# Did "Red" revolutionaries exist in 18th-Century Italy? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 1, 2014, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-red-revolutionaries-exist-in-18th-century-italy/685045 "2014-04-01T02:22:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2014, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-red-revolutionaries-exist-in-18th-century-italy/685045/21 "2014-04-02T02:50:54Z")
> [@appleciders](#): > > Proto-communist movements in Europe have quite a long history. The English Levellers and the Diggers, including the famous thinker Freeborn John, had a lot of fairly radical ideas about how to reduce or eliminate inequality in England in and around the time of the Protectorate. Don’t forget the [Ranters!](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranters) And [Abiezer Coppe](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiezer_coppe)! Through the streets of London, Abiezer came, Heard the hungry cry for bread, he was a soul in pain. When the nobles in their coaches passed, he charged with wild eyes And gnashed his teeth in anger and then roared up to the skies "Hark, ye rich, ye nobles, ye shall reap soon what ye sow "For the day of doom is coming that will lay the mighty low! "And your property will canker, and your houses will decay “And the rust upon your silver will burn your flesh away!” CHORUS: So drink a loving cup To Abiezer, Abiezer He’s a drinking dancing roaring Ranter Abiezer Coppe Abiezer Coppe – [Leon Rosselson](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Rosselson) ---
**Author:** ![Isilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2014, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-red-revolutionaries-exist-in-18th-century-italy/685045/22 "2014-04-02T03:19:00Z")
> [@nevadaexile](#): > > There was no “Italy” in the commonly understood sense of the word. There were various individual kingdoms until 1861. “Italy” is name for the Peninsula south of the Alps, from the time of Emperor Augustus onward. So what, it was united under the Roman Empire, by a different name. And then again by these Kingdoms. ``` Ostrogothic Kingdom (493–553) Kingdom of the Lombards (568–774) Kingdom of Italy (a part of Holy Roman Empire) (800–1806) Kingdom of Italy (Napoleonic) (1805–1814) Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946) ``` ---
**Author:** ![Lars\_Aruns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c68b51/32.png) [@Lars\_Aruns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lars_Aruns)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2014, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-red-revolutionaries-exist-in-18th-century-italy/685045/23 "2014-04-02T11:45:18Z")
I’m reasonably well acquainted with Italian history, and I can tell you that there was no such movement in the 18th Century. There were some small proto-Communist movements here and there, but they were mostly Christian influenced and millenaristic. They certainly would not have called themselves the _Rossi_, because that would have made people think of the surname Rossi, or of red haired people. There also were political movements that were considered quite radical and violent. They wanted universal suffrage, the end of feudal privileges, redistribution of land from absentee noble owners who didn’t do anything with it, the end of foreign interference in Italy and possibly a Republic. As banal as this sounds in this day and age, you could see how they were seen as extremely dangerous, almost in a execute-on-sight way in the 18th century. But I suppose they would not feed dangerous enough in a novel, hence the author’s decision to call them red (call it redwashing, maybe?). _I Rossi_ did become a nickname for the Communists in the early 20th century (maybe late 19th), but that was after a long history of the use of the colour red in association with communal and revolutionary movemements, such as the ones mentioned by other posters, and in any case it was mostly used after the 1930s. ---
**Author:** ![Lars\_Aruns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c68b51/32.png) [@Lars\_Aruns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lars_Aruns)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2014, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-red-revolutionaries-exist-in-18th-century-italy/685045/24 "2014-04-02T11:48:39Z")
> [@Isilder](#): > > “Italy” is name for the Peninsula south of the Alps, from the time of Emperor Augustus onward. > > So what, it was united under the Roman Empire, by a different name. > > And then again by these Kingdoms. > > ``` > Ostrogothic Kingdom (493–553) > Kingdom of the Lombards (568–774) > Kingdom of Italy (a part of Holy Roman Empire) (800–1806) > Kingdom of Italy (Napoleonic) (1805–1814) > Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946) > > ``` All true. The name of Italy had a long history as a toponym and there was a memory of its use as a political entity. And it was even older than Augustus, have a look at this [Wikipedia link](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_War_%2891%E2%80%9388_BC%29) on the Social War. A quick quote: > [@](#): > > The rebellious allies planned not just formal separation from Rome, but also the creation of their own independent confederation, called Italia, with its own capital at Corfinium (in modern-day Abruzzo) that was renamed Italica. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2014, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-red-revolutionaries-exist-in-18th-century-italy/685045/25 "2014-04-02T17:36:54Z")
> [@Isilder](#): > > “Italy” is name for the Peninsula south of the Alps, from the time of Emperor Augustus onward. > > So what, it was united under the Roman Empire, by a different name. > > And then again by these Kingdoms. > > ``` > Ostrogothic Kingdom (493–553) > Kingdom of the Lombards (568–774) > Kingdom of Italy (a part of Holy Roman Empire) (800–1806) > Kingdom of Italy (Napoleonic) (1805–1814) > Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946) > > ``` That’s not quite right. I don’t know about the other realms, but the Holy Roman Empire (HRE) usually only included the northern half of the peninsula. The Kingdom of Italy only included northern parts of the peninsula, while the Kingdom of Sicily covered southern parts of the peninsula. The Papal States covered central parts of peninsula. The Kingdom of Italy was an integral part of the HRE. The Kingdom of Sicily was only briefly a part of the HRE. Checking Wikipedia, it says 1197-1266. But even in that period, it’s arguable whether or not the Papal States were a part of the HRE. I do not think it’s reasonable to say Italy, meaning the peninsula rather than the kingdom, was united during the HRE period. ---
**Author:** ![Lars\_Aruns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c68b51/32.png) [@Lars\_Aruns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lars_Aruns)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2014, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-red-revolutionaries-exist-in-18th-century-italy/685045/26 "2014-04-02T22:16:25Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > I do not think it’s reasonable to say Italy, meaning the peninsula rather than the kingdom, was united during the HRE period. I don’t think he’s saying that Italy was united, but that there was an idea of Italy as a geographic expression, in the way we might use Anatolia or the Balkans, and there was an idea of Italy as a political entity, which after the fall of the Roman Empire (when Italy=“the hub of the Empire”) kinda became weakened, shrank and got broken up because of, well, history - Lombard invasion, Roman counter invasion, then the Franks, the Tunisians, the Germans, the Saracens, the French, the Turks, the Spanish, the bloody Hapsburg, and plenty of others. But the idea persevered, although only _de jure_ rather than _de facto_. That’s why when Italy was finally united under Victor Emmanuel the Ungrateful Bastard they used the [Iron Crown](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Crown_of_Lombardy) out of the depths of the Middle Ages. ---
**Author:** ![filmstar-en](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/50afbb/32.png) [@filmstar-en](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmstar-en)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2014, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-red-revolutionaries-exist-in-18th-century-italy/685045/27 "2014-04-05T10:22:55Z")
When I studied Italian unification as a teenager and came away with the impression that it would make a very good movie. It has all the ingredients: The Soldier, the Politician and the Prophet and some swashbuckling battle scenes. Garibaldi and his brigade of redshirts crossing the Straits of Messina to begin the battle for unification by liberating ‘The Kindom of Two Sicilies’. The story I heard was that shirts were red to disguise the bloodstains from the wounds expected to suffer during the battle, such was their courage. This sounds a great deal more romantic than Garibaldi negotiating a discount at a surplus store. This early Nationalism needed a myth with a strong theatrical element to enthuse its supporters: a dramatic struggle with its heroes and villains. Most political movements have the same thing to increase their emotional appeal. I am sure the territory of Italy has seen it all. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-red-revolutionaries-exist-in-18th-century-italy/685045.md?page=1)