Abstract
This article argues that in Italy, at the end of the nineteenth century, monarchy played a strong role in the process of politicization. As the first institution of the nation, the monarchy, though theoretically super partes, was able not only to gather the political forces of the elite, but also of populations which as yet had no vote at the national level. These liberal-monarchical organizations were not classical political parties, but a network of associations acting in the political field as well as in charity, education, leisure and participation in national festivities. This rather informal way of ‘making politics’ must be taken into account in order to understand better the peculiar track followed by Italy at the end of the nineteenth century, and more generally, politicization before the era of mass parties.
Before his untimely death, the Italian historian Filippo Mazzonis had set about rewriting the history of the Italian monarchy. 1 In the preface to his book he wrote: ‘at the conclusion of my research and of my reflections, I am convinced that the monarchy has always played a decisive, albeit not a very clear, role (well, clear only on certain occasions)’. 2 Coming from an Italian historian who would have been unlikely to feel any affection or nostalgia for the monarchy, this statement is highly significant. It shows that it is possible not only to compile a history of the monarchy which no longer risks being guided by political choices that overshadow the aim of the research, but also to escape from the confines of a militant historiography. A project thus defined, much like that announced in 1983 and then in 1992 by Umberto Levra of an ‘attenta riconsiderazione’ of the unifying, mediating function of the monarchy in the unification process, could easily constitute the aim of this article. In actual fact, however, it is less a question of studying the Italian monarchy at the end of the nineteenth century than of examining the role it played in instilling a national idea in Italy, and in the construction of the nation. 3 Italian historiography varies radically on this precise point. Indeed it is difficult to get an idea of the place occupied by the monarchy and its representatives when there is such fluctuation between a historiography that presents it as essential and absolutely central to the unification process, and one that portrays the dynasty as not only superfluous, but even harmful.
The Italian monarchy does not have a particularly good reputation among historians. 4 One might almost say that it is considered a secondary factor on the road to Italian unity. The hypothesis of this article is that the monarchy was a powerful factor in national integration: ‘a symbolic and personal factor of integration’ as M. Herrero de Minon described it. 5 I have attempted to demonstrate this in a recent work, 6 by focusing on how the sovereigns fulfilled a nationalizing function through their policy of mediation and representation, but also by means of politicization, the final element of ‘nationalization’. It is this last point that we shall look at here in more detail. From the standpoint of political history, it made sense to assess the monarchy’s real power within Italian politics and to ascertain the nature of the regime and the sovereign’s prerogatives, elements which were all discussed and explored at the end of the nineteenth century before being taken up by legal scholars and historians at the end of the twentieth century. 7 One lesser-known element should, however, be stressed: the place occupied by the idea of the monarchy in a network of associations which, without constituting a modern political party, made up a political framework that was imbued with attachment to the monarchy, and which contributed to spreading this sentiment among layers of the population other than the liberal elites. In other words, we shall examine the factors in the country’s politicization by the monarchy, a politicization that was a vector for nationalization.
Monarchy and Politicization
At the outset, it is helpful to consider the relationship between the Italian monarchy and the process of politicizing the country in the late nineteenth century. To what extent was the monarchy, in theory impartial and apolitical, that is above any electoral activities and political consultation, able, in spite of everything, to play a role not only in nationalizing Italians, but also in politicizing the country as a whole?
Links between the monarchy and the political life of the country can be seen on at least two levels. Firstly, at the level of the King himself, whose involvement in the life of the country received a mixed assessment. A second level of analysis involves those political organizations that invoked the monarchy. Here once again there is some ambiguity as, according to the traditional historiography, the Italian political landscape had, strictly speaking, been without political parties for a long time. Some of these ‘pro-system’ organizations, either the liberal associations, some of those republicans who had rallied to the political system, or liberal Catholics, made up the majority of the Italian political class and attempted to organize themselves. One could be forgiven for believing that this amorphous grouping of those ‘attached to the institutions’ also supported the institution of monarchy; yet defence of the monarchy did not appear as the main element in their programmes. Organizations openly supporting constitutional monarchy, either in their names or their statutes, were rarer still and also slower to mobilize. This article will focus on these latter organizations, in an attempt to understand their role, their ‘clientele’ and their presence, and also to ascertain what was intended by their use of the ‘monarchy’ tag. The Crown’s place in the institutional structure as provided for in the Statuto was essentially flexible, 8 and depended much more on practice than on the text itself.
Looking at these ‘monarchist’ parties also involves examining their influence over a process of politicization which, according to a model developed for France by Maurice Agulhon, was linked to the dissemination of increased political activity. The term politicization concerns what Agulhon called ‘the descent of politics towards the masses’.
9
However, in order to highlight the fact that this descent of politics towards the masses can be either democratic or conservative, we shall adopt Susan Berger’s definition: political integration involves the politicization of society, that is to say the generalization of attitudes based on the existence of links between national political authority and the principle events in local and private life, or indeed the appearance of a political problem shared by the whole nation.
10
In the case of Italy this was coupled with nationalization, that is to say in this context the forming of a conscious link between local politics and national representation. It seems that for certain layers of the population this sense of ‘Italianness’ was centred on attachment to the sovereign and to the Crown.
These monarcho-liberal political organizations that invoked the monarchy were not modern parties but nevertheless had far from negligible roots in civil society. As Nicolas Roussellier
11
put it: although influential, liberal political culture may quite rightly seem to have constituted a ‘weak’ or ‘cold’ political culture in comparison with others …. It was organized but did not mobilize. It expressed itself in writing rather than through its image; its supporters were recognizable by an often implicit and subtle code of values, not by the marches of its activists. It was formed before the age of the masses and of political parties.
12
As far as ideology and political platforms were concerned, reference to the monarchy allowed different types of associations – ranging from electoral committees to mutual societies and ex-servicemen’s associations – to group together. Moreover, it led to the formation of a common platform for both the destra storica and the left, from Minghetti to Crispi. This was undoubtedly for different reasons, but with the same conviction that Francesco Crispi had expounded since the 1860s: ‘The monarchy unites us; the Republic would divide us’. In fact, the only times when all the country’s monarcho-liberal forces came together were during events that were directly linked to the person or the life of the sovereigns, much more than during the elections themselves, and these groupings took place under the loose form that we will call a monarchist ‘nebula’.
The Monarchist ‘Nebula’: Circles, Associations, Party
This is neither the time nor the place to re-examine the historiographical debate raging between historians of Italian political history. It has long been noted that Italian politics at the end of the nineteenth century was not structured around political parties with strong and distinct programmes. In 1875, in the programme announcement made by Agostino Depretis in Stradella, it was clear that the majority and the opposition shared relatively similar ideals: loyalty to the monarchy, secularity, foreign and financial policy, administration, the role of the state; so many issues on which their opinions were more similar than they were different. 14
In addition to this lack of differentiation between the parties of government, the party form taken up by Italian organizations seems far from classical models of party formation. Fonzi highlights its extreme regional fragmentation. This ‘political system without parties’ has been the subject of numerous studies and is considered one of the causes of the political instability of liberal Italy. What interests us here is, on the one hand, the real situation of party organization in Italy, and on the other hand, the links with a whole range of other associations, workers’ circles, mutual societies and various other groupings that were able to play a role in transmitting politics to society.
Party Organization
Can we really talk in terms of ‘party’ organization for those organizations, political or otherwise, that were working, often in a disorganized way, to defend the existing institutions? If we take the four fundamental – but limiting – characteristics proposed by La Palombara and Weiner to define a political party, 15 it would be difficult to find an Italian formation before the end of the century which met these criteria, and, in particular, there was no liberal ‘party’ in the proper sense of the term. 16
In fact, the liberals were extremely reluctant to organize into a party, and this reluctance was both theoretical and pragmatic. Marco Minghetti’s thinking on the political party 17 constitutes an example of the best that Italian liberal thought was able to contribute on the subject. The difficult relationship between the Italian ruling class and the concept of the political party can be illustrated by recalling the ambiguous attitude of Francesco Crispi. He was, at once, a supporter of pluralism, an admirer of the English system, and heir to the liberal-democratic tradition of the party of action, and yet at the same time was reluctant to countenance division into parties which, in his opinion, could be written off as municipal or corporatist idiosyncrasies, and in that sense overshadowed by the confidence in the State and the national-popular monarchy that unified the country’s parties. 18
Paolo Pombeni’s more recent analysis of the weakness of the party form among the liberals is clear and convincing: the liberals did not reject the modern party out of a lack of understanding, but because it offered an institutional space to the opponents of their own political model, not so much to supporters of the red revolution (who were initially little cause for concern and who could still be tackled with police measures) as to supporters of the ancien régime (aristocrats, the clergy, legitimists etc.), against whom the use of public force would be significantly more problematic once the legitimacy of their institution had been recognized in party form.
19
It should also be remembered that the existence of the ‘modern’ type of political party was not absolutely indispensable in order to ‘hold’ power, since between 700 and 720 votes were, on average, enough to elect a deputy. Nevertheless Hartmut Ullrich, a leading expert on the Italian liberals, asserted in 1992 on the subject of the Associazione Costituzionale Centrale, created in 1876, that its organization and its concrete actions, from 1876 to 1882, justified, in my eyes, the emergence within this Association – and not in the socialist party, which would be born fifteen years later out of the Congress of Genoa – of the first party in the modern sense of the term: a party that was no longer simply thought of as a conduit for ideas, but an organized realization of the history of Italy.
20
the spreading of sociability and political communication by, on the one hand, committees, circles, associations, newspapers, and on the other hand leaders, deputies, notables and journalists, which constituted flexible political clusters in a pyramid structure. At its base lay a solid associative fabric and a whole network of personal relationships. In the middle, acting as links, were exchanges of letters, the press and its networks, and the notables, who, at the same time, maintained contacts with regional and national leaders. The latter, at the top of the pyramid, worked towards building a unitary political discourse capable of bringing together these complex and diverse political islands that contemporaries called ‘parties’.
21
Yet it is this very monarcho-liberal nebula which interests us, in as much as it contributed, through political and para-political means, to nationalizing a population that went beyond the simple circle of notables. And this nationalization relied, to a large extent, on the image of the monarchy and the defence of this institution.
There were, therefore, on the one hand attempts at organization and on the other hand a real mobilization – initially with strictly electoral aims which became, little by little, societal – of diverse groups ranging from associations to circles, mutual societies and ex-servicemen’s associations. The term ‘nebula’, used by Christian Topalov to describe the reformers and their networks in France from 1880 to 1914, can easily be applied to the situation in Italy: A finite universe, but with undefined boundaries, intermittent and made up of dense clusters and relatively empty areas, a body in the process of forming or disintegrating, a group of objects organized into partial systems but dragged into a single movement.
22
However, references to the monarchy were nothing if not ambiguous: we know opinion differed, following the death of Victor-Emmanuel II, between an interpretation of the monarchy as moderate and the national-popular monarchy wanted by Crispi. 26 Add to that the monarchia amabile, the plan for a liberal monarchy extolled by Zanardelli, which hoped to reform the alliance established by Cavour between the monarchy and the liberal movement. 27 Lastly there was Sonnino’s solution, which aimed to put the monarchy back at the centre of politics by letting it use its prerogatives in order to counter trasformismo. At the end of the century, the monarchical solution was invoked both as ‘conservative’ and ‘popular’, in other words either a reactionary monarchy aimed at curtailing the social movement such as was exploding in Italy, or a monarchy aiming to take the evolution of society into account – which had been expected of Victor-Emmanuel III following the assassination of his father. In this way, reference or commitment to the Savoy monarchy constituted the polysemantic common denominator for many formations: associazione costituzionale and groupings on both the right and left, of course, but also the liberal Catholics. 28 From liberal Catholics to committed republicans, loyalty towards the institutions constituted a common platform, even if the political role allotted to the sovereign could vary from one formation to the next. Here we see the crudely outlined boundaries of a country that was engaged in nationalizing Italy behind the ‘Glorious House of Savoy’, and all the while playing a political game. However, if we look more closely at these ‘people’ of the monarchy, it becomes clear that, far from limiting themselves to party or electoral formations, they also encompassed a number of different associations.
As far as this impossible ‘pro-system’ party, a muddle of different ideas and aims, is concerned, it seems that the differentiation established by Hartmut Ullrich, between liberal groupings focused at the local level on elections and democratic associations that also fulfilled a function of political education and of emancipating the lower orders, 29 can be partially revised. This is a largely accurate image if we only look at political associations in the strict sense of the term. However, the study of groupings that came together on occasions linked to the monarchy underlines the existence of much more complex aggregates which brought together different categories of associations, ranging from recreational circles to workers’ societies, the purposes of which were clearly not simply electoral. We should therefore make every effort not to see the mass party as the only possible example of a political party, 30 and to examine the other forms chosen at the end of the nineteenth century.
It is striking that this form of ‘total’ mobilization did not occur during political or administrative elections. It took place during events directly linked to the sovereigns, or to other prominent figures (we see the same type of mobilization for Garibaldi, Saffi and the Duke of Aosta). These events linked to individuals (birthdays, funerals, marriages, etc.) were, in effect, the only moments when a national network appeared, comprising all the members of civil society who wished to voice an opinion. It is true that this opinion cannot be seen as merely political. It was the result both of a public act – commitment to the monarchy, in this case – and a private act – condolence, congratulation, protest, etc. Is that where we should look, up to the first years of the twentieth century, for what we could call political organization in Italy? And how did this political organization change between the start of the 1870s and the First World War? For the purposes of comparison it is interesting to note that in France at the same time the crystallization of republican tendencies, and therefore their structuring, was the result of an ‘event’ in the strict sense of the term: the centenary of the French Revolution. 31
Pinpointing this evolution is an arduous and unreliable undertaking, given how many sources have appeared and how weak they sometimes are, and in any case it is unfortunately not possible to draw up a national political topography of the monarchist parties and associations or those with monarchist tendencies. We can, however, attempt to show the extent of this monarchic nebula, and in doing so it is difficult to separate the ‘political’ parties from the associations. 32
The Monarchist Political Associations
If, for the entire Italian political landscape at the end of the nineteenth century, we try to pinpoint the strictly political groups – electoral or otherwise – linked to ‘defending the institutions’ and therefore to the defence of the monarchy, sources are thin on the ground. We first need to locate a diverse range of sources in order to get some idea of the number and names of these political societies. On top of this, reading their statutes could also give us an idea of their aims, whether purely electoral or more wide-ranging. 33
As has already been noted, there is some debate as to the level of organizational maturity among the Italian moderate and liberal parties at the end of the nineteenth century. We will take up the assertion of H. Ullrich that this was not a linear evolution moving from small, under-politicized and unstructured groups towards strong party organization of the modern variety. There were points, as we have seen above, when many groupings were formed, and also periods of inertia (1885–1886, the start of the 1890s, etc.). However it cannot be denied that, beyond the liberals’ views on the party form – as desirable or, on the contrary, dangerous – people were thinking, often prematurely, about the best possible forms of organization. As a result of this, two main lines of thought were put forward, sometimes separately, sometimes in parallel.
The first possibility was an attempt to bring together forces at the national level while looking for a hierarchical, homothetic structure with a common programme – or at least a common platform – and attempting, on a legal footing, to send ‘national’ representatives to the Parliament. The other possible route to modernization aimed to put the monarcho-liberal organizations in touch with society by making them ‘go to the people’. Following the serious crises of the 1890s it seemed all the more clear that both of these approaches would have to be employed in tandem. In 1894 Crispi had ordered his administration to conduct a survey of the forces in play before promulgating the law which allowed the dissolution of subversive associations. Of the 9379 associations in existence, 348 were dissolved.
In spite of my efforts it has not been possible to find the preparatory work for the table that brought together these results. 34 It would however have been very useful, given the meticulous nature of prefectural and police administration under Crispi, to know the names of the 404 monarchist associations that were singled out by the ministry. It would be equally interesting to know about the 77 monarchic associations in the province of Catania; they were most probably electoral associations set up by Crispi himself during the creation of the General Commissariat for Sicily under Codronchi.
A Difficult National Consolidation
Destra, as much as the liberal left, attempted on several occasions to organize at the national level. For a long time its aim remained essentially electoral, such as in Venice on 26 September 1880, when the Associazione costituzionale, with its 70 members, which had until then aimed to be represented at the inaugurations of monuments to Victor-Emmanuel II in Legnano and Vicenza, decided to ‘name a permanent committee of 24 members … to use any means to get candidates of the Association elected at political and administrative elections’. 35
In Arezzo in 1881 the Unione monarchico liberale was born, following in the footsteps of the Associazione monarchica costituzionale. 36 This was a national movement, although it had real difficulty establishing itself in the south of the country. In the case of the liberal and progressive associations, the link with society was made via numerous other associations (mutual societies, workers’ groups, ex-servicemen’s clubs, etc.) which in general did not have organic links to them, but rather had individual ties of patronage, as was the case with the Florentine society Patria-Re-Libertà-Progresso. At the same time Florence’s Destra was once again taken up by G. Cambray Digny and Carlo Alfieri with the Unione liberale monarchica, and the left organized around the Associazione democratica costituzionale, which in 1884 had 654 members, a remarkable figure for the time, 37 and which was further strengthened by the Società Sempre Avanti Savoia, aimed at students.
As Fausto Fonzi has indicated, the years 1885–1886 saw a significant drop in political associations of the modern variety. And yet, from 1887, new attempts were made to organize and consolidate constitutional associations, reinforced by political decisions concerning Crispi.
38
March 1887 saw the first Congresso delle Associazioni Liberali-monarchiche in Florence. There was strong opposition to a federation of monarchic associations, as this statement from the President of the Associazione costituzionale di Bergamo shows: they wish to unite into a single body all opinions which do not openly renounce the Monarchy … and recreate the political mishmash that inevitably leads to systematic confusion, the deplorable parliamentarianism as it exists today, and to Crispi’s hybrid ministries. There are unfortunately many associations in Italy that are monarchic in name only – and very few, on the other hand, that are true Constitutional Associations in the old tradition.
39
At the end of the 1890s, this tendency towards consolidation gained pace once more, thanks to the impetus, among others, of student movements. Thus, during the sovereigns’ visit to Milan in October 1897, during the reception in the Royal Palace, the only open rally was that held by the Students’ Monarchical Association, which attracted 300 people who did not cease to cheer the sovereigns. 41
Conservative Monarchy or Popular Monarchy?
From this point on there were two distinct political trends that claimed to support the monarchy. Firstly, and this was particularly visible after 1900, were groups in support of a popular monarchy, one that was closer to the people. Secondly, as was the case in 1899, there were monarcho-conservative associations centred around Milan. Some 85 associations representing 25,000 members came together under the double presidency of the Hon. Enrico Panzachi and Massafra, president of the Associazioni monarchiche degli studenti. This union was instigated by young monarchists acting as agitators. Its stance was deeply conservative, in opposition to the monarcho-constitutional associations within which ‘factions, groups, and fragments of factions and groups evolved to whom we could not allow ourselves to be bound’. 42 Decidedly conservative, these liberal associations condemned the inertia of the liberal party, which had been unable to galvanize the people. And yet on this subject the proposals made remained very vague. Although a name change was suggested, to the Assocazioni monarchici liberali conservatrici, attempts at a merger were difficult to implement, since, in May 1902, there was still talk of the possible creation of a Federation of the monarchic associations of Tuscany, which would bring together 74 members, with a view to creating a National Federation with its headquarters in Rome. 43 From the end of the 1890s, however, faced with the disappointing results of the municipal elections of 1899 followed by the shock of the King’s assassination, it appeared that organization and national discipline had to be combined with a greater attention paid to the social question.
The second model of modernization for these monarchist and liberal groups consisted not so much in national organization as in an attempt to ‘penetrate’ the social fabric, which came relatively early in the 1880s – at any rate well before the formation of the Workers’ Party. This involved offering, around the organization, a whole range of other ‘services’ connected with work, leisure and education. As these groups did not, as far as we know, attempt to organize on the national level, the traces that they have left are far sparser and more difficult to piece together. The Circolo monarchico popolare in Piacenza, created in 1883, appeared as a result of the defeats of the monarchical party in 1882 and 1883. It seemed to these young people at the time that the strength of the people who were known as democrats, who had suddenly become very powerful due to the novelty they represented in politics, was derived partly from the shortcomings of the old methods of the liberal monarchists, namely to close ranks, or rather to shut themselves away for fear of the masses and immerse themselves in generally abstruse discussion, unable to take any action that might indicate their interest in the lower classes.
44
The process was similar in Imola in 1884 when the Associazione costituzionale became the Associazione Vittorio Emanuele, ‘una vera e propria società politica’ 45 which set itself the task of holding conferences, spreading ideas in the press, participating in public struggles and launching economic initiatives. In Forlì in 1882 the monarcho-liberal party, which had until then been relatively quiet, launched a newspaper and used it to declare its interest in workers’ problems; in 1884 the party formed a Società folivese per abitazione ai più bisognosi. 46 These techniques for spreading political messages appeared in most of the statutes of liberal associations, developed to varying degrees. This involved at the very least the use of conferences, meetings and the press, as in the case of the associazioni liberali. Press, conferences and meetings appear as the cardinal trilogy of methods of political action, and before the turn of the century there were few liberal monarchical associations that tackled social issues. When they did do so, it was in moderate terms: the liberals’ social aim was to help the most destitute by pulling them away from the empty promises of the ‘sects’. It should be added that in terms of organization, the liberal and monarcho-liberal associations had no shortage of links with associations that were rooted in civil society. Thus, gravitating around them and often under the direction of a local notable, were mutual societies or workers’ associations.
In 1900 a new language appeared. The new attention being paid to the lower classes had a double motivation: firstly, it was a reaction to Umberto’s assassination, which, once the indignation had passed, mobilized some of those with the least conservative tendencies who did not want to leave the way entirely clear for the socialists. Then there was the attitude of Victor-Emmanuel III, who opened politics up to the working classes. As Arturo Labriola wrote in 1910: The King, neglecting the parliamentary majority, realized that a new force was being born in the country, a force that had no parliamentary power but which could no longer be ignored if it were not to be forced into becoming a revolutionary force. The King, therefore, no longer negotiated with a parliamentary party as Umberto had done, but dealt indirectly with a new social force that the parliamentary parties quite clearly did not know how to judge. Regardless of whether it was by personal intuition or enlightened council, this solution reflected well on the man who had adopted it.
47
It was, therefore, starting with the reign of Victor-Emmanuel III that the statutes of new monarchical associations began to put more emphasis on social problems. February 1901 saw the creation, in Florence, of the Giovane Partito Liberale Monarchico, whose Tuscan branch took the name Associazione Camillo Cavour. Its programme, in a section on the social question, shows that the association was calling for true social legislation such as had already been won in other countries, particularly regarding the social protection of women, children and the elderly; recognition of the right to strike; and the promotion of cooperatives, mutual societies and agrarian consortia. 48
The same focus on social questions can be found in the statute of the Società monarchica of Crema, published in 1904. Under the leadership of the Unione operaia liberale monarchica, created in 1889, the new association declared its wish to better ‘protect economic interests as well’.
49
And yet the Unione operaia liberale monarchica, from 1889, was committed to ‘uniting workers with better-off members … its example being followed by the other societies in Crema and by the associations of other towns because it fit the principles of clear social interest’. The principle of brotherhood promoted by the association allowed its worker members to find, within the Union, material assistance in the traditional form of private charity. This guideline was reinforced in the constitution of the Società monarchica of Crema. The same declaration of principle was seen again in 1899 from the Circolo popolare monarchico de Bologne: the aim of the popular liberal monarchists is the moral and material resurrection of the Italian people. Hence the double effort, which can be summarized as follows: educate and assist … so that they may truly exercise their rights and understand their responsibilities, so, simply put, that they might lift themselves, in deed as well as in word, to the dignity of citizens.
50
In 1899 the Circolo popolare monarchico de Bologne established the Segretariato del popolo which functioned as the circle’s charitable arm. 52 The Segretariato del popolo of Florence, created in 1898, presented itself as a charitable institution. Its aim was not to distribute donations or food but to help the most destitute protect themselves from the authorities or from dishonest individuals. It also aimed to help people who wanted to write official letters and documents, free of charge.
Within the associations in Bologna and in Casale Monferrato we see indications that the accent was placed most heavily on ‘propaganda’. In 1899 the Circolo popolare monarchico of Bologna published a minor work entitled The organisation of propaganda (section committees – workers’ committees). 53 This work sets out propaganda and information techniques that one would not expect to find within a liberal party often presented as elitist and cut off from the masses. The techniques it proposes are in some respects modern. This was not propaganda in the sense of mass political meetings – useless from the point of view of the liberals, who were not looking to broaden suffrage – but rather in terms of contacts, information, explanation and political education. Under ‘electoral policing’ the work lists: finding out the opinions of voters by asking them or by asking those around them; paying particular attention to undecided voters; never forgetting the moral influence that women can have over men; not hesitating to denounce the private depravity of political opponents; organizing debates; analysing the press; providing potential voters with material assistance; and many other methods that married cynicism and political will. It is equally striking to note that the recommendations insist on the promotion of ideas and not of the candidates’ personalities.
Thus if we wanted to draw up a typology of the monarcho-liberal political associations and of their evolution as they were beginning to open up to the social question and the working classes, and which, as such, would include a certain number of offshoots connected with school, work, civic and political education, reading, mutual support, etc., we could contrast this with the more traditional and more obsolete model of electoral parties that were above all aiming to organize at the national level. Yet it would be erroneous to see in this second model nothing but electoral pressure groups that only acted sporadically, on election days, and only had links with the local elites. Quite often these political societies were the sister organizations of associations such as workers’ societies, mutual societies, etc. that complemented their presence on the ground. How the two worked hand in hand was evident during events that shook the Italian monarchists: the long lists of condolences, telegrams, services gathered and published after deaths, assassination attempts or festivals showed this solidarity around the country’s institutions. Moreover, we can see the joint prominence of these political associations and of civil society when the names of leaders are given, according to the model given by Luigi Musella for the South: amici, parenti, clienti …
Associations, Mutual Societies, Circles: A Monarchist Network
This article does not attempt to re-examine the debate over sociability in Italy, or over associationism, 54 but rather, following on from the studies that have already been conducted, examines the ‘fire power’ of liberal organizations, on both the right and the left, within the country’s social fabric. In fact, in spite of their divisions and their different ideas for government, they undoubtedly shared a common ground in the constitutional monarchy. The majority would have been able to sign up to the following declaration in defence of the indispensable understanding ‘between all those who are truly devoted to the constitutional monarchy of the House of Savoy, and are ready to forget the divisions of the past which have no foundation in the present’. 55 For the Destra, the monarchy of choice was a paternalist, conservative monarchy. For part of the Italian left, the liberal plan for the monarchy implied a ‘social’ as well as constitutional monarch. This ‘populist’ dimension of the monarchy seems to have been essential in the process of nationalization that was crystallizing around the institution and the person, and in any case allowed the liberal movement, on both the right and the left, to expand beyond electoral organizations. There was therefore a double movement: at the local level this ‘radical paternalism’, already evoked by Maurice Agulhon in The Republic in the Village, 56 which formed links between the notables and the population, but which here, it seems, assumes the form of a political system; and a second movement, in reference to the monarchy but beyond the programmatic platform, hinted at a ‘super-paternalism’ – that of the sovereign. Yet we also see this ‘popular liberalism’ 57 manifested as a ‘popular monarchism’ with a programme that was less well defined, and so all the more powerful. The regional monographs that have already been compiled could be used to locate such synergies between the political movement and its associated groups. In reality, however, these elements have often been ignored, as they have not attracted the particular attention of academics. We do nevertheless have solid information for the north of Italy and the Zanardelli movement, but much less for the south of Italy or indeed central Italy. We could apply the following definition to these pro-system parties: ‘un’organizzazione “multidimensionale” del consenso politico, dove si confondono alleanze politiche, reti associative e notabiliari e discorso politico’ (‘a “multidimensional” organization of political consensus, which involved political alliances, networks of association, networks of notables, and political developments, all mixed together’). 58 This quotation was applied to the Bovio party, a radical and democratic party that was organized in a manner that was not all that different from the liberal parties.
Another way of uncovering these links between political groups and associations would be to find the people on the participation registers for events connected to the sovereign who represented several different societies. By starting from these lists of the participants in ceremonies relating to the sovereign, we find, in 1901, the list of societies represented at the pilgrimage to the tomb of Umberto I, which can serve as an example of groupings formed around certain prominent figures. 59 Attempting to define the limits of these politico-associative nebulae by looking at the key representatives of several societies is all the more pertinent in Italy since we are well aware of the weight that personal friendship and individual links carried in politics. 60 We can be almost certain that commitment to the principle of monarchy was at the heart of all this support for ceremony. For example, in the Province of L’Aquila a single figure, Filippo Scarnacchia, represented the Società operaia di M.S., the Società operaia femminile and the Cooperativa Selciatori of Alfedena. Tommaso Triani represented the Società Reduci Patrie battaglie of Amatrice and of L’Aquila, Felice Salmaggi represented the fratellanza Umberto I, the Società dei Ferrari and the R. Istituto Ottavio Colecchi of L’Aquila, while Enrico Tenca represented the Società operaia of Amatrice and the shooting society of L’Aquila. Vincenzo De Amicis represented the Società operaia and the charity congregation in Scanno as well as the Società generale di Mutuo Soccorso and the shooting society of Solmona, etc. In this way, this monarcho-liberal nebula included a political association that was linked with a mutual society or a workers’ association as well as with one or several ex-servicemen’s associations. Sometimes cultural or even economic associations – chambers of commerce or banks and credit institutions – also became linked in.
This underlines the ambiguity of the mutual associations that have long been thought of exclusively as the matrix of the socialist movement. 61 Although we can see in the mutual societies the embryo of the future Party of Italian Workers, created in 1891–1892, it must not be forgotten that the ‘politicization’ of these societies, and politicization thought of as in opposition to the institutions, was slow and moved at different paces in different regions. In Piedmont the mutual societies, studied by Renata Allio between 1850 and 1880, 62 considered themselves apolitical, that is to say that they did not belong to the opposition.
Their much proclaimed devotion to the House of Savoy was not, it seems, born out of utilitarian needs, but was perfectly sincere. The King was ‘good’, ‘loyal’, ‘generous’, a ‘gentleman’: Charles-Albert had conceded the Statuto, and Victor-Emmanuel was in the process of extending to all Italians the ‘Piedmont freedoms’. 63
And, as Renato Allio underlines, every society had a portrait of the King, and their statements often bore a print of Charles-Albert’s portrait. In 1878 the president of the Workers’ Society of Tortona was involved in the funeral of the King in Rome. As for the Workers’ Society of Cuneo, it too remained loyal to the Savoys, contributing 100 lire for the monument to Victor-Emmanuel II in Rome in 1878, 100 lire for the monument in Turin and an undetermined sum for a local plaque. Having been under the authority of the notables and the bourgeoisie for so long, the mutual societies remained deeply conservative, at least in Piedmont, but also in other regions. One has to wait until the end of the 1880s for some of these societies, well managed as they were by the notables and the local bourgeoisie, to turn more decidedly towards socialism. But only partially. In 1924, when the workers’ associations were dissolved under fascism, some of them still carried a reference to the name of the sovereign: 64 in Antignano, in the Province of Livorno, the Società operaia di M.S. Umberto I; in Castellamare di Stabia, the Società di M.S. Principe di Napoli, etc. These were nevertheless rare. In 1900, on the other hand, there were still many (around 750) that not only carried the sovereign’s name, but also took part in mourning after his assassination. This seems to place them in an established institutional sphere, and not yet in the opposition. Similarly, the telegrams sent appeared to signify support for the values of monarchical Italy, and were not simply a meaningless reflex.
This link between openly monarchist associations and mutual associations or the società operaie allows us to establish the existence of a network, in part political, which was also devoted to social, philanthropic and cultural activities that complemented electoral action. This complementarity is underlined by the reports of prefects or parliamentary officials who, in these reports, gave the political ‘colour’ of the different groups without differentiating between ‘political’ organizations (for example the associazione costituzionale) and mutual societies or ex-servicemen’s clubs.
The monarcho-liberal associations are distinct in that they succeeded only very late on in federating. The impression of fracturing, of personal rivalries, of often informal networks is reinforced by the significant difficulty we now face in finding moments when the whole of this political family came together. For our purposes, however, it is interesting to note that the contours of this ‘nebula’ can be seen on rare occasions that are still linked to the royal family much more than to electoral practice. This analogy can be taken even further: in effect these groupings, which were organized under the leadership of local notables who often rejected even the notion of the party and who preferred the idea of consensus or of defending the institutions – the dissidents in this case being those who organized into parties – followed the same logic that guided relations between the sovereign and the population. Charity, paternalism, support for education, entertainment and ceremony; all these organizations participated, along with the King, in the formation of a national identity that was seen not as ‘partisan’, but on the contrary as unifying, nationalizing and patriotic.
In other words, the function of politicizing the liberal ruling class was far from being as reduced and elitist as has long been suggested. 65 The party form adopted was not modern, and resembled more of an intermediary phase in political organization. In the end, this politicization, through the systematic and unequivocal use it made of the Italian monarchy, also had a nationalizing function. But by invoking the only national institution in existence at the end of the nineteenth century, and by inciting their members to participate in the whole range of symbolic, ceremonial and festive nationalizing events, it created a particular political culture which, under a traditional, even archaic, exterior, in fact led Italy towards an understanding of the real nature of its nation.