“Hero of Two Worlds” - The Equestrian Monument to Giuseppe Garibaldi in Buenos Aires, Argentina
At a Glance
Section titled “At a Glance”| Metadata | Details |
|---|---|
| Publication Date | 2022-01-01 |
| Journal | Italian American Review |
| Authors | Heather Sottong |
Abstract
Section titled “Abstract”On September 21, 1897, both houses of the Argentine National Congress approved the placement of an equestrian monument of Giuseppe Garibaldi in the Parque 3 de Febrero. The monument was inaugurated in 1904, and the name of the plaza where the statue stands was changed from Plaza de los Portones to Plaza Italia. At around the same time, in the decades following Garibaldi’s death in 1882, monuments in his honor sprang up in a number of cities throughout Italy.1 While it seems only natural that Garibaldi would be so ubiquitously honored in the country that he helped to unify, it comes as more of a surprise that a Risorgimento hero would receive such a great honor within Argentina, at a time when many Argentine national heroes had yet to be memorialized.Scholarship on the Garibaldi monument has thoroughly addressed the growing xenophobia at the time toward the numerous and increasingly politically involved Italian community, whose civic celebrations and demonstrations of Italian nationalism led to fears among the Argentine ruling class of potential social disintegration (Bertoni 1992; Dosio 2010). Why, then, was the installation of the monument in a prominent public place approved and festivities at its inauguration encouraged? And what was the intended symbolic significance of the monument for non-Italian Argentines? To answer these questions, I will turn to the writings of Bartolomé Mitre (president of Argentina from 1862 to 1868), whose vision, I argue, is vital for understanding why this particular hero was advanced symbolically within the public space. I will examine Mitre’s mythologized depictions of the general, as well as his articulation of the meaning of the monument as a marker of Italian Argentine fraternity and Garibaldi’s “cosmopolitan fame” ([1899] 1902, 166). Finally, I will discuss how certain iconographic features of the monument publicly and visually corroborate the aim of the ruling elite to portray Buenos Aires as internationally important, a cosmopolitan city on par with the Eternal City, Rome.Giuseppe Garibaldi, the leading military hero of Italian unification, was also a well-known figure on the South American continent. Following his involvement in a failed plot to overthrow the Piedmontese government, he fled to South America in November of 1835. He was to stay there in exile for just over twelve years before returning to Italy in January 1848 to fight for the cause dearest to him—Italian unification.During his South American sojourn, Garibaldi was actively involved in revolutionary military campaigns. Not long after his arrival in southern Brazil, he took up arms on behalf of the Republic of Rio Grande do Sul in the so-called Ragamuffin War. It was in Brazil that he met his wife, Ana Maria de Jesus Ribeiro da Silva, better known as Anita, with whom he moved to Uruguay in 1841. There he became involved in the Uruguayan Civil War, raising an “Italian Legion,” which he led in battle alongside the Colorados and the Argentine Unitarios (including Mitre) against the former Uruguayan president Manuel Oribe’s Blancos and Juan Manuel de Rosas’s Federales. Garibaldi quickly became famous for his raids, which lessened the effects of the blockades during the most difficult years of the siege (Scirocco 2007, 123). It was also in Uruguay that he and his troops first donned the red shirts and ponchos that became his trademark.2 Fittingly, the monument in Buenos Aires depicts him wearing this poncho, a staple of iconography in his honor on both continents.The dramatic equestrian statue of Garibaldi in Buenos Aires depicts the hero on horseback with a drawn sword in his right hand. With his left hand he is reining in his horse, which the viewer imagines has just been galloping across the pampa. He is depicted as a man of action, in contrast to the more serene and static sister statue located in Brescia (1889). Both works were executed by the Italian sculptor Eugenio Maccagnani, who won an international competition for their commission. The South American version stands upon a stone base with high reliefs that reference the life of the “hero of two worlds.”3The plan for immortalizing Garibaldi with a monument in Buenos Aires first emerged in the Circolo Italiano, one of the most important associations of Italian Argentines, in June of 1882, just days after his death. A few weeks later, on June 25, a grand civic funeral was held, involving the participation of a number of organizations such as Sociedad Mazzini, Sociedad Unione e Benevolenza, Sociedad Umberto Primo, Sociedad Unione e Fratelanza Italiani, Club Liberal, Gran Oriente Argentina, and many others.4 The group Italia Unita marched in procession behind a dozen children dressed as garibaldinos5 with black gloves who held up in their hands a pyramid with the initials “G.G.” at the pinnacle. The center of the ceremony was Plaza Once, where they had constructed a catafalque—a large pyramid with the bust of the Italian hero (Vedoya 1977, 16).The civic funeral was well attended by Buenos Aires’s Italian population, which, thanks to the great influx of immigration that occurred in the latter half of the nineteenth century, was substantial. Between 1857 and 1900, two million European immigrants were admitted to Argentina, 1,116,000 of whom remained in the country. Among those who remained, 660,392 were Italian. In other words, approximately 60 percent of all European immigrants at the time were Italian (White 1942, 135). If we look more specifically at the years between the proposal and eventual inauguration of the equestrian monument (1881 to 1910), there were a total of 3,253,551 immigrants; 1,715,768 of them were Italian, meaning that 52 percent of all immigrants to Argentina at the turn of the century came from Italy (Baily 1999, 54).The considerable Italian community in Buenos Aires had a fair amount of civic power when it came to honoring the heroes of their fatherland within their new homeland. For the most part, the prompt realization of monuments dedicated to Italians in Buenos Aires was due to the private initiatives of these Italian immigrants, who were eager to establish their own symbolic locations. Preceding the inauguration of the Garibaldi monument was the 1878 unveiling of a monument dedicated to Giuseppe Mazzini, the work of the sculptor Giulio Monteverde, in Plaza de Julio, and later, the 1921 Christopher Columbus monument by Arnaldo Zocchi, which stands in Plaza Colón.6The Garibaldi monument was officially approved by Argentina’s congress in September 1897, and the groundbreaking ceremony took place in 1899. The eventual inauguration of the monument in 1904 was a much-amplified version of his funeral and was thoroughly promoted and documented by leading periodicals such as La Prensa, the most widely circulated daily newspaper in Argentina. In the days leading up to the celebration, they continually published episodes and anecdotes from the life of Garibaldi and updates on the elaborate schedule of festivities. Following the occasion, which they proclaimed to be “the biggest tribute yet to the hero” (La Prensa 1904, 4), they published a full-page description of the events, which they estimated were attended by 145,000 people: twenty thousand in Pueyrredón Street; thirty thousand in Santa Fe; thirty thousand in front of the gates; forty thousand marching in the parade; fifteen thousand on the balconies and terraced roofs; five thousand in the cars and electric trams; and five thousand on the stages. The inauguration is compared to the grand celebrations on national holidays such as the 1st of January, the 25th of May, the 9th of July, and the 25th of December. The June 20 issue of La Prensa proclaimed: Buenos Aires presenció ayer una de las cuatro más grandes, más entusiastas y más significativas y también de las más justificadas manifestaciones públicas que su población ha realizado hasta ahora. Todo Buenos Aires estaba en la calle. (La Prensa 1904, 4)(Yesterday Buenos Aires witnessed one of the four biggest, most enthusiastic, most meaningful, and also most justified public demonstrations that her population has yet to experience. All Buenos Aires was in the street.7)Similar fanfare is described in detail in the smaller, popular publication Caras y Caretas: Semanario Festivo, Literario, Artistico y de Actualidades. The June 25, 1904, edition of this magazine announced: Con toda la pompa y esplendor que nosotros le augurábamos en nuestro último número, se inauguró el domingo pasado el monumento que han erigido á Garibaldi sus connacionales.Desde las primeras horas de la tarde una muchedumbre enorme llenaba la plaza Italia, las azoteas y balcones de las casas vecinas y las calles de Santa Fe y Pueyrredón, en donde se organizaron en columna las sociedades italianas que desfilaron frente al monumento. No menos de sesenta mil personas asistieron al acto, revistiendo éste una solemnidad sólo vista en las espontáneas manifestaciones populares de nuestros aniversarios patrios. (“La inauguración del monumento á Garibaldi” 1904, 32)(With all the pomp and circumstance that we predicted in our last edition, the monument erected to Garibaldi by his fellow countrymen was inaugurated last Sunday.From early afternoon, a great crowd filled Plaza Italia, as well as the rooftops and balconies of the nearby houses in the streets of Santa Fe y Pueyrredón, where lined up the Italian organizations that paraded in front of the monument. No less than sixty thousand people attended the event, which was celebrated with a solemnity that only has been seen in the spontaneous popular demonstrations on our national anniversaries.)Although the accounts in La Prensa and Caras y Caretas differ greatly with regard to the number of attendees (60,000 versus 145,000), they are otherwise similar, and both underscore that the inauguration was not a small community celebration for Italian Argentines alone, but a massive civic celebration that had as precedent the patriotic celebrations on national holidays. As we shall see shortly, it was precisely this similarity that delighted supporters and angered opponents of the monument.The official ceremony began at 2:30 p.m., when then President Julio Argentino Roca took the stage, accompanied by former president General Mitre and his aides-de-camp, Colonel Gramajo and Commander Catán.8 The head of the organizing committee, Tomás Ambrosetti, read a eulogy to Garibaldi and explained how the monument was donated by Italians to the city of Buenos Aires. Once the statue was uncovered, Roca signed the inaugural act and congratulated the sculptor Maccagnani for his work. Then the many associations that had lined up to parade in front of the monument began their march (“La inauguración del monumento á Garibaldi” 1904, 33). The organizations that wanted to affiliate themselves with the monument were many and included not just Italian associations but also Argentine, French, Swiss, and Portuguese associations.9Another group with a strong presence at the ceremonies were the Freemasons. Garibaldi himself was initiated into Freemasonry in 1844 at the age of thirty-seven in a lodge in Montevideo that was under the jurisdiction of the Grand Orient of France. In 1864, he was elected grand master, but he resigned two months later. For Garibaldi, Freemasonry was an organization that was the “mother of democracy” (Mola 2013, 227-231). Giuseppe Mazzini, founder of the revolutionary society Young Italy, had also been a grand master, and his monument was made possible by Argentine masons, and in particular Mitre’s successor, Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, president of Argentina from 1868 to 1874 (Gutiérrez Viñuales 2006, 4).10The close of the ceremony was signaled by the firing of a cannon. The celebration continued well into the night, with individual celebrations held by various Italian associations. Regarding the inauguration, the Caras y Caretas writers concluded, “Creemos que el comité organizador debe estar plenamente satisfecho de su obra y de la propaganda que hizo en pro de la inauguración del monumento” (We believe that the organizing committee should be fully satisfied with their work and the propaganda they produced on behalf of the inauguration of the monument; “La inauguración del monumento á Garibaldi” 1904, 33-34). For the writers from La Prensa, the reason for honoring Garibaldi is clear: “No vivió sino para luchar por la idea de justicia” (He only lived to fight for justice; La Prensa 1904, 4).If we were to look merely at these press clips, we might conclude that the inauguration proceeded without controversy and opposition. This is not the case, however, given that for many other social and religious groups, the erection of the monument was an absolute scandal. There was both Catholic and parliamentary pushback, as well as hostility about the initiative from socialists and anarchists. Many city government officials and congressional representatives were weary of the statue project because they feared that if they gave permission of this sort, then foreign groups would proceed to fill the plazas and public spaces with their memorials. One person who was strongly opposed to the initiative for this reason was the congressional delegate from Entre Ríos province, Lucas Ayarragaray, who proposed a measure in 1896 for a law that decreed Parque 3 de Febrero as a sitio cosmopolita (cosmopolitan site), a stage on which foreign communities could erect their monuments, leaving other plazas and avenues of Buenos Aires open for the honoring of Argentine national heroes (Gutiérrez Viñuales 2006, 6). At the turn of the century, many Argentine patriots did not have their own statues. In fact, at the time of the inauguration, none of the members of the Primera Junta (besides Manuel Belgrano), the Triunveratos, or the Congresso de Tucumán who signed the independence had yet been honored with a public monument.11Another concern of various groups was the fanaticism that the statue engendered. In the June 19, 1904, issue of La Protesta, an anarchist newspaper, the inauguration received a front-page article titled “Ídolos,” by J. Alberto Castro (1904) in which he bitterly mocked the “idolatry” of the multitude during the ceremony. In the center of the page is a political cartoon titled “Apoteosis,” which depicts Roca and Pablo Ricchieri12 whispering to each other in the foreground while a mob surrounds what is clearly a representation of the equestrian monument in the background: RICCHIERI: Aplauden los imbéciles, ante uno de esos nuevos dioses.ROCA: Sí, se contentan con eso, nada más; entre tanto, nosotros, hijos de esos dioses, herederos del sable, sigamos gozando en el Olimpo, que el pueblo continúe de rodillas ante sus ídolos. (La Protesta 1904, 1)(RICCHIERI: The imbeciles applaud in front of one of those new gods.ROCA: Yes, they are happy with that, and nothing more; in the meantime, we, the sons of those gods and heirs of the saber, continue enjoying ourselves on Olympus, while the people continue to kneel before their idols.)For the anarchists, then, the statue is nothing more than a distraction that the tiranos (tyrants) have planted in the public view to keep the multitudes on their knees.The Catholic daily newspaper La Unión came down equally hard against the monument honoring the anticlerical Garibaldi. Their pages rant about the danger in the fanaticism surrounding the statue, arguing that “el garibaldismo es una secta frenética que lleva sus delirios hasta divinizar a un desgraciado” (garibaldianism is a frenetic sect that takes its delirium to the point of deifying a disgrace; La Unión1882). The objection in a 1897 publication of the Asociación Católica de Buenos Aires is that Garibaldi was a “manzana de discordia” (an apple of discord) and that his actions brought about unrest and perverse suggestions that derailed Italy from following in the “tradiciones gloriosas de su cristiano pasado” (the glorious traditions of her Christian past; Estatua de José Garibaldi1897, 4-5).Leopoldo Lugones, writing for the socialist newspaper La Montaña in 1897, unabashedly attacked the Catholic response to the proposal for the statue. He questioned why anyone would be so outraged by this noble initiative and why the opponents experienced such rage at “la posible grandeza humana” (the possible human is that they are for not the that Garibaldi was to á Garibaldi. wanted to be as great as Garibaldi. In the monument was a only by esos á la y la en una those who to their own and to it as an equestrian monument to Garibaldi in Buenos Aires produced that upon political religious and group communities after of monuments to their and and the meaning of monuments is but As meaning is not in stone at it might be on or the of In the of the Garibaldi the controversy was what I would to on two of the more that the monument to why and why Garibaldi before other Argentines? In other words, what was it about Garibaldi the man and his South American that such and why would an Italian be honored with a monument of such before other national In to a more response to these questions, I would to to the writings of the first president of the Argentine who Garibaldi and who a in the groundbreaking ceremony and the Bartolomé and Garibaldi were and on the same during the of the two Garibaldi to Mitre was president of Argentina from 1862 to when both Italy and Argentina were to national the two themselves as on Mitre was an of Italian immigration and of initiatives to Italian within Buenos Aires his of the Mitre was at both the groundbreaking ceremony and the inauguration and gave a that is with regard to the intended Once I have Mitre’s of Garibaldi the man and Garibaldi the I will on how the particular iconography of this between Giuseppe Garibaldi and Bartolomé Mitre was well In two years after the inauguration of the it became the of a titled a by the se una la del de que en Garibaldi y Mitre las la de que la de en el se el un de de y de was seen a that of the Italian his American a Garibaldi and Mitre the two the of Italian and Argentine fill the with in they each the they met one of and of and Garibaldi, both of and of their were not only but on the on the during the of as the Colorados (including were with the Argentine Unitarios (including The Argentine in Montevideo were in the of La Italia of which Garibaldi had a in In fact, it was his involvement in a plot to overthrow the Piedmontese government that him in South Garibaldi to Rio de in he brought with him General of Young and the issue of Italia. He to on January to his of up of Young Italy in Buenos Aires and Montevideo for the of to to Italy when the came (Scirocco 2007, 33). than two years later, a group of led by their own version of the organization known as Asociación de la Argentina Mitre first met Garibaldi in at the of the He would his with the Italian hero in an titled It is at Mitre’s of Garibaldi because depictions were just as important as when it came to Garibaldi’s in the public for the publication of Garibaldi’s which became a for the of both to the of his For Argentines in the writings of Bartolomé Mitre were when it came to immortalizing the Not only did he as president from 1862 to he was also Argentina’s leading at the time, two works of the de y de la and de y de la from the Mitre’s to the and its heroes are he first a of the Garibaldi was a with various Italian As they the of Young Italy, Garibaldi in y con un de una de á la un de a and while he with a of a a of Mitre On a occasion, Mitre had a to with and his in his military which was the for de que un por y un y un y una de por en las de la con su de la de la y en la á la de la en el de Mitre that he was a both by and a and he an and a head filled with at the time was to on the of with his of the for the Italian He was to the of on the of or that Mitre was that Garibaldi would his of the of and gave Mitre the una y un en un al con á la grandeza y al a head and in of a by a with an to and Mitre to him on his political Mitre was thoroughly that he was with en y con un hero in and a hero with One their was by As the and the the to arms all the Garibaldi a red with and in the of a his to He led troops into battle que en y que en los that that he had and that was in the most of Garibaldi as a of On one during the Mitre witnessed Garibaldi the Argentine Juan Manuel de who held of Argentine as of Buenos Aires. Mitre that the who was with the Manuel was the of Garibaldi, the of at the of a small only with and two with which he the It was then that Mitre Garibaldi’s power to as and to his Mitre in those early days in Garibaldi had Mitre that Garibaldi’s is not just on of his but because of his when his Mitre but his y por la en los de la y de la su más su de á las y el de su y en de los a with he was both and his was on of his as was the power he held over the and the of his and serene in the of Garibaldi’s well-known to his and his to stay to his strong This on Garibaldi’s is when in with the eventual given that one of statue is to visually a figure as with certain that the or government to As Dosio in her article on the Garibaldi the de in and de los of were time and time in the the which to the of government and to among the is the that the opponents of the such as the who had him a what they as a of as the reason that Garibaldi should not receive the honor of the the of in and the of the of Italy in Mitre and Garibaldi remained Their is to the that the two themselves to be on a to and to Italy and to Argentina. On 1864, a then Garibaldi, writing from Mitre his en la on the and Mitre’s at in in the against and the of the he of the in the battle against He Mitre with on of his and his by that it was his to en de los del que Buenos Aires es el de las del que de y de y que de el de la de las y la de los in the name of the noble people of the that Buenos Aires is the center of the of who be it of class or that throughout these the of fraternity between and the of Buenos Aires as a place where a political by noble who The of such a this president at the will la á
Tech Support
Section titled “Tech Support”Original Source
Section titled “Original Source”References
Section titled “References”- 1999 - Immigrants in the Lands of Promise: Italians in Buenos Aires and New York City, 1870 to 1914
- 2006 - Politics, Public Space, and Memorials: The Brawl on the Mall [Crossref]
- 1992 - Construir la nacionalidad: héroes, estatuas y fiestas patrias, 1887-1891
- 1904 - Ídolos
- 1990 - Hacer política en Buenos Aires: los italianos en la escena pública porteña, 1860-80
- 1898 - El hombre de la camisa roja
- 1907 - Oda a Mitre (1906)
- 1996 - Making Sense of Modernity: Changing Attitudes toward the Immigrant and the Gaucho in Turn-of-the-Century Argentina [Crossref]