The opening of the Italian legation in Belgrade in 1879 and relations between Serbs and Italians in the 19th century

Abstract

This essay focuses on the opening of the Italian diplomatic Legation in Belgrade in 1879 after the Serbia?s independence. This new beginning of the Serbian-Italian political relations is seen in the framework of the reorientation of the Italian foreign policy after the fall of the French Second Empire and the rise of the Imperial Germany. A great role in this process was played by Count Giuseppe Tornielli Brusati di Vergano, former Secretary General of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Italian Kingdom. He was entrusted to open the Italian Legation in Belgrade and in Bucharest, thus inaugurating a new phase of the Italian action in South-eastern Europe and the Eastern affairs. This question is analyzed in a broader chronological space such as the long tradition of cultural and political exchanges between Serbs and Italians during the epoch of the national Risorgimento.