Eleven years after the battles of Solferino and San Martino, which took place on 24 June 1859, the poor remains of around 7,000 fallen in battle, belonging to the French and Piedmontese Armies, who had been buried somewhat hastily after the battle, were dug up by Count and Senator Luigi Torelli and collected in an ossuary church near Mantua, which I recommend visiting.
A monument perhaps a little macabre, but which summarizes the horrors of war well. However, it was a war that was important. because it gave way to the real construction of the Unification of Italy. The Savoyard kingdom (which was still called Kingdom of Sardiniaas it was defined in the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713) and the French Empire of Napoleon III had united with the Treaty of Plombières, after the Piedmontese participation in the Crimean War against Russia in 1856, for an anti-Austrian alliance with a defensive function.
It was Cavour, as is known, who provoked Austria to attack the Savoys, after the unsuccessful attempt at the First War of Independence and the defeats of Novara and Custoza, in 1849, causing the intervention of the French in his support.
They were two very tough and bloody battles, from which the current one also originated Red Crossof which in addition to the ossuary there remain many finds exhibited in the Museum of San Martino, which however began to create Northern Central Italy (Piedmont, Liguria Lombardy, Parma and Emilia, Tuscany) to which Garibaldi then annexed the Italy of South (Kingdom of Naples).
I have said it and I repeat it: we will never stop thanking enough the precursors of the unification of Italy, who generally belonged to the enlightened upper middle class, like the engineer and historian Giuseppe Arrigoni of Introbio, who participated in the Five Days of Milan, emigrating for some time to Switzerland to escape Austrian retaliation. Or how Felice De Vecchithe builder of Villa de Vecchi in Cortenova (today unfortunately reduced to a sad ruin) which for a few years was a center of Radicals and Mazzinians (like the “Lombard Soldier” Amatore Melesi).
Or how Don’t worry Baruffaldiwho left Manzoni’s villa in Barzio in 1860 for Sicily together with Garibaldi in the “Expedition of the Thousand”.
These children of the good bourgeoisie did not propose so much a “social revolution” (I don’t really agree with the expression “betrayed Risorgimento” used by many historians already in the 20th century) but, beyond the somewhat rhetorical ideals, they aimed above all to create a united nation, capable of providing itself with modern structures and superstructures, which were already beginning to be present in other European countries (England, France and Germany), i.e. above all roads and railways, essential for the development of trade and the internal economy .
Just to be clear: the Duchy of Modena or the Grand Duchy of Tuscany they would never have had the economic possibilities to build the tunnels and railways essential to cross the Apennines! To create a railway and road network that included the entire peninsula, without any more barriers or internal duties.
If Italy, at the dawn of the 21st century, had become the fifth industrial power in the worldwe owe it largely to these characters to whom we have rightly dedicated many streets and squares in the main Italian cities, but whose life and works we essentially largely ignore.
It is therefore also for this reason that the University of the Third Age of Valsassina is happy to organize, Wednesday 26 Juneat 4 pm at the Comunità Montana, a meeting on the Risorgimento wars, in which he will participate Yuri Bergamo and some other colleagues dressed as Piedmontese soldiers of that era.
We will remember those battles but also the daily life of the soldiers, their equipment and their weapons of war.
A meeting to which, as always, we invite all citizens: it will certainly be very interesting!
see website: https://www.solferinoesanmartino.it/solferino/
Enrico Baroncelli
