Joachim Murat issues the Rimini Proclamation which would later inspire Italian unification.
The Rimini Proclamation was a proclamation on 30 March 1815 by Joachim Murat, who had been made king of Naples by Napoleon I. Murat had just declared war on Austria and used the proclamation to call on Italians to revolt against their Austrian occupiers and to show himself as a backer of Italian independence, in an attempt to find allies in his desperate battle to hang onto his throne. It began:
Italians! The hour has come to engage in your highest destiny.
The proclamation impressed Alessandro Manzoni, who wrote a poem later that year entitled Il proclama di Rimini, but he left it unfinished after Murat's military campaign failed.
Joachim Murat (French pronunciation: [ʒɔaʃɛ̃ myʁa]; 25 March 1767 – 13 October 1815) was a French military commander and statesman who served during the French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars. Under the French Empire he received the military titles of Marshal of the Empire and Admiral of France; he was also the 1st Prince Murat, Grand Duke of Berg from 1806 to 1808 and King of Naples as Joachim-Napoleon (Italian: Gioacchino Napoleone) from 1808 to 1815. He was the brother-in-law of Emperor Napoleon I, who characterised him as exceptionally brave in the face of the enemy, a weakling when he was on his own, a braggart dressed in gold and feathers, continually escaping as by miracle and admired by the Cossacks for his bravery.