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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
1 This is a point stressed by Brofferio's only modern biographer, Bottasso, Enzo, in his volume Angelo Brofferio (Turin, 1961)Google Scholar.
2 Brofferio's, Storia del Piemonte dal 1814 ai giorni nostri (5 vols., Turin, 1849–1852)Google Scholar, criticized as journalistic in its approach (which it undoubtedly is) is one of the best sources available for any study of his own political development and views. Although unscholarly in many ways and to be viewed with caution, it offers a very readable account of events in Piedmont between the Restoration and 1848, often with Brofferio himself featuring as one of the leading actors and always seen through the strong lens of his own perceptions and preoccupations.
3 Speech of 28 June 1848, published in Atti del parlamento subalpino, edited by Pinelli, Amadeo and Trompeo, Paolo (3 vols., Turin, 1855–1887), II, 241Google Scholar.
4 In his history (part 11, p. 146), Brofferio lists the committee of the conspirators as consisting of Bersani, Brofferio, Giacomo Durando and Carlo Gazzera.
5 In his biography of Durando [Giacomo Durando (Turin, 1862)Google Scholar] Brofferio lists as conspirators ‘destined to achieve power’ Cadorna, , Merlo, , Pinelli, , Castelli, and Gioberti, (p. 17)Google Scholar.
6 Brofferio, , Giacomo Durando, p. 18Google Scholar.
7 Brofferio, , Giacomo Durando, p. 18Google Scholar. In his Storia Brofferio suggests that the conspiracy was rather imperfectly organized: ‘Many hundreds of citizens from very different backgrounds were enrolled in a conspiracy which did not exist’ (Storia, part II, p. 145).
8 This whole episode comes under scrutiny in Luzio's, AlessandroCarlo Alberto e Mazzini (Turin, 1923), pp. 52–124Google Scholar. See also Nada, Narciso, Storia del Regno di Carlo Alberto (Turin, 1980), pp. 52–3 and notesGoogle Scholar.
9 Brofferio, , Storia, part III, vol. I, p. 37Google Scholar.
10 Brofferio, , Durando, p. 42Google Scholar.
11 This is Brofferio's, own comparison, made in his Storia, part III, vol. I, p. 87Google Scholar.
12 See the Storia, part III, vol. I, pp. 79–90. He calls gas lighting a discovery which was supposed to be going to ‘improve society more than the freedom of the press, more than national representation’ (p. 83) and says of savings banks: 'It was as if they had discovered California. The success of the Risorgimento was thought to be ensured by the few lire that the kitchen lads and washerwomen put in the city's money boxes (p. 82). Perhaps the reasons behind his scorn are partly explained by his own summing up: ‘The extent to which these fine creations: congresses and academies and all the chattering about nursery schools, teaching methods, customs tariffs, charity lotteries and savings banks contributedto Italian liberty became all too clear during the days of the Italian Risorgimento. At the first signs of popular emancipation these heroes of progress (with a very few exceptions) slipped like cowards into the ranks of the enemy, or else climbed into positions of power and led their country to perdition’ (p. 90).
13 A valuable document in the shape of 493 letters from Brofferio to Adelia Zanner, which would undoubtedly have shed a great deal of light on Brofferio's personality, attitudes and experiences, was lost when the Museo del Risorgimento in Milan was bombed during World War II. Montada, Giuseppe records that he saw them before the war (‘Per la storia del Brofferio alia Verbanella’ in the Bollettino storico della Svizzera ilaliana (1965), pp. 47–8)Google Scholar.
14 Letter of 25 May 1845 in Martini, Ferdinando, Due dell'estrema, il Guerrazzi e il Brofferio: Carteggi inediti 1859–66 (Florence, 1920), pp. 7–9 (pp. 8, 9)Google Scholar.
15 Letter to Macchi, dated 15 Aug. 1847, in Milan, Biblioteca della Fondazione Feltrinelli, Archivio Macchi in, 36 (amongst letters from Ferrari).
16 Messaggiere toriruse, 25 Mar. 1848.
17 Letter to Michele Erede dated 12 Apr. 1848, in Dagli albori delta libertà al Proclama di Moncalieri, edited by Codignola, Arturo (Turin, 1931), pp. 468–70 (p. 470)Google Scholar.
18 Petitti had already made his personal distaste for Brofferio clear in a letter written to Gioberti earlier in 1848, where he described him as a ‘really argumentative fellow and a sower of discord, who ought to keep quiet about his murky background’ [letter dated 23 March 1848, in Carteggi di Vincenzo Gioberti, vol. II: Lettere di Ilarione Petitti di Roreto a Vincenzo Gioberti 1841–1830, edited by Colombo, Adolfo (Rome, 1936), pp. 148–50 (p. 150)]Google Scholar.
19 The Milanese Mazzinian newspaper L'Operaio, for example, described Brofferio to its readers on 26 June 1848 as ‘a great man and a true friend of yours’.
20 Messaggiere torinese, 29 Mar. 1848.
21 Messaggiere torinese, 8 Apr. 1848.
22 Messaggiere torinese, 8 Apr. 1848. Province, here, is used not as a province of the Austrian empire, but rather as an area of Italy, probably closer in geographical terms to the regions of modern Italy, but without any administrative connotations.
23 Messaggiere torinese, 5 Jul. 1848.
24 Messaggiere torinese, 23 Sept. 1848.
25 Storia, part III, vol. 2, p. 191.
26 Letter of 20 May 1848, in Turin, Biblioteca civica, Fondo Prior VII, Busta 6. To the same correspondent he commented on 26 October 1848 of a speech he made: ‘It had a tremendous effect’. In the letter of 20 May he was also extremely scathing about his fellow parliamentary deputies: ‘The chamber is made up of idiots and reactionaries and spiteful and longwinded pedants. You may imagine how isolated and contemptuous I feel in this congregation who call themselves the representatives of the people’.
27 Letter to Giuseppe Garberoglio of 20 May 1848.
28 From a speech in parliament made on 11 Mar. 1852, in Atti del parlamento, II, 481; quoted in Lajolo, Laurana and Archimede, Elio, Brofferio l'oppositore (Florence, 1967), p. 144Google Scholar.
29 Letter dated 21 November 1848, in ll regno di Sardegna nel 1848–49 nei carteggi di Domenico Buffa, edited by Costa, Emilio (3 vols., Rome 1966–1968), I, 386–7 (p. 386)Google Scholar.
30 Letter to Mauro Macchi, dated 20 Jun. 1848, in Milan, Biblioteca della Fondazione Feltrinelli, Archivio Macchi, vol. II, 14.
31 From a speech of 28 Jun. 1848 in Atti del parlamento subalpino, II 241.
32 Letter dated 10 Jul. 1848, in Milan, BFF, Archivio Macchi, II, 4.
33 Articles I and II of the Society's constitution, printed in Il Risorgimenlo, 12 May 1848.
34 For example, he tried unsuccessfully to get the society to vote in support of a letter sent by the Circolo nazionale politico of Lugano to show solidarity with the French, without reading outthose parts of the letter which some members of the Turin committee might have regarded as too extreme. The Cronaca di tutti i giorni reported on 29 Sept. 1848 that ‘he suppressed many unsuitable expressions’.
35 Storia, part III, vol. 3, p. 5.
36 Storia, part III, vol. 3, pp. 109–10.
37 Conciliatore torinese, 8 Feb. 1849.
38 Angelo Brofferio, p. 42.
