Historiography about the Italian events of 1866, political as well as concerning the war, offered a wholly negative vision of our country, summing up military defeats, economic crisis and social and political repression. The analysis carried out in the present essay, retracing the crucial steps of 1866 in the Italian context as well as in the European scene, offers a new vision of Italian politics: it revalues La Marmora’s actions, and, above all, it motivates and fully justifies the international consideration as a great power that Italy, despite the pretended "disfatta" of 1866, enjoyed at least until the first African defeats.
Keywords: 1866 War, Alfonso La Marmora, Italian foreign policy 1861-1870, European equilibrium 1861-1870, Napoleon III and Bismarck.