he quickly overcame a small Austrian garrison, captured thirteen fishing boats and sailed north. Soon, Austrian warships caught up with him, most of the boats sank, and the Austrians sent the prisoners to the nearest Austrian fortress.
Garibaldi, his wife, the monk Ugo Bassi, Ciceruacchi and his two sons were miraculously saved. They were alone on a deserted shore and decided to split up into small groups. Garibaldi and his wife set off for Ravenna, but on the third day, Anita, who was seven months pregnant, could no longer go on. She contracted a fever and died the next day. Desperate, Garibaldi then crossed alone to the safety of Genoa. Ugo Bassi, who was his confessor, was betrayed, caught and sentenced to death.
Ciceruacchi’s fate was even more terrible. On 9 August, he was captured along with his two sons and five Garibaldians. The next day they were taken to be executed without trial. Cicceruacchio begged a Croatian officer to have mercy on his youngest son, who was only thirteen years old. The officer just laughed and ordered his youngest son to be shot first.
In Rome, the barricades blocking the streets had not yet been cleared away, nor the rubble of the demolished buildings cleared, when the “Red Triumvirate” had already imposed press censorship and started investigating those it thought or knew were supporting the Republic. Most of the members of the Constituent Assembly had already left Rome on French ships bound for Marseille, hoping to be granted asylum in France. But when the ships arrived in France, they were not allowed ashore, so after a stopover they continued their journey to America.
The Pope was no longer the same man he once was. Cardinals warned him that giving in would be a sign of weakness. Parliamentary democracy and individual freedoms are not only incompatible with the divine order, they are an inherited evil. The fact that public schools are still in operation was a scandal of the first kind for the Cardinals. Pius IX was in complete agreement. His entourage always warned him against returning to Rome, a city that was hostile to him. Mazzini is even said to have sent twelve assassins from abroad to assassinate him. Posters with the slogans Pope Pig! and Long Live the Roman Republic!
When the Pope issued his encyclical to bishops and archbishops in December 1849, his words were harsher than ever. His vision of society was medieval. Citing the New Testament, Pius IX told the Italian bishops: “There is no authority but the authority of God. Therefore, whoever resists this authority resists what God has ordained, and those who resist will incur their own damnation.”
In March 1950, Cardinal Antonelli summoned the ambassadors and told them that Pius IX would return to Rome at the beginning of April. The Pope quipped: “I cannot rid myself of the fear of the knife and other inconveniences. There is no more difficult task than to govern a people who are as demoralised as they are now. But God’s judgment is inevitable. If it is not today, it will be tomorrow.”
The Pope had not been staying in Gaeta for a long time, but in a villa near Naples, so he decided to return to Rome by land, hoping that the peasant population would welcome him with joy. He was not mistaken, for everywhere he went he was greeted by triumphal arches, peasants kneeling and removing their headgear as the carriage and its numerous attendants passed by. At the city gates, as the Pope’s procession passed by, brass bands played and priests celebrated Mass. The French were on high alert as the procession with the Pope approached Rome, sensing disorder. Mazzini’s pamphlets were also appearing, calling for resistance.
On Friday 12 April at noon, the procession with the Pope appeared at the West Gate of Rome. The city bells rang and the cannons boomed from the Castel Sant’Angelo. As the Pope stepped out of the carriage, people waved their handkerchiefs, but few knelt. Then the Pope’s procession continued on its way. It was joined by cardinals, a detachment of the papal army and troops of French cavalry. Mass was celebrated in St Peter’s Basilica, after which the Pope was escorted to his new residence in the nearby Vatican Palace.
Pius IX remained in Rome for a quarter of a century, but never stayed in Quirinal again. The memories were too painful. But the change of residence meant something else. The Quirinal was first a symbol of political power and of the Pope as King of the Papal States. The Vatican was only a centre of religious authority.
Epilog
When Pius IX returned to Rome, he wanted to have as little as possible to do with the political role that had caused him so much trouble. He now left that to Cardinal Antonelli. In the years that followed, with so much change going on around him, the Pope retreated more and more into his religious role, and there he found solace for the world’s misfortunes. After his arrival in Rome, the executions continued, with the guillotine set up in the middle of a large square and with a crowd watching the horrific scene. Two new guillotines were presented to Rome by the Bishop of Marseille. Three years later, after a long trial, the assassins of the Pope’s Prime Minister, Pellegrino Rossi, were convicted. One of them was executed by guillotine. In the following years, more heads rolled into the basket placed under the guillotine.
Victor Emmanuel II, son of the unfortunate Charles Albert, King of Sardinia, who finally succeeded in driving most of the Austrian troops from the peninsula, did not show much enthusiasm for annexing to his country the more southern part of the Apennine peninsula, but he could not fail to notice that Garibaldi did not want to give in here. With a thousand armed volunteers, Garibaldi disembarked in Sicily and pushed northwards. At Gaeta, he was defended by the new King of Naples and defeated in 1861.
Later that year, the Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed under Victor Emmanuel II, covering all of Italy except Venice, which was still Austrian, and Rome and its surroundings, which was left to Pius IX. The latter, of course, excommunicated all those who had deprived him of his papal lands, hoping that God would right this wrong.
For Italian patriots, of course, there was no real country without its capital in Rome. In 1869, the Pope called a Vatican Council, saying that Christianity was under attack from godless forces that had emerged from the French Revolution. Separation of church and state, however, was contrary to the doctrine of God. Only the Pope can effectively oppose this, because his words and judgments represent God’s truth. Pope Pius IX thus wanted to be declared infallible.
On 8 December 1869, 774 cardinals, bishops and other Church dignitaries gathered in Rome and flocked to St Peter’s Basilica. Determined that the survival of the Church depended on the Pope’s proclamation of infallibility, Pius IX put pressure on those present and the new doctrine was voted in July 1870.
The pressure on Emmanuel II to take Rome was growing. Mazzini, unhappy that the Italians had chosen a monarchy over a republic, tried to return to Italy to launch a republican revolt. But he was arrested in Sicily and imprisoned in a fortress in Gaeta, the very town where the Pope had lived in exile two decades earlier. Garibaldi was also under strict surveillance by the Italian kingdom, which refused to let him leave his home in Sardinia.
Early on the morning of 20 September, the Italian army launched an attack on Rome, which lasted only a few hours. The papal army offered little resistance and soon the white flag flew at St Peter’s Cathedral. The following year, King Victor Emmanuelle II made a triumphal entry into Rome. Pope Pius IX then repeated in encyclicals that the leaders of the new state of Italy were excommunicated and declared the Italian occupation of the Papal lands null and void. Half a century after Pius IX’s death, the Pope had to recognise the legitimacy of the Italian state and its capital in Rome.
