“From there, through the lens of a great telescope, I saw the Italian standard fly for the first time on the terraces of the Belevedere Fortress, right there in front of me. The pole was surrounded by soldiers who were applauding and enthusiastically tossing their berets into the air. They were red berets and their trousers were red too: I can see them now!...Laugh not, pacific readers of today, but the emotion of that moment continues to beat in my old heart, when I cast my mind back to that scene. Laugh not: because when I trained that telescope on the old tower of my home and saw another tricolour flag hoisted there, tears ran freely down my cheeks”. In these words Matilde Gioli Bartolommei recalls the day in which the Tuscan insurrection exploded, on 27 April 1859. It is a page from her own account, one of the stories of often unknown women and men, who together with Mazzini, d’Azeglio, Garibaldi or Cavour, determined the history of Italy’s Unification.

Conceived as a general introduction to the cultural, social and political world of the Risorgimento, without rhetorical filters or revisionisms, this book connects the reader directly to the most important texts and documents along with the new sources utilized by the most recent historical research. From the literary and iconographic sources, so important in animating the ideals of the Risorgimento, to the private ones, capable of shedding light on the enthusiasms and uncertainties, on the greatness and fragility of the individual participants; not neglecting those who would restore the role of women to its rightful place in the history of the Risorgimento.