Vincenzo Stefano Breda: memoria del risorgimento, nazionalismo e industrializzazione

The aim of this work is to overcome the traditional historiographical knowledge about Vincenzo Stefano Breda, who was a relevant person in the Italian national scenario during the second half of the 19th century. His name is rightly associated with his most relevant industrial achievement: the steelworks of Terni, founded in 1884, under the political guide of Benedetto Brin. Here are revived some aspects of Breda’s life which were not very well known so far (e.g. his role in the associations of the veterans of the Risorgimento and his activity as a Member of Parliament). Starting from this initial biographical approach, this work leads to the investigation of the ideological motives which led the Italian Governments, in the last decades of the 19th century, to build the first military-industrial complex of the united Italy.