Living in Exile: Luigi Pianciani and the London Aid Society, 1850–1857
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This article examines the social and economic dimensions of Italian political exile in mid-nineteenth-century London through the case of Luigi Pianciani and the Aid Society for Italian Exiles, active between 1850 and 1857. Drawing on an extensive corpus of unpublished correspondence preserved in the Italian Senate Archive in Rome, the study analyses more than fifty letters addressed to Pianciani by Italian exiles seeking assistance. Moving beyond the traditional portrayal of political exiles as conspirators, the article foregrounds everyday experiences of poverty, unemployment, illness, and mobility, situating Italian exile within the broader context of European political migration to Victorian Britain. By reconstructing the practices and limits of the Aid Society, the article contributes to recent historiography on exile as a social condition, revealing how political commitment, material deprivation, and transnational networks intersected in shaping the lived experience of nineteenth-century political displacement.
Author: Alice De Matteo
Institution: University of Salerno
Language: English
Subfield: History
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W7154494953