Italian Military Officers on Service of the Greek War of Independence: Case Studies from D. Romas’ Archive

Abstract

Central reference points of this paper are the Zantiot count Dionysios Romas (1771–1857), politician with rich patriotic action, who introduced Masonry in the Greek area; episodes of the Greek War of Independence against the Ottoman yoke; and the Philhellenes Italian volunteers, who supported the Greek struggle. The issues explored in this essay, on the basis of important published and unpublished archival sources, are: firstly, Romas’ social, political and ideological origins and his formation according to the principles of liberalism and nationalism in the Ionian Islands and the Italian peninsula; secondly, the establishment, under his leadership, of the Zante Committee with the aim of the political, economic and military support of the Greek revolution; and finally the relations developed by Romas and the Zante Committee with a group of Italian military officers, who were engaged in the conflict between the Greeks and the Egyptian armed forces during the critical – for the Greek struggle – year of 1825.