Papal States

The Papal States were the exception to the territorial unification achieved through the Risorgimento’s plebiscites. Their continued separation, secured by French troops, made Rome the focus of a conflict that ended the movement’s revolutionary phase but remained unresolved until the city was declared Italy’s capital in 1870.

Position in the Unification

As the movement for Italian unification gathered force, plebiscites brought the states of the peninsula into the new kingdom, with one major exception: the Papal States. Troops sent by Napoleon III occupied them for reasons of internal French politics, preventing their inclusion in the same process. The result was a divided political landscape in which the new kingdom could claim broad agreement across the peninsula but could not yet incorporate the territory around Rome.

Rome and the Revolutionary Campaign

In 1862, Giuseppe Garibaldi tried to force the unresolved question by marching on Rome. Piedmontese troops routed his men on the slopes of Aspromonte in Calabria and wounded Garibaldi. The confrontation showed that the new Italian government would use force against a revolutionary campaign when it threatened the settlement taking shape under its authority.

Aftermath and Significance

The action by Italian government forces at Aspromonte ended the revolutionary phase of the Risorgimento. It did not, however, immediately settle the Papal States’ position: Rome was declared the capital of Italy only in 1870. In this historical account, the Papal States therefore represent both the limit of plebiscite-led unification and the continuing political question whose resolution came after the revolutionary drive had been checked.