Money for the nation: financing the Risorgimento across the border

Patrons, subscriptions and collectors

Exile politics was expensive. Newspapers and pamphlets had to be printed and smuggled, agents and couriers paid, weapons bought and stored, families of prisoners supported and journeys financed. The money came from three sources: the private wealth of a few rich exiles, regular contributions from members of the movements and occasional large subscriptions for particular enterprises. In Ticino the first source was represented by the Ciani brothers, whose bank in Milan and later fortune in Lugano made them the natural financiers of the refugees. Martinola notes that the members of Giovine Italia in Ticino paid monthly contributions and that "i Ciani vi aggiungevano di proprio e largamente", the Ciani added generously from their own means.¹ The collector was Ercole Porro, a young Milanese doctor living as a refugee in Lugano. The funds raised in 1833 served in part to prepare the Savoy expedition of the following year.²

The structure of these contributions resembled that of the mutual-aid societies and confraternities that Ticinese emigrants had long maintained abroad, described in Chapter A.III: small regular payments into a common fund administered by a trusted member. The difference lay in the purpose and in the legal exposure. A member of a confraternity in Rome risked nothing by paying his dues. A member of Giovine Italia in Lombardy who paid money to an agent from Lugano committed an offence under Austrian law. The record of his payment, if found, could be used against him. Because collectors kept few written records, the history of these funds must be reconstructed from correspondence and police files.

Mazzini's national loan

After the defeat of 1849 Mazzini attempted to place the finance of the movement on a more formal footing. In London he founded the Comitato Nazionale Italiano together with Aurelio Saffi, Mattia Montecchi, Aurelio Saliceti and Giuseppe Sirtori. The committee issued a prestito nazionale italiano, a national loan of ten million lire, to "affrettare l'indipendenza e la libertà d'Italia", to hasten the independence and liberty of Italy.³ The bonds were printed in London in denominations such as twentyfive francs and carried the signatures of the five members of the committee and the seals of the Roman Republic of 1849 and of the committee.⁴ They promised repayment by the future Italian state. In legal terms they were a sovereign debt issued by a government that did not yet exist, secured on nothing but the political success of the issuer.

The loan was sold among exiles in Britain, Switzerland and France and, clandestinely, in Italy itself. A receipt preserved in the Museo del Risorgimento in Milan shows that on 6 June 1850 Mazzini, Saffi and Montecchi acknowledged a payment of 5,000 lire from Carlo Rigotti, a former commissioner of the provisional government of Lombardy.⁵ Given the density of the Mazzinian network in the canton, Ticino very probably served as a point of distribution and collection, with bonds and receipts passing through the same hands as forbidden books, although no individual consignment is documented in the sources used here. For the holder in Lombardy a bond was dangerous, because it documented adherence to Mazzini's organization. The loan thereby created a written trail that the Austrian police could follow.⁶

Notes

1. Martinola, "I mazziniani del Ticino" (above). ↩
2. Martinola, "I mazziniani del Ticino" (above), describing Porro as a "giovane medico milanese ... rifugiato a Lugano, che se ne faceva collettore", and on the search for funds for the Savoy expedition. ↩
3. Museo del Risorgimento "Aurelio Saffi", Forlì, catalogue record of a bond of the Prestito Nazionale Italiano, PatER Emilia-Romagna, https://bbcc.regione.emilia-romagna.it/samira/api/print/card/161758 (consulted 4 October 2026), describing the bond as issued by the Comitato Nazionale Italiano (Mazzini, Saffi, Montecchi, Saliceti, Sirtori), printed in London, for a total of ten million lire. The committee's activity in London in 1850 is also attested by the receipt of 6 June 1850 discussed below. ↩
4. Museo del Risorgimento "Aurelio Saffi", catalogue record (above), describing a bond of 25 francs printed in London with the five signatures and the two seals. ↩
5. Lombardia Beni Culturali, photograph record IMM-3a130-0001437 (Museo del Risorgimento, Milan), https://lombardiabeniculturali.it/fotografie/schede-complete/IMM-3a130-0001437 (consulted 4 October 2026). The record does not state the purpose of the payment. ↩
6. On the national loan as evidence in Austrian trials see Franco Della Peruta, I democratici e la rivoluzione italiana (Milano 1958). ↩

For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of August 2025.