Comacchio. 1:00 PM. Garibaldi’s fugitives arrive from the left bank of the Reno, at a place called “Chiavica Bedoni.” From there, Anita is transported to the nearby Guiccioli farm, where the “partisans” had sent the local doctor, Dr. Nannini. It is too late, however, and Anita dies that same evening. In the midst of their misfortune, Garibaldi and his faithful Culiolo are not alone. That same evening, they are joined by two trusted men of the engineer Giovanni Montanari of Ravenna, who beg them to entrust themselves to them. All were veterans of the Durando and Ferrari campaigns in Veneto and had fought in Vicenza; Montanari had also participated in the 1831 insurrection. The general abandons his wife’s body, without even being able to bury her. And he followed his rescuers, first to the village of Sant’Alberto, then to the fields near the banks of the Reno. On the 6th, he reached the still-existing hut that has borne his name ever since. Then, dressed as a peasant, he began wandering from farm to farm, and with the help of patriots and admirers, farm managers, sharecroppers, and tenant farmers, he traveled to Ravenna, Cervia, Forlì, and then to Tuscany and Liguria. They then stopped him in Chiavari, to take him to Genoa and expel him from the Sardinian states. Garibaldi went to Tunis, then to La Maddalena, and finally to Tangier. There he received the aid of the Sardinian consul, who assisted him until June 1850, when the general embarked for America.
