The unification of Italy (Italian: Unità d'Italia [uniˈta ddiˈtaːlja]), also known as the Risorgimento (Italian: [risordʒiˈmento]; lit. 'Resurgence'), was the 19th century political and social movement that in 1861 ended in the annexation of various states of the Italian peninsula and its outlying isles to the Kingdom of Sardinia, resulting in the creation of the Kingdom of Italy. Inspired by the rebellions in the 1820s and 1830s against the outcome of the Congress of Vienna, the unification process was precipitated by the Revolutions of 1848, and reached completion in 1870 after the capture of Rome and its designation as the capital of the Kingdom of Italy.
Individuals who played a major part in the struggle for unification and liberation from foreign domination included King Victor Emmanuel II; politician, economist and statesman Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour; general Giuseppe Garibaldi; and journalist and politician Giuseppe Mazzini. Borrowing from the old Latin title Pater Patriae of the Roman emperors, the Italians gave to King Victor Emmanuel II the epithet of Father of the Fatherland (Italian: Padre della Patria). Even after 1870, many ethnic Italian-speakers (Italians in Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, Savoyard Italians, Corfiot Italians, Niçard Italians, Swiss Italians, Corsican Italians, Maltese Italians, Istrian Italians, and Dalmatian Italians) remained outside the borders of the Kingdom of Italy, planting the seeds of Italian irredentism.
