With Lucy Riall
The Invention of Italy – Unification
The story of Garibaldi and the Thousand is emblematic of the Risorgimento and Italian unification. It is a story of passion and courage, of heroic deeds, of idealism and of sacrifice. Above all, it is a story of great communicative strength: even before assuming form as a military enterprise it had achieved remarkable media success. A success which grabbed the attention and won the support of the whole world. The victory of the Expedition was not certain; when Garibaldi left Quarto he did so with low expectations of success: his aim was to make a dramatic gesture to demonstrate the existence of an Italian nation. Until the day it could exist politically, Italy had to be created on a symbolic level. But this is not the end of the story: the very handful of heroic Italians who created Italy, including Garibaldi, were soon to be politically marginalized. An Italian paradox.
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