LSE: Public Lectures and Events
Episode: Garibaldi: the patriot as global hero
Date: October 24, 2007
Host: LSE Film and Audio Team
Speakers: Professor Lucy Riall (Birkbeck College, London), Professor John Breuilly (LSE)
Episode Overview
This episode, marking the bicentenary of Giuseppe Garibaldi’s birth, explores Garibaldi’s transformation into a global hero and modern celebrity. Lucy Riall, author of Garibaldi: The Invention of a Hero, unpacks the mechanics behind Garibaldi's international appeal, the rise of mass politics, and the powerful intersection between media, personal charisma, and political strategy. Professor John Breuilly provides broader context on the interplay of nationalism, internationalism, and the unique historical moment that produced the Garibaldi phenomenon.
Main Discussion Points and Insights
1. Garibaldi’s Universal Appeal and Emergence as Celebrity
[04:15–12:00]
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Riall recounts letters sent from across the globe to Garibaldi, demonstrating his extraordinary reach: from the King of Hawaii (“patriotism and gallantry command respect and admiration from every person and in every land”) to Prussian women requesting a piece of his red shirt, to Finnish noblemen naming sons after him.
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Garibaldi as the first modern celebrity: His persona was omnipresent—fashion, food, plays, novels, souvenirs, and above all, the press. Advances in media (photography, lithographs) fueled his fame, making his image instantly recognizable.
“Garibaldi became an ever-present and international figure on the...mid-19th century media scene. He was an influence on fashion and on food, the subject of popular plays, novels, and an object in souvenirs, a constant reference in newspapers...”
—Lucy Riall [09:30]
2. Public and Private Persona in the Media
[12:00–17:00]
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Riall describes Garibaldi’s life on Caprera as a “public display,” noting public fascination with both his political and private life (e.g., devotion to his late wife, daily activities). Uninvited visitors and even incidents of obsessive behavior underscore his impact.
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The “intense relationship” between Garibaldi and his public combined admiration for his exploits with a longing for personal intimacy, erasing traditional boundaries.
“They had never met Garibaldi, but felt intimate with him. They loved him passionately...and often they identified their lives, their political aspirations and their political ideals with his.”
—Lucy Riall [15:30]
3. Explaining Garibaldi’s Popularity: Qualities of the Hero
[17:00–24:00]
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Apart from military bravery and modesty, Garibaldi also possessed sexuality, theatricality, physical charm, and a flair for dramatic self-presentation—qualities borrowed from romantic fiction.
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His life story itself read like a romance novel: full of “tragedy and triumph.”
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Though careful to shape his own image, Garibaldi was both authentic and knowingly theatrical.
“Bravery, modesty, sexuality, theatricality, and the political life which was told like an adventure story—these are the core elements of Garibaldi’s appeal.”
—Lucy Riall [22:00]
4. The Strategic Construction of Garibaldi’s Image
[24:00–31:00]
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The “invention” of Garibaldi as a symbol was a conscious strategy, especially by Giuseppe Mazzini, to provide the Italian nationalist movement with a compelling figurehead:
- Italy lacked traditional markers of nationhood; Mazzini used Garibaldi’s image and story as political ‘proof’ of the Italian cause.
- London-based, Mazzini built a radical, international network, the “liberal international,” using the press to spread Garibaldi’s legend globally.
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The popular press, made possible by surging literacy and new technology, was vital—creating an “imagined community” around Garibaldi.
“What he needed to do...was to find a symbol of his new Italy. To make this symbol credible and promote it internationally, and in that way, get international support for Italian nationalism...”
—Lucy Riall [27:55]
5. Media Campaigns and the Global Stage
[31:00–38:00]
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By 1848, Garibaldi’s image—literally, through lithographs and illustrations—was distributed internationally.
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Riall highlights the interplay of media, revolutionary events, and Garibaldi’s own actions, culminating in spectacles like his 1864 visit to London.
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Journalists and artists from all over Europe embedded themselves with Garibaldi, further publicizing his exploits. Reports from the front, public dinners with the press, and cultivated personal relationships amplified his appeal.
“According to one account...military headquarters was the kind of babel of foreign journalists and volunteers, whose only common language was German.”
—Lucy Riall [37:52]
6. Fictionalization and the Romanticization of Politics
[38:00–43:00]
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The Garibaldi legend was fantastical as much as factual—biographies often invented adventures, lovers, and melodrama.
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Politics became entertainment, with political leaders recast as romantic heroes in public imagination.
“I think it reflects the emergence of a kind of fictional Garibaldi and a more general trend to recast politics as a form of entertainment and for leaders to refashion themselves as romantic heroes...”
—Lucy Riall [42:11]
7. Concluding Perspective
[43:00–46:00]
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Garibaldi’s charisma was both ‘natural’ and consciously manufactured, demonstrating how mass media and politics intersected to create new forms of leader-public engagement.
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His experience marks a unique moment—before the nation-state solidified, when nationalism could still be cosmopolitan and progressive.
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Garibaldi’s legacy, argues Riall, shows the press’s subversive potential: not just propaganda, but a tool to challenge the status quo.
“Garibaldi is less a sign of the constraining power of...political heroes, of their authoritarian potential. He seems to me to be much more an indication of the power of the press...to subvert, to destabilize and indeed to challenge the existing political order.”
—Lucy Riall [45:38]
8. Broader Contextualization: John Breuilly’s Response
[46:14–57:30]
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Breuilly situates Garibaldi’s rise within the wider European context—specifically, the transformation of nationalism from elite to popular politics, and how that linked to militia action, romantic imagination, and the emergence of mass media.
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The era allowed political exiles—centered in cities like London and Paris—to create radical international networks, fusing nationalism with internationalism.
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Garibaldi could only exist, Breuilly argues, in this “middle third of the 19th century,” before nationalism crystallized as state ideology.
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Three ways to handle divisions within nationalism emerge:
- Harmonizing differences into a heroic pantheon.
- Polarizing figures like Garibaldi as radical outsiders.
- Depoliticizing, focusing on cults of personality.
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Garibaldi enjoyed a unique, lasting cult because his blend of nationalism, internationalism, charisma, and theatrical politics fit this specific historical niche.
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After nation-states became established, such figures became impossible; later comparisons (e.g., Che Guevara) lack Garibaldi’s precise context.
“Garibaldi was only possible given the telegraph, steam, the mass media, vigorous, popular, radical politics...This is a matter of desperately serious political conflict.”
—John Breuilly [48:20]
Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments
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“He represents an alternative democratic tradition of political heroism so often overlooked by historians much more interested in the authoritarian cult of the 20th century.”
—Lucy Riall [44:45] -
“Garibaldi’s great problem was building practical political movements, constructing organizations that would exercise power in the peaceful time that followed the violence… the cult of Garibaldi is in part the cult of anti-politics.”
—John Breuilly [56:20] -
“Heroes happen and they cannot be simply made… At the same time, Garibaldi’s broad appeal as a global hero was helped by his seemingly inherent hybrid qualities, derived perhaps from his own international life experiences.”
—Lucy Riall [43:00]
Audience Questions and Further Discussion
Relationship between Garibaldi and Cavour
[69:42–73:29]
- Riall explains that while Garibaldi and Cavour each thought they could manipulate the other, Cavour ultimately outmaneuvered Garibaldi. The defeat of radicals did not erase their tradition, and Garibaldi’s later “counter-public relations” painted him as the tragic, defeated hero, casting a shadow on Italian unification.
Comparison to Other Nationalisms and Figures
[70:24–73:29]
- An audience member draws parallels to Latin American figures (e.g., Benito Juarez) and explores the role of ethnicity, noting Garibaldi’s lack of a racial or ethnic dimension to his popularity.
What if Garibaldi Had Died in 1860?
[77:56–78:15]
- Riall suggests that Garibaldi’s martyrdom would likely have energized the movement further, and that his unique talents could perhaps have been replaced by another charismatic figure. Nonetheless, his extraordinary knack for embodying the role of hero set him apart.
The International Revolutionary Network
[81:28–85:24]
- Garibaldi’s fame was built on an international republican ideal, with networks supporting revolutions beyond Italy—driven by shared aspirations for global democratic change.
Important Segment Timestamps
| Timestamp | Segment Description | |------------|-------------------------------------------------------------| | 04:15-12:00| Garibaldi’s global admirers, letters, and modern celebrity | | 12:00-17:00| Media fascination: Private/public life, “fan” obsession | | 17:00-24:00| Anatomy of heroism: Bravery, romance, self-invention | | 24:00-31:00| Political strategy: Mazzini and constructing the hero image | | 31:00-38:00| Mass media and spectacle: Press campaigns, embedded journos | | 38:00-43:00| Fictionalization and entertainment politics | | 43:00-46:00| Conclusions on charisma, media, and political change | | 46:14-57:30| John Breuilly’s broad contextual remarks | | 69:42-85:24| Audience Q&A: Cavour, ethnicity, internationalism, etc. |
Conclusion
This episode sheds new light on Garibaldi as not just a military leader or Italian unifier, but as a thoroughly modern, crafted media phenomenon—a symbol within a radical, internationalist tradition, whose fame exemplified the creative, disruptive potential of press-fueled mass politics in the 19th century. Both Riall and Breuilly highlight how unique the Garibaldi moment was, and how, underpinned by both chance and careful strategy, it revealed new ways political charisma could shape history.