Memory and Memorials of the Risorgimento in Venice after annexation to Italy

The most important episode of the Risorgimento in Venice was the experience of the Repubblica di San Marco (in 1848-49), which saw Daniele Manin, Nicolò Tomma- seo and other prominent figures of Venetian culture as its protagonists. After the annexation to Italy (1866), Venetians wanted to remember the heroes and the events of that first experience. Even in Venice, monuments to Garibaldi and to the King were built, but there was no widespread public works of celebration of the Risorgimento heroes, as happened, on the contrary, in many other Italian cities in the first decades after unification. Erected monuments (after many disputes, delays, and conflicts between institutions, committees, etc.) were few, as well as changes in toponyomy (wall affixed marble memorials were the most common celebrative works). The contradictory way by which Venice celebrated Italian Unità after 1866, is a symptom of many factors; the deep economic, social and identity crisis of the city; the difficult coexistence between the new moderate order imposed by the central government (and by the local government too); the memory of the heroic, but ill-fated, revolutionary experience of 1848- 49; and, finally, the still clear memory of political autonomy, which was lost in 1797.

Keywords: Venice - Revolution - Commemorative Monuments - Identity

Gianfranco Pertot, Memoria e memorie risorgimentali a Venezia dopo l'annessione all'Italia in "STORIA URBANA " 132/2011, pp 111-163, DOI: 10.3280/SU2011-132005