To learn about the Risorgimento through the ideas of its main protagonists, through the words that made up the skeleton of its political vocabulary; to write a history of the patriotic mentality which made that season possible; to explore the interior world of the Risorgimento elites, “to try to understand what kind of psychological impulses led them to show increasingly open dissatisfaction towards the institutional arrangements of their time and to commit themselves to a path of political dissent which during the Restoration presented extraordinarily high risks and costs (both of a personal and political nature).” This is the aim of this book, which presents itself as a dictionary thought out around twenty-eight headwords. An account that makes it possible to trace the political thinking of at least three generations from the 1680s to Italian Unification.

Divided into four thematic areas, the keywords include: Association, Censorship, Decadence, Constitution, Rights/Duties, Exile, Freedom, Moderates/Democrats, Public Opinion, Pope, Race, Representation, Secret and Secret Societies, Unity. Concepts that explain how the Risorgimento began to take shape as a revolutionary movement and what cultural distance lies between us and it today.