RISORGIMENTO: WITH SOME REMARKS ON SAN MARINO AND THE MILLENNIUM
“Il Calavrese abate Giovacchino
Di spirito profetico dotato.”
Dante: Paradiso, Canto xii.
“Pater imposuit laborem legis, qui timor est; filius imposuit laborem disciplinæ, qui sapientia est; spiritus sanctus exhibet libertatem, quæ amor est.”
Joachim of Flora: Liber Concordiæ, ii.
I
“Italy is too long,” said the Italian. We were coming into Turin in the dawn, amid burning mountains of rosy snow, and the train was moving slowly, in hesitation, with pauses for reflection. “The line is single in places,” he explained. “Italy is too narrow, too cramped by mountain-chains, and above all too long. It is the trouble behind all our politics. There are three Italies, three horizontal strata, that do not interfuse—the industrial and intelligent North, the stagnant and superstitious South, and the centre with Rome which is betwixt and between.”
“But there is far more clericalism in the North than the South,” I said. “The Church party is a political force.”
“Precisely what proves my case. In the North everything is more efficient, even to the forces of reaction. The clericals are better organised, and are, moreover, supported by the propertied atheists in the interests of order. But the North is Europe—Germany, if you will—the South is already Africa.” The train stopped again. He groaned. “No unity possible.”