by Lucy Riall
There was never any question about the support of these writers, artists and fellow travellers for Garibaldi. They were also very good at creating a sense of excitement and adventure. Forbes, the British volunteer, thought the members of the press who crowded around the first boat to leave Messina for Calabria as eager as the troops themselves ‘for business’, and commented that they were ‘a plucky lot and going in for the fun of the thing; amongst their number is a French lady, who writes for the Débats. All … will no doubt fight as well as any one if circumstances require; for they are all out-and-out Garibaldians.’130 Many of them did get directly involved in the fighting. Ulric de Fonvielle, like Eber, went to Sicily primarily to fight with Garibaldi, and probably saw his painting as a means of paying his passage. A fervent republican and bitterly opposed to Napoleon III (‘I hear that liberty is awakening in a corner of the world, I run there … come what may!’), he arrived in Sicily in time to fight at Milazzo.131 Even the politically moderate Charles Arrivabene, less engaged with Garibaldi than most of the others, managed to get caught up in the fighting at Cajazzo (north of Naples), and was wounded and briefly taken prisoner.132
The foreign illustrated press, in particular, tended to depict Garibaldi's campaign as an adventure, in which the correspondent himself figured as something of a star. This motif was established by Frank Vizitelly, the writer– artist for The Illustrated London News (‘a big, florid redbearded Bohemian’ who later covered the American civil war, and was killed during the war for Sudan).133 Before Vizitelly's arrival in Palermo, when little was known about events in Sicily, The Illustrated London News – like the other papers, Harper's Weekly and Illustration – published general articles and descriptive illustrations featuring the geography of Palermo and its principal monuments, along with accounts of Bourbon torture (Application of the Tourniquet to a political prisoner was reproduced in The Illustrated London News and Harper's Weekly).134 Vizitelly's arrival shifted the emphasis to war as escapist entertainment, where the difficulties of getting accurate reports became part of the overall excitement. His first article consisted of a lengthy account of his adventures getting to Sicily, while the next began: ‘Garibaldi is fighting in the town. I am going to chance the shots. Lots of sketches and a long letter by the next ship. One is now leaving the harbour. Whiz! all the dust dashed up near me. In great haste.’135
While the war in 1859 had been reported as a conventional military struggle, with picturesque illustrations and descriptions attached, the events of 1860 were described as a revolution, and could be much more spectacular and fantastical for that. Vizitelly's reports and illustrations gave sensational details of the fighting and disorder in Palermo: pictures included Defence of the barricade at Porta Felice; Catching a goverment spy in the streets of Palermo; and the most violent of all, with smoke billowing, troops shooting and lots of dead people: Massacre of people by the royal troops at the convent of the white Benedictines, Palermo (this picture was also published in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper in New York).136 As Türr's troops moved out of Palermo and into the wild Sicilian interior, Vizitelly went with them, sending back to London pictures of Our first bivouac at sunset, near Villafrati; A march through Sicily with the centre column of the national army; and, most vividly, and almost obligatorily, the Narrow escape of our special artist from bandits: the picture showed Vizitelly and his driver escaping in a carriage through a mountainous Sicilian landscape under gunfire (see figure 16 below).137 Other scenes of local colour included Breakfast-hunting at Roccapalumba, A Sicilian village, an ‘amusing’ scene of volunteers stealing poultry in the village while the locals screamed in horror, and Street scene in Naples after the arrival of Garibaldi: this illustration by the American artist, Nast, showed an urchin with an olive branch; an old, fat matron in a tricolour sash with flag; a younger, amazonian female with a dagger; and a man in a uniform, all cheering amid a larger, also cheering crowd.138
16 This illustration by Vizitelly in The Illustrated London News is part of a series on the Sicilian landscape, and indicative of the artist–journalist's self-promotion as the hero of an adventure story.
Through the publication of portraits, the foreign illustrated papers also helped to define the revolution's protagonists as political celebrities. There was a standard image of Garibaldi, more mature than in his previous incarnations, but still instantly recognisable, an attractive figure in (red) shirt and trousers, with beard, hat and sword. Only the German Die Gartenlaube persisted in showing Garibaldi in Piedmontese uniform, recycling an Illustrated London News portrait from 1859.139 Equal care was taken to produce portraits of the other combatants (a ‘cacciatore of the Alps’; a ‘Tuscan volunteer’; ‘one of the squadri’ [sic]).140 The Illustrated London News was especially interested in British involvement with the events in Sicily. It published a portrait by Vizitelly of Mr Edwin James QC, ‘the honourable and learned member for Marylebone’: a portly middle-aged man in flat cap and with two pistols stuck in his belt, who had taken advantage ‘of the leisure afforded to him by the close of the Parliamentary Session and by the long vacation’ to go to southern Italy and join Garibaldi; and it also published an illustration (from a photograph) of four British volunteers (one dressed entirely in tartan), just arrived from Harwich.141 The French Illustration, by contrast, specialised in vivid illustrations of the general volunteer experience: one picture showed all the volunteers barefoot, another showed a large, vigorous group cheering Garibaldi on a crescent beach with Palermo's Monte Pellegrino in the background, while still another showed a disorderly but enthusiastic bunch of men, riding oxen and mules (see figure 17 opposite).142
17 British ‘excursionists’ in Sicily in 1860, from The Illustrated London News. These volunteers posed problems for Garibaldi's army, and the ‘Major Styles’ depicted here (second from left) was a very shady character. On his activities as ‘Captain Styles’, see pages 301–2 below.
Towards the end of the campaign, as the fighting and spectacular street scenes wound down, some papers began to lose interest in the campaign. Others, however, responded by producing various forms of commemorative literature. Harper's Weekly began to produce poems and cartoons. It celebrated Garibaldi's arrival in Naples in a rousing poem which was the opposite of serious: ‘Viva, viva Garibaldi! – Saver of his native land – vogliamo, l'Italia, Una – una – una – viva!= '; and it praised him (entirely erroneously) for ridding Naples of religious ‘rubbish’, by publishing another poem and a satirical cartoon which was first published in Punch: The saint and the hero – Garibaldi driving St. Januarius [complete with his bottle of blood] and the winking picture out of Naples (see figure 18 on page 257).143 Later on, and although the paper did venture some criticism of the treatment of Garibaldi by the Piedmontese government, it did this again through popular verse: ‘The two Kings at Teano’ (which said Garibaldi's throne was ‘far higher’ and ‘nobler’ than King Vittorio Emanuele's), and ‘Two entrances and two exits’:
18 This cartoon of Garibaldi driving St Januarius out of Naples was published in Britain and the USA. The representation of the saint as a stupid and repellent figure is characteristic of the anti-Catholic rhetoric which circulated among Garibaldi enthusiasts in both countries. Note also the saint's bare feet, a common shorthand for Neapolitan poverty and ignorance at this time.
King Garibaldi to never a crown
Or royal robe was born.
He marched to his throne in an old red shirt,
And a pair of trousers torn.
No priest at his coronation stood,
Twixt him and the Power above…
And simple and shabby as he came,
So shabby and simple goes;
Back to Caprera's cabbage-beds,
And early potatorows.144
As part of its Christmas edition, The Illustrated London News offered its readers a twopage spread of the meeting at Teano: the king and Garibaldi loom large in the foreground shaking hands on prancing horses, and they entirely fill the
page (the paper generally preferred enthusiastic crowd scenes with the protagonists as small figures).145 Readers were told that a colour portrait of Garibaldi would be presented (‘GRATIS’) to all subscribers for the following year.146
On the whole, therefore, attempts to persuade journalists that the revolution in southern Italy was a heroic act of justice and a marvellous piece of political drama, and not a violent episode of illegal piracy, were entirely successful. As a rightwing pamphleteer in France complained, Garibaldi's ‘principal military talent … consists of knowing how to open, without shame, the great publicity cashtill’.147 The coverage of Garibaldi's campaign in the press was remarkable for the sheer amount of visual and textual detail which the reader could choose from. Yet the illustrated press in particular preferred to steer clear of politics and instead offered its readers a fairly light-hearted view of events in southern Italy, one in which they could follow vicariously the adventures of their fearless reporters, marvel at the exploits of the soldier heroes, and be alternately shocked and amused by scenes from the war and its surroundings. In this way, the illustrated press ensured that a section of the reading public would engage with Garibaldi's revolution as a form of entertainment.
This approach loosened the political link between the campaign and its reporting which Garibaldi had sought so hard to establish. Moreover, although spectacular, the illustrated coverage was uneven, and relied on a mixture of styles and authenticity. Some illustrations (notably of the barricades at Palermo and many portraits) were lithographed from photographs; some (the scenes of fighting in Palermo, the battle at the Volturno) were drawn ‘from life’; and others (the departure from Quarto, Calatafimi) were entirely imaginary. Thus, careful readers of The Illustrated London News must have been surprised by Garibaldi's transformation from the dark, romantic (and imaginary) figure, dressed in flowing robes, leaving Quarto in the paper's 2 June edition, to the blond, more rotund ‘gentlemanly’ character, wearing tuckedin shirt and trousers, drawn ‘from life’ on the paper's front page on 23 June. Just as often, it is impossible to tell the imaginary from the authentic. L'Illustration and The Illustrated London News included detailed illustrations of the battle of Milazzo, and both reproduced a picture of the hand-to-hand combat between Garibaldi and the Neapolitan cavalry – ‘Garibaldi cutting down the Captain of the Neapolitan cavalry in the charge made by the latter near the bridge of Melazzo’, read the caption in The Illustrated London News – but whether this was really drawn ‘from life’ or simply a visual rendering of Dumas’ account is hard to tell.148
The recasting of war and revolution as semi-fictionalised popular entertainment was most manifest in the commemorative Album storico–artistico, which was issued in parts from September 1860, and was modelled on the war Album from the previous year. The album, whose full title was Historical–artistic Album. Garibaldi in the Two Sicilies or the Italian war of 1860. Written by B.G. with drawings from life, the Palermo barricades, portraits and battles, lithographed by the best artists, came out every two weeks, and was made up of sixty illustrations along with a historical and geographical account of Garibaldi's adventures.149 The narrative took second place to the illustrations: these were large and detailed (each occupying a whole folio page), and of higher quality than anything else in 1860. The artists also seemed more experienced and more talented (and, one assumes, more expensive). Everything about the album, including its publication which spread over two years, was intended for the collector, and seems to have been designed to make it an object of status and consumption.
The album followed the established illustrated formula. It focused on the protagonists, with twentyfour portraits clearly reflecting the cult of political celebrity which developed around the events of 1860. Most of these were taken from photographs; and especially worthy of note is the portrait of a virile Garibaldi on the frontispiece (a copy of a photograph taken in Palermo by the French photographer, Gustave Le Gray), and the portrait of ‘Frate Pantaleo’. Pantaleo is a masterly mix of religious and revolutionary iconography, a hirsute, romantic figure in crusading monk's clothes, his right hand raised in exhortation, his left hand grasping a sword.150 The war scenes were an eclectic mix of fact and fiction which transformed the recent events into a popular spectacle. There were the usual street scenes taken from photographs, and other images lithographed ‘from life’. However, ‘from life’ could mean many things. The departure of the volunteers from Quarto was a version of the painting by the participant Induno, and was a remarkable combination of the realistic (full of historical detail) and the romanticised (replete with melodramatic gestures: it also became the historical source for all subsequent representations of this episode; see figure 19 above).151 Yet most of the key battle scenes (Calatafimi, Milazzo, Volturno) and the entrances of Garibaldi into cities (Palermo, Messina, Naples) have very little historical or geographical detail and seem entirely theatrical. Milazzo, for example, is represented by a palm tree and a huge, broken, fortified gate. In all of them too, Garibaldi is an exemplary figure: sword always held high, always surrounded by fiercelooking fighting men with fixed bayonets (see figure 20 opposite).
19 ‘Garibaldi's departure from Genoa for Sicily’: the standard representation of this event drawn ‘from life’ by Girolamo Induno. The romantic farewell scene involving women and children on the right of the picture would seem to be wholly invented.
20 ‘The taking of Milazzo’: Milazzo was a key moment in the story of the Thousand in which Garibaldi's heroism was rarely more spectacular – elements which are clearly reflected in this illustration of the episode.
Arguably, the most vivid picture of all is drawn entirely from imagination: the Arrival of Garibaldi at Marsala (Sbarco di Garibaldi a Marsala). This episode, one of the most dangerous of the whole campaign and marked by more or less open hostility towards the volunteers, is recast (as it is in almost all the other illustrated accounts of the Thousand) as a festive occasion for a popular hero. Garibaldi, wrapped in a dark cloak, steps calmly off a small rowing boat on to a rocky, mountainous shore (Marsala is flat and has a large jetty), and the crowd hold out their hands towards him in exultation and acclamation. Garibaldi claims Sicily for Italy, and the crowd – a mixed and exotic group of men, women, children, rich and poor – immediately recognise him as their leader. Indeed, one of them has already unfurled a tricolour flag.152 The whole scene bears a remarkable resemblance to contemporary representations of Christopher Columbus arriving in America (see figure 21 overleaf).153
The lives of Garibaldi
The huge, and largely favourable, press coverage of Garibaldi and his campaign in 1860 was accompanied by a fresh wave of histories and biographies dedicated to him and his exploits. These publications are interesting not so much for what they add to our knowledge of events and the man, but for what they can tell us about public interest in him.
21 ‘Garibaldi's landing at Marsala’. This almost entirely fictious representation of the expedition's arrival contains a number of typical elements, notably the cheering crowds and the depiction of Marsala as a wild and rocky shore.
A series of histories of the Thousand came out in 1860 and immediately thereafter. They differed in size, quality, and the amount of narrative detail offered; in the number, quality and/or inclusion of illustrations; and in the endpoint of the narrative (that is, the early histories came out in June, and ended with the taking of Palermo). Some, such as the Storia della insurrezione siciliana by the ex-carbonaro and Mazzinian journalist, Giovanni La Cecilia, were extremely ambitious and aimed at a kind of ‘total history’. Published in different editions in Milan and Palermo, La Cecilia's history ran into two substantial volumes. It offered its readers an effusive description of the Sicilian landscape; a lengthy account of Sicilian history complete with a detailed account of the Bourbon oppression; a detailed narrative of the events from the outbreak of revolution in April 1860 until the arrival of the king in Palermo in December; a large number of Garibaldi's proclamations and pers
onal letters; a series of illustrations and portraits, and a map of Sicily.154 By contrast, the Storia popolare della rivoluzione di Sicilia, by the prolific Milanese writer, Franco Mistrali, was a shorter (160-page), cheaper and less industrious enterprise. But he still managed to cram an enormous amount of material into its pages: a history of Sicily, a number of proclamations, a map and some rather basic illustrations (including a front cover showing Garibaldi in uniform holding sword and flag high above Palermo (see figure 22 above), and the arrival of the volunteers at Marsala to the joyous greetings of its men, women and children).155
22 Garibaldi as a cover hero. The cover itself is a cheap blue affair and the illustrator relies on a standard – but now out-of-date – representation of Garibaldi as a Piedmontese general.
On the surface, therefore, these two books seemed quite different. La Cecilia was a political writer, who from the 1820s had dedicated his journalistic activity to the Mazzinian cause and had been agitating for an expedition to Sicily since the mid-1850s.156 Mistrali, while clearly also from the left, produced ephemeral pamphlets and was eclectic in his choice of subject matter. For example, as well as repeatedly recycling and creating new versions of his history of 1860,157 he produced a vast range of writings, ranging from The inhabitants of the moon to The life of Jesus and The death and testament of Urbano Rattazzi.158 La Cecilia was more critical of Cavour and Piedmontese policy, and less overblown in his exaltation of Garibaldi (Garibaldi's life, according to Mistrali, was ‘a poem of triumph and virtue’).159 Yet the narrative structure of the two books was remarkably similar. The choice of detail and the propensity to praise every aspect of the expedition's history and protagonists was a feature of both. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that both writers were adapting the same narrative formula, combining historical accuracy with romantic invention, and were seeking to make their history as compelling and entertaining as possible to readers.
