XIX0050 – Qui si fa l’Italia o si muore-Calatafimi

Calatafimi, 15 May 1860: “Here we make Italy, or we die”

Twelve days after sailing from Quarto with a thousand volunteers, Giuseppe Garibaldi fought his first battle in Sicily against a Bourbon force holding the heights above Calatafimi. The line attributed to him during the assault — Qui si fa l’Italia o si muore — was addressed to Nino Bixio, and it captures the situation exactly: the expedition had no line of retreat.

The Thousand

The volunteers who left Quarto on the night of 5 May 1860 were not soldiers. They were students, lawyers, doctors, artisans and exiles, mostly from Lombardy, Veneto and Liguria, with a handful of veterans of 1848-49 among them. They sailed on two requisitioned steamers, the Piemonte and the Lombardo, armed largely with obsolete smoothbore muskets purchased or scrounged, and wearing whatever they had — the red shirt, adopted years earlier in South America, was the only thing resembling a uniform.

The Battle

At Calatafimi about 1,100 Garibaldini, joined by Sicilian irregulars, attacked roughly 2,000 Neapolitan regulars occupying terraced ground above them. The assault was made uphill, terrace by terrace, largely with the bayonet because ammunition was short. The Bourbon commander, believing he faced a much larger force and unwilling to risk his line, withdrew towards Palermo. It was a small engagement by European standards and decisive out of all proportion: Sicily concluded that the Bourbons could be beaten, and the island rose.

From Calatafimi to the Kingdom

Palermo fell at the end of May, Milazzo in July, Naples on 7 September. In October Garibaldi met Victor Emmanuel II at Teano and handed him the conquered south, then withdrew to Caprera without accepting title, rank or reward. The Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed on 17 March 1861.

Giuseppe Rava’s Original Work

Giuseppe Rava reconstructs the Garibaldini as they actually looked on that hillside: the red shirt worn over civilian clothing, soft hats and kepis with no common pattern, the mixture of muskets and hunting weapons, the Sicilian picciotti alongside them. The Neapolitan regulars opposite are shown in the regulation dress of the Bourbon army, which was, in equipment terms, the better-armed side.

This is a limited edition fine art print, hand-signed by the artist, produced in SRA3 format on fine art paper. Ships worldwide.