Amazons for Garibaldi: women warriors and the making of the hero of two worlds

Abstract

This article analyses the place and meaning of female heroism in the process of the making of modern Italy. Beginning with Garibaldi's first wife Anita in Brazil, a great number of women all over the world were attracted to Garibaldi and his movement. Theirs was a sentimental and political engagement, which in some cases turned them into real soldiers, like those who joined the ranks of Garibaldi's troops. Whereas until 1860 the Garibaldinian volunteer was not understood as an exclusively male category, this changed around that key year, both in reality and in the collective imagination of the Risorgimento. Women were denied the right to be soldiers in Garibaldi's legendary Thousand. Subsequently, stories of militant women like Anita Garibaldi were softened in the foundation fictions that narrate the birth of Italy, turning women into passive members of the Italian nation. This change is analysed in depth by focusing on the emblematic case of Esperance von Schwartz, one of Garibaldi's biographers, and for a time, one of his female companions in arms.