Visit Garibaldi Museum in Caprera, Caprera Island, Sardinia, Italy

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Giuseppe Garibaldi spent the last 26 years of his life in the splendid setting of Caprera. With the inheritance of his brother Felix, he acquired the northern half of Caprera in 1856, having initially lived in a hut. A few years later, the famous Casa Bianca was built in accordance with Garibaldi’s will, in the South American fazenda style, nowadays a museum; some years after, funds raised by his sons and fans allowed him to buy also the other half of the island, which until then had belonged to the English spouses Richard and Emma Collins. In the big estate, Piana della Tola, Garibaldi planted a lot of trees and started living the life of a farmer, cultivating fields and breeding chickens, sheep, horses (his famous white mare Marsala is buried not far from the house) and a lot of donkeys, to whom he gave his enemies’ names out of amusement. The most unruly of them was called after the blessed Pope Pius IX. Inside the Casa Bianca, Garibaldi lived with the sons that he had with Anita, the ones he had with a servant and the ones he had with his third wife, Francesca Armosino. In Garibaldi’s room, the clock and the calendars, which are hanging on a wall, still mark the date and time of the hero’s death: 2 June 1882 at 6.21 pm. Despite his last wishes, his remains were embalmed and buried in a grave (made of rough granite) just behind the house. His house, boats and objects, which have become relics of one of the best known and visited museums in Italy, have remained in Caprera. The Garibaldi Compendium of Caprera is open for visit, except for weekly closure on Mondays. Garibaldi’s life on the island and how he cultivated it are described in the memoir written by his daughter Clelia, entitled Mio padre. In 1982 Caprera was declared an Oriented Nature Reserve, until the establishment of the National Park.

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