Rassegna storica del Risorgimento

170 Paul Martin Howetl
the approaches, while the Compagnia Vittorio Emanuede promised to pay half of the construction costs if the project proved successful.28)
In the boom atmosphere of the now liberal Kingdom of Sardinia there was no lack of enthusiasm for ali of the realm's possible domestic and international routes. Once it had moved to assure the expeditious construction of the most important international route, the government could well afford to let private entarprise and market conditions diotate the pace and direction of further development, and it was quite content to do so. The government, in combination with Parliament, only stepped in to make additional comprehensive decisions about routing and devise financial inducements in cases where conflicting proposals were being pushed by rivai groups and where the combination of a route's technical difficulties and eventual utility merited some kind of state financial support. Although there was plenty of interest in the two remaining (major lines requiring state aid (one over the Swiss Alps, the other along the coast from France to Tuscany), neither concession was to be awarded in the 1850s.)
As the boom of the 1850s crested in 1854 and in 1857 a host of private rail companies appeared in the Kingdom of Sardinia to flank the state's centrally placed enterprise.30) Most of the new companies were minor spurs tying provincia! centers to the capital or to one of the realm's several trunk lines. The operation of ali such roads was assigned to the operators of the trunk lines which they fed. There was a handful of companies which, like the state, operated their own roads.
In terms of their genesis, the various private companies fell into three general categories. One was of concessions which were pursued by construction impresarios who proposed to finance their projects themselves for the most part while sharing the burden with others through the creation of joint-stock companies. Another was of concessions formulated and financed by large collections of locai notables and locai governments. The final category was of concessions sought by fairly restricted groups of capitalists, usually private bankers, merchant bankers, or industrialists, sometimes flanked by promdnent agrarians with estensive landholdings in the areas to be served by the proposed raikoads.
Altogether, fourteen private railroad companies were authorized in
WAP, 28:1726, 36:1336-1348, 37:1555, 44:914, 922-927, 49:1112-1175, 1235; Cavour to Charles Laffitte, 2 Nov. 1853, in Camillo Cavour, Nuove lettere inedite, ed. Edmondo Meyer (Turili, 1895), p. 32; Petittì, pp. 252-271, 558-569; Guderzo, pp. 67-73; Luraghi, pp. 190-191; De Biase, pp. 44-45, 74, 84-86, 114-115; and Filippo Tajani, Storia delle Ferrovie Italiane a cento anni dall'apertura della prima linea (Milan, 1944), pp. 79ff; and, for a fuller diseusslon, Howell, pp. 160-170.
) Howell, pp. 130n47, 157-160.
30) Por ali of the general discussion of railroad companies in the Kingdom of Sardinia in this and the lollowing paragraphs, Howell, pp. 90-92, 96-101, 158-160, 175-191, 295-297, and the sources cited there, especially on pp. 99 and 177.