With his sun-bleached gray hair, heroic exploits and easy charisma, Guiseppe Garibaldi was admired from London to New York, revered as the man who turned the 19th-century dream of a united Italy into reality.
His fans wore his trademark red shirts, while poets and painters immortalized him with their works. Reportedly even Queen Victoria found him very handsome.
But, as historian Dr. David Laven points out HistoryExtra Podcast, Garibaldi’s magnetism went beyond depth. His courage, compassion and populist nature made him not only a romantic icon
The embodiment of the new Italian nation that was taking shape.
Disintegration of Italy
“Garibaldi is probably the most famous Italian of the 19th century,” says Laven. “He is famous for a series of events from the late 1840s to the 1860s, in which he is one of the major drivers of Italian unification.”
Understanding its importance to Italy depends on what the region looked like before unification.
“Italy was divided into many small states for a very long time in the 19th century,” explains Laven. Over the centuries, the peninsula has been a mix of duchies, city-states, and foreign-ruled territories. The north was under Austrian control; The Papal States dominated the center; and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies ruled the south.
“In short, it was semi-united under Napoleon’s rule in the early 19th century, but basically it was a divided peninsula.”
It was the fragmented nature of the region that led to the rise of the Risorgimento (‘Resurrection’), a political and cultural movement demanding national rebirth. It mixed liberal reform with revolutionary fervor, and its leaders included not only Garibaldi, but such figures as Giuseppe Mazzini and Camillo Benso, Count Cavour.
Garibaldi, as a sailor-turned-soldier whose courage commanded public attention, was by far the most recognizable face of the movement. But before he became a national hero, Garibaldi was a bandit.
Garibaldi’s exile
As a young man, Garibaldi joined Giuseppe Mazzini’s radical organization Young Italy, which plotted to overthrow foreign influence and unify the peninsula under a republican flag. When the rebellion failed in 1834, Garibaldi was sentenced to death in absentia and fled to South America. But his revolutionary spirit was still alive.
While in Brazil and Uruguay, Garibaldi fought for independence movements, commanding volunteer forces in small-scale but brutal conflicts.
“He developed [a] reputation while in exile in Latin America…”, explains Laven, “he was a really effective guerrilla fighter and leader.”
But this does not mean that he was a cold or cruel guerrilla warrior. “He really enjoyed fighting,” Laven said, “but he’s not a bloodthirsty man. He’s an incredibly kind and gentle man. Almost everyone agrees on that about Garibaldi. He gets very upset about injured animals.”
That slightly odd combination of courage and decency became central to his image.
Hero of the unification of Italy
When a series of revolutions broke out in Europe in 1848 to secure constitutional freedom, individual rights, and the unity of nations, Garibaldi returned home to join in.
Over the next two decades, he became the military heart of Italian nationalism, leading volunteer armies against major enemies.
His most famous campaign came in 1860 with the Spedizione dei Mille (Expedition of the Thousand), a daring expedition to liberate Sicily and southern Italy from Bourbon rule. With about a thousand poorly armed volunteers, Garibaldi defeated a royal army many times larger than his own, and handed control of the south to King Victor Emmanuel II of Piedmont-Sardinia. When Garibaldi met him in person, he saluted the king and proclaimed him ‘King of Italy’, becoming a symbolic moment of unification that many regard as the birth of modern Italy.
How the ‘People’s Commander’ became an unlikely sex symbol
Garibaldi’s appeal reached far beyond the battlefield, but why was he so uniquely successful, and able to wield such power and influence?
“He was not only a successful leader of men, he was also a successful leader of women,” Laven says. “In the beginning, he was extremely handsome. He’s tall and broad-shouldered, he has reddish-brown hair, he has a very sweet smile. He’s sexy.”
Laven says that this particular part of his appeal caused a stir among the upper classes of society during his visit to Britain. Describing Garibaldi as “the perfect sexy fantasy”, he says, “A lot of posh women think he’s absolutely rude.”
But the revolutionary’s striking beauty was not her only weapon. “He also uses language well…he is quite an inspirational speaker,” says Laven, “and this was coupled with his interest in underdog fights.” “He has also got an incredible record of fighting bravely against the odds. He always fought against larger armies with less equipped soldiers and came out victorious”
Overall, Garibaldi was uniquely charismatic, courageous, and intelligent. That combination turned him into an international sensation, and he gained particular fame in Britain and the United States, where bakers sold Garibaldi biscuits, and newspapers compared him to the first American president, George Washington.
However, not all of his leadership methods were so benign, and behind Garibaldi’s fame lay the difficult realities of running a rebellion. Their armies were volunteer armies, and that meant having the right enforcers around them. “He was very good at choosing his lieutenants,” says Laven. “He got good people around him.” One of those men was Nino Bixio, a fierce and pragmatic officer whose brutality contrasted with Garibaldi’s idealism.
“Bixio was basically a psychopath,” comments Laven. “When Garibaldi needed to make someone bad, he could make Bixio bad.” When certain groups or people needed to be suppressed, Laven says, “Garibaldi doesn’t go and shoot the peasants; Bixio does that.”
Depicting such brutality allowed Garibaldi to maintain his image as a great revolutionary, which was essential to maintaining his power.
Ultimately, Garibaldi lived long enough to see his dream come true. By the 1870s, Italy was officially unified under Victor Emmanuel II, and Garibaldi became its most famous son.
But, unwilling to accede to power easily, he remained restless, supporting democratic reforms and supporting national independence issues abroad.
Dr. David Laven speaking to Spencer Mizen HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the entire conversation.