Ana Maria de Jesus Ribeiro da Silva di Garibaldi (1821-1849) was the Brazilian-born wife and comrade-in-arms of Italian revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi. Their partnership epidomized the spirit of the 19th century's age of romanticism and revolutionary liberalism. Image File history File links Anita, Garibaldis wife, by Fortunino Matania to illustrate Alexadner Dumas, The Memoirs of Garibaldi (London, Benn, 1931). ... Garibaldi in 1866 Giuseppe Garibaldi (July 4, 1807 – June 2, 1882) was an Italian patriot and soldier of the Risorgimento. ... Romanticism was an artistic and intellectual movement in the history of ideas that originated in late 18th century Western Europe. ... Note: This entry discusses liberalism as a world wide ideology, not its manifestations in any specific country. ...

South American Adventures

Anita Ribeiro was born into a poor, dark-skinned family of herdsmen in Morrinhos in the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina a year prior to that country's independence from Portugal. She was raised by her mother was Aninha do Bentião, who apparently had been abandoned by her Bento "Bentão" Ribeiro da Silva. Anita married Manuel Duarte Aguiar in 1835. Santa Catarina is the name of several places: One of the federal states of Brazil; see Santa Catarina, Brazil. ...

Meanwhile, Giuseppe Garibaldi, a Ligurian sailor turned Italian nationalist revolutionary, had fled to Brazil in 1836 and was fighting on behalf of a separatist republic in southern Brazil (see War of Tatters). Anita joined him on the Rio Pardo in October 1839 and they were soon living as husband and wife. A month later, Anita experienced her baptism of fire at the battles of Imbituba and Laguna, fighting at the side of her lover. They married in 1842 in Montevideo. War of Tatters (in Portuguese: Guerra dos Farrapos) was a Republican uprising that began in the southern Brazil (Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina) in 1835. ...

A skilled horsewoman, Anita is said to have taught Giuseppe about the gaucho culture of southern Brazil and Uruguay. One of Garibali's comrades described Anita as "an amalgam of two elemental forces…the strength and courage of a man and the charm and tenderness of a woman, manifested by the daring and vigor with which she had brandished her sword and the beautiful oval of her face that trimmed the softness of her extraordinary eyes."

In 1841, the couple moved to Montevideo, Uruguay, where Garibaldi worked as a trader and schoolmaster before taking command of the Uruguayan fleet in 1842 and raising an "Italian Legion" for that country's war with the Argentine dictator, Juan Manuel de Rosas. Anita participated in Garibaldi's 1847 defense of Montevideo against Argentina. Independence Plaza Montevideo from space, March 1997 Independence Plaza, c. ... Juan Manuel José Domingo Ortiz de Rosas y López de Osornio (born Juan Manuel Ortiz de Rozas, 1793-1877) was a conservative Argentinian politician who ruled Argentina from 1829 to 1852. ...

Death on Campaign in Italy

Anita accompanied Garibaldi and his red-shirted legionaires back to Italy to join in the revolutions of 1848, where they fought against the forces of the Austrian Empire. In February 1849, they joined in the defense of the newly-proclaimed Roman Republic against Neopolitan and French intervention aimed at restoration of the Papal State. Rome fell to a French siege on June 30. Anita fled from French and Austrian troops with the Garibalian Legion. Pregnant and sick, she died on August 8, 1849 in the arms of her husband on the beach at Mandriole during the tragic retreat. —Alexis de Tocqueville, Recollections The European Revolutions of 1848, in some countries known as the Spring of Nations or the Year of Revolution, were the bloody consequences of a variety of changes that had been taking place in Europe in the first half of the 19th century. ... See also Roman Republic (18th century) and Roman Republic (19th century) The Roman Republic (Latin: Res Publica Romanorum) was the republican government of the city of Rome and its territories from 510 BC until the establishment of the Roman Empire, which sometimes placed at 44 BC the year of Caesar...

Anita remained a presence in Garibaldi's heart for the rest of his life. It was perhaps with her memory in mind that, while traveling in Peru in the early 1850's, he sought out the exiled and destitute Manuela Sáenz, the fabled companion of Simón Bolívar. Years later, in 1860, when Garibaldi rode out to Teano to hail Victor Emanuel II as king of a united Italy, he wore Anita's striped scarf over his gray South American poncho. Doña Manuela Sáenz de Thorne (born December 27, 1797 in Quito (Ecuador) Died November 23, 1856 in Paita, Peru), Libertadora del Libertador, was the lover of the South American revolutionary leader Simón Bolívar. ... Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios (July 24, 1783 – December 17, 1830) was a South American revolutionary leader. ...

References

Lacking a formal education, Anita Ribeiro Garibaldi left only some dictated notes about her experiences. Decades later, Guiseppe described her in his own autobiography.

• Anita Garibaldi: A Biography, by Anthony Valerio (2000).
• Anita, Anita, a novel by Dorothy Bryant (1939).
• Autobiography, by Giuseppe Garibaldi, trans. A Werner (1971).
• Anita Garibaldi, Giuseppe Bandi (1889).
• Anita Garibaldi website hosted by Universidade do Estado de Santa Catarina - UDESC, Florianópolis, Brazil (http://www.udesc.br/variedades/artes/anita).