MAZZINI, GIUSEPPE (1805-1872), Italian patriot, was born on June 22, 1805, at Genoa. During infancy and childhood his health was extremely delicate ; but he soon began to devour books of all kinds and to show other signs of great intellectual precocity. He became a student at the University of Genoa at an unusually early age, and decided to graduate in law (1826). His exceptional abilities, together with his remarkable generosity, kind ness and loftiness of character, endeared him to his fellow students.
The natural bent of his genius was towards literature, and he wrote a considerable number of essays and reviews, some of which have been wholly or partially reproduced in the critical and literary volumes of his Life and Writings. But he held the idea that Italians, and he himself in particular, "could and there fore ought to struggle for liberty of country." Therefore, he at once put aside his literary ambitions, and devoted himself to politics. His articles accordingly became more and more sug gestive of advanced liberalism in politics. Having joined the Carbonari, shortly after the French revolution of 1830, he was betrayed and imprisoned in the fortress of Savona for about six months; a conviction having been found impracticable through deficiency of evidence, he was released, but forced to go into exile. withdrew accordingly into France, living chiefly in Marseilles.
While in his lonely cell at Savona, he had finally become aware of the great mission or "apostolate" (as he himself called it) of his life; and soon after his release his prison meditations took shape in the programme of the organization which was destined soon to become so famous throughout Europe, that of La Giovine Italia, or Young Italy. Its aims were the liberation of Italy both from foreign and domestic tyranny, and its unification under a republican form of government ; the means to be used were edu cation, and, where advisable, revolt by guerrilla bands. In April 1831 Charles Albert, "the ex-Carbonaro conspirator of 1821," succeeded Charles Felix on the Sardinian throne, and towards the close of that year Mazzini wrote the new king a letter, published at Marseilles, urging him to take the lead in the impending struggle for Italian independence. Representations were consequently
made by the Sardinian to the French government, which issued an order for Mazzini's withdrawal from Marseilles (Aug. 1832) ; he ultimately found it necessary to retire into Switzerland. In 1833 he was concerned in an abortive revolutionary move ment which took place in the Sardinian army; several executions took place, and he himself was laid under sentence of death. Be fore the close of the same year a similar movement in Genoa had been planned, but failed through the youth and inexperience of the leaders. At Geneva, also in 1833, Mazzini set on foot L'Europe Centrale, a journal of which one of the main objects was the emancipation of Savoy. The frontier was actually crossed on Feb. I, 1834, but the attack ignominiously broke down without a shot having been fired.
In April 1834 the "Young Europe" association "of men believ ing in a future of liberty, equality and fraternity for all man kind," was formed also under the influence of Mazzini ; it was followed soon afterwards by a "Young Switzerland" society. Mazzini was permitted to remain at Grenchen in Solothurn for a while, but the Swiss diet exiled him at the end of 1836. In Jan. 1837 he arrived in London, where for many months he had to carry on a hard fight with poverty. As he gained command of the English language, he began to earn a livelihood by writing review articles, some of which have since been reprinted, and are of a high order of literary merit. In 1839 he entered into relations with the revolutionary committees sitting in Malta and Paris, and in 1840 he originated a working men's association, and the weekly journal entitled Apostolato Popolare, in which the admirable popular treatise "On the Duties of Man" was begun.