Early Life
Giuseppe Zanardelli was born in Brescia (Lombardy). A combatant in the volunteer corps during the First Italian War of Independence of 1848 between the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Sardinia, within the era of Italian unification (Risorgimento), he returned to Brescia after the lost battle of Novara (1849). For a time earned a livelihood by teaching law, but was molested by the Austrian police and forbidden to teach in consequence of his refusal to contribute pro-Austrian articles to the press.
In 1859 he was forced to flee to Switzerland. He moved to Lugano, but returned in time to organize the insurrection of Brescia in the Second Italian War of Independence and welcomed Giuseppe Garibaldi in the city. Enlisted in the Cacciatori delle Alpi (Hunters of the Alps), he remained in the area until the armistice of Villafranca. With the annexation of Lombardy to Piedmont he was elected to Parliament in Turin.
Elected deputy in 1859, he received various administrative appointments, but only attained a political office in 1876 when the Left, of which he had been a prominent and influential member, came into power.
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