Leaders fall in and out of fashion. After Italy united as a Monarchy in the 1860s. Revolutionary leader Giuseppe Mazzini fell out of favor as the Italy he imagined was a Republic. He was too liberal for those in power but simultaneously too reactionary and religious for the new left. Fast forward 100 years though and he is exactly the type of anti Communist and also anti Monarchist and pro united Europe fellow to provide an historical basis for the current government. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
Mazzini has had more than a few Italian stamps. Most of them are like this one and don’t make him look very good. The best was the first one from 1921 that showed him as an old man. Less than 50 years after his death, he was perhaps still remembered as a man instead of a figure of history.
Todays stamp is issue A571, a 25 Lira stamp issued by Italy on March 10th, 1972. It was a three stamp issue in various denominations recognizing the death century of Giuseppe Mazzini, the Italian unification activist. According to the Scott catalog the stamp is worth 25 cents used. I am not alone in preferring the 1921 issue to the 1972 or the 2005 issue. The 1921 issue is worth $40, despite a 1/100th denomination.
Mazzini was born in Genoa in 1805 when it was part of the French Empire. He was from a well off family and studied the law. From an early age he was a believer in the unification of Italy. He formed a political movement called Young Italy. Cells of the movement were frequently rising up against various city states. As a result, Mazzini was often in exile and twice was even sentenced to death in absentia. In Switzerland he met fellow exiled nationalist from Germany, Poland, and Switzerland. He formed an international Young Europe group that then had subsidiaries of Young Italy, Young Germany. etc. He imagined republics based on Nationality that would then afterwards combine into a United States of Europe.
In the continent wide troubles of 1848-49, Mazzini had his chance. The Pope was forced to flee Rome and a Republic was declared. In charge was a triumpharate with Mazzini the senior figure. The Pope still had friends though not Mazzini who was religious but anti clerical. The French Army arrived three months into the Republic and Mazzini was again off to Switzerland and then on to London.
Though Mazzini was close to military independence leader Garbaldi, he was not in favor of the new united Italian Kingdom under the House of Savoy. He even attempted to start a new uprising against it in Sicily in 1870 and was briefly jailed. After dying he was celebrated by most. Independence leaders of all stripes had been reading his works for many years before the bitterness of his last years. The kind of government he wanted was finally put in place after the war in 1945. Since then Italy and Europe have made much progress, but I sense that Mazzini would have hoped the result would be more of a utopia.
Well my drink is empty and to me figures like Mazzini come up short, Like Sun Yat-sen in China he got famous traveling around complaining about the status quo, but when he was given the chance to rule, he was unable to produce any positive results. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.