Carbonari - Aftermath

Aftermath

In 1820, the Neapolitan Carbonari once more took up arms, in order to wring a constitution from King Ferdinand I. They advanced against the capital from Nola under a military officer and the Abbot Minichini. They were joined by General Pepe and many officers and government officials, and the king took an oath to observe the Spanish constitution in Naples. The movement spread to Piedmont, and Victor Emmanuel resigned the throne in favour of his brother Charles Felix. It was only through the intervention of Austria. The Carbonari secretly continued their agitation against Austria and the governments in friendly connection with it. They formed a vendita. Pope Pius VII issued a general condemnation of the secret society of the Carbonari. The association lost its influence by degrees and was gradually absorbed into the new political organizations that sprang up in Italy; its members became affiliated especially with Mazzini's "Young Italy". From Italy the organization was carried to France where it appeared as the Charbonnerie, which, was divided into ventes. Members were especially numerous in Paris. The chief aim of the association in France also was political, namely, to obtain a constitution in which the conception of the sovereignty of the people could find expression. From Paris spread rapidly through the country, and it was the cause of several mutinies among the troops. The movement lost its importance after several conspirators had been executed, especially as quarrels broke out among the leaders. The Charbonnerie took part in the Revolution, 1830; after the fall of the Bourbons, its influence rapidly declined. After this a Charbonnerie démocratique was formed among the French Republicans; after 1841, nothing more was heard of it. Carbonari were also to be found in Spain, but their numbers and importance were more limited than in the other Romance countries.

In 1830, Carbonari took part in the July Revolution in France. This gave them hope that a successful revolution might be staged in Italy. A bid in Modena was an outright failure, but in February 1831, several cities in the Papal States rose up and flew the Carbonari tricolour. A volunteer force marched on Rome but was destroyed by Austrian troops who had intervened at the request of Pope Gregory XVI. After the failed uprisings of 1831, the governments of the various Italian states cracked down on the Carbonari, who now virtually ceased to exist. The more astute members realised they could never take on the Austrian army in open battle and joined a new movement, Giovane Italia ("Young Italy") led by the nationalist Giuseppe Mazzini. Independent from French Philadelphians were instead the homonymous carbonara group born in Southern Italy, especially in Puglia and in the Cilento, between 1816 and 1828. In Cilento, in 1828, an insurrection of Philadelphia, who called for the restoration of the Neapolitan Constitution of 1820, was fiercely repressed by the director of the Bourbon police Francesco Saverio Del Carretto : among the interventions we remember the destruction of the village of Wood.

This defeat made them clear to many Carbonari that militarily, especially if alone, they could not compete with Austria, one of the greatest powers of the Old Continent: Giuseppe Mazzini, one of the most acute Carbonari. They founded a new secret society called the Young Italy in which many members would be channeled to the Carbonari, whole without supporters, practically ceased to exist, although the official history of this important company had continued wearily until 1848.