Giuseppe Garibaldi: life of the week

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Giuseppe Garibaldi: Life of the Week

History Extra Podcast – November 4, 2025
Host: Spencer Mizzen
Guest: David Lavin (University of Nottingham)

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Episode Overview

This episode of "Life of the Week" spotlights Giuseppe Garibaldi, celebrated as one of the most significant and romanticized figures in 19th-century European history. Host Spencer Mizzen interviews historian David Lavin about Garibaldi's adventurous life, his crucial role in the unification of Italy (the Risorgimento), and the myths and realities behind his enduring legacy as a charismatic leader, radical democrat, and international hero.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Who Was Giuseppe Garibaldi?

• [03:00] Global 19th-Century Icon

  • Most famous Italian of his era, though he was born in Nice (now part of France).

  • Rose to international acclaim as a key driver of Italian unification.

  • Revered far beyond Italy: friend of Alexandre Dumas, immortalized in statues worldwide, even the subject of Staffordshire figurines in Britain.

  • Quote:
    "He's probably one of, not just the most famous Italian, but probably one of the most famous people of the 19th century...principally famous as an Italian patriot who helps make a united Italy." — David Lavin [03:46]

2. Early Life and Preparation

• [05:03] Maritime Upbringing & Exile

  • Born to Ligurian parents, learned maritime skills as a youth, extensively traveled and lived in the Mediterranean, Black Sea, and even Turkey.

  • Became involved with radical democratic circles inspired by Giuseppe Mazzini.

  • Forced into exile after a failed conspiracy against Piedmont’s monarchy, beginning a decade of adventure in Latin America.

  • Quote:
    "We get the image of Garibaldi as this sort of ingenue of someone who's a bit simple. He's not. He's a smart, quite well educated guy, extremely talented sailor, pretty brave." — David Lavin [06:02]

3. Military Experience in Latin America

• [06:50] Guerrilla Tactics & Shaping Identity
  • Participated in local independence wars in Brazil and Uruguay, learning guerrilla warfare and leadership.
  • Met Anita Garibaldi, his future wife and important partner, absorbing gaucho culture.
  • Developed the reputation, skills, and charisma that would later prove crucial in Italy's liberation.

4. Drawn Back to Italy: Revolutionary Opportunities

• [09:45] Spirit of 1848 & Motives

  • The wave of 1848 revolutions, an economic crisis, and the rise of a reformist Pope Pius IX convinced Garibaldi it was time to return.

  • Sought to help Italians unite and achieve democracy, shaped by his experiences as an exile among diverse Italians abroad.

  • Quote:
    "I think it's interesting how many of the patriotic Italians who want Italian unity really badly have been exiles." — David Lavin [11:41]

5. The Roman Republic and Defiance

• [12:05] Rebel Leader against the Odds

  • After being rejected as a military leader by Piedmont, Garibaldi joined the Roman Republic (1849), defending it with daring guerrilla tactics.

  • Fought French, Neapolitan, and Austrian forces; became a unifying figure for both republicans and ordinary citizens.

  • Forced to escape as the Republic fell; tragically lost Anita during the retreat toward besieged Venice.

  • Memorable moment:
    "There's a marvelous statue to [Anita] in Rome on horseback with a child in one arm and a revolver in the other. It's completely implausible, but it's a great statue." — David Lavin [15:56]

6. Charisma & Leadership

• [19:20] The Garibaldi Legend

  • Not just "a leader of men"—women adored him, fueling his allure and recruitment power.

  • Imposing, handsome, and courageous; always led from the front, mastered oratory, and built a loyal team, including Nino Bixio (the "tough enforcer").

  • Quote:
    "To start with, he's dead handsome... part of his charisma is that you've just got a really good looking bloke... Everybody admires an underdog and he's always fighting against bigger armies." — David Lavin [19:33]

• [21:19] Shrewd Self-Promotion/PR

  • Carefully crafted his image—poncho, slouch hat, white horse—drawing on Latin American influences.

  • Understood mass media impact: his image spread via newspapers, illustrated journalism, and popular culture.

  • Quote:
    "He knows how to work this image. The more it gets projected, it sells copy in newspapers and the myth develops a momentum of its own." — David Lavin [22:30]

7. Exile, Political Strategy, and Return

• [23:09] Years Abroad & Changing Tactics
  • Lived on Staten Island, USA, involved with Italian expatriates, continually seeking ways to liberate Italy.
  • Recognized the need to collaborate with moderate nationalists, aligning with Piedmont under Cavour for pragmatic unification rather than only democratic revolution.

8. The Famous Sicilian Campaign ("Expedition of the Thousand")

• [25:19] Against All Odds in Sicily

  • 1860: Landed in Sicily with just ~800 men, surprisingly enabled by British interests in Marsala.

  • Bourbon regime underestimated him; swift victories, built support among Sicilians frustrated with Bourbon rule.

  • Clever coalition-building drew in Sicilian peasants, landowners, and patriots.

  • Quote:
    "If he'd landed with 20,000 men, they'd have put their whole army there and they would have defeated him. Because he's 800 men, they think, oh, it's another one of these stupid Mazzinian little attempts." — David Lavin [28:27]

9. Naples, Italian Unification, and Sacrifice

• [30:13] March to Naples & the Dilemma of Rome

  • Overthrew the Bourbon regime almost with ease.

  • Could have marched on Rome, but was blocked by Cavour and the realpolitik of international alliances (particularly French troops stationed in Rome).

  • Ultimately prioritized national unification over full democracy, yielding power to the King (“Obedisco”—“I obey” at Teano).

  • Quote:
    "His priority is national unification and national reconciliation. It's not creating democracy... In his hierarchy, the creation of a unified Italy... is always more important than the creation of a democratic unified Italy." — David Lavin [31:40]

10. Limits and Compromises: Disillusionment and Later Years

• [32:53] Post-Unification Setbacks

  • Garibaldi and his followers were sidelined by the new government; failed land reforms fueled anger in the south, leading to years of civil strife (“brigand war”).
  • His persistent attempts to capture Rome failed; occasionally clashed with the new Italian authorities.
  • Elected MP in both Italy and France, but his influence faded.

• [35:38] Garibaldi-mania in Victorian Britain

  • 1864: His London visit drew gigantic adoring crowds—both political radicals and “posh women” found him irresistible.

  • Became a symbol adapted by diverse movements—admired by socialists, feminists, and even monarchists.

  • Quote:
    "He becomes one of two or three people that more pubs are named after in Britain than anyone else... They actually get a twin. You can buy a discounted Shakespeare and Garibaldi. That's a match made in heaven." — David Lavin [38:34]

11. The Many Legacies of Garibaldi

• [38:47] Icon for All Sides

  • Claimed by fascists, communists, liberals, and patriots alike; served as Italy’s “acceptable symbol” at home and abroad.

  • His myth, while unifying, oversimplified the complex and often violent story of Italian unification.

  • Quote:
    "One of the oddities about his legacy is he can be all things to all people... that is, an Italian who's completely acceptable globally, too." — David Lavin [38:51]
    "Actually prevents people engaging properly with a very difficult story about how Italian unification took place." — David Lavin [40:23]

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Memorable Moments & Notable Quotes

• On Garibaldi’s Emotional Complexity:
  "He's not a bloodthirsty man. He's an incredibly kind, decent man... There's a certain sort of kindness about him..." — David Lavin [08:06]

• On the Power of the Garibaldi Image:
  “The clothing he wears, the poncho, the slouch hat... these are all things he's developed already in Latin America, but he brings them with him…” — David Lavin [21:48]

• On Garibaldi’s Irresistibility to Victorian Women:
  “He is the sexy fantasy for a lot of posh English women... Whether they're actually sleeping with him or not, my suspicion is probably some of them are.” — David Lavin [36:54]

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Important Timestamps

• [03:00] Who was Garibaldi?
• [05:03] Early years and training
• [06:50] Military experience in Latin America
• [09:45] Return to Italy and motives
• [12:05] Role in Roman Republic and guerrilla warfare
• [15:56] Loss of Anita and flight from Italy
• [19:20] Charisma and Garibaldi’s mass appeal
• [21:19] Media PR and personal branding
• [23:09] Second exile and political evolution
• [25:19] The Sicilian campaign ("Expedition of the Thousand")
• [30:13] Naples, dilemma over Rome, and the Teano meeting
• [32:53] Disillusionment and Garibaldi’s twilight
• [35:38] Visit to Britain and global myth
• [38:47] Garibaldi’s complicated legacy

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Conclusion

David Lavin paints Garibaldi as a charismatic tactician, a master of myth-making, and a figure who resonates well beyond the Italian context. Garibaldi’s story is a potent reminder of the complexities of nation-building: blending romantic heroism, tough compromise, and the inevitable reshaping of historical memory. He remains a global icon—claimed by all, reducible to none.

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Transcript

[David Lavin]

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Hello and welcome to Life of the Week, where leading historians delve into the lives of some of history's most intriguing and significant figures. From ancient Egyptian pharaohs and medieval warriors to daring 20th century spies, he led one of history's most celebrated guerrilla campaigns, showed remarkable political acumen, and drove aristocratic Englishwomen wild. Is there any wonder that Giuseppe Garibaldi is one of the towering figures of Europe's 19th century? Here in conversation with Spencer Mizzen, David Lavin relays the thrills and spills of the great romantic hero of the campaign for Italian unification.

[Spencer Mizzen]

So, David, I wonder if you could start by giving our listeners a quick introduction to Garibaldi. Who was he in a nutshell?

[David Lavin]

Okay. Garibaldi is probably the most famous Italian of the 19th century, which is interesting because he was born in Nice under French rule, which was an Italian city, which subsequently returned to French rule later in his life, much to his annoyance, actually. So the most famous of all 19th century Italians was born in a city which is now French. And he's basically famous for a series of events from the late 1840s through to the 1860s in which he is one of the key drivers of Italian unification. Italy in the 19th century had been divided into many little states for a very long while, briefly semi united under Napoleonic rule in the early 19th century. But basically it's a divided peninsula. And he is one of the great Italian patriots who, through a series of mostly military expeditions. But he shouldn't be underrated as a political figure to helps bind that together. He's known as a guerrilla leader, develops as a guerrilla leader actually in Latin America in exile in the 1830s and 1840s. And he's the great hero of Italian unification. And he's incredibly well known across the world. In Britain in the 19th century, he's absolutely fated. Alexandre Duma, who's a friend of his, the author of the Three Musketeers, writes a biography of him. There are statues to him put up in Buenos Aires, in New York. Staffordshire figurines are made of him. So it's incredibly widely known. He's probably one of the best, not just the most famous Italian, but probably one of the most famous people of the 19th century. And he's principally famous as an Italian patriot who helps make a united Italy.

[Spencer Mizzen]

Okay, before digging into that in a bit more detail, can we look at his early life, please? I wondered how his experiences as a youth and a young man kind of prepared him from what was to come later in his life.

[David Lavin]

He's born in Nice in 1807 under French rule. His parents are both Ligurians. From that coast on the Tyrrhenian Sea, which had been dominated by the. The independent Republic of Genoa through most of the Middle Ages, up until the late 18th century. His father is the owner of a small ship and he's engaged in what's called cabotajo, which means coastal trading. This isn't great Atlantic sea voyages. And he's brought up in a very much a maritime atmosphere. There's a bit of debate about what his education was, whether he was completely an autodidact, whether he went to a school. And historians slightly disagree over that. But he's quite well educated. And as a young man, he's probably 17 when he probably puts to sea on commercial voyages first. And he travels around the Mediterranean. He travels into the Black Sea. There's big grain trade with the Russian Empire and the Black Sea. And he's a very experienced sailor. We know that he lives in Turkey for a number of years and he's earning a living teaching French and Italian and math. So, you know, he's quite a smart bloke. Sometimes we get the image of Garibaldi as this sort of ingenue of someone who's a bit simple. He's not. He's a smart, quite well educated guy, extremely talented sailor, pretty brave. And while he's. He's away on these trips in the Black Sea, he begins to meet other Italians who are associated with another Genoese, another Ligurian, Giuseppe Mazzini, who is a similar sort of age, also brought up under French rule, and who is a political radical, a democrat, being associated with the Carbonari, a secret society, a not very efficient secret society that have been involved in conspiracies against the post Napoleonic order. And he begins to mix with these, if you like, radical republican democratic groups. Then in 1834, he gets involved in a Mazzinian conspiracy to overthrow the rulers in Piedmont, the restored House of Savoy, monarchy in Piedmont. It goes disastrously wrong and he ends up as a political exile. He flees to Rio de Janeiro and he gets involved in radical politics. Now, Brazil at that time was. Was under the Braganzas. It had separated off from Portugal, but it's under a European dynasty. And various bits of Brazil are trying to get independence, particularly Rio Grande del Sol in the south, and they're fighting against Brazilians. But he also gets involved in Uruguayan politics. And this is a period of enormous flux in Latin American politics. And I don't want to go into so much detail in it, but Garibaldi, with a lot of other Italian exiles, because lots of Italians have ended up in Latin America. The majority of Argentines today are of Italian descent. They're the single biggest ethnic group. So we tend to forget how many Italians arriving in Latin America. We tend to think of it as Spanish, but there are lots and lots of Italians there. And he gets involved in these wars and he learns military tactics, so he's used for a while. He's both the captain of a Uruguayan fleet. He's involved in the Uruguayan Civil War, but he also learns to write. He adopts gaucho culture. He meets his future wife, very young woman, Anita Garibaldi. She's already married and he falls passionately in love with her. I think he doesn't marry her until 1842, but they're a couple and she teaches, almost certainly it's her who teaches him to ride. And he's involved in these really rather dashing campaigns which are usually fought by fairly small armies, hit and run raids it's guerrilla warfare. And this is what means when he comes back to Italy in 1848, he's actually really good at fighting. And I'd say another thing, actually, I think he really enjoys fighting. I mean, he's not a bloodthirsty man. He's an incredibly kind, decent man. I think almost everyone agrees this about Garibaldi. I mean, he gets ever so upset about hurt animals. For example, one of the first things he does when he takes Naples in 1860 is start introducing laws to look after the. The horses of Hackney cabs. He's known when he's a farmer, if he loses a lamb, he'll be up all night looking for it. There's a certain sort of kindness about him. But the point is that Garibaldi comes out of Latin America from his experience there for a bit over a decade as a really, really effective guerrilla fighter.

[Spencer Mizzen]

So what draws him back? What draws him back to Italy?

[David Lavin]

Revolutions break out in Italy. He sees his chance. So in 1846, a new pope is elected. Pius IX, who seems to many people to be a reforming pope, who has been imagined by a political thinker, Vincenzo Gilberti, who's an Italian patriot, who says that Italy could become united under a pope. And lots of people think past ninth will do this. And there's a real economic crisis right across Europe in the middle late 1840s because of famine and harvest failure, which means lots of people very agitated simply because the economy collapses and people are literally starving and there's disorder and crime and states aren't coping with it very well. There's been a revolution in France, and then things kick off in Italy, and pretty well all the Italian states experience some degree of revolutionary activity. And Piedmont, Sardinia, Piedmont, the state from which Garibaldi was in exile. The king, Carlo Alberto, quite shrewdly introduces a constitution to try and forestall revolution, decides to portray himself as the leader of the Italian patriotic movement. And Garibaldi sees his chance. He's got an Italian legion, he's got Italian soldiers who've been fighting with him in Latin America, and he thinks, I'm going to come back with these and help change things in Italy.

[Spencer Mizzen]

David, when you say he wanted to change things, what did he want to introduce? Was he a Democrat?

[David Lavin]

Yeah, he's a matt senior. He believes in democracy. He believes in one man, one vote. He possibly. Garibaldi is actually quite feminist. I think he's one of the very few people who might have actually, you know, deep down, believed that women should have the vote, too, which is not what most of the Democrats are calling for at this time, it's very patriarchal. And he believes in Italian nationhood. He believes in united Italy. And I think one of the reasons he believes in that so passionately, oddly enough, is that he's been in Latin America with Italians who come together, rather when they're outside Italy, because in Italy in the mid 19th century, Italians are very, very different. So I think it's interesting how many of the patriotic Italians who want Italian unity really badly have been exiles.

[Spencer Mizzen]

So he comes back to Italy. What happens next? And how does he announce himself on the Italian stage?

[David Lavin]

He offers himself as a military leader to Carlo Alberto Piedmont, who looks at this guy who's fought in a war in Latin America, which is actually called the Ragamuffin War, and he said, well, you know, he might be useful possibly as a captain of a raiding ship, but we're not going to give someone like that a commission. And he disappears off to Milan, which is rebelled against the Austrians, and offers his military services there and does a bit of fighting there. Then when the Piedmontese take Milan and they're then driven back by the Austrians, he's sort of, in a sense, kicking his heels, not quite knowing what to do. And then in the spring of 1849, Rome, which had been under this Pope, had been seen as a reforming Pope. The reforming Pope by this stage has thought hell's teeth. The revolution has broken out and people are doing all sorts of things I don't like, and someone's just stabbed my prime minister to death. He's got out of Rome and the Roman Republic has been established, and the Roman Republic becomes a magnet for radicals from all over Italy. At the same time, that republic is under threat because there are people who want to put the Pope back in power and want to crush revolution. So the King in Naples is going to send an army. The Austrians ultimately want to send an army because they want to re establish law and order and the status quo right across Italy, because they've been the dominant power in Italy and they want to make damn sure that revolution is going to carry on. But the most interesting bit of all is that the newly elected French president, who is the nephew of Napoleon, so Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, has won the presidential elections in December 1848 in France. And although he has, you know, he's actually been involved in revolutionary activity in Italy himself, but he wants to dominate France, and he notices that most people in France are Catholic, that Catholic conservatives are very, very anxious about what's happened to the Pope. And he says, we're going to send a military expedition to Rome to get rid of this republic and restore the Pope to his rightful place in the Vatican at the centre of the Papal States.

[Spencer Mizzen]

So did Garibaldi end up fighting the French at this point?

[David Lavin]

He ends up fighting the French who are also anxious to restore the Pope and the Neapolitans. Well, what happens is that he conducts for a few months, he conducts a remarkable defence against well trained troops with decent cannon and decent equipment. And he conducts a. It's slightly odd because he's defending a city, but he's still using guerrilla tactics too. He's prepared to sort of use hit and run raids with incredible bravery. Gets people behind him. You know, he becomes a very much. Although by this stage Mazzini is largely dominating political events, Garibaldi is probably the person who unites people, including Romans, who probably don't sympathise with the cause but become almost patriotic about Rome's ability to defend itself. So this lovely case of the stenographer for the Pope who keeps a diary throughout this. And although he really probably wants the Pope restored, he's also thinking, goodness, Rome's putting up a good show. You know, we're keeping the French army at bay. These good ordinary Romans up there on the barricades. And then it becomes clear that they can't hold out and he leaves Rome. And this is the key thing, he leaves Rome with a few thousand men with the aim of getting to Venice. And Venice is the one part of Italy that's carrying on resistance. Venice is under siege from the Austrians and he's going to try and get there. And there's this incredible daring do attempt to get to Venice, which fails. His troops get eroded, they desert or realize that they can't carry on fighting or get injured or exhausted. And he gets to quite near Venice with two hundred and fifty people, including his wife Anita, Latin American wife, incredibly brave. There's a marvelous statue to her in Rome on horseback with a child in one arm and a revolver in the other. It's completely implausible, but it's a great statue. And she dies, buries her hurriedly. In fact, her body is rediscovered just days later and he realizes he can't get to Venice. Venice is about to fall anyway. And he escapes again, gets out of Italy.

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[Spencer Mizzen]

Now before turning the next stage of his story, I just want to ask you this question really seem to be key to Gary Boulding. Why was he such a successful leader of men? Why did people so willingly rallied to his cause?

[David Lavin]

Well, first of all, he's not just a successful leader of men, he's a successful leader of women. Women absolutely love him and part of the key to his success. And my friend Lucy Ryle has written about this very interestingly is that he inspires women. And actually one way to inspire men is to inspire women. I mean, to start with, he's dead handsome. He's tall, he's broad shouldered, he has reddish brown hair, he's often portrayed with blue eyes. Actually his eyes were probably light brown. But he's got a lovely smile, he's sexy. So part of his charisma is that you've just got a really good looking bloke. He's got this incredible record of brave fighting against the odds. That's good. Everybody admires an underdog and he's always fighting against bigger armies with illiquid troops and he pulls things off and that becomes a bit of a legend. You know, the plucky man, he's clever, he uses language well, I mean, he's not just someone who goes out there and leads from the front, although he always does. He always puts his body on the line, but he uses language well. He's quite an inspiring speaker. He's very good at picking his lieutenants, he gets good men around him. So one of the things, and we'll talk later about the incredible Sicilian campaign, but he inspires people. So one of his right hand men is a guy called Nino Bixio, who's another very good sailor, very good fighter, but Bixio is basically a bit of a psychopath. And one of the things about Bixio is that when Garibaldi needs someone to be nasty, he can get Bixio to be nasty. So he can get Bixio to do his dirty job. When you have to repress peasants, Garibaldi doesn't go and shoot peasants. Bixio does it. So he keeps a distance from some of the tougher things he has to do.

[Spencer Mizzen]

As a general, how keenly aware was he of the power of his image? Was he a good PR man? Was he good at projecting that image?

[David Lavin]

I think Gary Baldy is very shrewd about how he manipulates his own image too. And then it sort of takes on a momentum of its own. We think these days about how social media, how something can spread really rapidly. But actually the mid 19th century is not so different. You've got higher literacy rates, you've got cheaper and cheaper printing, you get the development of photographs, you get the development of illustrated journalism. So something like Illustrated London News, where people are drawing pictures, often of things that they can't possibly have seen. But there are pictures of Garibaldi's victories coming out in the Illustrated London News all the time. So English people would know what Garibaldi looked like. And he also keeps an image. So here's a guy who. The clothing he wears, the poncho, the slouch hat or the sort of bonnet he wears, the big cavalry sabre, the tendency to ride a white horse, these are all things that he's developed already in Latin America, but he brings them with him. In 1849. He even has a black gaucho bodyguard. So it's very contrasting. You've got the contrast of this big Latin American, I can't remember now, I think he might even have been a freed slave. And the blond haired or auburn haired, burly Ligurian, riding into battle different coloured horses. It's like something from a poster for a good Western. He knows how to work this image. The more it gets projected, it sells copy in newspapers and the myth develops a momentum of its own.

[Spencer Mizzen]

So let's go back. So he goes into exile for a second time. What happens there? Because this must have been like a real low point for him, I assume.

[David Lavin]

Yeah, I mean, he ends up bizarrely in Staten island and he's living with a guy, Antonio Meucci, in Staten island, who's probably actually the inventor of the telephone. He's an Italian and he's making candles and, you know, he doesn't mind the life there, but he still wants to do something for Italy. And things are changing politically in Italy in the 1850s. The main thing is that Piedmont, under the premiership of Camillo di Cavour, is becoming a bit of an economic powerhouse. It's reforming very, very rapidly and people begin to start looking across Italy to Piedmont. Maybe this is the model. Maybe, you know, we, various of us, tried separatist rebellions in 1848-49, various of us tried nationalist rebellions in 1848, 1849. But maybe, you know, things aren't going so well in the 1850s. Government tends to be quite repressive. Maybe if we want change, look, there's a model for how change can take place in Italy. Up in the northwest of Italy, maybe we could have some of that. At the same time, the revolutionaries, principally the Mazzinians, keep trying little rebellions and they go wrong. They always go wrong, they're always disastrous. People get picked up by the police, people get shot down by troops, people try and raise peasant rebellions and the peasants turn around and turn in or kill the revolutionaries. And you get a bit of a movement from very many of the people who've been quite radical in 1848-49. They're saying what we need to do. Is look to Piedmont. So in 1858 he becomes the vice president of the so called National Society. And this is a group of liberal nationalists who are pushing for Italian unification under the House of Savoy, under the Piedmontese monarchy. He doesn't stop being a democrat, but he says, our priority is national unification. We're only going to get that if we back the Piedmontese monarchy and he gets his chance in 1859.

[Spencer Mizzen]

And then you've got this astonishing episode where he leads around 1,000 troops into Sicily, takes Sicily and then goes on to Naples. Can you tell us about that, please?

[David Lavin]

Okay, so the origins of that are in 1859, and the origins are that he raises volunteers to fight the Austrians in Lombardy alongside the Piedmontese and the French. And it's a bit of a fringe campaign, but he does pretty well because he's a very good leader. He actually gets the nickname of the Red Devil amongst the Austrian troops. And the Piedmontese have promised the French in turn for support that they will get Nice, his birthplace, and Savoy, the French speaking part of the Piedmontese kingdom, in exchange for military assistance to get Lombardy. And the Piedmontese have expanded. They've not only got Lombardy, but they've also got most of central Italy too. So Piedmont is trebled, quadrupled in size in one move. But Gabipeld is quite upset because his hometown has just been handed over to a foreign country. And he's sitting there slightly seething, and he's sitting there thinking, you know, he actually meets a slightly eccentric, mysterious Englishman with the unusual name of Oliphant in a train who says, well, they're going to have a plebiscite in Nice. Why don't you just land in Nice, seize the ballot boxes? You're the MP for Nice after all. They've just elected you universally, you know, almost without opposition. Venice, they can't now be giving it to the French, because if, you know they've elected you as the most, the greatest Italian patriot, they've just elected you, that can't be going on. And that, of course, would have been disastrous if Garibaldi had attacked the French, and he'd have lost and quite possibly could have triggered a war, been absolutely stupid. And he's persuaded instead, largely by a guy called Francesco Crispi, who's an ex Mazzinian, that there's a revolution going on in Sicily. Why don't you go and hijack the revolution in Sicily? He commandeers a couple of boats, he can't get access to the very good rifles that people have been giving Money for him to buy, basically his volunteers to use. So, equipped with really bad old weapons, he sets sail to try and join the revolution. Sicily Cavour. The Prime Minister is thinking, hang on, we need to consolidate what we've got. We don't want that. He tries to head him off and fails. And he arrives with, by this stage, about 800 men near the port of Massala. And this is a fantastic story because by rights he should have been sunk by the Bourbon navy, by the kingdom of the Two Sicilies navy. He's got two little steamboats, they've got gunboats there. But there's a funny twist to the story, and this is one of the reasons I like history so much. During the Napoleonic wars, the French had briefly occupied Portugal. Why did the British like Portugal, our oldest ally? Because the British gentlemen drink port. They can't get access to port because the French. But they are defending Sicily against French invasion. And if you've ever tasted Marsala, it's not so different from port. So the British buy factories making Marsala in the extreme northwest of Sicily. And when a revolution breaks out in Sicily and the authorities confiscate everyone's weapons, the British are desperately scared that someone might attack their Marsala factories. So the British have sent a gunboat to defend the Messala factories, which sort of gets in the way of the Bourbon Navy, which allows. And of course, they're not going to have the Bourbons shelling Messala as Garibaldi arrives. So he's able to land his troops in Sicily without any significant threat from the Bourbon navy. So he could have been taken out before he lands, once he's landed. And this is the other really nice thing about this story. The Bourbons say, well, it's only 800 men. If he'd landed with 20,000 men, they'd have put their whole army there and they would have defeated him. Because he's 800 men, they think, oh, it's another one of these stupid Matsinian little attempts. Everyone knows that Matsinian landings fail, the peasants will probably kill them. They'll probably all desert. They'll probably be useless. We'll send a few troops out to sort of, you know, mop as a mopping up operation. It's not going to be a problem. If they'd taken him seriously there and then they would have defeated him, but they didn't. And then in a series of very rapid victories, the not very good, mostly extremely elderly, slightly dispirited Bourbon commanders, they're a bit scared of him by now. He Takes Palermo really easily. That shouldn't have happened. They're panicking a bit. They're trying to avoid open battle, they're trying to shift the blame. And very rapidly, he brings Sicilians onside who don't like Bourbon rule. Many of these people probably aren't particularly Italian patriots. They're trying to get rid of a government they don't like, and they think, well, maybe the House of Savoy is going to be better than the House of Bourbon. Some of them are peasants who think that there'll be land reform and they'll be better off. Some of them are landowners who think, oh, God, the Bourbons have gone. We need Garibaldi to maintain law and order. So he builds a sort of coalition behind him in Sicily, which gives him a power base, and then he moves.

[Spencer Mizzen]

On to take Naples. Is that right?

[David Lavin]

Yep. So Cavour, of course, tries to oust him in Sicily and fails. He basically outdoes Cavour politically in Sicily. And it's a pretty similar story, actually, that Bourbon army largely disintegrates in the first instance he gets to Naples, the Neapolitans, it's a bit of a big shrug of their shoulders. He achieves a dramatic victory on the Volturno, on the River Volturno, north of Naples. And at the same time, Cavour, as prime Minister in Turin, has said, hell's teeth, if he takes Naples, he'll attack Rome.

[Spencer Mizzen]

So at this point, Garibaldi is very much the most powerful figure in the south of Italy. I mean, was Rome on his mind now? Was that on his agenda, to go and try and take Rome?

[David Lavin]

Completely. And there are a number of reasons for this. One is the legacy of 49. He felt that he'd had to leave Rome and there was unfinished business there. He'd lost his wife because of the defense of Rome. He's an emotional man. Another is that he feels that if he can take Rome, A, Italian unification will be more or less complete, except for Venice. But B, if he could do that with a popular army is a very strong argument for democracy being introduced. They have, after all, used universal male suffrage in completely rigged plebiscites to justify annexation of different parts of Italy. And he thinks he can clinch the imposition of democracy if he gets Rome. The flip side of this, and why Cavour is completely right, is if he'd attacked Rome, Napoleon iii, well, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte as president, and then he'd become Napoleon iii, had left a garrison there, he'd be attacking French troops. And if he attacks French troops, then there's going to be a war with France. So what happens is they feel we can't have troops attack Rome because the French garrison is not right across the Papal States, it's just in Rome. So the troops come down from the north, annex a lot of the Papal States and cut Garibaldi off. And no one knows what's going to happen, no one knows who's Garibaldi going to say? I'm going to carry on fighting, I want a democracy, I'm going to create a Mazzinian republic. And instead he meets the King at Teano and says, obedisco, I obey, and hands over the south to the King. So his priority is national unification and national reconciliation. It's not creating democracy. And in his hierarchy, the creation of a unified Italy, he is always more important than the creation of a democratic unified Italy.

[Spencer Mizzen]

So in that respect, would you say that in some ways this had all turned out to be a little bit of a failure for him? Unification was achieved, democracy to an extent wasn't. Would you say that adds up to a little bit of a failure, or do you think that's being really harsh on Garibaldi?

[David Lavin]

Well, I think Garibaldi is a massive success until 1861, and I think he's probably pleased with the job that he's done. But I think in 1860 he outmanoeuvres cavour and the Moderates. And I think in 1861 he begins to get outmaneuvered because he thought that his soldiers would get enrolled into a national army that that could then be used to fight against the Austrians in the remaining territories in Venetia, maybe leave Rome, but get Venetians, Tunisia. And there's a really fierce parliamentary debate in, I think it's April 1861 and he turns up wearing his poncho. He turns up, you know, I'm the rebel leader and he says, I want all my troops to be enrolled in the. And they say, no, you know, we've got a regular army. And also he'd massively promoted people. So, you know, There are about six commissioned officers to every 10 men. Gary Beldis ARMY they say, we can't incorporate these people into a regular army. And that leaves a lot of people disillusioned. The failure to introduce proper land reform in the south leaves a lot of peasants disillusioned. You get a very nasty so called civil brigand war, but actually it's a civil war going on in the south and Garibaldi doesn't quite know what to do. Twice in 1862. And in 1867 he attempts to take Rome with volunteers, both of which he's defeated the first time by regular Italian troops. They cut him off and they actually fire on him. There are a few deaths, I think about total on each side is about 15 people. He gets wounded in the foot, almost certainly shoots himself in the foot by accident, instantly. Lots of people don't like this story being told, but the way the bullet enters, it would be very hard for that to have been done by anybody but Gary Baldy himself. But he's briefly imprisoned and then let out again. You can't imprison Garibaldi. He tries it again in 1867, by which time the French troops have left and it leads to the French troops coming back. So, yes, he becomes a bit of a liability. He flirts with radical left wing politics, but he's not really. He's a democrat. And so I think there's a bit of a disillusionment. He carries on being an MP until the end of his life. In 1870, when Rome is actually taken, the French pull their troops out because they're invaded by Prussia. He's fighting for the French and oddly enough, he's elected as a French mp. So there can't be many people who've been an MP in two different countries all the while.

[Spencer Mizzen]

Throughout the 1860s, David Garibaldi remained incredibly popular across the world and in Britain. I wonder if we could talk about the remarkable visit he made to London in 1864, because I think we just saw enormous crowds coming out on the streets to welcome him, didn't we?

[David Lavin]

This is an incredible thing that goes on. So the British, and it's partially to do with more and more pressure. The British in the 1850s get very, very interested in foreign policy and in international relations. I think some of this is that foreign policy becomes a bit of a safe space for the British because we've seen the failure of the Chartist movement, the big domestic democratic movement. It's fizzled out. It's also been quite effectively repressed in 1848, to be absolutely honest. The authorities make it very clear that if people push too far, they will use violence to repress it. But that people are looking for an area that in a sense distracts from problems of, you know, Britain is facing fundamental problems in terms of how you accommodate an increasingly well educated, disenfranchised lower middle class and working class that are getting more politically agitated. And they sort of project this onto foreign policy and they take up the cause of Polish Independence, the course of Hungarian independence, and above all, the cause of Italian independence. When Garibaldi turns up, you know, he's relatively fresh, not just from the incredible events of 1860, but also 1862. And the British like 1862, the failed attempt on Rome, because of course, most Brits are pretty anti Catholic. And Garibaldi, of course, was raised Catholic, but, you know, he's a Freemason. He flirts with Protestant ideas. Exactly. What his religious beliefs are, are hard to pin down. So it feeds into anti Catholicism. It feeds into the fact that here is a radical, ordinary guy of fairly humble origins who's become a great political leader. And that catches a wave of, you know, the ex Chartists are thinking, wow, this guy's great. Lots of posh women think he is the perfect bit of rough. And, you know, Lucy Rolle has gone through lots of these letters, and whether they're actually sleeping with him or not, my suspicion is probably some of them are. But, you know, he is the sexy fantasy for a lot of posh English women. And huge crowds turn out to see him. Queen Victoria's a bit bothered. Disraeli won't have anything to do with him, but Gladstone thinks he's great. You know, the Prince of Wales thinks he's fantastic. And this is important in Italy, too. He's someone who can, in a sense, despite being a democrat, because he's prepared to work with the King. He bridges divides. Although he can be problematic and cause trouble, he actually is someone who bridges divides. And the crowds are immense and enormous. I think he becomes one of two or three people that more pubs are named after in Britain than anyone else. More Staffordshire porcelain figures are sold of him than anything else. They actually get a twin. You can buy a discounted Shakespeare and Garibaldi. That's a match made in heaven and very finely.

[Spencer Mizzen]

David, what do you think his greatest legacy is?

[David Lavin]

One of the oddities about his legacy is he can be all things to all people. So in the 20s and 30s, the fascists annex him and say, Garibaldi would have been a fascist. The communist partisans who fight against the fascists from 1943 call themselves the Garibaldi Brigades. He becomes, in a sense, the one really acceptable symbol of Italian patriotism. Here is a martial hero, the hero of two worlds, because he's also a hero in Latin America who you can sort of get behind. And it's pretty uncontroversial. And that is an Italian who's completely acceptable globally, too. I mean, I now live in Nottingham. Okay. I actually became interested in Garibaldi because my father, who was a historian of Renaissance historically Italy, had a working class Venetian friend who used to come stay with us and he gave me when I was about 8, some Garibaldi toy soldiers and I love these. I'm now in Nottingham Knott's Forest wear red because of Garibaldi. They still have honor to Garibaldi on the terraces. And he's this sort of no one objects to Garibaldi. Basically his fundamental decency and bravery makes him relatively uncontroversial. Now I actually think the problem with that is it makes a quite complex historical character is reduced to someone who can more or less uncontroversially put up a statue of him in any Italian main square and say we can rally around that. So I think the legacy is that he's sort of become the glue that legitimates Italian unification, which actually oversimplifies the story and actually prevents people engaging properly with a very difficult story about how Italian unification took place, which is a very complex one. And Garibaldi provides in a sense almost too simple a narrative of what happened.

[Podcast Narrator/Advertiser]

That was David Lavin, professor of history at the University of Nottingham, speaking to Spencer Mizzen. David also took a deep dive into into the unification of Italy for our everything you wanted to know series. You can search for that now in this podcast feed. Thanks for listening to today's Life of the Week. Be sure to join us again next time to learn about another fascinating figure from the past. VRBO Last minute deals make chasing fresh mountain powder incredibly easy. With thousands of homes close to the slopes, you can easily get epic pow freshies, first tracks and more. No need for months of planning. In fact, you can't even plan. Pow Pow is on its own schedule. Thankfully, somewhere in the world it's always snowing. All you have to do is use the last minute filter on the app to book a last minute deal on a slope side private rental home book.

[David Lavin]

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