Mazzini's isolation is complete when it becomes known that in June and July 1857 he had supported an expedition to the southern mainland to incite insurrection, known as the Sapri expedition, in which the Neapolitan republican and socialist Carlo Pisacane and some three hundred companions lost their lives.

Mazzini manages to escape the police, but is condemned to death by default.

The democrats are divided and unable to carry on the revolutionary struggle; nothing is to be expected from the restored governments.

From this moment on, Mazzini is more of a spectator than a protagonist of the Italian Risorgimento, whose reins are now strongly in the hands of the Savoyard monarch Victor Emmanuel II and his skilled prime minister Cavour.

The latter defines Mazzini as "Chief of the assassins".