No Murmur But Palpitations

The face of the urban

The urban fabric of Bergamo, as well as the collective historical memory, it is still characterized by the figure of Garibaldi and the experience of voluntary Expedition of the Thousand . The names and faces of the general Bergamo and its most celebrated contributors, along with the names of certain places and battles won, won in the space of a century a part of city spaces, naming streets and squares and monuments and plaques in materializing: it is an urban route that refers to the actual path of the expedition, but also the imaginary renaissance in the territory and the self-perception that the community wanted and that Bergamo had passed in reference to the way the unit.

The process begins during the epic story of The Thousand and continued after 1860 on the occasion of anniversaries of deaths of personality, marked by public ceremonies and supported by the work of construction of Italian identity, initiated by elites at the national level through reading in the heroic sense of the Risorgimento and ideologically unified, which is established and indispensable source of eternal values \u200b\u200b(home, monarchy, sacrifice, heroism, etc.)..

Recalling remind posterity and making the link between the city and Garibaldi, and even more the voluntary contribution of blood since unification in 1860 contrary to the intentions of the government of Turin, Bergamo Bergamo shape and features with their heroic role in the Risorgimento. No coincidence that the majority of place names in urban public spaces refers to the first part of the Expedition of the Thousand, the start of the Fourth Battle of Milazzo, the heroic phase, when the sun's military resources, ideological and human volunteers was given the success of 'enterprise: among them were the most the people of Bergamo numerous.

The connotation of urban spaces proceeds parallel to the memory of the Risorgimento and the Expedition, which took shape in the private individual and family, where the memory translated into images, objects and the written word occupies mental spaces and home with an identical array heroic. The presence of this matrix
heroic paradoxically also highlights the specific desire to avoid a complete identification between Bergamo and Garibaldi. The community Indeed, as demonstrated by the events of monument to Garibaldi, exalts the heroism and patriotism of the general, but rejects the anti-clericalism and democratic ideas.

50s of the twentieth century. Bergamo, the statue of Garibaldi in the Rotunda of the Thousand (right Teatro Duse, later demolished)

The itinerary outlined Garibaldi Urban beginning in 1860 in time becomes not only a "memento patriae "which drew the attention of citizens during the flow of everyday life, but a set of" combining sites "at public ceremonies which are held on the occasion of anniversaries and historical conventions, organized both by the authorities, either by private associations of veterans or party. The path widens
century size and values \u200b\u200bduring and after the First World War, when the myth of Garibaldi and the Risorgimento in general and in particular is called strongly urged by the official propaganda as a source of energy for the ideological "nation in arms. " The focal point of the route is placed first, then the seat of the University, which was inaugurated in 1917, the Civic Museum of the Risorgimento, and then at the complex of the fortress, where he opened in 1927, the Park of Remembrance for those killed during the war and which is then transferred to the Civic Museum in 1933. The complex thus becomes a place of memory town devoted to events and the protagonists of unification, then presented and handed down to posterity as a continuum of war and ideological conflict from the Risorgimento to the first world.

The centennial of the expedition of the Thousand and marks a flourishing of celebrations, dedications and studies of areas in which still intent, content and matrix of the heroic past, established in un'accreditata, collective reading of the Risorgimento and the role avutovi from Bergamo. The trail in Garibaldi city retains its center at the Civic Museum at the Castle, but expanded with a section dedicated to the Resistance, which in the full intentions of the curators from the standpoint of military and ideological continuity Risorgimento-twentieth century.
Today the face of the urban Garibaldi is still clearly visible and raises questions not so much about his past, but on its timeliness: the values \u200b\u200bthat preserve or before it and the existence and content of his dialogue with the community.

Horns, The Museum of the Risorgimento in Bergamo, "Museum & History", n. 6, year 2008

Bergamo Foundation for the History