government for the entire Italian peninsula. Although the people were
mainly of one race, their territory was divided into small states ruled
by despotic princes, who were sometimes of Italian families, but more
often were foreigners--Greeks, Germans, French, Spanish, and Austrians.
The Pope, head of the Roman Catholic Church, governed nearly one third
of the land. This condition continued after 1815. But during the
nineteenth century the Italians began to realize that they belonged to
one race. They saw that the rule of foreigners was opposed to the
national welfare.

By 1870 the union of all Italy into one kingdom was completed. In this
work three great men participated, as well as many lesser patriots. The
first was Garibal´di, a man of intense courage and patriotism. He
aroused the young men of Italy to the need of national union and the
expulsion of the foreigners. For over thirty years he was engaged in
various military expeditions which aided greatly in the establishment of
the national union. The second leader was of an entirely different
character. Count Cavour (ka-voor´) was a statesman, a politician, a
deep student of European history, and a man of great tact. He, too,
wished for a united Italy, but he believed union could not be gained
without foreign assistance. By most skillful means he secured the
support of France and of England, while at the same time he used
Garibaldi and his revolutionists. He had succeeded, at the time of his
death in 1861, in bringing together all of Italy except Rome and Venice.
He won for the new Italian kingdom a place among the great nations of
Europe.

The third great Italian was Victor Emman´uel, king of Sardinia. He
approved of a limited monarchy, like that of England, instead of the
corrupt despotisms which existed in most of the Italian peninsula. He