Kingdom of Italy

The Kingdom of Italy was the new national state created through the Risorgimento, the unification movement that brought most of the Italian peninsula under one monarchy. Its formation ended the Bourbon Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and the period of revolutionary campaigning, but The Leopard presents political unification less as a clean social rupture than as a rearrangement of power: the old aristocracy yields ground while adapting to the new order, and the rising bourgeoisie gains influence through wealth, office, and marriage.

Formation and Unification

When the novel opens, Ferdinand II has died and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies is nearing its end. The wider movement for unification had gathered force after the Napoleonic Wars and the Austrian occupation of northern Italy, and had already reached a major crisis in 1848. Leadership now rested chiefly with the Kingdom of Sardinia, ruled from Turin by Victor Emmanuel II, with Cavour as prime minister.

In May 1860, Giuseppe Garibaldi sailed from near Genoa with a thousand volunteers to seize Sicily from Bourbon rule, acting against Cavour’s wishes. His Garibaldini landed at Marsala, defeated Bourbon troops at Calatafimi, and occupied Palermo within three weeks. Hailed as dictator of Sicily, Garibaldi recruited further volunteers, crossed to the mainland, entered Naples, and later handed southern Italy to Victor Emmanuel. After the Bourbon armies were defeated on the Volturno, Francis II was besieged at Gaeta. These campaigns brought the southern territories into the emerging national state, while Garibaldi’s withdrawal to private life marked a turn from revolutionary action to the consolidation of monarchy.

Political Settlement and the End of Revolution

Plebiscites recorded the peninsula’s agreement to join the new kingdom, with the Papal States the exception. They remained outside it under the protection of troops sent by Napoleon III for reasons connected to French domestic politics. The unresolved question of Rome prompted Garibaldi’s attempt in 1862 to march on the city. On the slopes of Aspromonte in Calabria, Piedmontese troops routed his men and wounded him. The novel’s historical account identifies this confrontation as the action that ended the revolutionary phase of the Risorgimento. The unification process received an official culmination in 1870, when Rome was declared the capital of Italy.

Social Power Under the New Order

The novel measures the new political climate through changes in local wealth and influence. Don Calogero Sedàra’s rise is a concrete sign of the transfer: after lending a thousand ounces of gold against an estate, he acquired it when the mortgage fell due, gaining property that yielded five hundred ounces annually. He also bought land containing a valuable stone vein and profited from grain sales during the confusion and famine after the landings. His growing fortune accompanied his rise to leadership among the local Liberals, and he expected to win election as a deputy to Turin.

For the Prince, this change does not mean that the established class will simply disappear. He interprets the local Liberals’ ambitions as a bid to take the old families’ places rather than destroy the social order outright. The distinction is central to the novel’s portrait of unification: political forms and officeholders can change while inherited prestige and social habits remain influential. The old families’ position becomes less secure, but their names and status can still be carried into the new settlement.

Marriage, Office, and Adaptation

The proposed marriage of Tancredi Falconeri and Angelica Sedàra makes this accommodation visible in family terms. Don Calogero offers Angelica a substantial inheritance: the Settesoli estate, measured at 644 salmi or 1,010 hectares, olive groves and vineyards at Gibildolce, and twenty linen sacks containing 10,000 ounces of gold each for the bridegroom. The Prince supports the match partly because he sees Tancredi as ambitious and attuned to the times, while Don Calogero’s wealth gives the young couple a material foundation. The marriage binds new money to an old aristocratic name rather than keeping the two social groups apart.

The same logic appears in the Prince’s response when asked to join the Senate. He declines and recommends Don Calogero instead, arguing that Sedàra’s practical abilities and political power suit the institution better than his own experience or lack of self-deception. The recommendation anticipates Sedàra’s actual entry into the Senate ten years later. Meanwhile, Tancredi uses his fresh funds and political energy to establish himself in the shifting political field; his activity is disguised by a manner of apparent nonchalance, and the novel shows him gaining usefulness and influence without yet holding a specific government office.

The Kingdom’s consolidation therefore runs alongside a circulation of elites. Don Calogero’s wealth supports the restoration of Villa Falconeri, overseen by Don Fabrizio, and helps banish the threat of legatees and bailiffs from the property. Tancredi and Angelica return from a year of travel to a refurbished home where new furnishings coexist with ancient architectural proportions. In this image, as in the political settlement itself, change supplies the means by which parts of the old order endure.