Builders of United Italy

by Rupert Sargent Holland

The story of Venetian glory seemed closed with the last years of the Eighteenth Century. The proud Queen of the Adriatic had seen her jewels stolen one by one, and had finally become the toy of wanton powers. Venice was no longer self-reliant, no longer coldly virtuous, her grandeur had sunk into a memory, her civic honor been bedimmed by gross corruption. “Venice was,” said the world, and France, parceling out the conquests of the young Napoleon, handed Venetia and the City of the Doges to Austria. There was no opportunity for self-defense, Napoleon had removed all military stores and confiscated the Venetian fleet, the citizens buried the lion-banners of Saint Mark beneath their churches, and silently watched the Austrians enter. The last Doge, aged and bent with years, fell senseless as he opened his lips to swear allegiance to the House of Hapsburg. Europe considered the fate of Venice sealed.

Napoleon came and went, and men as well as maps experienced gigantic changes, but still Venice slept. She had become a part of the Austrian Empire, a new generation grew up who had never known Venice free, who only learned their city’s history by stealth. Among this new generation was Daniel Manin, son of a Jew who had embraced Christianity and who had adopted the surname of his noble patron the last Doge, according to Venetian custom. So it happened that the last free ruler of Venice and the man who was to raise her from sleep bore the same name. There was also transmitted to the boy the ancient hate of Austria.

Born in 1804 Daniel Manin early showed a strong love of learning, which was eagerly tended by his father, a lawyer of some note. The father taught his son the history of his city, he brought him up to see the unjust practices of Napoleon and of Austria, he kindled in him the passion for liberty. The boy studied jurisprudence and the growth of Venetian dialects, at fifteen he translated the apocryphal book of Enoch from the Hebrew, at seventeen he became a Doctor of Laws, and had translated Pothier’s great French work on Roman law before he was twenty-one. The year he came of age he married, and a little later settled in the small town of Maestra, which lies at the entrance to the Lagoons, and started to practise his profession of advocate, which under Austrian rule allowed him only to act in civil cases, and then merely in a consulting capacity and never as a pleader in the courts.

Even in early youth his health was poor; although his mind was unusually active and well-balanced he was subject to frequent visitations of great physical weariness which at times made it impossible for him to accomplish anything. Later in life he wrote, “The act of living, in a healthy person, considered in itself, ought to be a pleasure; but to me from my very childhood, it has always been a painful effort. I always feel weary.” He was frequently morbid just at the time when his growing family required all his energy for support.

In person the young lawyer was rather striking, not tall, but spare, with unusually animated blue eyes, thick chestnut hair, and features full of changing expression, quick to show the temper of his mind. For all his underlying weariness and continued depression he often appeared gay and cheerful on the surface; it was his nature to be unselfish, and to turn a brave face towards the world.

Working as an advocate Manin gave up his spare hours to studying Venetian patois and to planning how in time his city might loosen the bonds of Austrian tyranny. As early as 1830, when he was only twenty-six, he joined with three close friends in a plot to seize the Venetian arsenal, and drew up a proclamation intended to excite the citizens. The movement throughout northern Italy on which the friends relied failed to materialize, and the plan fell through. Fortunately the authors of the proclamation were not discovered, and Manin was permitted to continue his profession. He did not believe in secret societies, and would not join them; he devoted himself to studying Austria’s colonial weaknesses.

The first step which brought him seriously to the notice of the government was his work on behalf of the Italian bankers who were associated with some Germans in building a railway between Venice and Milan. There had been a disagreement as to the route of the railway, and the Austrian viceroy had sided with the Germans. Manin was engaged to represent the Italian bankers, and conducted his side of the case with great skill. The Austrian government finally concluded the matter by arbitrarily dissolving the Italian Railways Association. The case had however shown Manin a possible mode of attacking the foreign despotism, finding flaws in its laws and concentrating on such weaknesses until eventually its whole fabric was loosened. He did not believe that any sudden local revolution could succeed, he saw only the loss of valuable lives thereby, but he did believe that the way for some later far-sweeping rising might be paved by consecutive breaches in the enemy’s legal walls. This opinion was the result of his evenly-balanced, deliberate judgment; he could at times, as he was to show later, throw himself passionately into a cause, without regard to consequences, but his nature was not that of the ardent revolutionary; he relied on cool, sober judgments, and was not readily led from them by illusions. In his notes we find him writing, “Against disorder I feel a repulsion not only of reason but of instinct, the same as I feel against everything contrary to the laws of harmony, a deformed face, a discordant sound.”

His advocacy of the Italian bankers brought Manin before the Venetian public, he was recognized as an able speaker with a deep knowledge of law. He spoke before the Venetian Athenæum on the obligation of thinkers to inspire and stimulate men of action. The subject gave him a chance to draw attention to the present lethargy of Venice and to urge consideration of new ideas affecting trade and commerce. He hoped to unite northern Italians through the new principle of free trade. Fortunately Cobden, the great English advocate of free trade, was traveling in Italy; he visited Venice and met Manin and some of the other Venetian leaders of opinion just as he had met Cavour at Turin and Massimo d’Azeglio at Genoa.

Various small events gave the lawyer a chance to speak publicly to his fellow-citizens. At the Scientific Congress which met in September, 1847, he was appointed a commissioner to investigate the charitable institutions of Venice, and in doing this work he came upon the case of a poor infirm workman who had placed a placard upon a public wall complaining that the government had left him to starve, and for which action had been placed in a lunatic asylum. Manin reported the case and wrote, “The physicians acknowledge the man is sane; but they dare not set him at liberty, fearing it would be contrary to the views of the police and government. For my part, I have a better opinion of the government and the police. I do not admit that they create madmen by decrees. If Padovini is culpable there are the laws.” Count Palffy, the Governor, was very much vexed. “We must release Padovini from the madhouse,” he said, “and put Manin in his place.”

About the same time Count Jablonski, a relation of the Venetian Governor, wrote a paper urging the Italians to become resigned. In reply Manin set down his thoughts in a page which seems to sum up his whole purpose, a wonderful expression of his philosophy. It was not published at that time, but was later found among his papers. It read: