The Life of Mazzini. Bolton King
Bibliography of Mazzini will be found on page 367.
Chapter I
The Home at Genoa
1805–1831. Aetat 0–25
Boyhood and Youth—University Life—Literary Studies—Classicism and Romanticism—Joins the Carbonari—Arrest and Exile.
Joseph Mazzini was born in the Via Lomellina at Genoa on June 22, 1805. His father was a doctor of some repute and Professor of Anatomy at the University, a democrat in creed and life, who gave much of his time to unpaid service of the poor; at home affectionate and loved, though sometimes hard and imperious. His mother, to whom in after life he bore a strong resemblance, was a capable and devoted woman, who had little of the weakness of an Italian mother, and brought up her children to bear the brunt of life; with strong interest in the mighty movements that were remoulding Europe at the time, a mordant critic of governors and governments inside the four walls of her house. It was a happy home, and "Pippo" grew up the darling of his parents and three sisters, a delicate, sensitive, gentle child, quick and insistent to learn despite his father's fears for his health, and giving precocious proof of brilliant talents. He was nearly nine years old, when the Napoleonic system was shattered, and the Emperor went to Elba. Doubtless, Mazzini heard from his father that Napoleon was Italian born and was going to exile in an Italian island. The shock of the downfall was felt at Genoa, for the proud city, to which Lord William Bentinck had promised in the name of England its ancient independence, learnt that "republics were no longer fashionable," and saw itself helplessly made over to the alien rule of Piedmont. Bitterly the Genoese chafed at the traffic of their liberties, and we may be sure that there was republican talk in Mazzini's home, which sank into the mind of the thoughtful child. He himself mentions four influences that turned his boyish mind to democracy: his parents' uniform courtesy to every rank of life; the reminiscences of the French republican wars in the talk at home; some numbers of an old Girondist paper, which his father kept half hidden, for fear of the police, behind his medical books; and—more than all these, probably—the classics that he read under his Latin tutor. "The history of Greece and Rome," wrote a fellow-student, "the only thing taught us with any care at school, was little else than a constant libel upon monarchy, and a panegyric upon the democratic form of government." Like many another boy of his time who had for school exercises to declaim the praises of Cato and the Bruti, he came to regard republics as the appointed homes of virtue. It was the unintended fruit of the classical training, which the despotic governments of the time fostered to keep their youth innocent of any itch for innovation.
So he lived his quiet, studious home-life, till an incident one day, when he was nearly sixteen, suddenly changed its tenor. The Carbonaro revolutions of 1820 and 1821 had ended in deserved collapse; and the Piedmontese Liberals, abandoned and defeated, crowded to Genoa and Sampierdarena, while yet there was time to escape to Spain. Some had fled penniless, and Mazzini, walking with his mother, noted their despairing faces, and watched while a collection was made for them in the streets. Their memory haunted him, and with a boy's enthusiasm for his heroes, he longed to follow them. He neglected his lessons, and sat moody and absorbed, interested only in gleaning news of the exiles and learning the history of their defeat. In his boyish impatience, which came near the truth, he felt "they might have won, if all had done their duty," and the thought puzzled and obsessed him. He insisted on dressing in black, and kept the habit to the end of life. He brooded over Foscolo's Jacopo Ortis, till the morbid pessimism of the book wrought on him, and his mother, apparently with good reason, feared suicide.
In time he recovered his balance, and went back to his books with the old zest. He was now studying medicine, intending to follow his father's profession; but at his first attendance in the operation room he fainted, and it was clear that he could never be a surgeon.[1] To his father it must have been a sore disappointment, but he seems to have at once recognised the inevitable, and allowed the lad to read law. Mazzini had little heart in his new studies, for the arid, perfunctory teaching of law current at the time had small attraction for one who wanted to know the reason of things; but he persevered, and did well in his examinations, though it is probable that he always gave a big slice of his time to reading poetry and history. He was now at the University. Probably he went to school, though there is some doubt about it; at all events he seems to have escaped the brutality and bad pedagogy, which generally made school life then one long misery for a high-principled or sensitive lad. University life began at an early age in Italy, and Mazzini had matriculated at Genoa, when he was fourteen. So far as his fellow-students were concerned, he was in happy surroundings. But he was a troublesome scholar, always ready to rebel against the formalities that made a big part of University life. To the last he refused to attend the compulsory religious observances, not because he disliked them, but because they were compulsory; and the authorities, tolerant for once, shut their eyes to his insubordination. The University of Genoa did not possess a high name for scholarship; and at this time it had its special drawbacks, for the government was scared by the recent revolution, and fearful that a few hundred lads might shake the pillars of the state. No one could matriculate without a certificate that he had regularly attended church and confession. Those whose parents did not possess a certain quantity of landed property, had to pass a stiffer examination, though at the worst, it is probable, not a very prohibitive one. Lecturers, beadles, porters, all had the cue from government to make life unpleasant for the students, and the better professors dared not be detected in any leniency or considerateness. Moustaches were forbidden, as a mark of the revolutionary mind, and if any student, greatly daring, grew them, he was carried off between two carabineers to a barber's shop.
House at Genoa in which Mazzini Was Born
Mazzini soon became a leader among the clean-living, affectionate, impetuous undergraduates. His appearance was now, as always, very striking; he had a high and prominent forehead, black, flashing eyes, fine olive features, set in a mass of thick black hair, a grave, serious face, that could look hard at times, but readily melted in the kindliest of smiles. He led a studious, retiring life, fond of gymnastics and fencing, but with small taste for amusements, his cigars and coffee his only indulgences; his days spent among his books, his evenings with his mother, or in long solitary walks that defied the weather, or in rare and stolen visits to the theatre, which he had to leave after the first act, for the home was rigorously shut at ten. But, though he was slow to make close friendships, he was no misanthrope. He played much on the guitar and sang well to it; and his musical talents and clever reciting made him in demand among his middle-class and patrician friends. There was none yet of the half-bitter sadness of after life; he had a shrewd sense of humour, perhaps inherited from his mother; when warmed by enthusiasm or indignation, he could speak with a fiery eloquence, that was remarkable even among those declamatory Italian youths. "My soul," he wrote afterwards, "was then a smile for all created things, life showed to my virgin fancy as a dream of love, my warmest thoughts were for nature's loveliness and the ideal woman of my youth." He revelled in generous actions, sharing books and money, even clothes, with his poorer friends. But it was sheer force of character that gave him his ascendancy over them—the loyal, justice-loving nature that made him champion of every victim of undergraduate or professorial spite, the purity of thought, that checked each loose or coarse word from those about him. That clear, high soul, untouched by self, not knowing fear, passionate for righteousness, gave him even when a lad the power that belongs only to the saints of God.
His closest friends were three brothers, Jacopo, Giovanni, and Agostino Ruffini. Jacopo, the eldest of the three, had perhaps more influence on Mazzini's life than any other man. They were born on the same day; and Jacopo's fine, sensitive, enthusiastic nature matched well with Mazzini's own. The tragic fate, that afterwards brought his life to an early close, only strengthened the influence; and the memory of one so dear, who gave his life for their common cause, remained a perennial inspiration to keep his faith alive in years of weariness and failure. The other brothers had little of Jacopo's temperament. Giovanni at this time was an even-tempered, humourous, brilliant lad; Agostino was impressionable, impulsive,