Giuseppe Garibaldi

Giuseppe Garibaldi was an Italian nationalist soldier and revolutionary, central to the Risorgimento and the unification of Italy. His expedition of the Thousand in 1860 helped bring southern Italy into the new Italian kingdom.

Giuseppe Garibaldi also held the offices or ranks of member of the Chamber of Deputies of the Kingdom of Italy and member of the Chamber of Deputies of the Kingdom of Sardinia. Giuseppe Garibaldi was born in Nice and died in Caprera.

Geoffrey Trease’s A Thousand for Sicily and Follow My Black Plume put young volunteers inside Garibaldi’s 1860 expedition, presenting him as the charismatic commander whose improvised army helps overturn Bourbon rule. G. A. Henty’s Out with Garibaldi likewise follows the campaign for Italian unification and connects its fictional adventure directly to Garibaldi and Victor Emmanuel II. Umberto Eco’s The Prague Cemetery approaches the Risorgimento from a darker angle, using its cynical forger to move through the conspiracies, propaganda and political manipulation surrounding nineteenth-century nationalism. Robert Harvey’s Mavericks returns to Garibaldi as a commander, pairing him with the Sicilian campaign that best demonstrates how speed, personal prestige and irregular forces could alter a conventional war.