[HN Gopher] Garibaldi, history's sexiest revolutionary?
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Garibaldi, history's sexiest revolutionary?
Author : thomassmith65
Score : 77 points
Date : 2025-11-16 00:38 UTC (7 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.historyextra.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.historyextra.com)
| al2o3cr wrote:
| It's amazing how many Italian dictators had biscuits named after
| them.
|
| You've got the Garibaldi of course, you've got your Bourbon, and
| you've got your Peek Freens Trotsky assortment!
| thomassmith65 wrote:
| It's weird to remember Garibaldi as a dictator, as though he
| were similar to Mussolini or Hitler. That said, he was one, for
| a few months in 1860.
| golem14 wrote:
| I know little more than what is written in Giovanni
| Guareschi's work. But he feels more like the Napoleon of
| Notting Hill. I wonder where Chesterton got his inspiration
| from...
| gattilorenz wrote:
| Which of Guareschi's work is about Garibaldi?
|
| I can imagine he's mentioned a lot in Don Camillo since the
| communist and socialist parties in the first republican
| election of Italy joined in a coalition called "the
| Garibaldi front", but Garibaldi himself was already long
| dead by then.
| toyg wrote:
| He's a unique figure. Running across the world, finding
| himself constantly drawn to battles for the freedom of this
| or that group, he had a penchant for winning military
| campaigns that were then politically squandered by the
| people he trusted. A committed republican at a time when it
| was a revolutionary and scandalous position, he won half of
| Italy for a king he didn't like (and who _really_ didn 't
| like him) and then effectively self-exiled. More than once,
| he had to be held back by aristocratic leaders scared by
| his "uppity" plebeian success. And he was as popular as the
| Beatles - all over Europe, men wanted to die for him and
| women wanted to run away with him. The difference between
| him and Napoleon (the real one from Corsica, not Notting
| Hill) was that he sincerely never wanted to rule anything
| or anyone.
| bjourne wrote:
| That description fits Che Guevara too. Who,
| coincidentally, also was considered to be incredibly
| handsome.
| colinb wrote:
| I have happy memories of the struggle to open the Trotsky
| boxes. In my house we used to have them with cocktails, so it
| was easiest to just pull out the bar tools and hack away.
|
| (Oh the embarrassment. My ears are burning)
| petesergeant wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11CvBKpKbn8
|
| from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bambi_(The_Young_Ones)
| teo_zero wrote:
| > how many Italian dictators had biscuits named after them.
|
| So, how many?
| esperent wrote:
| Well, it seems Garibaldi biscuits were genuinely named after
| this guy. However Bourbon was named for the House of Bourbon,
| a French royal family.
|
| I'm discounting the Peek Freens Trotsky assortment because
| Trotsky was, of course, Russian.
|
| So, one. Which is still more than you might expect.
| orwin wrote:
| Also, Trotsky was only a only a butcher and repressor,
| never a dictator, as he didn't held power.
| sofixa wrote:
| > House of Bourbon, a French royal family
|
| Which also ruled in Spain and multiple different parts of
| Italy (like Parma and the Two Sicilies).
| anonnon wrote:
| Garibaldi wasn't a dictator.
| thomassmith65 wrote:
| While it's misleading to characterize him as a dictator
| without further context, he momentarily was.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictatorship_of_Giuseppe_Garib.
| ..
| jjgreen wrote:
| The original quote (from "The Young Ones") uses
| "revolutionaries" rather than "dictators", which make more
| sense.
| timterim wrote:
| 'Garibaldi' is the German word for pressure cooker!
| golem14 wrote:
| ? It is? Which part of Germany?
| zoltanse wrote:
| None. That's a bad pun.
| rkomorn wrote:
| I love bad puns but this one escapes me. Help?
| CharlesHorsey wrote:
| Garen means cook, bald means soon, I guess a pressure
| cooker cooks your food quickly (soon)?
| rkomorn wrote:
| Nothing bad about this pun then.
|
| Edit: and thank you, of course. :)
| golem14 wrote:
| Ouch!
| hodgesrm wrote:
| Oog. It's puns like this that make people doubt freedom
| of speech.
| toyg wrote:
| Considering how he was a thorn in the side for Austrians, the
| pun is almost apt.
| forgotusername6 wrote:
| It's a biscuit in the UK!
| ComplexSystems wrote:
| And a drummer here in the States!
| trashtensor wrote:
| has the author never seen a young che guevara, fidel castro, or
| joseph stalin?
| faidit wrote:
| stalin's pictures were photoshopped when he was in power, he
| was actually quite ugly. napoleon similarly was ugly looking
| but had himself painted as a chad after he betrayed the
| revolution
| toyg wrote:
| Ok about Che, but Fidel and Stalin were nothing to write home
| about. That obviously didn't stop them from having loads of
| women, of course.
| riffraff wrote:
| More fun trivia about Garibaldi: he was elected to the french
| parliament, and he caused a stir when he showed up wearing his
| signature poncho rather than formal clothes. He was also the only
| french commander in the Franco Russian war to capture a Prussian
| flag.
|
| Also, he was supposedly invited to fight in the American civil
| war but refused since he couldn't get the level of command he
| wanted, although there was a Garibaldi Guard in that war.
|
| Queen Victoria wrote in her diary , about Garibaldi's visit to
| London, that most of the elite was far too fascinated with him.
| During the same visit, the servants at the house he was staying
| sold the water he used to wash himself to collectors.
| thomassmith65 wrote:
| Re: the civil war, here's a letter Garibaldi wrote to Lincoln,
| congratulating him on the Emancipation Proclamation
|
| https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/giuseppe-...
| "If an entire race of human beings, subjugated into slavery by
| human egoism, has been restored to human dignity, to
| civilization and human love, this is by your doing and at the
| price of the most noble lives in America."
| mettamage wrote:
| Damn!
|
| He has mad game, holy hell.
|
| You can't get to those feats with good looks alone. This guy
| was rizzing [1] as hell when he was in his prime!
|
| [1] Rizz: from the word charisma. As I understand what it
| means: being amazingly charismatic towards your romantic
| interests in order to start a conversation with them and
| ultimately seduce them. It's similar to the word game in that
| sense. Younger people seem to use the word rizz nowadays.
| FooBarBizBazz wrote:
| IMO "seduce" has the negative connotation that you are
| somehow manipulating a "target", whereas "charisma" is more
| positive; it means your behavior attracts positive attention
| -- that people find you compelling and interesting, that they
| will want to follow your lead. (Granted, in concrete terms
| these may not always be so different -- but to say that is to
| accept a cynical frame.)
|
| I understand "rizz" as entirely a short form of "charisma"
| with all the same connotations -- in which case I wouldn't
| focus it to "romantic interests" or to the goal of
| "ultimately seduce[ing] them" -- but it's possible that
| younger people use "rizz" differently than I use "charisma".
|
| The word "charisma" is a _little_ gendered. You are more
| likely to hear a man described as "charismatic" than a
| woman. A woman is more likely to be -- well, honestly, the
| word would probably just be "hot" (or "sexy" -- as used here
| for Garibaldi), which would place a lot more emphasis on
| appearance; though to focus more on behavioral aspects, one
| might hear (I'm reaching here) "effervescent" or
| "fascinating". I suppose "magnetic" is also an option, though
| that seems pretty gender-neutral to me.
|
| The slang "game" you mention seems intermediate in
| connotation to me. The meaning is closer to "ability to
| seduce", but the connotation is not quite so negative. The
| implication is that "the game" is simply part of life,
| neither good nor bad; it is what it is.
|
| Of course, the connotations of "rizz" or "charisma" are less
| sexual overall. Possibly some amount of what I'm calling
| "positive connotations" or "negative connotations" simply
| reflects that, and our society's Judeo-Christian negativity
| towards sex (which in "conservative" places forces LGBT
| people at least a little into the closet; and in "liberal"
| places survives primarily for straight men, the bastards).
|
| Put another way, "charisma" or "rizz" is work-safe, indeed
| desirable in a CEO (and will likely be rewarded in most
| employees); whereas "seduction' is not work-safe.
| mettamage wrote:
| > IMO "seduce" has the negative connotation that you are
| somehow manipulating a "target"
|
| Hmm in pickup artist lingo, sure. Though that perspective
| has been eclipsed by all the <insert color> pill people
| anyway.
|
| But the concept of seduction has a long history before
| that, so I think that that particular view is way too
| narrow. To seduce someone is to entice, make them fill with
| anticipation, and so on. I feel certain female seducers,
| that have a social media presence about it, explain that
| part relatively well.
| FooBarBizBazz wrote:
| I think my sense of the word "seduce" predates male "pick
| up artists". My intention is to speak from the cultural
| mainstream.
|
| Consider also uses like, "do not be seduced by fascism".
|
| Or:
|
| > Pope Francis: 'The devil is a seducer'
|
| https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2023/12/27/pope-
| franci...
|
| ...
|
| I am a little curious what you mean by
|
| > that perspective has been eclipsed by all the <insert
| color> pill people anyway
|
| though I think I get the general idea; the culture has
| moved on since the early 2010s.
|
| ...
|
| > To seduce someone is to entice, make them fill with
| anticipation, and so on. I feel certain female seducers,
| that have a social media presence about it, explain that
| part relatively well.
|
| I see no contradiction with what I am saying, apart from
| (a) the (orthogonal) emphasis on the emotional state
| being cultivated in the target; and (b) that these
| speakers are unapologetic.
|
| Certainly I have seen efforts to reclaim "seduction" as a
| kind of "girl power", but there are a few issues with it.
| The biggest -- and I know this norms on a particular kind
| of relationship, but I will do so -- is that it primarily
| makes sense to cultivate this as a "skill" if you plan to
| have a large number of short term relationships. For many
| reasons, including the theory of repeated games, I think
| this is not good for the individual or for society.
| Instead I would encourage the formation of lifelong pair
| bonds -- which, yes, has sexy/fun aspects of
|
| > entic[ing], mak[ing] them fill with anticipation
|
| but I think that would be a little further from the
| archetypes of the word "seduction".
|
| ...
|
| If we are looking for a word with positive connotations,
| I would be a little more comfortable with a gender-
| neutral use of our other word, "charisma".
| o11c wrote:
| > The devil is a seducer
|
| This use is strongly derived from the sexual sense. E.g.
| the Bible is full of "Thy Maker is thine husband, and you
| are cheating!"
|
| Maybe someone more versed in Latin than I am could look
| up "seduco" in pre-Christian contexts?
| dllthomas wrote:
| My understanding is that you are correct that "rizz" comes
| from "charisma", and when used as an adjective it's pretty
| well used the same (although there may be shades of
| difference I'm simply missing), but notably "rizz" also
| gets used as a verb in a way that "charisma" does not.
| samdoesnothing wrote:
| Gen Z here. Rizz applies equally to women, it's gender
| neutral, despite deriving from "Charisma".
| testdelacc1 wrote:
| Slight typo - it was the Franco-Prussian war of 1870.
| dust42 wrote:
| I think the most hilarious fun trivia about him -being the
| unifier of Italy- is that Nice named a square after him in
| 1870, thus 10 years after _splitting_ from Italy and joining
| France. And then to add insult to injury at his death the city
| decided to put a statue of him into the square. So now he
| stands on a square in France which actually during his lifetime
| was Italy. Must hurt him every day ;)
| TitaRusell wrote:
| Mussolini tried to take Nice back in WW2 when the Italians
| shamelessly stabbed France in the back.
| Dansvidania wrote:
| Just to offer food for thought, some people in the south of Italy
| still regard him as a Sardo/French invader and do not buy the
| "national hero" persona that garibaldi got attributed after the
| unification.
| toyg wrote:
| The thing is: even ignoring that campaign, Garibaldi was
| successful elsewhere and mostly coherent in his political
| positions.
|
| So really, the nostalgics of Bourbon rule are just the Italian
| equivalent of American Confederates: they just never got over
| the fact they lost.
| Dansvidania wrote:
| I don't share the nostalgia for burbonic rule, but I have to
| point out that the fact that they lost does not mean that
| they were not invaded. Both things can be true.
| mk89 wrote:
| In some cases it has to do with nostalgy, for whatever
| reason.
|
| In most cases it has to do more with the fact that the South
| is primarily used as a way to steer/control the elections.
|
| Garibaldi used local (criminal) lords, the "picciotti", to
| achieve what he needed. A bit like today they would use local
| criminals to subjugate the population. Those criminals stayed
| until Mussolini decided to deal with them. And again they got
| freed by the Allies to save the country from Fascism.
|
| You could wipe out the mafia, make the land rich and use it,
| but there is not just enough interest to do so.
|
| On the contrary, the only interest is to use that land to
| move to the next step, never to actually use whatever is
| there. This is what makes people nostalgic or sad.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| The victors write the history, so people assume it was good
| that Italy got created.
|
| I'm far less sure. Italian governance is an eternal farce.
| Milan and Napoli would both be happier not having to deal with
| each other.
| epolanski wrote:
| > Milan and Napoli would both be happier not having to deal
| with each other.
|
| I'm Italian and this is absolutely false.
|
| While any political and historical event will have people
| saying that it wouldn't even better if X or Y stayed Z, the
| overwhelming majority of Italians want a united Italy.
|
| Federalist parties never took huge political weight (and the
| major one, Lega, won most votes when it dropped that
| narrative entirely) and separatist ones get irrelevant number
| of negligible votes.
| epolanski wrote:
| Some southerners in US too would've wanted to split from the US
| and still fly confederate flags.
|
| That doesn't imply most want a split US.
| xandrius wrote:
| Other than being defined as "sexy" this article doesn't add much
| more than what one would have learnt at school in Italy.
|
| There are so many aspects which are more recently brought him
| about his campaign (i.e. Making deals with local lords in the
| south, which allowed today's mafia families to de facto remain in
| power).
|
| So, if you think this article was interesting, do go dig a bit
| deeper as it's rather shallow.
| thomassmith65 wrote:
| I posted it, and agree that it's shallow. I reckon a majority
| of people outside Europe have never even heard of Garibaldi -
| as much as that might appall an Italian. The article may be
| clickbait, but now the reader knows.
| mrlonglong wrote:
| There's a character in Babylon-5, the sci-fi TV series of the
| 90s, also named Garibaldi. Professional hater of authority.
| a3w wrote:
| Let's hope the reboot, who changes between canceled and "soon"
| every few months, happens with a good casting for him, again!
| leg100 wrote:
| The article gives the impression "Italy" was always a nation in
| the making for all of history, just waiting to "unify". It talks
| of a "national rebirth".
|
| But it's an invention. It never previously existed. Yes the
| penisula was referred to as Italy for a long time and the
| language is shared across the area and there are cultural
| similarities. But none of that automatically makes a nation - you
| don't have to think hard of counter examples. History could have
| panned out differently. It still could.
|
| I think the bourgeoisies have been enormously successful in
| giving the impression that these nation states, whether it be
| Italy or Germany, or India, etc, that they're inevitable, they're
| permanent and anything else is a perversion. And Garibaldi was
| one such whose brilliance was to forge a nation so quickly from
| so many disparate states.
| thomassmith65 wrote:
| Well yes, every nation is just a construct.
|
| Many interests - not just bourgeois - have used national
| identity to motivate people, for better or worse.
| mkoubaa wrote:
| Not only is it fake but I consider Nationalism the second most
| useless political ideology exported from Europe.
| titanomachy wrote:
| Was the language really shared, or is that also a more recent
| development? I'm not sure what they spoke in Piedmont in 1800
| would have been particularly intelligible to a Roman or a
| Neapolitan, and the Piedmontese dialect still exists today as
| something pretty distinct from Italian.
| epolanski wrote:
| 1. The concept of nation state is historically very young, few
| centuries at best in it's modern concept and that's when most
| modern nation states formed, the very last centuries. That's
| true anywhere from Asia to the balcans to the Americas and
| Africa.
|
| 2. Italy has been seen by Italian populations as one entity
| from millennia, essentially since the Roman empire when all the
| Italian tribes wanted to be elevated to the same status of
| citizenship as romans. And there's an overabundance of
| historical proofs of it, you're gonna find for centuries and
| centuries of Italian literature and diplomacy. Every single
| major writer in Italian history since middle ages has written
| openly about Italia, Dante Alighieri dedicated an entire chant
| in the 13th century to the woes of the Italian people "Ahi
| serva Italia".
|
| 3. You are absolutely right in stating that the major promoters
| of Italian unifications have been the elites, but that's common
| to most such historical events.
| semiinfinitely wrote:
| no wonder they named an SSX tricky stage after him
| davidw wrote:
| There's a small town in Oregon named after him.
| titanomachy wrote:
| And a huge provincial park (and mountain) near Vancouver, BC.
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