Italy's global hero Garibaldi

By Peter Mayer Mar 14, 2011, 2:06 GMT

Rome - As Italy this year celebrates the 150th anniversary of its unification, the international appeal of one of the leading architects of that achievement, Giuseppe Garibaldi, remains largely intact.

Around the world, streets, squares, mountains, parks, even a biscuit - a currant-filled British tea-time treat - bear his name.

Sailor, lover, patriot, revolutionary, politician, military commander and even novelist - albeit one of scarce literary acclaim - Garibaldi's feats spanned at least two continents.

With his ponchos, embroidered hats, red shirts and luxuriant beard, he cut an iconic figure, one which has been immortalized, often on horseback, in countless statues and paintings.

In recent years however, Garibaldi's reputation has come under scrutiny, especially in Italy, where regionalist and separatist movements have called into question the country's basis as a unitary state.

Some critics, including Luca Marcolivio, author of: Against Garibaldi: What they never taught you at school - at best regard him as an intellectual lightweight, whose military exploits were overrated.

At worst, Garibaldi is seen by such critics as a superficial opportunist readily switching from one cause to another while cunningly cultivating his heroic image.

This contrasts sharply with the awed descriptions of Garibaldi by many of his contemporaries, including celebrated war nurse Florence Nightingale and author Charles Dickens. French novelist Georges Sand wrote in 1859: 'He is like no one else ... the standard bearer of a new era.'

Garibaldi was born in Nice in 1807 into a family of mariners, a career he seemed destined to follow when by 25 he was already a sea captain.

Drawn to the ideas of Italian nationalism and republicanism he joined Giuseppe Mazzini's underground political society, Young Italy, that aimed to unite a country which for centuries had been a patchwork of kingdoms, duchies, Papal-ruled states and foreign controlled dominions.

But after a series of failed uprisings for which he was condemned to death in absentia, Garibaldi fled to South America where he first made his mark as a military strategist - one particularly adept at guerrilla warfare.

There he espoused the cause of the underdog, first for Brazil's breakaway Rio Grande republic, then for Uruguay in its fight against powerful neighbour Argentina.

It was also around this time that Garibaldi met his first wife and love of his life - the 18-year-old Brazilian Anita Ribeiro who abandoned her then husband to follow the Italian revolutionary.

After 13 years of exile, his warrior-fame well cemented, Garibaldi returned to Italy in 1848, a year in which liberal revolutions erupted across Europe.

These gave fresh impetus to the Risorgimento - the struggle by Italian patriots to make their country unified and independent, and which culminated in the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy on the March 17, 1861.

Two of Garibaldi's stand-out military feats are widely regarded as turning points in the Risorgimento

The first was his April 1849 rout - albeit temporary - of a superior French army sent to reconquer Rome for the Pope.

The second was his famous 1860 expedition at the head of a group of volunteers 'The Thousand' which led to the conquest of Sicily and Naples, and seemingly paved the way for Rome to be taken for good.

Instead, at the cusp of what would have been his greatest victory, Garibaldi handed over the captured territories to Piedmont's soon-to-be-king of Italy, Victor Emmanuel, whose French allies were also the Pope's protectors.

Some saw Garibaldi's move as the ultimate sell-out of his republican ideals, while others viewed the gesture as an honorable act of humility that spared his country civil war.

Garibaldi did however, protest, in vain, when his birthplace Nice was ceded to France as a reward for supporting Piedmont in ousting the Austrians from Lombardy.

Rome was eventually incorporated into Italy in 1870, becoming the nation's capital the following year, but by that time Garibaldi was living mostly on the small island of Caprera, relying on a small pension after having rejected several titles with which the monarchy wanted to honour him. He died in 1882.

Despite his negative portrayal of Garibaldi, Marcolivio concedes that he possessed at least two undoubted qualities: 'A capacity to rise up from the cruelest defeats, and a tendency not to exploit his successes for personal enrichment.'

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