Giuseppe Garibaldi, a hero for a newly united Italy
Despite a seat in Parliament as a reward, in reality he was isolated until his death
There is practically no town or city in Italy that does not remember Giuseppe Garibaldi in some way. In a research carried out on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Italian unification, it emerged that in our country there were as many as 4,247 streets and squares dedicated to the Hero of Two Worlds in 2011. Standing apart from the other protagonists of the Risorgimento with Mazzini at 3,307 "dedications", Verdi at 2,937 and Cavour 2,891. Furthermore, in our country, there are more than 1200 tombstones that recall Garibaldi's stays or speeches. In short, an omnipresent myth, capable of striking the imagination of his contemporaries as demonstrated by the volume Giuseppe Garibaldi.
Knight of humanity (Ibis, 2022, Euro 10, pp. 168) which collects the writings of three excellent and contemporary admirers of the Hero of the two worlds. In fact, they are Francesco Crispi, prime minister of the Kingdom at the end of the 19th century, the master of literary realism Giovanni Verga, and Giovan Battista Cuneo, author of the first biography of Garibaldi in 1850 (biography present in the small volume Ibis).
What do the writings of these contemporaries of the great leader and patriot tell us? They tell us that in the vicissitudes of a people, there are moments so unique that the story immediately becomes a myth and its protagonists a legend. For Italy, this happened during the Risorgimento and with national unity. The patriots who had distinguished themselves in those years – Garibaldi in primis but also Cavour, Mazzini, Pellico, the Bandiera Brothers, etc. – became figures to be celebrated. In this way a collective and shared narrative was created which was to serve to strengthen the unity of a still young and very divided nation.
For this reason the protagonists of the Risorgimento were transfigured into real monuments, devoid of facets. Thus Cavour became the weaver, indeed the political architect of national unity. Mazzini was the thinker, the philosopher of our Risorgimento. Garibaldi, the hero without blemish or fear. Furthermore, in the Vulgate, the three had always gotten along very well, when in reality they were often in antithetical positions.
The figure who was most canonized, distancing him from reality, was precisely that of Garibaldi. He became a good hero not only for all squares, for all tastes and seasons, when instead during the Risorgimento the leader was considered an example to follow above all by those patriots who wanted a republican Italy, more daughter of Mazzini's ideas than those of Cavour. In the end Garibaldi had accepted that unity would take place under the Savoy dynasty, but he certainly hadn't become a monarchist.
In the rhetoric of late 19th-century Italy this image of the anti-monarchist and almost Jacobin Garibaldi naturally disappeared. Of the general, the poet Giosuè Carducci, cantor of Italy at the end of the 19th century, wrote: “He was born of an ancient god of his fatherland, mingled in love with a northern fairy…”. The general was the symbol of fearless Italy, which knew how to assert itself even on the battlefield. Point.
For this reason Francesco Crispi was able to write: “The biography of a man - be it a great statesman or a scientist - is immediately made. But Garibaldi's life cannot be weaved without making the Italian history of the last 50 years. And that's not enough! If Garibaldi, from his early youth, had a cult for his homeland, if his thoughts, his studies, his cares, his works had no other purpose - his generous soul ranged in infinity; duty for him had no territorial limits, he was the knight of humanity”. These words are from 1884 and by now he quietly glossed over the fact that in 1862 it was the troops of the kingdom of Italy who wounded him in the leg in the battle of the Aspromonte to stop his advance towards Rome. In the end, Garibaldi was given a seat in Parliament as a reward but in reality he isolated himself until his death. Post-Risorgimento rhetoric much preferred amnesia, to memories and, above all, to uncomfortable heroes.
