Then followed
events of which it is still a pang keen to read: the troops of the
French Republic marched upon Rome, and, after a defense more splendid
and heroic than any victory, the city fell. The Pope returned, and all
who loved Italy and freedom turned in exile from Rome. The cities of
the Romagna, Tuscany, Lombardy, and Venetia had fallen again under the
Pope, the Grand Duke, and the Austrians, and Dall' Ongaro took refuge
in Switzerland.
[Illustration: FRANCESCO DALL' ONGARA]
Without presuming to say whether Dall' Ongaro was mistaken in his
political ideas, we may safely admit that he was no wiser a politician
than Dante or Petrarch. He was an anti-Papist, as these were, and
like these he opposed an Italy of little principalities and little
republics. But his dream, unlike theirs, was of a great Italian
democracy, and in 1848-49 he opposed the union of the Italian patriots
under Carlo Alberto, because this would have tended to the monarchy.
III
But it is not so much with Dall' Ongaro's political opinions that we
have to do as with his poetry of the revolutionary period of 1848,
as we find in it the little collection of lyrics which he calls
"Stornelli." These commemorate nearly all the interesting aspects of
that epoch; and in their wit and enthusiasm and aspiration, we feel
the spirit of a race at once the most intellectual and the most
emotional in the world, whose poets write as passionately of politics
as of love.
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