Garibaldi and England

Giuseppe Garibaldi, the great popular hero of Italian Unification, died a hundred years ago, on June 2nd, 1882. Even in a century that lionised its heroes few ever achieved a fame comparable to Garibaldi, or would see that fame survive into the twentieth century. His exploits in Italy, in France in defence of the Republic in 1871 and earlier in South America had earned him the title 'Hero of the Two Worlds' and made him a household name on both sides of the Atlantic. Russian peasants carried his icon; Balkan revolutionaries waited for him to lead them; both sides in the American Civil War tried to enlist him – and the English paid their peculiarly idiosyncratic tribute by immortalising his name in blouses and biscuits.

The enthusiasm that Garibaldi aroused in Victorian England was astonishing, and the reception he received on his visit to London in 1864 was probably without precedent. But perhaps even more surprising, while most of the heroes of the Victorian age have fallen under the fire of modern historical revision, Garibaldi's heroic stature has, if anything, been enhanced.