Die Geistigen Grundlagen Des Risorgimento

The history of the Italians' sense of national unity began several centuries prior to the efforts to implement a concrete realization of this national unity on a political level. Through the vehicle of language, Dante had already created the foundation for a cultural sense of unity. Expressions pregnant with patriotic passion were to be found as early as Petrarch, and later with Machiavelli and Guicciardini.