Mazzini e Guizot

The essay explains the deep difference between the democratic thought of Giuseppe Mazzini and the doctrinaire and conservative liberalism of François Guizot, after the publication of the first part of Alexis de Tocqueville’s “Démocratie en Amérique”. For Guizot, democracy was essentially an instrument to fight against the “ancient régime”, but it is incapable to reorganize society, since its two basic principles – individual and popular sovereignty –are impracticable and incompatible, in Mazzini, influenced by English Chartism, democracy takes – for the first time in his writings – the social and political substance of Republic, that is a government where people and nation are identified. The essay doesn’t show only the debate, but also outlines an original comparison between the two personalities: Guizot remains government’s man even when he is in opposition and Mazzini retains its revolutionary peculiarities even when he governs the Roman Republic in 1849.