Two American Women of the Risorgimento

As part of the Italy @ 150 series of Bay Area Events, the Museo Italo Americano and The American Italian Historical Association, Western Regional Chapter, will present a lecture on Sunday, March 6, 2011, 2:30 PM, at Il Museo Italo Americano, Building C, in Fort Mason, San Francisco, on Anita Garibaldi and Margaret Fuller. Novelist Dorothy Bryant, author of Anita, Anita: Garabaldi of the New World, 1993, will speak on the life and times of Ana Ribero. Ana was born in Southern Brazil.

When Giuseppe Garibaldi, exiled from Italy, arrived in Brazil and helped the revolutionaries there fight for their independence, she eloped with Giuseppe and literally fought at his side in several battles for the cause of Uruguayan independence. In 1848, she joined her husband in his return to Italy and continued the struggle once more for Italian unification. Lawrence DiStasi, author of Una Storia Segreta, will speak on Margaret Fuller Ossoli.

A woman very much ahead of her time, in the 1840’s she was part of a New England intel- lectual establishment that included Emerson, Thoreau, and Hawthorne. She realized a life dream of visiting and traveling in Europe, and she was assigned to write travel articles for Horace Greeley of the New York Times. When she arrived in London she met Giuseppe Mazzini, and he motivated her to take up the cause of Italian Unification. She traveled to Italy and became a “war correspondent” and chronicled the struggle for Italian independence for the NY Times.

Her articles and observations of the Italy of the times are moving, riveting, and news classics of time. There is so much to their rich lives that are part of the fascinating tales of Italian Unification, so if you want to learn more about these two ladies, plan a trip to Il Museo.

For more information and RSVP call Il Museo at 415-673-2200.

Ken Borelli