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 ItalyItaly Becomes a Unified PeninsulaIn 1713, after the War of the Spanish
Succession, Milan, Naples, and Sardinia were handed over to the Hapsburgs
of Austria, which lost some of its Italian territories in 1735. After
1800, Italy was unified by Napoléon, who crowned himself king of
Italy in 1805; but with the Congress of Vienna in 1815, Austria once again
became the dominant power in a disunited Italy. Austrian armies crushed
Italian uprisings in 1820–1821 and 1831. In the 1830s, Giuseppe
Mazzini, a brilliant liberal nationalist, organized the Risorgimento
(Resurrection), which laid the foundation for Italian unity. Disappointed
Italian patriots looked to the House of Savoy for leadership. Count
Camille di Cavour (1810–1861), prime minister of Sardinia in 1852
and the architect of a united Italy, joined England and France in the
Crimean War (1853–1856), and in 1859 helped France in a war against
Austria, thereby obtaining Lombardy. By plebiscite in 1860, Modena, Parma,
Tuscany, and the Romagna voted to join Sardinia. In 1860, Giuseppe
Garibaldi conquered Sicily and Naples and turned them over to Sardinia.
Victor Emmanuel II, king of Sardinia, was proclaimed king of Italy in
1861. The annexation of Venetia in 1866 and of papal Rome in 1870 marked
the complete unification of peninsular Italy into one nation under a
constitutional monarchy.
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