Vincenzo Gioberti, the most important exponent of liberal Catholicism, envisions a new and positive role for the temporal power of the papacy.

His celebrated On the Moral and Civil Primacy of Italians (Del primato morale e civile degli Italiani), written in Parisian exile and published in 1843, affirms the idea of progress as the return of the material to the spiritual, of man to God.

Because such progress can be realized only through the mediation of the church, Gioberti advocates an Italian federation free from Austrian hegemony and under the nominal presidency of the pope.

Renewed Mazzinian attempts at armed rebellion in the early 1840s are ruthlessly suppressed.

Among these is the Calabrian expedition of 1844 organized by the Venetian Bandiera brothers and seven of their companions, who are captured and executed by the Bourbon regime.

These violent acts of suppression increase the esteem felt by governments and the general public for the moderate opposition.

Vincenzo Gioberti's ideas concerning church-mediated Italian federation are influential among the clergy and most Catholic intellectuals.

Cesare Balbo, Niccolò Tommaseo, and Antonio Rosmini-Serbati advance, under different formulations, this new papalist movement.

In Delle speranze d'Italia, Balbo shows the anti-revolutionary nature of his patriotism and liberalism.

He writes that the independence of Italy from Austria is desirable, but Austria should be compensated with territory in the Balkans; that the interests of the papacy should be safeguarded; and that a confederation might be the best political organization for Italy.

At the death of Pope Gregory XVI in June 1846, the election of Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti as Pope Pius IX on June 16 augurs well for the Papal States, his nomination being the result of anti-Austrian feeling in the Curia.

In the beginning of his reign, he shows liberal sympathies and grants amnesty to political prisoners.

He will gradually remove the most reactionary prelates from important government posts, and permit the publication of political periodicals.

He will reign for thirty-one-and-a-half years (the longest definitely confirmed).

Pope Pius IX issues the encyclical Qui pluribus, in response to the growing trend of agnosticism among intellectuals in Europe, on November 9, 1846.

Italian rulers influenced by the pope's liberalism introduce reforms.

Especially important is the Tuscan press law of 1847, by which Grand Duke Leopold II removes most forms of political censorship.

The reforms encourage extremism, however, and the reactionary powers of Europe become convinced that the stability of Italy is in jeopardy.

Austrian troops occupy the papal city of Ferrara in July 1847.

This intervention stimulates cooperation among Italian rulers, including Charles Albert of Sardinia, whose relations with Austria have been particularly strained; he replaces his reactionary Cabinet with a reformist one.

While the rulers discuss reforms—especially the formation of an all-Italian customs union—and the measures needed to cope with famine in several regions, the populace begins to stir.

Pope Pius IX finally establishes a council of state in 1847.

Although only advisory, the council gives the laity a voice in the affairs of state.

The peace imposed on the Italian peninsula from 1831 to 1848 has favored economic development, which has come in varying degrees everywhere except in the south.

Here the Bourbon Kingdom of the Two Sicilies remains backward, and the growth of bourgeois landownership that results from the division of great feudal holdings does nothing to change the situation.

Thus, the imbalance between north and south continues to increase.

Carlo Cattaneo's journal Il politecnico, founded in Milan in 1839, argues that the progress of science and technology necessary to fuel economic growth depends upon government reforms.