On the Origins of Making Italy: Massimo D'Azeglio and "Fatta l'Italia, bisogna fare gli Italiani"

This article clarifies the origin of a phrase that has been central to Italy's nation-making project since the mid-nineteenth century, "Fatta l'Italia, bisogna fare gli Italiani," and which has been erroneously attributed to statesman Massimo D'Azeglio since approximately 1866. It traces the permutations of the phrase through the publication history of D'Azeglio's I miei ricordi, its resurfacing in the writings of Ferdinando Martini at the fin de siecle, and finally its reappropriation by Gabriele D'Annunzio and Fascism. Investigating this history shows how " making Italy" emerged as a common trope in the nationalist discourse by exposing the ways in which interpersonal relationships shaped its textures, and, in doing so, how personal and political spheres also became intertwined in Italy's national project. In such ways, D'Azeglio's maxim signifies the dialectical tensions between poiesis and negation - tensions that mutually constitute and destabilize the contours of the modern Italian nation-state.