Del primato morale e civile degli italiani

…In his most celebrated work, Del primato morale e civile degli italiani (1843; “On the Moral and Civil Primacy of the Italian Race”), he sought to present practical methods of realizing his political ideals. Asserting the value of the unique contribution that federated Italians might make to world civilization, he…

(Vincenzo Gioberti’s Del primato morale e civile degli italiani [“On the Moral and Civil Primacy of the Italians”], published in 1843, was the classic expression of this attitude.) Their opponents, the Neo-Ghibellines, saw the pope as a barrier to the development of Italian unity.

His Del primato morale e civile degli Italiani (1843; “On the Moral and Civil Primacy of Italians”) affirmed the idea of progress as the return of the material to the spiritual, of man to God. Because such progress could be realized only through the mediation of…