In all Italy, the activism in favor of unification was a largely bourgeois movement. However, in 19th century, as is often also the case in the modern day, the bourgeoisie are the primary barometer of a society's willingness to accept radical change; they set trends and mediate the political discussion.

You see, it would be the French Emperor Napoleon, through his conquest of the ten 18th century successors of the medieval Italian city-states, to lay the definitive foundation for what would become modern Italy.

Politics in the pre-Napoleonic Italian states had differed considerably from state-to-state. Although the spirit of enlightened absolutism was the prevalent school of political thought in the 18th century, only the Grand-Duchy of Tuscany and the Austrian client-state centered around Milan instituted anything resembling reformist policies and enlightened government. This changed after Napoleon’s conquest, and what’s more, the political map of Italy was simplified: Northwestern Italy was integrated with the French Empire, while the northeast became the Kingdom of Italy, in a personal union with France. The south remained the Kingdom of Naples, ruled by Napoleon’s brother-in-law, Joachim Murat. In all three polities, Napoleon abolished old ecclesiastical and aristocratic privileges and imposed uniform legal, administrative, and fiscal laws and institutions. Devoid of economic or customs barriers, in spite of the three-way administrative division, Italy under Napoleon was economically united for the first time in hundreds of years. The new Italy experienced an economic boon, opening new destinations for both agricultural and finished goods, while the middle class extensively tapped to staff Napoleon's bureaucratic machine.

But the enthusiasm with which different regions of Italy embraced Napoleon's reforms differed: French reforms were popular in the bourgeois cities in Lombardy, Piedmont, and Veneto (Venice itself, however, was another matter) but French rule in the south faced stiff popular revolts, an uncooperative aristocracy, and opposition by the powerful clergy. In any case, the Italian states (and their ruling classes) once reinstated after Napoleon’s fall can be said to have emerged with a new lease on life; a clean slate.

The Congress of Vienna, concluded nine days before Napoleon’s final defeat at Waterloo, formalized the Austrian Empire as the hegemon in Italy. In addition to regaining the Duchy of Milan, the Empire also absorbed the Republic of Venice. These territories would be jointly administered under the name, “Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia,” forming a constituent realm of the empire along with the existing Austrian lands, the Kingdom of Bohemia, and the Kingdom of Hungary. The Austrian Emperor’s brother was placed on the throne of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, while his daughter Marie Louise (Napoleon’s widow) was given the Duchy of Parma. The small Duchy of Modena was given Napoleon's nephew Francis, and ten years later Modena would be united with the even smaller Duchy of Massa-Carrara, which the Congress of Vienna had given to Francis’ mother, the Italian aristocrat Maria Teresa of Este.

Four states escaped the Austrian sphere of influence. The Kingdom of Sardinia, centered on Piedmont but in possession of its namesake island since 1718 due to curious circumstances following the War of Spanish Succession, was returned to its ruler Victor Emmanuel of the House of Savoy. Victor Emmanuel’s firm anti-french and anti-revolutionary stance prior to being overrun by Napoleon had been duly noted and in recognition his kingdom was rewarded with the Ligurian territories of the Republic of Genoa.

Pope Pius VII was returned to full temporal control of the Papal States. In the Kingdom of Naples, Ferdinand of the House of Bourbon, the King of Spain’s brother, was reinstated as King. The Kingdom of Sicily was also incorporated into Ferdinand’s kingdom. In the past, the island had alternated between personal unions with the King of Spain and King of Naples; but because the King of Naples historically insisted on using the title “King of Sicily” even when not in possession of the namesake island, the restoration kingdom came to be called the “Kingdom of the two Sicilies.” Lastly, the small Duchy of Lucca was given to Maria Louisa of Bourbon, the King of Spain’s nice and widow of the previous Duke of Parma, deposed by Napoleon.

The quaint but minute Duchies of Parma, Modena, and Lucca, Austrian client-states all, were so small they were politically irrelevant. What's more, they were beset by economic instability: in the immediate aftermath of the end of the Napoleonic Wars, there was overproduction of agricultural goods and commodities. No longer benefitting from an Empire-sized market, prices fell through the floor. Further, these post-Napolenic monarchs were painfully aware their weakness. Although the Austrian Empire certainly held their clients to high standards of government as an official policy, rule in the Austrian sphere of influence was paranoid, repressive, and reactionary; opposed to reform or innovation of any kind. Indeed, the guarantee of intervention in the case of popular revolt led rulers to make little or no effort to improve the life of their subjects. Amongst the politically aware and economically hurting bourgeoisie in these states, "Italian Unity" became a catchall solution to their numerous problems. It is no coincidence that the Italian tricolor was conceived by a group of University students living in the Duchy of Parma.

This is curiously contrastable to direct Austrian rule in the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia. The bourgeoisie in the city of Bologna, for example, expressed a preference for Austrian rule over returning to the Papal States, while the aristocracy of the city of Venice was notoriously passive, primarily because their city was awarded the shared status of capital along with Milan, with all the pomp and circumstance that the position warranted. Indeed, Lombardy-Venetia was the most stable part of the Italian Peninsula in the early restoration. However, discontent quickly grew: key appointees in the government were not only selected directly by the Imperial government in Vienna, but were also given strict guidelines in which to operate: this stood stark contrast with the pre-Napoleonic Austro-Lombard government primarily run by the Milanese aristocracy which had been granted large allowances for ad-hoc decision making. However, although slower and less efficient than its Napoleonic predecessor, the Austrian administration was legitimately interested in keeping the local population content in the interest of preserving the empire. The economic development of the region, the highest in Italy, led the imperial administration to consider it a cash cow, but in spite of this conscription and taxation were less burdensome than they had been under Napoleon.

Milan would prove to be a hotbed of activism. In 1848, a bad grain harvest inflated the price of bread; this was the catalyst for revolts to break out, expelling the Austrian garrison from the Lombard capital. The Milanese intellectuals, although initially in favor of a Napoleonic-style "Liberal State," eventually embraced the notions of monarchal constitutionalism and Italian unity; this was the dominant current in nearby Piedmont. Over the course of 1848, the initial currents alternatively petitioning the creation of an Italian Republic or a smaller Lombard Republic had come to an uneasy compromise by being persuaded that King Charles Albert of Piedmont-Sardinia, who had declared war on Austria with the pretext of defending the Milanese revolters (and their Venetian imitators). The idea was that King Charles Albert would transmute his capital to Milan to be crowned, like Napoleon, with the Iron Crown of Lombardy. The longstanding effect of this understanding was that the absorption of Northern Italy would later go on to be conducted with the near-total consent of the local ruling class in the following decades.

This brings us to the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont; why was this state the catalyst behind Italian unity if Milan, and to a lesser extent her sister-city Venice, was the primary hotbed of activism? Indeed, Piedmont was initially conceived as a buffer state between the Austrian Empire and France. However, the restoration policy in Milan favoring the appointment of key administrators from Vienna led many prominent intellectuals formed in the “Milanese School” of philosophy and politics to migrate to the Piedmontese capital, Turin. Nonetheless, there were some key contrasts between the Lombards and Piedmontese. Piedmont, a hummocky land in the foothills of the Alps, is less suited to intense agriculture and urbanization than Lombardy. Although political debate was dominated by the middle class in both polities, in the more sparsely populated Piedmont the middle class still consisted of the small landed aristocrats. So understandably, this means Piedmont was a more conservative place.

Part two follows below: