Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T10:53:25.616Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Introduction: perspectives on Garibaldi and Italian unity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2016

Mark Seymour*
Affiliation:
University of Otago, New Zealand

Extract

One hundred and fifty years ago, in October 1860, the legendary dawn meeting at Teano between Giuseppe Garibaldi and Victor Emmanuel of Piedmont marked a momentary confluence of competing visions of Italian unification. Although the moment represented an ideological about-face for Garibaldi, his status as the most luminous hero of Italian unification continued to rise like a serene spirit, seemingly untainted by the contested realities of the nation he had helped to create. Of course, that generalisation ignores a thousand exceptions, and already from the 1950s and 1960s, authors such as Denis Mack Smith and Christopher Hibbert had underlined that Garibaldi's life and historic role were not without conflict or enmity (Mack Smith 1957; Hibbert 1965). But it remains true that, all told, Garibaldi's legacy and personal reputation have been characterised, until very recently, by an almost uncanny pact of agreement not to disagree – at least in public.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Association for the study of Modern Italy 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Banti, A.M. 2000. La nazione del Risorgimento. Parentela, santità e onore alle origini dell'Italia unita. Turin: Einaudi.Google Scholar
Banti, A.M. 2005. L'onore della nazione. Identità sessuali e violenza nel nazionalismo europeo dal XVIII secolo alla Grande Guerra. Turin: Einaudi.Google Scholar
Calabrese, O. 1982. Garibaldi tra Ivanhoe e Sandokan. Milan: Electa.Google Scholar
Curatulò, G. 1913. Garibaldi e le donne. Rome: Imprimerie Polyglotte.Google Scholar
Hibbert, C. 1965. Garibaldi and his enemies: The clash of arms and personalities in the making of Italy. London: Longmans.Google Scholar
Mack Smith, D. 1957. Garibaldi. London: Hutchinson.Google Scholar
Mulinacci, M. 1978. La bella figlia del lago. Milan: Mursia.Google Scholar
Pick, D. 2005. Rome or death: The obsessions of General Garibaldi. London: Jonathan Cape.Google Scholar
Riall, L. 2007. Garibaldi: Invention of a hero. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Ridley, J. 1974. Garibaldi. London: Constable.Google Scholar
Schwegman, M. 2005. In love with Garibaldi: Romancing the Italian Risorgimento. European Review of History 12, no. 2: 383401.Google Scholar
Scirocco, A. 2007. Garibaldi: Citizen of the world, trans. Cameron, Allan. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Seymour, M. 2006. Debating divorce in Italy: Marriage and the making of modern Italians, 1860–1974. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar