Rosas fled after the battle of Caseros and freed Montevideo from the nightmare of the siege that lasted many years, all the expatriates and many foreigners who had long shared sacrifices, dangers and hopes with them returned to Buenos Aires. In this way many Italians, political refugees and Garibaldi legionaries, passed to Argentina, where a new period of social activity and also of political struggles began.
In November 1852 Buenos Aires city, feeling handicapped in front of San Nicolás, chosen as a meeting place for the conventions called to discuss the national constitution, rose up against General Urquiza; and on 1 December the province of Buenos Aires rebelled against its capital by siege it. On December 9, all the residents of the capital were called up, and first of all the Italian Legion was organized under the command of the Abruzzese Silvino Oliveri. Once the dispute was over, on 14 August 1853, the legion was dissolved.
Official Argentine statistics begin to record the phenomenon of immigration and emigration from the year 1857 onwards; however the number of Italians, especially Ligurians, who resided in Buenos Aires, dedicated to trade and cabotage, must have been significant due to the fact that on 14 September 1853 the initiative for the foundation of an Italian hospital was launched among them. It is certain that only after twenty years the initiative became a civil reality, but it is also certain that the Italian community of Buenos Aires was organized around this idea and gradually those of the other Argentine urban centers which provided the financial contribution for the building of the hospital. With this of relevance: that the initiative was placed under the high patronage of SM Vittorio Emanuele, king of Sardinia, with the intention that the institution had to serve all Italians just when Italy was divided into many small states. Then the qualification of “Italian” and, from the legion organized to defend the freedom of the republic, went on to designate the first institution created to help the Italians who emigrated to the Rio della Plata.
On July 18, 1858, the Italian political emigrants formed the first social nucleus of mutual aid in Buenos Aires, entitled the Italian Society of Union and Benevolence. This fact shows that there was already a current of emigration between Italy and Argentina that was more numerous than the highs that headed for the Rio della Plata; so much so that the statistics show an entry of 12,355 Italians from 1857-1860 against an exit of 5612 emigrants, while the total of immigrants amounted to 20,000 and that of emigrants to 8900.
So, gradually, from 1857 to 1925, Italy sent 2,659,586 emigrants of both sexes to the Arentine republic, of whom 1,328,826 repatriated. It should be noted that in the decades of greatest turnout, 1881-1890, 1891-1900 and, more particularly, 1901-1910, the Italians created that migratory phenomenon of temporary emigration that the Argentines defined as golondrinas (swallows), taking advantage of the inversion of the seasons, and working first for the Italian harvest and then for the Argentine one.
In this way, from year to year, from the geographical and urban center, by centrifugal force, the settlers left to clear the fields of Santa Fe, Córdoba and Buenos Aires, the workers advanced to spread abundant crops and the towns that later became important centers of trade and traffic, being organized, in spite of political struggles and bad governments, the Argentine national life and that of foreign communities, among which the most important, in terms of number and initiatives, was that Italian.
In the midst of this incessant and hasty social movement, after Buenos Aires, there were Italian hospitals Rosario, La Plata, Córdoba, and the cities and villages where Italians resided saw the rise of numerous institutions of mutual aid and, together with them, the Italian schools. The Argentine population increased and since the Italian families were the most prolific, after a few years, the children of Italians, by right and in fact Argentines, began to occupy high positions in politics, in universities, in national and provincial administrations.
This is a collective phenomenon that encompasses the whole range of social forces that were distinguishing themselves among the multitude of the collectivity in every place where it managed to organize itself, alongside other foreign entities: in the material order, by number; in the economic one, for the accumulated wealth; in the intellectual one, for the men who participated in the education of the Argentine youth and gave directives to the organized Italian forces; in the moral order, for the credit, the trust, the esteem that the institutions created by the Italians were able to deserve during the accelerated development of their respective energies, for the love of order, for the loyalty to the hospitable nation.
Therefore very numerous Italian companies for associates, and owners of the social buildings, individuals risen to exponents of Argentine wealth and prosperity; while, of course, the intellectual influence did not end with the Molina Charter and with Mossotti, but, once the period of tyranny ended, Bernardino Rivadavia’s thought returned to being the program of the new generations and Italian thought resumed its function in the universities of the republic Argentina, amidst the whirlwind of the national organization, certainly hard-working. Clemente Pinoli taught political economy in Buenos Aires from 1854 to 1858, then Bernardo Speluzzi, Emilio Tossetti, Pompeo Moneta, Pellegrino Strobel were called, following the authoritative advice of Paolo Mantegazza, who carried out a great scientific activity in the republic from 1854 to 1860. ; then, to replace these, came Giovanni Ramorino. Then came Baistrocchi, Cesare Miloni, Mattia Calandrelli, Grandis, Alessandro Tedeschi, Francesco Capello, Silvio Dessy, for the University of Buenos Aires; Raffaele Piccinini, Federico Papi, Giuseppe Agneta, Carlo Rebellini, Alessandro Canessa and Girolamo Pistonato for the University of Córdoba; Vittorio Mercante, Carlo Spegazzini, Porro de Somenzi, Ugo Broggi for the University of La Plata. And when the Faculty of Agronomy and Veterinary was founded, on the initiative of Dr. Pietro Arata, S. Baldassarre, Boldoni, Virginio Bossi, Gaetano Martinoli, Alfredo Cassai, Marcello Conti, Aroldo Montanari were called in 1904. Francesco Capello, Silvio Dessy, for the University of Buenos Aires; Raffaele Piccinini, Federico Papi, Giuseppe Agneta, Carlo Rebellini, Alessandro Canessa and Girolamo Pistonato for the University of Córdoba; Vittorio Mercante, Carlo Spegazzini, Porro de Somenzi, Ugo Broggi for the University of La Plata. And when the Faculty of Agronomy and Veterinary was founded, on the initiative of Dr. Pietro Arata, S. Baldassarre, Boldoni, Virginio Bossi, Gaetano Martinoli, Alfredo Cassai, Marcello Conti, Aroldo Montanari were called in 1904. Francesco Capello, Silvio Dessy, for the University of Buenos Aires; Raffaele Piccinini, Federico Papi, Giuseppe Agneta, Carlo Rebellini, Alessandro Canessa and Girolamo Pistonato for the University of Córdoba; Vittorio Mercante, Carlo Spegazzini, Porro de Somenzi, Ugo Broggi for the University of La Plata. And when the Faculty of Agronomy and Veterinary was founded, on the initiative of Dr. Pietro Arata, S. Baldassarre, Boldoni, Virginio Bossi, Gaetano Martinoli, Alfredo Cassai, Marcello Conti, Aroldo Montanari were called in 1904.
