Death notice for Giuseppe Garibaldi and relics from the Island of Caprera

Mediagallery

Death notice of the funeral honours for Giuseppe Garibaldi

Announcement of the funeral honours following the death of Garibaldi. Exhibited with the notice are a giltwood reliquary frame containing a twig from the pine tree that shades Garibaldi’s tomb on Caprera, donated by his daughter Clelia (together with a scroll with a hand-written dedication), and a fragment of granite from Garibaldi’s tomb with a card written by Clelia Garibaldi.
“But one day suddenly, almost unbelievably, like something that could not possibly happen, the notice of his death resounded and broke hearts. It seemed as though an irresistible force pulled all of Italy to the sea, in order to see there the island, the house, the edge of the great man’s pall. And so it happened that he had died the evening before in that solitude inhabited for so many years by the brilliance of his heart, watching two small birds coming down to perch happily at his window. Even those who had not loved him wept with affection as it was said that watching those birds he spoke of dear spirits come to take his spirit.”

Giuseppe Cesare Abba, Garibaldi, Vallardi, Milan-Rome-Naples, 1902