Every day on my morning walk in Bologna, I passed by a statue on the Via dell’Indipendenza of Giuseppe Garibaldi on horseback (pictured in a previous posting). It’s impossible to summarize his importance in Italy – his heroism in battle, and the personal charisma that played such a key role in the Italian Risorgimento. His ‘red shirt’ conquest of Sicily was a major theme in The Leopard, mentioned in last year’s posting, and seemingly every city in the country has its Piazza or Via Garibaldi, along with Cavour, Mazzini and Vittorio Emanuele equivalents.

My Italian stay led me to pick up a copy of Tim Parks’ fascinating The Hero’s Way, which is subtitled Walking with Garibaldi from Rome to Ravenna. Parks re-created (on foot) Garibaldi’s 1849 four-hundred-mile trek across the Apennine Mountains of central Italy, with a pregnant Brazilian wife and 4,000 soldiers, being chased by Austrian, Spanish, French and Neapolitan armies. By the time he reached the Adriatic coast there were only 250 soldiers left, and Garibaldi’s wife, Anita, soon passed away as well.

Garibaldi originally came from a maritime family, and traveled the world. His exploits in South America (especially Uruguay and Brazil) are well-known, but he also traveled to China (Guangzhou and Xiamen), and spent several years on Staten Island in New York City.

There is a museum at the latter site, the Garibaldi Meucci Museum, and I’ve been wanting to visit it for some time. Luckily, a trip to New York City to pick up my Chinese visa gave me a good excuse. I spent much more than the allotted 45 minutes with the tour guide – and there was even a tie-in with my recent Civil War tours. Apparently President Lincoln was so dissatisfied with Union generals that he offered a Major General’s commission to Garibaldi to fight for the Union Army. Garibaldi refused (given his activities in Italy), but a New York Infantry Regiment of volunteers known as the “Garibaldi Guard” was recruited and did serve the Union cause.