Understandings of the Austrian presence in Northern Italy have long been colored by the “black legend” of Habsburg rule, and it is only comparatively recently that historians have sought to move away from received interpretations, through the works by Marco Meriggi and Brigitte Mazohl-Wallnig on the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia. In the last decade or so, the province of Venetia has been especially well served by studies on the so-called “first domination” (1797–1805) by Michele Gottardi and on the “second domination” (1815–48) by Eurigio Tonetti and David Laven.

As Andreas Gottsmann makes clear in this highly impressive study, the post-1848 period—the “third domination”—has by contrast been relatively neglected, and particularly so in the case of the years covered by this study: from Lombardy's incorporation into the new Kingdom of Italy in 1859 to the war of 1866, when Austria also lost Venetia. For many, these seven years have seemed like a waiting for the inevitable, with Austria allegedly having lost all moral and political authority in the region and—so old-style Risorgimento historiography would have it—seeking only to extract the maximum economic and fiscal gain from the region. Although not denying the difficulty of Austria's position, Gottsmann instead argues at the outset that, given the uncertainty surrounding the new Italian kingdom's internal consolidation in the early 1860s, it made sense for Austria to keep hold of Venetia. He thus poses the interesting question of whether the Austrian administration could turn its position around in Venetia at a time when major constitutional reforms potentially created a new basis for the region's integration into the Habsburg state.

With a text comfortably more than five hundred pages in length, Gottsmann cannot be accused of skimping on detail in analyzing these seven years. Making extensive use of hitherto barely studied material in the central archives in Vienna, combined with material from the former provincial administration (Statthalterei) in Venice, Gottsmann divides his work into three main parts. Part 1 looks at the machinery of administration under governor Georg Otto Ritter von Toggenburg, originally from Switzerland but in Austrian service since 1832, where he had gained extensive experience in the Littoral, southern Tirol, and in Venetia itself, where he had already served as Statthalter from 1850–1855. With his renewed appointment in 1860, Toggenburg initially oversaw a process of purging politically “unreliable” officials, although Gottsmann is careful to point out that there was none of the Germanizing tendencies of the 1850s. Most officials in the region were Italian-speakers, from Trentino, Istria, and Dalmatia; but few came from Venetia itself, and the lack of opportunities here were a source of tension. At a lower level, the state's inability to provide more support for the population in terms of adequate security forces (gendarmes) meant it was difficult to provide the population with positives nodes of identification at a time of economic crisis and widespread criminality, while the failure to resolve the constitutional status of Venetia alienated the regional elites.

Part 2 considers the relationship between the administration and the public sphere, with particular attention given to the church, schools, and the University of Padua. Generally speaking, the church hierarchy proved supportive of the Habsburg state, the only exception being the Bishop of Mantua. However, there were considerable tensions deriving from the liberal policies of the 1860s and the threat to church influence over education. While the majority of the middle-ranking and lower clergy refrained from taking overt political positions, a significant minority sought to achieve greater freedom for the church. Rather more of this group felt such a status could be achieved within a lay-oriented Italy, based on separation between church and state, rather than in a Josephist-influenced Austrian context. If this sphere of policy indicated possible divergences between Austria and the local population, such was also evident with regard to the university, the state's only Italian higher educational institution. Although the government was careful not to impose professors from outside, the real problem here proved to be an inability on the part of Schmerling at the political center to overcome governor Toggenburg's reservations about introducing more liberal policies regarding access to, and administration of, the university.

Part 3 then examines the general situation of the Italians in Venetia and raises the question as to whether they were a nation waiting to be “redeemed.” In terms of factors influencing public opinion, there can be no question that the catastrophic economic situation of the region as a whole, and of Venice in particular, negatively affected perceptions of Austrian government, given that the latter failed to produce any clear initiatives to stimulate growth and to improve the infrastructure, on the one hand, and persisted in requiring the region to pay for military costs incurred in 1859 and after, on the other hand. Such burdens were exacerbated by the obligations on military conscription, which led to initial difficulties in the years 1859–1862. Significantly, however, the state got more of a grip on the issue thereafter, with desertion and emigration rates among those eligible for service subsequently below expectations.

In assessing the overall picture, therefore, Gottsmann is able to show that there were areas where a coincidence of interests between state and region might have been possible, although not enough occurred in the short period from 1859–1866 to improve the situation in a firmly positive direction from the Austrian point of view. Here, the caution of Toggenburg proved counterproductive at times; but above all, it was the inability to achieve clarity on the constitutional position of Venetia that was most problematic. Although the provisions on municipal autonomy proved acceptable to many, moderates were disappointed by the absence of more extensive autonomy at the regional level. The proposed statute for the region was in some respects more liberal than the Venetian patriciate had expected, and they were also aware of the fact that Lombard privileges had been overlooked in the centralist Italian kingdom beyond the Mincio River. Hence, it was not so much opposition from the regional elites that obstructed a solution, but hesitancy on the part of the Austrian government, which let a promising opportunity for agreement in 1863 pass as discussions dragged on. Vienna's reluctance to move in a more federalist direction and to give the Venetians a more wide-ranging autonomy and influence in the local administration meant that a Hungarian-style compromise arrangement was not achieved, and the Venetians—like the Hungarians—maintained their boycott of the Austrian parliament, before the outcome of 1866 settled the issue in a different fashion.

On the whole, Gottsmann has produced an excellent and insightful study into a neglected period of Austrian government in Northern Italy, even if the text might have benefited from cutting down in a couple of places. Some more consistent comparisons with other Italian-speaking areas (above all, Trieste, which did achieve an extensive de facto autonomy after 1850) would have been useful, and the author could also have explored more extensively the question as to whether or not it was a particular understanding of “Venetian-ness” (Venezianità) as much as Italian nationalism that stimulated opposition to Austria, as David Laven and others have suggested. Finally, it remains a moot point as to whether any government was really in a position to halt Venice's long decline from trading powerhouse to museum-city. All told, however, Gottsmann provides an important contribution to revising our understanding of the nature of Austrian attempts at state building in the 1860s.