A similar movement broke out in Piedmont in March 1821. Here as in Naples the Carbonari comprised many men of rank, such as Santorre di Santarosa, Count San Marzano, Giacinto di Collegno, and Count Moffa di Lisio, all officers in the army, and they were more or less encouraged by Charles Albert, the heir-presumptive to the throne. The rising was crushed, and a number of the leaders were condemned to death or long terms of imprisonment, but most of them escaped. At Milan there was only the vaguest attempt at conspiracy; but Silvio Pellico, Maroncelli and Count Confalonieri were implicated as having invited the Piedmontese to invade Lombardy, and were condemned to pass many years in the dungeons of the Spielberg.
The French revolution of 1830 had its echo in Italy, and Carbonarism raised its head in Parma, Modena and Romagna the following year. In the papal states a society called the Sanfedisti or Bande della Santa Fede had been formed to checkmate the Carbonari, and their behaviour and character resembled those of the Calderai of Naples. In 1831 Romagna and the Marches rose in rebellion and shook off the papal yoke with astonishing ease. At Parma the duchess, having rejected the demand for a constitution, left the city and returned under Austrian protection. At Modena, Duke Francis IV., the worst of all Italian tyrants, was expelled by a Carbonarist rising, and a dictatorship was established under Biagio Nardi on the 5th of February. Francis returned with an Austrian force and hanged the conspirators, including Ciro Menotti. The Austrians occupied Romagna and restored the province to the pope, but though many arrests of Carbonari were made there were no executions. Among those implicated in the Carbonarist movement was Louis Napoleon, who even in after years, when he was ruling France as Napoleon III., never quite forgot that he had once been a conspirator, a fact which influenced his Italian policy. The Austrians retired from Romagna and the Marches in July 1831, but Carbonarism and anarchy having broken out again, they returned, while the French occupied Ancona. The Carbonari after these events ceased to have much importance, their place being taken by the more energetic Giovane Italia Society presided over by Mazzini.
In France, Carbonarism began to take root about 1820, and was more thoroughly organized than in Italy. The example of the Spanish and Italian revolutions incited the French Carbonari, and risings occurred at Belfort, Thouars, La Rochelle and other towns in 1821, which though easily quelled revealed the nature and organization of the movement. The Carbonarist lodges proved active centres of discontent until 1830, when, after contributing to the July revolution of that year, most of their members adhered to Louis Philippe’s government.
The Carbonarist movement undoubtedly played an important part in the Italian Risorgimento, and if it did not actively contribute to the wars and revolutions of 1848-49, 1859-60 and 1866, it prepared the way for those events. One of its chief merits was that it brought Italians of different classes and provinces together, and taught them to work in harmony for the overthrow of tyranny and foreign rule.
Bibliography.—Much information on the Carbonari will be found in R.M. Johnston’s Napoleonic Empire in Southern Italy (2 vols., London, 1904), which contains a full bibliography; D. Spadoni’s Sette, cospirazioni, e cospiratori (Turin, 1904) is an excellent monograph; Memoirs of the Secret Societies of Southern Italy, said to be by one Bertoldi or Bartholdy (London, 1821, Ital. transl. by A.M. Cavallotti, Rome, 1904); Saint-Edme, Constitution et organisation des Carbonari, P. Colletta, Storia del Reame di Napoli (Florence, 1848); B. King, A History of Italian Unity (London, 1899), with bibliography.
(L. V.*)
CARBONATES. (1) The metallic carbonates are the salts of carbonic acid, H2CO3. Many are found as minerals, the more important of such naturally occurring carbonates being cerussite (lead carbonate, PbCO3), malachite and azurite (both basic copper carbonates), calamine (zinc carbonate, ZnCO3), witherite (barium carbonate, BaCO3), strontianite (strontium carbonate, SrCO3), calcite (calcium carbonate, CaCO3), dolomite (calcium magnesium carbonate, CaCO3·MgCO3), and sodium carbonate, Na2CO3. Most metals form carbonates (aluminium and chromium are exceptions), the alkali metals yielding both acid and normal carbonates of the types MHCO3 and M2CO3 (M = one atom of a monovalent metal); whilst bismuth, copper and magnesium appear only to form basic carbonates. The acid carbonates of the alkali metals can be prepared by saturating an aqueous solution of the alkaline hydroxide with carbon dioxide, M·OH + CO2 = MHCO3, and from these acid salts the normal salts may be obtained by gentle heating, carbon dioxide and water being produced at the same time, 2MHCO3 = M2CO3 + HO2 + CO2. Most other carbonates are formed by precipitation of salts of the metals by means of alkaline carbonates. All carbonates, except those of the alkali metals and of thallium, are insoluble in water; and the majority decompose when heated strongly, carbon dioxide being liberated and a residue of an oxide of the metal left. The alkaline carbonates undergo only a very slight decomposition, even at a very bright red heat. The carbonates are decomposed by mineral acids, with formation of the corresponding salt of the acid, and liberation of carbon dioxide. Many carbonates which are insoluble in water dissolve in water containing carbon dioxide. The individual carbonates are described under the various metals.
(2) The organic carbonates are the esters of carbonic acid, H2CO3, and of the unknown ortho-carbonic acid, C(OH)4. The acid esters of carbonic acid of the type HO·CO·OR are not known in the free state, but J.B. Dumas obtained barium methyl carbonate by the action of carbon dioxide on baryta dissolved in methyl alcohol (Ann., 1840, 35, p. 283).
Potassium ethyl carbonate, KO·CO·OC2H5, is obtained in the form of pearly scales when carbon dioxide is passed into an alcoholic solution of potassium ethylate, CO2 + KOC2H5 = KO·CO·OC2H5. It is not very stable, water decomposing it into alcohol and the alkaline carbonate. The normal esters may be prepared by the action of silver carbonate on the alkyl iodides, or by the action of alcohols on the chlorcarbonic esters. These normal esters are colourless, pleasant-smelling liquids, which are readily soluble in water. They show all the reactions of esters, being readily hydrolysed by caustic alkalis, and reacting with ammonia to produce carbamic esters and urea. By heating with phosphorus pentachloride an alkyl group is eliminated and a chlorcarbonic ester formed. Dimethylcarbonate, CO(OCH3)2, is a colourless liquid, which boils at 90.6° C., and is prepared by heating the methyl ester of chlorcarbonic acid with lead oxide. Diethylcarbonate, CO(OC2H5)2, is a colourless liquid, which boils at 125.8° C.; its specific gravity is 0.978 (20°) [H. Kopp]. When it is heated to 120° C. with sodium ethylate it decomposes into ethyl ether and sodium ethyl carbonate (A. Geuther, Zeit. f. Chemie, 1868).