Fondazione BresciaMusei and the Municipality of Brescia, in collaboration with the State Museums of the Republic of San Marino and under the patronage of the National Museum of the Italian Risorgimento in Turin, present an important exhibition dedicated to the figure of Anita Garibaldi. After the initiatives that the Foundation has addressed to Giuseppe Garibaldi, the 2025 programming closes with an in-depth look at Ana Maria de Jesus Ribeiro, known as Anita Garibaldi, a central figure of the Italian Risorgimento.
The heart of the exhibition at the Museo del Risorgimento “Lioness of Italy” is the presentation of a dress that belonged to Anita, left in San Marino in July 1849 during the dramatic retreat to Venice that followed the fall of the Roman Republic. This artifact also allows the rediscovery of private and everyday aspects, such as the gestures of female solidarity that marked her journey, adding an intimate dimension to the grand historical narrative. After the collapse of the Roman Republic, Anita followed Giuseppe Garibaldi in his escape to Venice. Exhausted, pregnant and tried by the journey, she was welcomed in Cetona, where local women made and donated a new silk robe for her on behalf of the entire community. The garment accompanied Anita all the way to San Marino, where on July 31, as she was about to depart, she exchanged it in the store of the haberdasher Teresa Simoncini for a simpler dress suitable for escape. The robe thus remained in San Marino, kept by the Simoncini family, and soon became a symbolic object of Risorgimento memory. Over the decades it was displayed at numerous events. In 1949, the Martelli family donated it to the San Marino State Museums: the robe became part of the nascent collection of Garibaldi relics and became a true secular relic dedicated to Anita and her role in the Italian Risorgimento myth.
The exhibition also provides an opportunity to present Anita Garibaldi - narrating avatar, a project that testifies to Fondazione Brescia Musei’s commitment to combining historical research and digital innovation to enhance cultural heritage. The aim is to reinterpret scientific content with contemporary languages, in line with the installation awarded in 2023 at the Red Dot Award (category “Exhibition Design”)and signed by the Limiteazero studio, which characterizes the renovated Museo del Risorgimento. The project is presented as a temporary installation of augmented mediation, built around the dialogue between two material testimonies: the black silk dress that belonged to Anita and the painting Anita dying (circa 1864) by Pietro Bouvier. Through a Qrcode, the avatar gives voice to this symbolic dialogue between history and image.
“It is a great pride for Fondazione Brescia Musei to conclude a year so intensely dedicated by our Risorgimento Museum ”Lioness of Italy to the figure of Giuseppe Garibaldi, investigated through multiple perspectives and analyzing his historical role and fortune in the visual arts, with the exhibition of such a symbolic and evocative object. Anita Garibaldi’s dress, an extraordinary artifact of material culture, recalls the values of courage of this female figure so involved in national destinies and intensely dedicated to the community. They are, these, values in which we recognize ourselves and therefore we applaud this precious loan that allows our institution to cement its relationship with the National Museums of the Republic of San Marino," said Francesca Bazoli, President of Fondazione Brescia Musei.
“With L’abito di Anita Garibaldi,” said Stefano Karadjov, Director Fondazione Brescia Musei, “Fondazione Brescia Musei seals an important relationship with a lending museum such as the National Museums of the Republic of San Marino and with its partner Museo Nazionale del Risorgimento Italiano in Turin. In addition, as is customary in our scientific projects, our institution collaborates with the highest scientific authority on the subject, Silvia Cavicchioli, to whom I am grateful for the in-depth study and collaboration with our Collections sector. Sector of Brescia Musei, which this year nurtured a dense Risorgimento program built around history courses, dossier exhibitions and events that recalled the highlights of the civil liturgy of the Risorgimento, so important for the city’s history and for the Brescian community to which this precious Museum of the Risorgimento ”Lioness of Italy“ continues, with projects such as The Dress of Anita Garibaldi, to provide valuable stimuli and continuous spur for in-depth study.”
“We are very pleased to continue the collaboration between the National Museum of the Italian Risorgimento in Turin and the Museum of the Risorgimento in Brescia, which was successfully launched on the occasion of the exhibition Rileggere il Risorgimento nel 2024. The important exhibition dedicated to Anita Garibaldi’s dress represents a new, significant chapter in this common path, which we hope will increasingly consolidate the cooperation between our institutions in the enhancement and promotion of the history of the Risorgimento,” commented Alessandro Bollo, Director National Museum of the Italian Risorgimento.
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| Anita Garibaldi's dress on display at Brescia's Museo del Risorgimento |
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