A mythology based on predictable and stereotyped canvases would like to depict the Risorgimento as the result of an inevitable “Masonic plot”.
The nineteenth century was one of those centuries in which accusations of obscure plots and conspiracies abounded. Political opponents frequently accused each other of being supported or backed by secret underground networks: the liberals spoke of a “Jesuit conspiracy”, the reactionaries of a “Masonic plot”, and so on.
But beyond all the polemics and propaganda, how much truth is there in the claim that the Risorgimento was a “Masonic plot”? Virtually none.
Among the four Fathers of the Fatherland, only one was a Freemason. Vittorio Emanuele II and Cavour, both of whom were practicing Catholics, refused any contact with the Masonic lodges. Moreover, it was only in 1859 that the prohibition against membership in Freemasonry was relaxed in the Kingdom of Sardinia: previously this prohibition had always remained in force. Even Mazzini was not a Freemason; indeed he explicitly criticized Freemasonry. Garibaldi was a Freemason, however his membership in the association never translated into “internal” political activity; instead it mainly had symbolic value.
The bulk of the ruling class of the Historical Right had nothing to do with Freemasonry; most of them were liberal monarchists, Catholic and quite conservative. Among the Republicans however there were some Freemasons, but even in this case one cannot speak of a movement dominated by the Masonic lodges.
The great historian Gioacchino Volpe (very Catholic, incidentally) in “Italia moderna” affirmed that after the fall of Napoleon in Italy:
“Freemasonry had fallen asleep almost completely; there was no relationship or very little relationship between Freemasons and Carbonari; many Carbonari clearly refused to be considered Freemasons.”Freemasonry:
“...began to rise again in the 1860's and only then began to once again weave its web. In those intermediate 40 years, its action in relation to the Italian Risorgimento was insignificant or nothing. Many, indeed most of the patriots, were not Freemasons. Many of them were fierce enemies of Freemasonry.”Gaetano Salvemini, a socialist and southernist, wrote that:
“The legend that the Italian Risorgimento was the work of Freemasonry was created by the clericals. ... All Masonic forces were in a state of complete inertia between 1830 and 1870.”
(Alessandro Luzio, La Massoneria e il Risorgimento italiano, vol. 2, p. 239)The greatest Italian scholar of Freemasonry, Professor Aldo Alessandro Mola, in his “Storia della massoneria in Italia”, states bluntly that the Masonic lodges were practically inactive throughout the period between 1830 and 1870, with very few members and very little activity.
The best overall study on the relationship between Freemasonry and the Risorgimento probably remains that of Alessandro Luzio, “La Massoneria e il Risorgimento italiano”, divided into two ponderous volumes with very extensive documentary references. Luzio spoke very firmly of the “Masonic Risorgimento” as being a myth created by the Freemasons and the clergy, who were both interested—albeit for opposite reasons—in attributing to the Masonic lodges a role in Italian Unification which in reality they did not have.
A similar conclusion was reached also by another important historian of Italian Freemasonry, Fulvio Conti, professor of contemporary history at the University of Florence, in “Gli Italiani in guerra. Conflitti, identità, memorie dal Risorgimento ai nostri giorni”.
Marco Meriggi, in his study “Il regno Lombardo-Veneto” (Turin 1987), describes Freemasonry after 1815:
“The Masonic lodges no longer presented themselves as rays of a secret society of revolutionary inspiration, but rather as harmless meeting places for a professional class who, even on the ritual level, had their own reason for joining the regime.” (p. 12)It should also be added that Freemasonry as a single organization does not exist: there are various branches of Freemasonry, quite different from each other and even having very little coordination with each other, sometimes none at all. In fact, the Freemasons were divided between those in favor of Italian Unity and those against it. For example, Cardinal Antonelli, the foreign minister and éminence grise of Pope Pius IX, and Francesco Saverio Del Carretto, the minister of police for two Bourbon sovereigns, were both Freemasons. Antonelli, moreover, dined with Baron von Rothschild, with whom he had a regular correspondence.
Another well-known Freemason, politically supported by the Masonic lodges, was Napoleon III, who sent a military expedition to crush the Roman Republic and to restore Pius IX back to the throne; later they prevented Garibaldi from marching on Rome in 1860, impeded him again at the time of the Battle of Aspromonte, and opposed him yet again at the Battle of Mentana. In short, the French emperor, the great protector of the Papal States, was a Freemason.
Joseph de Maistre, the ultra-Catholic thinker and father of the reactionary political movement, whose writings are the basis of all Catholic political and philosophical thought known as “reactionary” or “traditionalist”, was also a Freemason. The irony is that Catholic conservatism is anti-Masonic, but has a Freemason as its undisputed founder and teacher. A Masonic circle also surrounded the ultra-reactionary queen Maria Carolina of Bourbon, the wife of Ferdinand I. In light of these cases, it can hardly be said that all the Freemasons were de facto liberals, patriots, anti-clericals, etc.
In the period between 1815 and 1870, Freemasons in Italy were very few and lacked any capacity to conduct “conspiracies” or “plots”. In short, Freemasonry in the years of the Risorgimento was weak and played only a minor role among the very large number of men and parties involved in the national movement.
In conclusion, the idea that the Risorgimento was a Masonic creation is pure mythology without any foundation.
