Rome, cycle of conferences: action couples and revolutionary loves

Action couples, revolutionary loves. The Roman Republic was not only the extraordinary stage for the deeds of men like Garibaldi and Mazzini, Masina and Manara, Pisacane and Mameli. It was a moment of participation, of choral spirit, of public and private virtues, of visionary and overflowing passions that precipitated from the theoretical requests for renewal into real life, pouring onto the benches of politics, on the battlefields, in improvised hospitals and on the pages of the newspapers , overwhelming everything and everyone in a surge of moving vitality, in which public life and private life chased each other in an evocative game of mirrors.

It is the very presuppositions of the republican revolution carried out in Rome on 9 February 1849 that make this possible: abolition of all differences between citizens, everyone must enjoy equal rights and equal civic virtues are required of all. Even to women. Who respond enthusiastically to the recruitment to help the wounded, preparing bandages, administering care, comforting the dying. Over these unknown heroines of the people, to ideally redeem their anonymity, the names of some famous women stand out, companions in life and sometimes in misfortune of leading exponents of the political and military life of the Republic, the misunderstood female universe of real couples of action in which thoughts, political faith, revolutionary enthusiasm rebounded in the soul of the strongest lovers of French cannon fire, in a crescendo of generosity, participation and self-sacrifice that finds its imperishable symbols in the statuesque figures of Anita and Giuseppe Garibaldi .

To redeem the memory of these anonymous protagonists will be some famous women, companions in life and sometimes in misfortune of more or less prominent exponents of the political and military leadership of the Republic: from Anita, the brave Brazilian who joins her Garibaldi and then follows him in the retreat in which Enrichetta, the woman who left a comfortable family life to join Pisacane, will find death; from Margaret Fuller, the American journalist who, married to an official of the Republic, tells the world with her correspondence to overseas newspapers the tragic days of hope and defeat, to Adele Baroffio, unknown love of Goffredo Mameli; from Cristina di Belgiojoso, the republican princess in charge of running the hospitals, to Giulia Calame, the Swiss wife of Gustavo Modena.

The cycle of conferences, curated by Dr. Mara Minasi and Prof. Giuseppe Monsagrati, promoted by the Department of Culture, Creativity and Promotion Artistica – Capitoline Superintendency for Cultural Heritage, which will be held at the Museum of the Roman Republic from Saturday 18 January until 5 July 2014. It was chosen to entitle it “Couples of action. Love and revolution in Rome in 1849” precisely to underline how the contribution of these women to the experience of freedom in Rome in 49 is less marginal than commonly believed and, on the contrary, tends to affirm a willingness to participate which, spreading to increasingly large sections of the female population and accompanying the completion of the Risorgimento, once again highlights the profound contents of civil growth.  

The first date, Saturday 18 January 2014 at 16.00, is dedicated to one of the historically most famous couples, Anita and Giuseppe Garibaldi. Their daring encounter, their adventurous life, their escapes, the tragic end of Anita are still strongly imprinted in the popular imagination.

Anita never resigned herself to the role of housekeeper, angel of the hearth and, while remaining a loving mother of four children, one of whom, Rosita, who died prematurely, always wanted to be by her José's side, not only sharing his great undertakings political and military, but also the harassment and misery to which the two were often subjected.

Historiography has always addressed the life of the two characters with separate reconstructions, almost never highlighted the aspect of an indivisible couple.

A novel atmosphere envelops the whole affair: Anita's sudden refusal of the bond that saw her united with a man from Laguna, the extreme cruelty and violence of the fighting, the moments of gasping anguish such as when Anita embarked on the search for her José, given up for dead, among hundreds of corpses; and then the continuous escapes between forests and marshes, the ambushes and clashes on the sea and on land that were continually renewed.

In short, as Renata Viganò wrote, it was Anita and Giuseppe's journey "a journey interwoven with glory and pain, happiness and suffering: a marvelous adventure paid for with daring, a heroic price which is the white bread of poetry, a precise, conscious struggle waged on a broad need for justice, the oppressed against the oppressor, the people against tyranny”.

Lauro Rossi, speaker of this first appointment, is an official at the Library of Modern and Contemporary History, a scholar of Italian history between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He has published the volumes for the publisher Gangemi Garibaldi: life, thought, interpretations. Critical Dictionary (2008) and Garibaldi: two centuries of interpretations (2010). Among his other works: Mazzini and the Neapolitan revolution of 1799 (1995) Under the Bourbon I didn't suffer so much: letters from Francesco Crispi after Adua (2000) A political laboratory for Italy: the Roman Republic of 1849 (2011). He also edited the critical edition of theOration to Bonaparte for the Congress of Lyons by Ugo Foscolo (2002) and the volume of the National Edition of Giuseppe Mazzini's Writings dedicated toJacobin and Napoleonic age. (2005). 
“Action couples. Love and revolution in Rome in 1849”: all meetings are at 16.00