Garibaldi in Tunis
Bettino Craxi is the author of this series of lithographs dedicated to the Tunisian period of Giuseppe Garibaldi that was always been for him, a passion developed throught his youth. Craxi considered Garibaldi a charismatic leader, an Italian socialist who was ready to fight against injustices and in particular ready to fight for the independence of his homeland Italy. Craxi and Garibaldi both had one thing in common among other characteristics. They both chose Tunisia for their exile that Garibaldi reached between 1834 and 1835 and on the evening of the 19th of September 1849 on board the ship “Tripoli” after a deadly escape from the Roman republic where his defeat at the hands of the French forces occurred and the death of Anita, mother of his children. In this occasion he was denied to land due to the inflexibility of the Tunisia’s Bay, who offered Garibaldi one of his own warships so he could reach other friendly ports. In the gallery there is also a lithograph by Nani Tedeschi, a cardboards series by Deanna Frosini. Both artists had friendly and collaborative relationships with Bettino Craxi
Garibaldi in Tunis (1997/1997) by Bettino CraxiBettino Craxi Foundation
“The most legendary hero of our Italian unification, a man whom the whole world admired for his courage and his value, an inexhaustible fighter for the freedom and independence of his people and all peoples, a pioneer of the struggle for workers' emancipation, justice and social equality ".
Bettino Craxi, Speach of Marsala April 25 th 1982
Garibaldi in Tunis (1997/1997) by Bettino CraxiBettino Craxi Foundation
“He a republican, socialist and laical belongs today more than yesterday to all Italians, in the exaltation of those values of unity, of peace and of democracy, of the defense of the weak and of the oppressed and of love for their country which represented the moral leverage of all its exceptional existence and of all its actions"
Bettino Craxi Speech of Marsala April 25th 1982
Garibaldi in Tunis (1997/1997) by Bettino CraxiBettino Craxi Foundation
"Idealism was the great spring of his actions, not the spirit of adventure and not the ambition or the thirst for power; he lived his life as a mission serving the ideals in which he believed, first among them the independence, unity, and liberty of Italy. "
Bettino Craxi Speech of San Marino Republic, July 2th 1982
“Revolutionary, he rejected the fanaticism of the revolutionaries and preserved the common sense of the right and possible things".
Bettino Craxi Speech of San Marino Republic, July 2th 1982
Garibaldi in Tunis (1997/1997) by Bettino CraxiBettino Craxi Foundation
“He loved God, man and nature with the intense spirituality that he translated not in preaching or contemplation, but in concrete works”
Bettino Craxi Speech of San Marino Republic, July 2th 1982
Document
Giuseppe Garibaldi -Deanna Frosini
Deanna Milvia Frosini was born on February 2nd 1940 in Pistoia but since she was 20 years old she lives in Rome. A figurative painter, characterized by a hyperrealist trait, Deanna Frosini was the artist who performed between 1987 and 1989 the portraits of the first Presidents of the Republic exhibited at Palazzo Chigi. At the same time she was the author of the hyperrealist paintings that adorned Sala Nenni the headquarters of the PSI in Via del Corso in Rome, telling the story and the main protagonists of the Italian socialist movement. She also made a portrait of Bettino Craxi to whom the socialist leader was very fond and carried it with him in his Tunisian exile to Hammamet. With Craxi Frosini had a long relationship of friendship and collaboration.
