This chapter investigates the political leadership of Italian Hegelians who participated in the post unification governments and contributed to the institutional organisation of the new State. It highlightes how their interpretation of Hegelian ideas was applied in their political practices and explores the legacy of this tradition at the end of the nineteenth century with a particular focus on the work of Antonio Labriola. His engagement with Marxism was recognised by the author himself as a direct consequence of the critical Hegelianism he had learned at the school of the Neapolitan Hegelians as a young student and with which he was in constant dialogue throughout his life. This chapter uncovers and reshapes the context of Italian readings of Hegel’s philosophy in the nineteenth century, exploring the creative and critical adaptation of Hegel’s political thought to Italian intellectual and political milieux.