There is no doubt that Italians consider the “Niçois” Giuseppe Garibaldi as one of their own. Recently, as part of the celebrations for the Italian Unification which began on May 5th in Quarto, the departure point of the Expedition of the Thousand that led to the conquest of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and the subsequent establishment of the Kingdom of Italy under the House of Savoy, the President of the Italian Republic, Giorgio Napolitano, paid a heartfelt tribute to the historical figure of this hero of the Two Worlds.
And June 2nd is ideally linked to the memory of the day of Giuseppe Garibaldi’s death on his island of Caprera and also to the day of the birth of the Italian Republic.
Giuseppe Garibaldi, who was a fervent republican and who acquiesced to the need for the establishment of a Kingdom only due to “realpolitik,” was proven right once again even if, unfortunately, posthumously. Garibaldi wanted a republican Italy, and today Italy is a republic.
And if the whims of history made it so that on this same day, June 2nd, both the events of Giuseppe Garibaldi’s death and the celebration of the proclamation of the “Repubblica Italiana” occurred, how can we not see a symbolic sign of destiny in this?
