Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2: A series of pen and pencil sketches of the lives of more than 200 of the most prominent personages in History
History
Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2: A series of pen and pencil sketches of the lives of more than 200 of the most prominent personages in History
Biography
Garibaldi has not left the world without some account of his birth,
parentage, and early life. Not a little of his great, naive, and
enthusiastic character may be studied in those Memoirs, of which his
eccentric friend, Alexander Dumas, published a free translation. He
was born July 22, 1807. He was a native of Nice, a city inhabited by a
mongrel race, but himself sprung from a purely Italian family The name
of Garibaldi, common enough throughout North Italy, betokens old
Lombard descent. He first saw light, as he states, in the very house
and room where, forty-nine years before, Massena was born. His father,
Domenico, had come from Chiavari, in the Riviera di Levante; he gives
his mother's name Rosa Raguindo. Garibaldi's father and grandfather
were seamen, and he took to the sea as his native element, developing
great strength and skill as a swimmer, an accomplishment which enabled
him to save drowning men on several memorable occasions. For what book
learning he had he seems to have been indebted to the desultory
lessons of priestly schoolmasters under the direction of his mother.
Of this latter he always spoke with great tenderness, acknowledging
that "to her inspiration he owed his patriotic feelings," and stating
that "in his greatest dangers by land and sea his imagination always
conjured up the picture of the pious woman prostrated at the feet of
the Most High interceding for the safety of her beloved."
In early life he embarked in his father's merchant vessel, a brig, and
in that and other craft he made frequent voyages to Odessa, Rome, and
Constantinople. Soon after the revolutionary movements of 1831 he was
at Marseilles, where he fell in with Mazzini, busy at that time with
the organization of "Young Italy," and with the preparations for an
invasion of Italy by sea, which, upon Mazzini's expulsion from
Marseilles, was attempted at Geneva, and directed against the Savoy
frontier. The Savoy expedition turned out an egregious failure, the
blame of which Garibaldi, on Mazzini's statement, throws on the Polish
General Ramorino's treachery. Garibaldi himself, who had embarked on
board the royal frigate Eurydice to gain possession of that vessel by
a mutiny of the crew, being off Genoa, and hearing of a plot to storm
the barracks of the Carabinieri, landed in the town to join it; but
the attack upon the barracks miscarried, and he, not daring to go back
to his ship, saw himself irreparably compromised, fled to Nice, and
thence crossed the Var and found himself an exile at Marseilles. Here
he betook himself again to his sea life, sailed for the Black Sea and
for Tunis, and at last on board the Nageur, of Nantes, for Rio de
Janeiro.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account