Giuseppe Mazzini, one of the fathers of a unified Italy, thought that a dozen states were quite enough for Europe.

ECONOMIST: LITTLE COUNTRIES

The men who unified Italy, notably Camillo Cavour, Giuseppe Garibaldi (pictured) and Giuseppe Mazzini, as well as Azeglio, were patriots (at least for Piedmont), but by no means heroes.

ECONOMIST: Italy

Mazzini was a dreamily unsuccessful revolutionary, Garibaldi an unscrupulous adventurer whose invasion of Sicily in 1860 was illegal and Cavour an old cynic who never travelled south of Pisa.

ECONOMIST: Italy