Giuseppe Mazzini

Mazzini, Giuseppe (1805–72), Italian patriot and a leading propagandist of the secret society, the Risorgimento, the nationalist involvement that achieved Italian unification. Exiled in 1831, he formed the Young Italy societies, and from France, Switzerland, and England promoted his ideal of a united, democratic Italy. In 1849 he became a leader of the short-lived republic of Rome, but was soon in exile again, continuing his revolutionary propaganda and organizing abortive uprisings. The actual unification of Italy, in which he took little part, fell short of his popular republican ideals.