Giuseppe Bandi was a follower of Garibaldi and was among those who went with him to Sicily in 1860. Bandi offered this description of his hero in a 1903 account of the exploits of Garibaldi’s volunteers. The sketch is striking for its lack of attention to Garibaldi’s political ideology. Instead, Bandi focused on Garibaldi’s personal qualities, portraying him as a messianic figure, capable of bringing the best out of men by the shear power of his charisma. As you read the passage, consider how Garibaldi and Mazzini might have responded to it. What new strains in European nationalism does Bandi’s writing reflect?

Giuseppe Garibaldi at that time was nearer sixty than fifty years old. Those who had known him in America at the beginning of his adventurous career often told me that his character had not changed much over the years: always calm amid the greatest dangers, disposed to benevolence, moderate in good fortune and equanimous in adversity.

Quite a few men have been blessed by nature with the gifts of energy, courage and contempt for death, which shone forth from him; but very rarely, I think, have there been soldiers so serene and with such self-control as he. One might say, without fear of exaggeration, that the greater the danger, the more extraordinary the difficulty of the enterprise, the more clear and calm his eye became, and the more correct and perceptive his judgment . . . he always had supreme confidence in himself and in his good fortune, and thus he was reluctant to ask advice from others, and contemptuous when advice was offered unasked.

He loved liberty and made himself her paladin; but he maintained that in the hour of danger it was necessary for all to obey the will of one individual. Some people said he had fallen in love with dictatorship when he saw how it operated successfully in the small republics of South America; but I believe he had, as it were, dictatorship in his bones, and that he had become convinced of the need for dictatorial rule because of the extraordinary campaigns he took up. Indeed, the major secret of his victories was his rapid, firm decision-making and the blind faith and devotion of his followers.

What often harmed Giuseppe Garibaldi was that he believed all men were honest, devoted to their country and free from any desire for personal gain; hence it often happened that if he heard accusations against someone who had wormed his way into his affections he would become indignant at what seemed to him malevolent slander, and his esteem for the accused would grow rather than diminish. And so he suffered much disillusionment, but he never learned to repent of his excessive trust, nor to recognise low cunning when he came across it . . . he had no idea of the value of money, nor could he ever understand why most people prize it. He was very willing to forgive those who had offended him, but he was pitiless against the men who had ceded his native Nice to France. And every time he spoke of his native land, detached from Italy and handed over to the French Empire, he could not restrain his tears. . . .

No man can say he ever saw Giuseppe Garibaldi constrain his soldiers to obedience with threats or force; no man ever heard his voice raised in anger, except when he seemed to imitate the trumpet as he urged us on to attack. His universal reputation for justice, honesty and goodness formed a halo around his lion’s head; the flash of his eyes or the sound of his voice, always calm and solemn, were enough to make the proud become obedient, the undisciplined become tame, the cowardly become brave. The man was so serene, so simple in his manners, his dress and habits; he had something so majestic, enchanting and attractive about him, that just to hear his voice you trembled and could not help loving him, and you would rush joyfully to face death under his gaze, as if it were a fine, divine thing to die observed and approved by such a man.

Source: Martin Clark, The Italian Risorgimento, 2d ed. (London: Pearson, 2009), pp. 117–118. © Pearson Education Limited 2009. Reproduced by permission of Taylor & Francis Books UK.

Questions to Consider