The foremost military figure and popular
hero of the age of Italian unification known as the Risorgimento with
Cavour and Mazzini he is deemed one of the makers of Modern Italy.
Cavour is considered the "brain of unification," Mazzini the "sou," and
Garibaldi the "sword." For his battles on behalf of freedom in Latin
America, Italy, and later France, he has been dubbed the "Hero of Two
Worlds." Born in Nice, when the city was controlled by France, to
Domenico Garibaldi and Rosa Raimondi, his family was involved in the
coastal trade. A sailor in the Mediterranean Sea, he was certified a
merchant captain in 1832. During a journey to Taganrog in the Black Sea,
he
was initiated into the Italian national movement by a fellow Ligurian,
Giovanni Battista Cuneo. In 1833 he ventured to Marseilles where he met
Mazzini and enrolled in his Giovane Italia or Young Italy. Mazzini had a
profound impact on Garibaldi, who would always acknowledge this
patriot as "the master."
In February 1834 he participated in an abortive Mazzinian insurrection
in Piedmont, was sentenced to death in absentia by a Genoese court,
and fled to Marseilles. The exile sailed first to Tunisia eventually
finding his way to Brazil, where he encountered Anna Maria Ribeiro da
Silva,
"Anita," a woman of Portuguese and Indian descent, who became his lover,
companion in arms, and wife. With other Italian exiles and
republicans he fought on behalf of the separatists of the Rio Grande do
Sul and the Uruguayans who opposed the Argentinean dictator Jan
Manuel do Rosas. Calling on the Italians of Montevideo, Garibaldi formed
the Italian Legion in 1843, whose black flag represented Italy in
mourning while the volcano at its center symbolized the dormant power in
their homeland. It was in Uruguay that the legion first sported the
red shirts, obtained from a factory in Montevideo which had intended to
export them to the slaughter houses of Argentina. It was to become
the symbol of Garibaldi and his followers. The formation of his force of
volunteers, his mastery of the techniques of guerilla warfare, his
opposition to Brazilian and Argentinean imperialism, and his victories
in the battles of Cerro and Sant'Antonio in 1846 not only assured the
freedom of Uruguay but made him and his followers heroes in Italy and
Europe. The fate of his patria continued to preoccupy Garibaldi.
The election of Giovanni Mastai-Ferretti as Pope Pius IX in 1846 led
many to believe he was the liberal pope prophesied by Gioberti, who
would provide the leadership for the unification of Italy. From his
exile Mazzini applauded the first reforms of Pio Nono. In 1847 Garibaldi
offered the apostolic nuncio at Rio de Janeiro Bedini, the service of
his Italian Legion for the liberation of the peninsula. News of the
outbreak
of revolution in Palermo in January 1848, and revolutionary agitation
elsewhere in Italy, encouraged Garibaldi to lead some sixty members of
his
legion home. He offered his services to Charles Albert and the
Piedmontese who initiated the first war for the liberation of Italy, but
found his
effort spurned. Rebuffed by the Piedmonese, he and his followers crossed
into Lombardy where they offered assistance to the provisional
government of Milan.
Special Thanks to...
Steve Saviello & Communes of Italy:
Our Calabrian Magazine