Rimini Proclamation

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.

Copy of the Rimini Proclamation, held at the Museo nazionale del Risorgimento in Turin

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.