Italian irredentism in Nice was the political movement supporting the annexation of the County of Nice to the Kingdom of Italy. According to some Italian nationalists and fascists like Ermanno Amicucci, Italian- and Ligurian-speaking populations of the County of Nice () formed the majority of the county's population until the mid-19th century. However, French nationalists and linguists argue that both Occitan and Ligurian languages were spoken in the County of Nice. During the Italian unification, in 1860, the House of Savoy allowed the Second French Empire to annex Nice from the Kingdom of Sardinia in exchange for French support of its quest to unify Italy. Consequently, the Niçois were excluded from the Italian unification movement and the region has since become primarily French-speaking. History The region around Nicaea, as Nice was then known in Latin, was inhabited by the Ligures until its subsequent occupation by the Roman Empire after their subjugation by Augustus. According to Theodor Mommsen, fully Romanized by the 4th century AD, when the invasions of the Migration Period began. The Franks conquered the region after the fall of Rome, and the local Romance language speaking populations became integrated within the County of Provence (with a brief period of independence as a maritime republic (1108–1176).) In 1388, the commune of Nice sought the protection of the Duchy of Savoy, and Nice continued to be controlled, directly or indirectly, by the Savoy monarchs until 1860. During this time, the maritime strength of Nice rapidly increased until it was able to cope with the Barbary pirates. Fortifications were largely extended by the House of Savoy and the roads of the city and surrounding region improved. Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy, abolished the use of Latin and established Italian as the official language of Nice in 1561. Conquered in 1792 by the armies of the French First Republic, the County of Nice was part of France until 1814, after which it was placed under the protection of the Kingdom of Sardinia by the Congress of Vienna. After the Treaty of Turin was signed in 1860 between the Sardinian king and Napoleon III as a consequence of the Plombières Agreement, the county was again and definitively ceded to France as a territorial reward for French assistance in the Second Italian War of Independence against Austria, which saw Lombardy united with Piedmont-Sardinia. King Victor-Emmanuel II, on April 1, 1860, solemnly asked the population