L’apostolato popolare. Agli italiani. Doveri dell’uomo. La giovine Italia

The foundations of Mazzini’s vision in three of Giuseppe Mazzini’s greatest writings: Agli Italiani, La Giovine Italia and Doveri dell’Uomo, accompanied by a critical introduction by Paolo Montanari that dwells on the concept of Europe and the women’s question for Mazzini. A leading exponent of Risorgimento patriotism, Giuseppe Mazzini made a decisive contribution, with his ideas and political action, to the birth of the unitary Italian state, while his theories were of great importance in defining modern European movements for the affirmation of democracy through the republican form of state. Carducci wrote of him: ‘Giuseppe Mazzini more than anyone else had sublime, resplendent, sunny vision of the third Rome, not aristocratic, not imperial, not pontifical, but Italian’. And Klemens von Metternich remembered him thus: ‘I had to fight with the greatest of soldiers, Napoleon. I came to agree between emperors, kings and popes. No one bothered me more than an Italian brigand: thin, pale, ragged, but as eloquent as the storm, as ardent as an apostle, as cunning as a thief, as easy-going as a comedian, as indefatigable as a lover, whose name is: Giuseppe Mazzini’.