Rosario Romeo. Cavour e il suo tempo (1842-1848). (3d ed., Bari, 1984), II.
A. J. Whyte. The Early Life and Letters of Cavour, 1810-1848. (London, etc., 1925).
Domenico Zanichelli, ed. Gli scritti del conte di Cavour. (Bologna, 1892), I.
JGC revised this file
(http://www.ohiou.edu/~chastain/rz/risognw.htm) on October 25, 2004.
Please E-mail comments or suggestions to chastain@www.ohiou.edu
© 1998, 2004 James Chastain.
RISORGIMENTO (Newspaper): first published in Turin
(capital of Piedmont-Sardinia) on December 15, 1847. Starting as
a weekly, it became a daily in January 1848. Established by
moderate, affluent royalists, led by Cesare Balbo and edited by
Camillo Benso di Cavour until October 26, 1848, its program called
for Italian independence, a league of Italian states, union between
princes and peoples, and a program of reforms. During the
revolutionary biennium 1848-49 it played a crucial role in
influencing public opinion and government policies in the Kingdom
of Piedmont-Sardinia, and making revolution "respectable." It also
marked the entry into active political life of Camillo Benso di
Cavour, who wrote in one of the first issues that the paper did not
aim to make money, rather to enlighten the country and to cooperate
with the government in furthering the Risorgimento.
As editor he set the paper's editorial policy and contributed many
of its most important articles. Even after formally giving up the
editorship Cavour continued to write on political and economic
matters. Early in 1848 the paper began to urge the king Charles
Albert to grant a Constitution, and on March 23, 1848, it called
for war against Austria to support the revolutionary movements for
independence in Lombardy and Venetia. As Cavour became more and
more involved in politics, finally becoming prime minister in 1852,
his journalistic collaboration decreased. In May 1849 the
Risorgimento fused with the more conservative
Nazione. The new paper continued, however, to
support government policies throughout the 1850s.
Emiliana P. Noether
Bibliography