Republicanism in Italy from the eighteenth century to the early Risorgimento.

Historians have underlined the importance of Italy's history from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance in shaping the republican paradigm. The sources examined in this paper reveal something different. Eighteenth-century writers – especially those from the Kingdom of Naples – drew their republican ideas from other models: the republics of the Ancient World and, above all, from the Italian peoples of the era before they were colonized by Rome. They regarded the republics of early modern Italy, by contrast, as examples of domestic discord, aristocratic rule and weakness in the international arena. First the American Revolution and then, above all, the French Revolution reinforced the connection between the republic and democracy, especially representative democracy. Between 1796 and 1799, Italy experienced a multitude of republics in both the institutional and political meaning of the term, but although the French Revolution gave birth to a new form of republicanism, it was one that would not flourish in Italy in the age of the Risorgimento. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]