... as an exponent due to his narrow Piedmontese ambitions and pursuit of self-interests irrespective of national interests. Therefore the question of as to who was the most important and successful of the unification's exponents, only concerns those genuine to the 'Risorgimento', namely, Mazzini, Garibaldi and Victor Emmanuel II to some extent. Mazzini had been the political idealist able to catalyze the national spirit of the Italian people into a viable force, being one of the first to introduce the practical possibility of unification. He was very much the propagandist of Italian unity, however post 1848-9, in the wake of revolutionary failure the Mazzinian ideas which to a degree had instigated the popular unrest of the early nineteenth century, had been proven impractical and unworkable. Indeed Piedmont was the most promising tool for unification, which explains the significance of Cavour's ambition, in that it provided the means with which others could achieve ...

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