Giacinto de' Sivo (29 November 181419 November 1867) was an Italian politician, historian and journalist. De' Sivo was a leading

legitimist The Legitimists () are royalists who adhere to the rights of dynastic succession to the French crown of the descendants of the eldest branch of the Bourbon dynasty, which was overthrown in the 1830 July Revolution. They reject the claim of t ...

historian after the fall of the

Kingdom of the Two Sicilies The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies () was a kingdom in Southern Italy from 1816 to 1861 under the control of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, a cadet branch of the House of Bourbon, Bourbons. The kingdom was the largest sovereign state by popula ...

and his books provided the main intellectual support in the struggle to undermine the legitimacy of the

Kingdom of Italy The Kingdom of Italy (, ) was a unitary state that existed from 17 March 1861, when Victor Emmanuel II of Kingdom of Sardinia, Sardinia was proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy, proclaimed King of Italy, until 10 June 1946, when the monarchy wa ...

Biography

Giacinto de' Sivo in the southern Italian town of Maddaloni to a family of long loyalty to the

House of Bourbon The House of Bourbon (, also ; ) is a dynasty that originated in the Kingdom of France as a branch of the Capetian dynasty, the royal House of France. Bourbon kings first ruled France and Kingdom of Navarre, Navarre in the 16th century. A br ...

. His grandfather fought for the

Sanfedisti ''Sanfedismo'' (from ''Santa Fede'', "Holy Faith" in Italian) was a popular anti-Jacobin movement, organized by Fabrizio Cardinal Ruffo, which mobilized peasants of the Kingdom of Naples against the pro-French Parthenopaean Republic in 1799, i ...

in 1799. As a young man he frequented the most famous private school of the time at Naples, directed by Basilio Puoti. De’ Sivo served in various state positions in the Two Sicilies: a member of the Commission for Public Education, in 1848 he was appointed Councilor of Intendance of the province of

Terra di Lavoro Terra di Lavoro (Liburia in Latin) is the name of a historical region of Southern Italy.Garibaldi Giuseppe Maria Garibaldi ( , ;In his native Ligurian language, he is known as (). In his particular Niçard dialect of Ligurian, he was known as () or (). 4 July 1807 – 2 June 1882) was an Italian general, revolutionary and republican. H ...

. In 1861 he published his first historical essay ''Italy and its political drama in 1861'' (L'Italia e il suo dramma politico nel 1861), in which he judged the unification process as elitist and distant from the interests of the people, led by gun violence and the spread of lies. As a result, and despite the risk of persecution and difficulty to find printers willing to publish his works, de' Sivo developed his most representative work, ''History of the Two Sicilies from 1847 to 1861'' (Storia delle Due Sicilie dal 1847 al 1861), published in five volumes between 1862 and 1867, and reissued twice afterward. In his works, he described the unification process as an assault against two sovereign states (the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and the

Papal States The Papal States ( ; ; ), officially the State of the Church, were a conglomeration of territories on the Italian peninsula under the direct sovereign rule of the pope from 756 to 1870. They were among the major states of Italy from the 8th c ...

), in violation of

international law International law, also known as public international law and the law of nations, is the set of Rule of law, rules, norms, Customary law, legal customs and standards that State (polity), states and other actors feel an obligation to, and generall ...

and in particular of the spiritual and civil values of the Italian nation. He challenged the victors' assertion that they had 'liberated' Italy: unification merely meant the conquest of Italy by the

Kingdom of Sardinia The Kingdom of Sardinia, also referred to as the Kingdom of Sardinia and Corsica among other names, was a State (polity), country in Southern Europe from the late 13th until the mid-19th century, and from 1297 to 1768 for the Corsican part of ...

, itself the servant of powers beyond the Alps; the maladministration of the new government had reduced the Neapolitans to misery and despair. De' Sivo's history offers valuable insights into the political crisis of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and the

brigandage Brigandage is the life and practice of highway robbery and plunder. It is practiced by a brigand, a person who is typically part of a gang and lives by pillage and robbery.Oxford English Dictionary second edition, 1989. "Brigand.2" first recorded ...

that followed the unification of Italy. The thought of de' Sivo was long the subject of

ostracism Ostracism (, ''ostrakismos'') was an Athenian democratic procedure in which any citizen could be expelled from the city-state of Athens for ten years. While some instances clearly expressed popular anger at the citizen, ostracism was often us ...

, in spite of

Benedetto Croce Benedetto Croce, ( , ; 25 February 1866 – 20 November 1952) was an Italian idealist philosopher, historian, and politician who wrote on numerous topics, including philosophy, history, historiography, and aesthetics. A Cultural liberalism, poli ...

had highlighted his thickness as a scholar by writing a biography that was included in the work ''A family of patriots'' (Una famiglia di patrioti).

Works

* * * * * * ''Storia delle Due Sicilie dal 1847 al 1861'', Vol. I, Rome, 1863; Vol. II, Rome, 1864; Vol. III, Verona, 1865; Vol. IV and V, Viterbo, 1867.

Notes

Bibliography

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External links

* 1814 births 1867 deaths 19th-century Italian male writers Legitimists 19th-century Italian historians 19th-century Italian journalists 19th-century Italian novelists {{DEFAULTSORT:de' Sivo, Giacinto Politicians of Campania Kingdom of the Two Sicilies people People from the Province of Caserta