The Anthony P. Campanella Collection of Giuseppe Garibaldi

Island 5: 1861-1870: The Completion of Italian Unification and Garibladi's Visit to London

In 1862 Garibaldi attempted to use a volunteer army, supposedly raised for an attack on the Balkan Habsburg territories, to seize the remaining papal states. The Italian government intervened immediately to prevent the move, which would have brought them into direct conflict with the French defenders of Rome, and Garibaldi was defeated, wounded and captured (though soon released) at the battle of Aspromonte. In the spring of 1864 he visited England where his reception was little less the triumphant; the Campanella Collection contains a substantial number of letters, invitations, and tributes addressed to Garibaldi during this period. In 1866, having return to Italy, he participated creditably in the campaign against Austria which resulted in the transfer of the province of Venezia to the Italian crown. In 1870, following the collapse of the regime of Napoleon III, and the annexation by Italy of the papal states, Garibaldi fought his final campaign, defending France against the invading Germans.

Garibaldi at Varignano This engraving, from a drawing my M. Beauce, appeared in the September 27, 1862 edition of The Illustrated London News.

Pietro Ripari
Storia medica della grave ferita toccata in Aspromonte dal Generale Garibaldi
Milano: Gaetano Bozza, 1863.

In 1862, perhaps at the request of Victor Emmanuel II (accounts vary strongly), Garibaldi recruited a volunteer army in Sicily, supposedly with the purpose of invading Austrian-held territories in the Balkans to annex these and the province of Venezia to the Italian kingdom. Instead, Garibaldi crossed to the mainland with the intention of invading and annexing Rome. To preserve relations with the French, whose troops defended the remaining papal territories, the Italian government ordered the interception of Garibaldi's force, which was engaged and defeated at Aspromonte on August 29. In the course of battle, Garibaldi was wounded in the thigh and foot. Ripari's pamphlet describes his wounds.

Eugen Kvaternik, 1825-1871

Autograph letter, signed, April 1864

This exceedingly important three-page letter of April 1864 is addressed to Garibaldi by the Croat nationalist Eugen Kvaternik (1825-1871). Kvaternik, a father of modern Croat nationalism, was an organizer of the 1871 Rakovica revolt, which attempted to establish Croatian independence. Kvaternik was killed by Austrian troops during the suppression of the revolt.

Luigi Migliavacca
Autograph letter, signed, March 14, 1864.

Migliavacca, a Paris-based Italian pastry cook, writes that his four-year-old son is named in Garibaldi's honour and exhorts the general to take up his sword in the cause of the liberation of Venice. He also sends, as a gift, a sample of his pastries.

James Tennant
Autograph letter, signed, April 17, 1864.

James Tennant, the noted British mineralogist, invited General Garibaldi to visit the Regent's park Zoo of the London Zoological Society on April 17, 1864. The letter is of added interest as still including Mr. Tennant's business card and the slip of admission to the Zoological garden.

An engraved invitation from the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers to a dinner given in honour of Garibaldi on April 21, 1864.

The invitation is addressed to Garibaldi's secretary and companion on this London visit, Giuseppe Guerzoni.

Giacomo Lombroso
Dal Volturno ad Aspromonte; due anni di storia Italiana
Milano: Gaetano Fravega e Antonio Filippini, 1865.

Popular account of Italian history during the two-year period between Garibaldi's final, great defeat of the Neapolitan army at Volturno (October 1, 1860) and his own defeat by Italian troops at the battle of Aspromonte (August 29, 1862). Shown is a woodcut of the wounded Garibaldi at Aspromonte.

Album della guerra 1866
Milano; Venezia; Firenze: Edoardo Sonzogno, [1867].

When war broke out with Austria in 1866, the Italian government was able to use Garibaldi openly in the hostilities. He was given a command in the Tyrol and fought well in the campaign that resulted in the acquisition of Venezia from the Austrians. Show here is a woodcut of Garibaldi as a general.

Memorie alla casalinga di un Garibaldino: Guerra nel Tirolo, 1866
Livorno: Francesco Tellini, [1867].

The memoirs of one of the volunteers who fought with Garibaldi in the 1866 war against Austria, which resulted in the annexation of Venezia to the Italian kingdom. The original front wrapper of the book, bound into the volume, displays a woodcut of one of Garibaldi's volunteers.

Guerre de 1870-1871; état-major de Garibaldi
[France: ca. 1871].

Garibaldi's last campaign was in 1870-71, when he fought on behalf of the French republic against the invading Prussian forces and was elected to the French National Assembly at Bordeaux. Nice, Garibaldi's birthplace, had been part of the French empire at the time of his birth, and had reverted to this status with its cession by Piedmont in 1859. This French chromolithograph of the period shows Garibaldi in uniform, flanked by his sons Menotti and Ricciotti and by two supporting staff officers.

Garibaldi et ses volontaires combattant les Prussiens.

In 1870, after the collapse of Napoleon III's empire (an event which facilitated the final phase of nineteenth-century Italian unification, the annexation of the French-defended Papal States), Garibaldi led a contingent of Italian volunteers in defence of the newly declared French third republic, scoring successes against the invading Prussians at Chatillon, Autun and Dijon. In recognition of these actions he was elected to the French National Assembly. This heroic chromolithograph represents Garibaldi in action against the Prussians.