John Adamson

Holding Out until the Last Slice of Polenta

The Siege of Venice

By

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In the annals of Italian unification, few episodes have been more unjustly neglected than the Venetian rebellion against Austrian rule of 1848. Historians have lavished detailed attention on the defence of the rebel ‘Roman Republic’ by Mazzini and Garibaldi in that same tumultuous year. The contemporaneous Venetian Republic of 1848–49, however, has been relegated to the sidelines – as has its largely forgotten hero, Daniele Manin.

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