Giuseppe Garibaldi | Autograph manuscript Declaration to the students of Pavia, 1859

Giuseppe Garibaldi

Autograph manuscript declaration to the students of Pavia

3 closely written pages, 4to, dated 1859 on the verso, slightly worn at folds

AN IMPORTANT STATEMENT OF GARIBALDI'S POLITICAL AIMS AND OBJECTIVES, made while preparing for what was to become the Expedition of the Thousand. Early in the year he had declared his allegiance to the National Society, which envisaged a struggle for unity under the aegis of the Piedmontese monarchy, and, through political necessity, abandoned the republicanism of Mazzini's Giovine Italia. In February 1859 he was appointed Major General in the Piedmontese army, and led the successful campaign against the Austrians which resulted in the Armistice of Villafranca, signed on 8 July, whereby Austria ceded Lombardy (including Pavia) to Piedmont, while retaining the Veneto. After the peace, Garibaldi launched a subscription for "a million rifles" to liberate the rest of Italy, and the present declaration is addressed to the subscribers of Pavia. Its statement of support for the King, which echoes those made in Giuseppe La Farina's Political Credo of the National Society to which he subscribed, help to explain how the Expedition of the Thousand led to a proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy on 17 March 1861, rather than a republic; while the undimmed anti-clericalism and opposition to the Church's temporal power (likened to that of Satan) foreshadow his unsuccessful Roman campaign of 1867.

The declaration is from the papers of Benedetto Cairoli, a native of Pavia and later Prime Minister of Italy. During the Expedition of the Thousand in the following year, he commanded the 7th Company, which was composed of students from Pavia and was present at the Battle of Calatafimi and the taking of Palermo.

PROVENANCE:

Sotheby's, London, 11 November 1982, lot 119