Mameli's Hymn

L'Inno di Mameli (Mameli's Hymn) is the national anthem known also as Fratelli d'Italia (Brothers of Italy), from its opening line.

Goffredo Mameli, a 20-year-old student and patriot, wrote the lyrics in the autumn of 1847 in Genoa, during the struggle for unification and independence of Italy, and only two months later in Turin another Genoese, musician Michele Novaro, composed the music. The hymn became immediately popular with the “newly made Italians”, enjoying widespread popularity throughout the Risorgimento and following decades.

However, after the unification of Italy in 1861, 150 years ago, Italy’s official national anthem was the Marcia Reale, the Royal March (or Fanfara Reale), the official hymn commissioned by Carlo Alberto di Savoia of the royal house of Savoy in 1831.

The Marcia Reale remained the Italian national anthem until Italy became a republic in 1946. On October 12, 1946, Il Canto degli Italiani was provisionally chosen as the country's new national anthem and only 60 years later, in 2005 a law was finally passed to turn it into the official one.

Over the past few years, however, many people expressed critical views on the Inno di Mameli, claiming that the melody is not as authoritative as the German Anthem composed by Haydn or the British “God Save the Queen”. The most common alternative indicated by Italians is “Va Pensiero”, which is a chorus from the third act of Nabucco (1842) by Giuseppe Verdi.

Few people know that great Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi himeself, in his Inno delle Nazioni (Hymn of the Nations), composed for the London International Exhibition of 1862, chose Il Canto degli Italiani – and not the Marcia Reale – to represent Italy.

Below you find the complete text of the original poem written by Goffredo Mameli and a brief explanation regarding the meaning of each stanza.

Brothers of Italy,
Italy has awoken,
with Scipio's helmet
binding her head.
Where is Victory?
Let her bow down,
For God has made her
Rome's slave.

CHORUS:

Let us join in a cohort,
We are ready to die.
We are ready to die,
Italy has called.
Let us join in a cohort,
We are ready to die.
We are ready to die,
Italy has called!
We were for centuries
Downtrodden and derided,
because we are not one people,
because we are divided.
Let one flag, one hope
gather us all.
The hour has struck
for us to join together.

CHORUS

Let us unite and love one another,
Union and love
Show the people
The way of the Lord.
Let us swear to free
Our native soil;
United under God,
Who can defeat us?

CHORUS

From the Alps to Sicily,
Legnano is everywhere;
Every man has the heart
and hand of Ferruccio
The children of Italy
Are all called Balilla;
Every trumpet blast
sounds the Vespers.

CHORUS

Mercenary swords,
they're feeble reeds.
The Austrian eagle
Has already lost its plumes.
The blood of Italy
and the Polish blood
It drank, along with the Cossack,
But it burned its heart.

CHORUS

In the first stanza Italy, ready for war, is wearing the helmet of Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus , referring to his victory in the battle of Zama, which marked the end of the Second Punic War against the Carthaginians. In the second stanza, the divisions of Italy are blamed for the lack of respect the country faced throughout the centuries.

The third stanza is an invocation to God to protect the loving union of the Italians struggling to form their unified nation once and for all, the fourth recalls popular heroic figures and moments of Italian independence such as the Vespri siciliani, the riot started in Genoa by Balilla and the battle of Legnano. The last stanza of the poem refers to the part played by Habsburg Austria and Czarist Russia in the partitions of Poland, linking its quest for independence to the Italian one.