Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia
Regno Lombardo-Veneto (Italian)
Königreich Lombardo-Venetien (German)
Österreichisches Italien[1]
1815–1866
Flag of Lombardy-Venetia
Flag of the Viceroy
Coat of arms of Lombardy-Venetia
Coat of arms
Motto: A.E.I.O.U.
(Motto for the House of Habsburg)
"All the world is subject to Austria"[2][3]
Anthem: Inno Patriottico
"The Patriotic Song"
The Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia (green) and the Austrian Empire (light green) in 1815
The Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia (green) and the Austrian Empire (light green) in 1815
StatusCrown land of the Austrian Empire
Capital
Common languagesLombard, Venetian, Friulian, Italian, and German
Religion
Roman Catholic
GovernmentAbsolute monarchy
King 
• 1815–1835
Francis I
• 1835–1848
Ferdinand I
• 1848–1866
Francis Joseph I
Viceroy 
• 1815
Heinrich XV of Reuss-Plauen
• 1815–1816
Heinrich von Bellegarde
• 1816–1818
Anton Victor of Austria
• 1818–1848
Rainer Joseph of Austria
• 1848–1857
Joseph Radetzky von Radetz
• 1857–1859
Ferdinand Maximilian of Austria
History 
9 June 1815
22 March 1848
• Lombardy ceded to France
10 November 1859
14 June 1866
23 August 1866
12 October 1866
Area
1852[4]46,782 km2 (18,063 sq mi)
Population
• 1852[4]
4,671,000
Currency
Preceded by		Succeeded by
Kingdom of Italy (Napoleonic)
Republic of San Marco
Second French Empire
Kingdom of Italy
Today part ofItaly

The Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia (Latin: Regnum Langobardiae et Venetiae), commonly called the "Lombardo-Venetian Kingdom" (Italian: Regno Lombardo-Veneto, German: Königreich Lombardo-Venetien), was a constituent land (crown land) of the Austrian Empire from 1815 to 1866. It was created in 1815 by resolution of the Congress of Vienna in recognition of the Austrian House of Habsburg-Lorraine's rights to the former Duchy of Milan and the former Republic of Venice after the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy, proclaimed in 1805, had collapsed.[5]

The kingdom would cease to exist within the next fifty years—the region of Lombardy was ceded to France in 1859 after the Second Italian War of Independence, which then immediately ceded it to the Kingdom of Sardinia. Lombardy-Venetia was finally dissolved in 1866 when its remaining territory was incorporated into the recently proclaimed Kingdom of Italy following the kingdom's victory against Austria in the Third Italian War of Independence.

History

An Austrian herald's tabard (Wappenrock) with the coat of arms of Lombardy-Venetia (1834) – Weltliche Schatzkammer in Vienna

Creation

In the Treaty of Paris in 1814, the Austrians had confirmed their claims to the territories of the former Lombard Duchy of Milan, which had been ruled by the Habsburg monarchy since 1714 and together with the adjacent Duchy of Mantua by the Austrian branch of the dynasty from 1708 to 1796, and of the former Republic of Venice, which had been under Austrian rule intermittently upon the 1797 Treaty of Campo Formio.

The Congress of Vienna combined these lands into a single kingdom, ruled in personal union by the Habsburg Emperor of Austria; as distinct from the neighbouring Grand Duchy of Tuscany, the Duchy of Modena and Reggio as well as the Duchy of Parma, which remained independent entities under Habsburg rule. The Austrian emperor was represented day-to-day by viceroys appointed by the Imperial Court in Vienna and resident in Milan and Venice.[4][6][7][8]

Years of the Kingdom

The Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia was first ruled by Emperor Francis I from 1815 until his death in 1835. His son Ferdinand I ruled from 1835 to 1848. In Milan on 6 September 1838, he became the last king to be crowned with the Iron Crown of Lombardy. The crown was subsequently brought to Vienna after the loss of Lombardy in 1859 but was restored to Italy after the loss of Venetia in 1866.

Though the local administration was Italian in language and staff, the Austrian authorities had to cope with the Italian unification (Risorgimento) movement. After a popular revolution on 22 March 1848, known as the "Five Days of Milan", the Austrians fled from Milan, which became the capital city of a Governo Provvisorio della Lombardia (Lombardy Provisional Government). The next day, Venice also rose against the Austrian rule, forming the Governo Provvisorio di Venezia (Venice Provisional Government). The Austrian forces under Field Marshal Joseph Radetzky, after defeating the Sardinian troops at the Battle of Custoza (24–25 July 1848), entered Milan (6 August) and Venice (24 August 1849), and once again restored Austrian rule.

Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria ruled over the kingdom for the rest of its existence. The office of viceroy was abolished and replaced by a governor-general. The office was initially assumed by Field Marshal Radetzky - upon his retirement in 1857, it passed to Franz Joseph's younger brother Maximilian (who later became emperor of Mexico), who served as governor-general in Milan from 1857 to 1859.

End of the Kingdom

After the Second Italian War of Independence and the defeat in the Battle of Solferino in 1859, Austria by the Treaty of Zurich had to cede Lombardy up to the Mincio River, except for the fortresses of Mantua and Peschiera, to the French Emperor Napoleon III, who immediately passed it to the Kingdom of Sardinia and the embryonic Italian state. Maximilian retired to Miramare Castle near Trieste, while the capital was relocated to Venice. However, remaining Venetia and Mantua likewise fell to the Kingdom of Italy in the aftermath of the Third Italian War of Independence, by the 1866 Peace of Prague.[9] The territory of Venetia and Mantua was formally transferred from Austria to France, and then handed over to Italy on 19 October 1866, for diplomatic reasons; a plebiscite marked the Italian annexation on 21–22 October 1866.[10]

Administration

Administratively the Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia comprised two independent governments (Gubernien) in its two parts, which officially were declared separate crown lands in 1851. Each part was further subdivided into several provinces, roughly corresponding with the départements of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy.

Lombardy included the provinces of Milan, Como, Bergamo, Brescia, Pavia, Cremona, Mantua, Lodi-Crema, and Sondrio. Venetia included the provinces of Venice, Verona, Padua, Vicenza, Treviso, Rovigo, Belluno, and Udine.[9]

According to the Ethnographic map of Karl von Czoernig-Czernhausen, issued by the Imperial and Royal Administration of Statistics in 1855, the Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia then had a population of 5,024,117 people, consisting of the following ethnic groups: 4,625,746 Italians (Lombard-Venetians); 351,805 Friulians; 12,084 Germans (Cimbrians in Venetia); 26,676 Slovenians; and 7,806 Jews.

For the first time since 1428, Lombardy reappeared as an entity, the first time in history that the term "Lombardy" was officially used to call specifically that entity and not for the whole of Northern Italy.

The administration used Italian as its language in its internal and external communications and documents, and the language's dominant position in politics, finance or jurisdiction was not questioned by the Austrian officials. The Italian-language Gazzetta di Milano was the official newspaper of the kingdom. Civil servants employed in the administration were predominantly Italian, with only about 10% of them being recruited from other regions of the Austrian Empire. Some bilingual Italian-German-speaking civil servants came from the neighbouring County of Tyrol. The German language, however, was the command language of the military, and top police officials were native German-speakers from other parts of the empire.[11] The highest governorships were also reserved for Austrian aristocrats.

Austrian General Karl von Schönhals wrote in his memoirs [12] that the Austrian administration enjoyed the support of the rural population and the middle class educated at the universities of Pavia and Padua, who were able to pursue careers in the administration.

Von Schönhals further noted that the Austrians mistrusted and refused the local aristocrats from high government offices, as they traditionally had rejected university education and had been able to gain leadership positions because of their family background. Consequently, the aristocrats saw themselves deprived of the possibility of establishing themselves in the management of society and supported the wars of independence against the Austrians.

Kings

King Reign Marriage(s)
Issue		 Succession right(s) Viceroy(s)
Francis I
(Francesco I)
1768–1835
(aged 67)		 9 June 1815
–
2 March 1835
List
1815–1816: Heinrich von Bellegarde
1816–1818: Anton Victor of Austria
1818–1848: Rainer Joseph of Austria
Ferdinand I
(Ferdinando I)
1793–1875
(aged 82)		 2 March 1835
–
2 December 1848
(Abdicated due to
1848 revolutions)		 Maria Anna of Savoy
(m. 1831; w. 1878)
Childless
  • Son of King Francis I
    (primogeniture)
Franz Joseph I
(Francesco Giuseppe I)
1830–1916
(aged 86)		 2 December 1848
–
12 October 1866
(Forced to cede
Lombardy and Venetia)		 Elisabeth in Bavaria
(m. 1854; d. 1898)
4 children
(3 survived to adulthood)
1848–1857: Joseph Radetzky
1857–1859: Maximilian of Austria
1859: Ferenc Gyulay

Governors of Lombardy

Governors of Venetia

  • Peter Goëss 1815–1819
  • Ferdinand Ernst Maria von Bissingen-Nippenburg 1819–1820
  • Carlo d'Inzaghi 1820–1826
  • Johann Baptist Spaur 1826–1840
  • Aloys Pálffy de Erdöd 1840–1848
  • Ferdinand Zichy zu Zich von Vasonykeöy 1848 (acting)
  • Laval Nugent von Westmeath 1848–1849 (military governor)
  • Karl von Gorzowsky 1849
  • Stanislaus Anton Puchner 1849–1850
  • Georg Otto von Toggenburg-Sargans 1850–1855
  • Kajetan von Bissingen-Nippenburg 1855–1860
  • Georg Otto von Toggenburg-Sargans 1860–1866 (second time)

Sources

  1. ↑ Pütz, Wilhelm (1855). Leitfaden bei dem Unterricht in der vergleichenden Erdbeschreibung. Freiburg.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  2. ↑ Heimann, Heinz-Dieter (2010). Die Habsburger : Dynastie und Kaiserreiche. Munich: Beck. pp. 38–45. ISBN 978-3-406-44754-9.
  3. ↑ German: Alles Erdreich ist Österreich untertan (All soil is subject to Austria), Latin: Austriae est imperare orbi universo (Austria is to rule the whole world). But in the book of the same author, another page in Latin "En, amor electis, iniustis ordinor ultor; Sic Fridericus ego mea iura rego" (En, the love of the elect, I am ordered to avenge the unjust; Thus, Frederick, I rule my rights) There are also others, but like House of Savoy's FERT, the official interpretation is not set.
  4. 1 2 3 Fisher, Richard S. (1852). The Book of the World: Volume 2. New York.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  5. ↑ Rindler Schjerve, Rosita (2003). Diglossia and Power. Berlin.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  6. ↑ Francis Young & W.B.B. Stevens (1864). Garibaldi: His Life and Times. London.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  7. ↑ Pollock, Arthur William Alsager (1854). The United Service magazine: Vol.75. London.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  8. ↑ Förster, Ernst (1866). Handbuch für Reisende in Italien: Vol.1 (in German). Munich.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  9. 1 2 Rosita Rindler Schjerve (2003). Diglossia and Power: Language Policies and Practice in the 19th Century Habsburg Empire. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. pp. 199–200. ISBN 3-11-017653-X. Retrieved 23 March 2022.
  10. ↑ "21st-22nd October 1866: annexation of Veneto to Italy". Archived from the original on 10 July 2018. Retrieved 20 November 2023. (in Italian)
  11. ↑ Boaglio, Gualtiero. 2003. 6. Language and power in an Italian crownland of the Habsburg Empire: The ideological dimension of diglossia in Lombardy
  12. ↑ Schönhals, Karl von: Erinnerungen eines österreichischen Veteranen aus dem italienischen Kriege der Jahre 1848 und 1849. Vol. 1 and Schönhals, Karl von: Erinnerungen eines österreichischen Veteranen aus dem italienischen Kriege der Jahre 1848 und 1849. Vol. 2
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