Rabindranath Tagore joins a short-lived Secret Society, supposed to have been modelled after Mazzini’s Carbonari. The Carbonari (lit. ’charcoal makers’) was an informal network of secret revolutionary societies active in Italy from about 1800 to 1831.

Although their goals often had a patriotic and liberal basis, they lacked a clear immediate political agenda. Members of the Carbonari, and those influenced by them, took part in important events in the process of Italian unification (called the Risorgimento), especially the failed Revolution of 1820, and in the further development of Italian nationalism.