From Risorgimento and Reform to Wesley and Revival: Methodist Strategies in Post-Unitary Italy, 1861–1890

ABSTRACT The first officially appointed Methodist missionaries arrived in Italy in the context of Risorgimento's completion, from 1861. Their strategies developed from the attempt to support the cause for a unified Italian Protestant Church to the ‘denominational turn’, which resulted in the establishment of two Italian Methodist Churches. Publications played a pivotal role: both the Wesleyans and the Episcopal Methodists spread information about Methodist history and doctrines through specific books, translations of John Wesley's works, the Doctrines and Discipline, and magazines. Contrary to what has often been argued, nineteenth-century Italian Methodism—far from dealing just with practical issues and social work—had a significant interest for Wesley's theology and the Evangelical Revival.