Risorgimento Rome II/Never far from Rome V

Mazzini, off the Euston Road and not

Sunday was the anniversary of the foundation in 1849 of the short-lived Roman Republic. I like few things more than unlikely connections so, finding myself in London on Sunday morning, I took a detour to pay homage to one of its ideators, Giuseppe Mazzini.

North Gower Street, home to Mazzini and Sherlock

In his early twenties Mazzini was imprisoned for his involvement with the Carbonari, a vehemently anti-papal revolutionary secret organisation. After three years in prison in Liguria he was offered exile and swiftly retreated to Switzerland and France. In 1831 in Marseilles he founded La Giovine Italia (Young Italy), a society formed to promote the creation of a unified Italian as an independent republic. Mazzini was subsequently arrested in Switzerland and exiled. Imprisoned again in Paris he then sought refuge in 1837 in London. He lived in near penury on North Gower Street, just off the Euston Road.

It’s the building where Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock lives in the BBC series, above a proper London caff which is staunchly and refreshingly resistant to gentrification. On the sort of gloomy Sunday morning that London does so well—an all-enveloping Tupperware sky; not a whisper of a shadow to be seen—Speedy’s Cafe was shuttered and the street deserted.