1. The Unification of Italy was- During the middle of the nineteenth century, Italy was divided into seven states, of which only one, Sardinia-Piedmont, was ruled by an Italian princely house. 2. The north was under Austrian Habsburgs, the centre was ruled by the Pope and the southern regions were under the domination of the Bourbon kings of Spain. During the 1830s, Giuseppe Mazzini had sought to put together a coherent programme for a unitary Italian Republic. He had also formed a secret society called Young Italy for the dissemination of his goals. Chief Minister Cavour who led the movement to unify the regions of Italy was neither a revolutionary nor a democrat. 3. Through a tactful diplomatic alliance with France engineered by Cavour, Sardinia-Piedmont succeeded in defeating the Austrian forces in 1859. Apart from regular troops, a large number of armed volunteers under the leadership of Giuseppe Garibaldi joined the fray. In 1861 Victor Emmanuel II was proclaimed king of united Italy. However, much of the Italian population, among whom rates of illiteracy were very high, remained blissfully unaware of liberal nationalist ideology. The peasant masses who had supported Garibaldi in southern Italy had never heard of Italia, and believed that ‘La Talia’ was Victor Emmanuel’s wife!

The unification of Italy _{The image is taken from Wikipedia}

Unification of Italy

Some of the learners also asked:
Who led the movement to unify the regions of Italy?